A school corporation, charter school, or
applicable nonpublic school individually, in collaboration with other
school corporations, charter schools, or applicable nonpublic schools
acting jointly, 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, charter
schools, or applicable nonpublic schools 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
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A school corporation, charter school, or
applicable nonpublic school individually, in collaboration with other
school corporations, charter schools, or applicable nonpublic schools
acting jointly, 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, charter
schools, or applicable nonpublic schools 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, charter schools, and applicable
nonpublic schools 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, charter
schools, and applicable nonpublic schools, acting jointly,
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 audited financial statement
with the department of insurance not later than May 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, charter school, and applicable
nonpublic school 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, charter school,
or applicable nonpublic school, or as more than one (1) school
corporation, charter school, or applicable nonpublic school 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, charter
school, or applicable nonpublic school, or more than one (1)
school corporation, charter school, or applicable nonpublic school
acting jointly, to elect to make aggregated purchases of natural
gas commodity supplies. Upon request from a school corporation,
charter school, or applicable nonpublic school, a natural gas
utility shall summarize the rates and charges for providing
services to each school in the school corporation, to the charter
school, or to the applicable nonpublic school, or to each school in
a school corporation, charter school, and applicable nonpublic
school that are acting jointly, on one (1) summary bill for
remitting payment to the utility.
(3) Consolidating purchases with other school corporations,
charter schools, applicable nonpublic schools, 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) Curricular materials, technology, and other school materials
and supplies.
(G) Any other purchases a school corporation, charter school,
or applicable nonpublic school may require.
Purchases may be made by contiguous school corporations,
including charter schools or applicable nonpublic schools in the
contiguous school corporations, as part of regional consolidated
purchasing arrangements, or from consolidated sources under
multistate cooperative bidding arrangements.
[Pre-2007 Higher Education Recodification Citation:
21-10-2-1.]