News from Thrun Law

School officials often inquire about whether they can use “cooperative purchasing” to satisfy statutory competitive bidding requirements. Cooperative pur­chasing typically involves piggybacking on an inter­governmental pool, bid cooperative, purchasing consortium, or group purchasing organization. If au­thorized by board policy, cooperative purchasing is permissible to procure supplies, materials, and equip­ment under competitive bidding requirements. Cooper­ative purchasing, however, is not...

Our April 26, 2018 edition of School Law Notes highlighted myriad changes to the Office of Civil Rights Case Processing Manual (CPM) that would directly affect schools. One of the most noteworthy changes to the CPM allowed OCR to dismiss a complaint in its entirety if the complaint was either (1) a continuation of a pattern of complaints previously filed with OCR against multiple recipients or (2) filed for the first time against multiple recipients, and the complaint placed an “an...

Although there has been a recent emphasis on addressing sex-based harassment, school officials must also act promptly and appropriately to ensure they are not “deliberately indifferent” to harassment and dis­crimination based on other protected characteristics, including disability. A federal court in Pennsylvania re­cently denied a school’s motion to dismiss claims of dis­ability harassment and discrimination under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities...

In a March 18, 2021 memorandum, the Michigan Department of Treasury notified public employers of the “hard cap” contribu­tion limits under the Publicly Funded Health Insurance Contribution Act for medical benefit plans starting or renewing on or after January 1, 2022.

The cap amounts were increased by 3.7% for 2022. The adjustment is based on the change in the medical...