it's all bring birthdays if we misters happy birthday please go to the office expect your birthday book yesterday's one fat question was what is the name of the big college of Independence the answer is mr. gold the winner is Caleb for Travis Scott come to the office to pick out your pie today's fun fact question was what state has a radiation WI remember to write your answer neatly and include your name in class and now we will observe your brief here please stand for the Pledge X ability during work and fight I will be respectful and all I do I will be respectful and all I do and you start the whole day through and bhr the whole day through have a trusting Thursday remember if you think someone could use a friend he won thanks for watching bye
the downtown library a Energy Forum they'll really focus on some of the different aspects of a 2-0 we have speakers like Susan fancy Hank love chuck is actually going to be speaking as well Robert Jackson and Julie Roth so we hope you can join us I have a quick question our Kristen Heaton and Catherine Garten still continuing to work for the city on a part-time basis Kristen is Catherine just because of responsibilities to her school work had to step down from her position but she is still very active in the community I have something I've given each of the commissioners a copy of the letter I received from the City Assessor today I bring this to you for the following reason in 2015 chairman athlead challenged members of this commissioned for someone to take a solar taxation thing to the state tax tribunal that was after his annual trek down to meet with the city assessor and be roundly told to go back and warm the seat at the Energy Commission so I did as you know we took the city to the state tax tribunal and in the process at a parallel political activity of John was part of that working with representative Robbie before before that representative Erlin and Senator berried and the Michigan Clean Energy Coalition and excuse me conservative Energy Forum and was able to get the tax change that the legislature and the letter I have here is based the city attorney telling me that my taxes will be lowered now because of this so if you haven't gotten a similar letter you need to contact the City Assessor and request it I also asked him to rebate 100% of my taxes plus interest and he declined to do so but I think this is a worthy request that we should continue to push on so I bring this to you because this all started with this commission I think it is an example of what it takes to get things done and changed I appreciate Wayne and they Evy ordinance hopefully we won't have to take the state to the tax tribunal to get that changed but it takes time and it takes push and takes effort and it takes more than warming these seats once a month so congratulations you I know that some of you are many of you or most of you share in this win with me and we have made a difference thank you thanks mark for all you've done in this regard I thought I'd just mention here those of us on the Commission received an email from Emily with the city just a few minutes before the meeting started but about a climate reality training that is coming to Detroit this summer and so there may be folks in the public or who are watching this later who are interested in applying for that I'm not going to read all the details from the email but you can certainly contact one of us on the commission if you'd like us to pass along the information about that it seems really interesting well if that concludes our news update then we will move on to the next agenda item an update from the Office of Sustainability innovation and landfill solar well thank you all and thank you jerilyn ski for meeting space for this presentation just to confirm I looked for you on that and I don't know if this is useful but I sort of saw there was an interesting kind of hearing what the office is doing broadly and landfill solar is it fair to give you a quick update on a few other things we're doing we would love that great maybe read into that even again we can check off an action item I do that yeah and maybe I'll talk about solar access as well so we'll help you guys get home at a decent hour so thanks everyone for making space thank you for your continued commitment to all of the work that we're doing around creating a renewable energy future for all a just future for all and for a to zero and where we sort of stand I want to give you a kind of an introduction and refresher on where we are with this work this has been very much in our eyes for the last several weeks just to kind of put this in perspective we actually passed the climate emergency declaration on November 4th so it hasn't actually been that long although we have a countdown in our office some 90 days until the plan goes to council so we are in a sprint so this background you know as we're thinking about a20 I'm gonna start there because carbon neutrality is the umbrella under which everything we're doing Falls so the five-year work plan that we created still exists and we are actively working on implementing the programs that are within that there's just a capital and and what we're filling in and all of the other things we need to do to get to carbon neutrality and we're trying to round that out as part of our a to zero work so of course we have to acknowledge that it's not just carbon neutrality in terms of let's get to zero it's also acknowledging the climates already changing and we're already experiencing impacts and so these are the most prominent impacts that we're thinking about in the office you've heard us talk about this before you've experienced this whether that's rain increases in temperature or climate migration into the region and I'm happy to talk about any of these the migration work is pretty Vanguard working with climate demographers to really understand kind of the