Board approves new reconciliation/benefits coordinator and moves to create district assessment/coaching role

The Red Wing Public School District board approved a consent agenda that included creating a district-level reconciliation and benefits coordinator to centralize reconciliation of benefits billing and to support payroll and paid‑family‑medical‑leave administration.

Administration told the board the new position was prompted by repeated backlogs in bank and benefits reconciliations and specific billing errors identified when obtaining new health-insurance quotes. The role will sit between the business office and human resources and is intended to ensure employees who leave the district are removed from benefits in a timely way and that monthly reconciliations catch billing problems early.

Separately, administration described a plan to restore a distinct district assessment coordinator — a role that previously existed — to take over assessment data administration (FastBridge, ACT/other assessments) from building staff and provide instructional coaching across schools. The superintendent and director of teaching and learning said increased testing and manual data tasks made the combined duties unsustainable for one person.

Board members questioned whether information about new administrative positions should route through the finance committee or be discussed in a workshop before board approval; administrators said some aspects were previously discussed and that the position is necessary to reduce excessive overtime and backlog in the business office. The board approved the consent agenda (with one item pulled for separate discussion) by voice vote; no individual vote tallies for the new-position approvals were recorded in the transcript.

Administration flagged implementation needs including posting vacancies, recruitment for licensure‑specific openings, and clarifying the position’s oversight by both finance and HR.