CHAPTER 2. AUTHORITY TO ALLOCATE EXPENDITURES TO STUDENT INSTRUCTION AND LEARNING
IC 20-42.5-2
Chapter 2. Authority to Allocate Expenditures to Student
Instruction and Learning
IC 20-42.5-2-1
Actions to reduce noninstructional expenditures
Sec. 1. A school corporation individually, in collaboration with
other school corporations, and through the educational services
centers may undertake action to reduce noninstructional expenditures
and allocate the resulting savings to student instruction and learning.
Actions taken under this section include the following:
(1) Pooling of resources with other school corporations for
liability insurance, property and casualty insurance, worker's
compensation insurance, employee health insurance, vision
insurance, dental insurance, or other insurance, whether by
pooling risks for coverage or for the purchase of coverage, or by
the creation of or participation in insurance trusts, subject to the
following:
(A) School corporations that elect to pool assets for coverage
must create a trust under Indiana law for the assets. The trust
is subject to regulation by the department of insurance as
follows:
(i) The trust must be registered with the department of
insurance.
(ii) The trust shall obtain stop loss insurance issued by an
insurer authorized to do business in Indiana with an
aggregate retention of not more than one hundred
twenty-five percent (125%) of the amount of expected
claims for the following year.
(iii) Contributions by the school corporations must be set
at one hundred percent (100%) of the aggregate retention
plus all other costs of the trust.
(iv) The trust shall maintain a fidelity bond in an amount
approved by the department of insurance. The fidelity
bond must cover each person responsible for the trust for
acts of fraud or dishonesty in servicing the trust.
(v) The trust is subject to IC 27-4-1-4.5 regarding claims
settlement practices.
(vi) The trust shall file an annual financial statement in the
form required by IC 27-1-3-13 not later than March 1 of
each year.
(vii) The trust is not covered by the Indiana insurance
guaranty association created under IC 27-6-8. The liability
of each school corporation is joint and several.
(viii) The trust is subject to examination by the department
of insurance. All costs associated with an examination
shall be borne by the trust.
(ix) The department of insurance may deny, suspend, or
revoke the registration of a trust if the commissioner finds
that the trust is in a hazardous financial condition, the trust
refuses to be examined or produce records for
examination, or the trust has failed to pay a final judgment
rendered against the trust by a court within thirty (30)
days.
(B) The department of insurance may adopt rules under
IC 4-22-2 to implement this subdivision.
(2) Electing, as an individual school corporation or as more than
one (1) school corporation acting jointly, to aggregate purchases
of natural gas commodity supply from any available natural gas
commodity seller for all schools included in the aggregated
purchases. A rate schedule that is:
(A) filed by a natural gas utility; and
(B) approved by the Indiana utility regulatory commission;
must include provisions that allow a school corporation or
school corporations acting jointly to elect to make aggregated
purchases of natural gas commodity supplies. Upon request
from a school corporation, a natural gas utility shall summarize
the rates and charges for providing services to each school in
the school corporation on one (1) summary bill for remitting
payment to the utility.
(3) Consolidating purchases with other school corporations or
units of government of the following:
(A) School buses and other vehicles and vehicle fleets.
(B) Fuel, maintenance, or other services for vehicles or
vehicle fleets.
(C) Food services.
(D) Facilities management services.
(E) Transportation management services.
(F) Textbooks, technology, and other school materials and
supplies.
(G) Any other purchases a school corporation may require.
Purchases may be made by contiguous school corporations, as
part of regional consolidated purchasing arrangements, or from
consolidated sources under multistate cooperative bidding
arrangements.
As added by P.L.2-2007, SEC.240.
IC 20-42.5-2-2
Shared services arrangements
Sec. 2. A school corporation may use shared services
arrangements with other school corporations and units of
government, including:
(1) the use of shared administrative services overseeing
transportation, food service, facilities, or other operations;
(2) the use of shared administrative services to manage finance,
payroll, human resources, information technology, purchasing,
or other administrative services; and
(3) the use of shared resources to provide instruction,
supplemental services, extracurricular activities, or other
student services.
School corporations are not required to merge schools, consolidate,
or otherwise relinquish control of curriculum, instruction, or student
activities to use shared services arrangements.
As added by P.L.2-2007, SEC.240.
IC 20-42.5-2-3
Collaboration with contiguous school corporations
Sec. 3. A school corporation may collaborate with contiguous
school corporations to explore the use of cooperatives among school
corporations, commonly managed school corporations, or the
consolidation of school corporations to provide effective and
efficient management of the school corporations or functions of the
school corporations.
As added by P.L.2-2007, SEC.240.
IC 20-42.5-2-4
Support by educational service centers; reporting of efforts to state
board
Sec. 4. (a) Educational service centers established under
IC 20-20-1 shall support and facilitate actions by school corporations
under this article, including by the use of an educational service
center's existing cooperative agreements.
(b) School corporations and educational service centers may use
the division of finance of the department and the office of
management and budget to provide technical assistance under this
article.
(c) Not later than August 31 of each year, the educational service
centers shall report to the state board the results of the efforts of the
educational service centers under this article during the preceding
school year.
As added by P.L.2-2007, SEC.240.