influx of population in my so when we talk about u-20 I think it's important to frame the three things we think about of course we're thinking about climate mitigation and reducing emissions to zero absolutely unequivocally we've got to be thinking about adaptation and we better be grounding in inequity right acknowledging that those that are the most impacted by climate change are those often that did the least to contribute to the actual impacts that we're experiencing more of us were thinking about solutions let's take rooftop solar it's not possible for everyone we know that right which is why we're actively working on community solar legislation and see where that can go it's also why we're thinking about other ways to get people access into programs so it doesn't mean we stop advancing rooftop solar it means we just round it out with other things too so this is a part of what we think about and I think that's important because we may run with the idea of carbon neutrality and we may kind of inherently know these are a part of it but we just want to make it explicit in that discourse these are just some of the things that we have been actively working on over the last several months and all of them could more in their own long-term discussion whether that is work that's happening around solid waste and what we're gonna do as a community what that future looks like how are we gonna get to zero waste how are we not just gonna focus on the end of our waste systems of what we're recycling what we're composting how are we changing upstream behavior how are we not generating the waste in the first place right so this is a part of the discussion that we're working on in not only thinking about but actually actively working on with our partners in solid waste we piloted a solarized program which you may be familiar with basically a bulk buy for residents we did our first pilot and it was wildly successful so while they successful that we're gonna do it again cuz we are got to make sure that wasn't like a blip in the system but to give you a sense we worked with a stakeholder who had solar installed in her house she invited 53 of her neighbors into her living room on a Saturday we came with her installer 19 of them for was solar wow that's an amazing rate for two hours worth of work effectively we brought that kind of demand and because so many people came board they all got 15% off the cost plus they got the 30% tax rebate right so we're gonna try to scale these kinds of programs we're going to take them to electric vehicles as well see if we can find some similar scale to help reduce access it primarily cost access to these programs but also technically you know if you're out on your own this is complicated how can we help make this really easy we are of course increasing bike lanes were actively working in that space with our peers we're looking at public transit options changes to systems you guys have been frontline with the electric vehicle work we're working on a grant right now we're playing the electrical data to hopefully put in a significant number of Chargers in this community you know getting close to a three-digit number of additional Chargers in the community so we're hoping that comes through and then of course every time we touch the street we have a Complete Streets policy so how are we managing all users on that Street but also all the water that's falling on that street right doing kind of on-site retention and then we are working on you'll see this soon an RFP for some deep energy audits at municipal facilities we have a lot of work to do and our facilities they're old they're not always the tightest facilities so how are we gonna do an actual detailed audit that's disentangled from the upgrades so not what you saw last time with the Honeywell the ESPO model how do we give someone resources to do deep audits and then stop and then do the implementation ourself or maybe do workforce training to bring more people into the energy industry so we're kind of exploring that broadly and then you know we love we love trees I don't know if you know this every year the city plants at least a thousand trees as part of our ongoing kind of maintenance how do we continue to scale that up and do that work these are just some of the examples of things we're working on because I don't need to feel heartburn that just because we're in active planning we're not still trying to do a change so quickly going back to a 2-0 then this is the vision it is simple but straight it transformative in its potential intent here which is working together to not only create but to implement adjust transition to carbon neutrality by 2030 the tagline to me is one of the most important things in this entire brands that we have this idea of how are we doing this in a way that fundamentally is equitable that is sustainable and when we do those things it becomes transformative and I think that's what we're all you have probably seen this before this is what we're aspiring for Josh and Thea did to our greenhouse gas inventory last year he spent a lot of time looking at that basically all of that history is useful to say okay from 2000 we've reduced community-wide emissions by about 13 percent that's great guess what we're at zero because now we're sticking the 2018 number the 2.1 million metric tons and that's the new baseline so let's acknowledge that things worked in the past but we have to we have to rapidly scale up what we're trying to do in order to take carbon neutrality and this is that reminder that equity and justice have to be a part of that discussion and then on the other side you see an image of the resilience hub which is something we're actively working on basically this is about neighborhoods this is about social cohesion this is about people being able to take care of people about knowing each other's about building the adaptive capacity of our place so our residents can handle any kind of disruption that may happen whether that's climate change or haven't forbid something that happens in terms of warfare anything you can think of when people know people people take care of people how do we foster that again again you know this are we talked about this in our inventory these are the scopes I'm mostly giving this for folks in the audience or who are listening who may not know as much about the carbon neutrality work that of course everything in scope 1 is in bounds for our carbon neutrality effort and our calculations to get to zero so go to of courses and bounds and you can see what we're focusing on for scope 3 so in this case the transmission and distribution losses commuting patterns that generate outside we want to understand where people are coming from because of course if we're thinking about things like regional transit we need to understand where people are coming from so we can figure out the kinds of solutions that are the most viable we're also looking at leakage from nothing usage in our natural gas system and then of course waste right because we don't our waste isn't disposed of in the community it shipped elsewhere but we generate that waste so we should take credit for that waste we often get asked about other things that aren't you might think about the embedded emissions in a building and the rationale we have at the moment is where there are standard methodologies and standards of practice across the board for how you calculate these things we take them and we will put them in the inventory where they're or not or they are being developed we say not yet let's start with this because we'll have to do this no matter what we can add those other things on in future calculations so just for full transparency again the four areas we're working on so we have our technical advisory committees we're even organizing our constructs in this way for the public they're focused on energy mobility resource reduction and then adaptation and resilience so this might be more interesting as we get into the timeline I'm gonna do a high-level timeline and then I'm gonna go into far more detail than you want to know in a second so we launched in November we have three phases and the team is tired of me using this image but it's like a funnel they say all the time did it explain this the first phase kicked off in November we launched this initiative formally in November 13th the tip of that funnel or the opening of that funnel was what we called ideation throw any idea you have out whether you're a member of the public your commission member you're a staff member we looked at what other cities were doing what was in other carbon neutrality plans or really progressive climate action plans and we kind of put it all into the mix last week we moved into Phase two so that's the middle we've got to start whittling down those ideas and so this space is called initial prioritization so we have a very complicated and hopefully transparent and easy-to-use matrix that our tech members our Technical Advisory Committee are evaluating all of those actions that were identified through this matrix and that matrix certainly includes things like greenhouse gas reduction potential but also equity technical feasibility does the technology exist that we're talking about or are we banking on something that's not yet ready political feasibility public uptake or willingness cost factors etc so the idea if they're gonna start prioritizing and I want to be clear just because something ranks the highest doesn't mean it's the thing that's gonna move forward because at the end of the day we have to package something together so we can't have everything be in the transportation sector which I can guarantee it won't be because that's actually not gonna be the easiest sector but everything be in the waste reduction sector for example because it seems really easy and really doable that doesn't help in the other sectors so just because everything in the waste sector perhaps hypothetically scores higher doesn't mean it's automatically in so that's the second phase and then the third phase is effectively a carbon budget and I'm gonna explain what this looks like in a little bit more detail the date to mark if you are so inclined is March 30th it is the date we go to council so on March 30th we have a special work session at 7:00 p.m.
we will be presenting this plan and the budget implications of this plan for city council so this is the timeline in a different view so these are the phases of bottom we had ideation we're in prioritization we go to carbon budget we go create the plan we go to Council we've got these technical advisory committee meetings that are happening but that is but one of input that we have into this process we have only two town halls actually scheduled another thing to mark on your calendar February 22nd from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m.
will be a Pioneer high school it's a Saturday for our second Town Hall and this will be the launch of Phase three what's the time without again 12 to 5 pi in your high school and just to let folks know we heard a lot of feedback about the space when we did cobblestone we scheduled that was the November 13th event that was scheduled before we had declared a climate emergency we thought yeah sure 250 people like that'll be great we were wrong like we sold out of that event we had to close registration our goal is to sell out a pioneer because that would mean we had 1400 people coming so you can help us make that happen we have partners as of today we have 61 partner organizations and they range from really big institutions like the University of Michigan or Ann Arbor Public Schools to our Chamber of Commerce is one of our partners and then we've got the neutral zone and the Community Action Network we are that local n-double-a-cp chapter we just signed on right there Main Street Association just signed on is the most recent apartment that we have so it ranges it's a nice spectrum of institutions public nonprofit private sector entities that are a part of this so the partners have so far event twice as an entire group they met December 19th for an equity training so we brought in a private equity trainer and they actually walked all the partners through because if works sincere about equity it can just because thinking about it we need everyone that's part of this discussion to be at the table we also released an RFP to bring in some consultants to help us do quantification the reason this is important we have the expertise and staff to do this we don't at the time when you look at this timeline this is tight so we put an RFP out for two weeks that's what we're asking someone you have two weeks to quantify roughly 40 actions for us in depth so this is a pretty big ask that RFP will close next week and we'll know who we're moving forward with I've talked to you about the technical advisory committees but I didn't really talk about this other part if you haven't taken these please do we have a public survey and we'll have three surveys we've closed the first one we're in the second one and they mirror the face were in so right now there's a survey live that is that initial prioritization so we took all of the actions in the energy sector and we sort of group them and said here are the big themes now let's ask the public to vote what do you like what seems like there would be some interest in traction what do we need to develop further and actually flush out in terms of the cost of this and really understand what it would take to implement versus what is dead upon arrival all right that we just need to either jettison or we have to come at from a very different perspective to make that viable yeah I have a quick feedback on it um you can basically checked everything that you think the city should do you can but there's no prioritization there's no force ranking or anything else so I think you might find out some things that just fall out the bottom because there's just not support but I fear I mean looking at my own there's checks I'm not by everything what does that really help I mean if right so in future future looks like we're gonna be doing another one you might think about force ranking yes this was a question that we had internally it occurred to us too and the intent wasn't to make people say this is exactly what we want that is the intent of the next one so we thought at this point we needed to understand if there even was appetite for anything on this list because the truth is most of the things on the list are gonna have to happen right and so I actually am much more interested in what really does fall out versus what like 90 percent of people say they want so that is that was the intent and there it was a very challenging discussion to figure out if we should force rank or not I appreciate that feedback we might have done it wrong let me say this is failure positive John risky so we did it wrong we'll fix it so please do take the survey the other thing about the survey that I'm really excited about I was just telling Ken and Wayne is there is some beginning discussion about cost in the survey so we can start getting a sense for what people are willing on paying and how they're willing on paying for these kinds of activities and that's really important actually because this isn't free because we're working towards this so we need to get a sense for where we have support and then the last part is a carbon budget and the simplest way for me to explain that is as we get to the bottom of the funnel the final thing that falls out is the plan right what we need to do in that final phase is present not 500 actions to the public right we've whittled that down to those that are the most impactful and we basically present kind of like a budgeting versity participatory budgeting if anyone's done that you basically say okay we have 2.1 million metric tons that we have to reduce here are slices of pie here's on street rail and here's how much greenhouse gas emissions we produce with that versus a needy bought by program versus electrification of our appliances versus X versus Y build the pie what are you willing on accepting piece it together get that reduction that then forces them to tell us what they are willing on taking and what they're not so that's the last phase of the initiative and you know you'll resell to public town halls I don't want you to think we're just like sitting in the office we've already hosted almost 30 events actually that aren't big central events we've been held in the community so we've been working with our partners we've organized youth and have them come to the city we're going out to them we're trying to get their input into this we I think I just worked Gailen on this I think we have 21 events in the next two weeks that we're going to internal-external we're dividing across the office we're gonna hit easily 60 distributed events as part of this work so the idea is not big centralized events the idea is to go to where people are if you're going to an N double ACP chapter meeting we're going to go to the chapter meeting as opposed to asking you to have a separate meeting with us we were at the Ann Arbor hands-on Museum right before the holidays so we were just talking to caregivers and people who are running around with their screaming kids were like look at this exhibit what do you think about carbon neutrality you know and so you kind of just like what lo web and kind of ebb and flow in and out of the discussions and it's been great because what we're doing is getting people that we don't normally get as part of these discussions and then March 30th the pine goes to council so that will be their first introduction of the plan and then our guess is sometimes in sometime in April perhaps around Earth Day it will be up for adoption so we will be coming back to you either in April or likely in March potentially in April with the final plan to share with you or if it's March you may have a mostly final plan because you're early in March and we're gonna be we're gonna be using that time so it's up to your discretion if you'd like us to come back but we would like to be able to present that plan to you so that's a 2-0 what we've been working on say don't you have heartburn let's talk about landfill similar okay all right so here's the project the way I describe this to folks when they ask is we're sort of it step 2 of 10 and there's not really 10 steps but like directionally we're still at the beginning and I need to stop and say a special thank you to Commissioner welcome because he has been very helpful in thinking through a lot of this work and making sure were bothell and intentional so this project is something that the Commission has thought about individuals in this commission of thought about for really long time I have seen documentation going back through my time where people trip exploring this project when I came on board I thought will this make sense I mean this is this is roughly 24 megawatts of a system it's just shy of that and that's pretty darn closely tied to municipal or close to municipal operations and what our demand is so this seems like a really interesting project so we went to our utility we went to DT and we said hey are you interested in this and you're like we're like that's a number that's intriguing like let's explore this and so we've started a partnership with them looking at this site realistically so what we've done so far you may have seen a memo to council we worked with DT and Black & Veatch to do an initial assessment the solar potential on this site which got a suggest under sub 24 megawatts we ran a few different scenarios through to give you a sense what you're looking at on the top part you guys so this is the landfill this is wheeler service center right here there's a retention pond behind Muller and this is land that is either non-developed it's just kind of gone there's hay there's things in that space or it's being actively parked so this isn't City Limits this is in a Planned Unit development we have with Pittsfield township so it's got explicit uses associated with it which is why I'm gonna talk you through the two parts of this process it is somewhat complicated you are all experts in this so feel free to ask any questions and I can go deeper what we're looking at inside what we proposed again we ran multiple scenarios to really try to maximize solar on-site this part right here where you see no solar has a ground nested bird called the babbling and we worked really really hard to protect that habitat so in discussion we decided to take that out and to preserve that for the bobbling so that's why you don't see solar on this site there is solar here and there is land still preserved for Bobolink habitat as well so we're trying to be really thoughtful one thing about this project too is we are making sure there is pollinator habitat underneath like this is not a super-high in in terms of the elevation of the install but there will be space underneath for birds to migrate there'll be rows in between where grass and hay and other things can grow very cool there is floating solar over here so the retention Basin we are exploring that with DT which is new for them it's been down a bit in Florida and we're pretty excited about that potential it looks like it's a hundred percent of the punt it is not it covers a portion of the pond and inherently floating solar means it can move around as it needs to which is great and then we've got to learn that's all ground mounted it won't penetrate of course with the landfill so restaurant cite this so we have this is the Lancer can you guys see my cursor yeah so bland pose clothes for anyone listening in the public you know that but I just want to make that explicit like there is not new waste going into this facility this is cat and then also for those who care I do this is the doctor so it's still there over here there's in the site it's like marshy land and a flood plains so this isn't being touched at all we have two neighbors that are here this is like hey yeah I think it's natural and just mowed they said yeah and it's mowed times to not disrupt the nesting so for process I'm gonna take you through the two processes because as we talked about we have a PUD amendment that's different and then we've got the process with our utility so what's going to council on Tuesday night is the preliminary studies that we need to do so what we've done so far is we worked with DTE and we filed an interconnection application this is a category five project because of its size so we've filed that paperwork it is in DT being reviewed right now to make sure everything is appropriate and they can start the next phase which is the engineering analysis this process is what any developer has to go through in the case of this process projects our developer up front is DTE so they also have to go through this process the engineering analysis is generally paid for via time and materials like how long does it take to run this kind of preliminary analysis we've worked with them to get an estimate for the first two studies the preliminary engineering analysis and the distribution study and what we are presenting to council is a not to exceed $90,000 for the cost of those two studies so we'll go through this engineering analysis and that's gonna give us some basic information about the viability of this project one more thing to pause just can add to this discussion this is a really great site for a few reasons one we have DT lines here so connecting into the system actually looks potentially great so what we're studying is Kennedy mines actually handled this much additional energy if the answer is no the project's not dead because the IDC line that's here so we actually have a second option of connecting to the ITC line that is just a much slower process so with the ITC line yeah it's I just can't that's the name of the company ITC correct so it is a large line that can handle a significant capacity our understanding though is the weight to even start these kinds of analyses like you still have to do the engineering study etc the weight just to get into that like getting in that queue is two years so we're trying to work with our utility because of course they control that system and if we can get this energy onto that grid we can move much faster than that if the answer is the DT grid can't handle it we're going in the queue so it'll just take great so we'll do the engineering analysis if it comes back to a no fatal flaws that this looks like it's potentially feasible then we go to the distribution study portion of that this these are the two we're asking for funding for so if they work we don't have to keep going back to council and delaying that because it takes it takes time you are very much experiencing this with your heartburn the amount of time it takes to like write a resolution get it through legal so let's just pull the trigger on the first two studies at the same time because those really are in a very politically weight kind of the sniff test but can we do this can we actually move this forward if the answer comes back yep it can handle it then we do a detailed design analysis and now we're talking about what's gonna cost upgrade the infrastructure what's it gonna cost to actually build the infrastructure and this is getting us that really detailed number that we can then go back to the public and say okay this is what we're talking about already Council and say this is what this is gonna cost us per kilowatt of energy consumed for the city so this is not for the public's consumption this is a municipal operations project we are doing this in partnership with history Township and so that makes this also very unique for those who geek out over power which I'm learning to do this is effectively a virtual PPA contract for differences so if all of that goes well we know the cost we say yes we go into construction that's the process that's the DT process simultaneously we have to amend the PUD with mix field because right now the PUD was for other uses it didn't have solar envisioned at that time so we've started that process on January 7th we held a public meeting last week in which we started to talk about the site plan and get feedback from the public we have filed an amendment to Pittsfield with the design for the system and the zoning amendment to make this change we have gotten preliminary feedback we're gonna make a few revisions and the goal is that these are tentative diamond timelines but it looks likely that sometime in February or early March will actually be going to the Planning Commission to get their approval of this design if they approve it then in April we'll go to the Board of Supervisors for the township and if they approve it the PUD is amended and we have permission to continue in summer so we're doing both in parallel as opposed to one first the reason for that is twofold the ITC timeline is so late that to get into that queue we have everything kind of perfectly timed that we'll know whether this is viable or not from a DT perspective so if it's not we get into the ITC queue because it only opens up once a year so we want to have that answer in time the second the 26% tax incentives that if we get through this process we might be able to safe harbor and lock in that 26% this year and that's significant under project business so we're definitely that make sure that the Sun is in front of the array now behind me thank you very much zan it's great I hope that's the only comment we get this again is not for you it's mostly for the public that this has enormous values for us there are lots of reasons we're pursuing this of course our carbon neutrality commitment this aligns with our goals around clean energy Council set a goal that we had to be powered with a hundred percent clean and renewable energy by 2035 I'd like to hit that goal by 2022 or 2023 that has to be this is this is electric only correct it doesn't offset anything from burning gas to heat the facilities and things like that so it doesn't really offset all municipal operations in terms of total greenhouse gases is just electric use right right so with that yeah so we are looking at electrifying all of the basically HVAC systems everything within municipal operations so that way we can have that basically beyond the grid yep so we're looking at the RF systems geothermal options that's correct okay so that's exactly right so we have a landfill gas capture system right now we're going to continue top racialize that we have far more control over city operations so things that I didn't necessarily talk to you about our we're working on electrification policy for the city right so you replace an appliance it's got to be an electric period if it's getting towards the end of a useful life it's got to be electric we already operationalize that in practice but we don't have a standard policy so the idea is do the energy efficiency work lower the demand across the board Electrify and then we are so modeling that this is gonna be close to 100% we have a lot of efficiency savings yes and then of course this is a sizeable influx of renewables and our grid and we think that's really valuable and we shouldn't lose sight of that there's jobs that are created not necessarily you know like javis is from the neutral zone for example but that doesn't matter like we're creating jobs in our community it's also a demonstration project if this moves aren't saying is we'd be one of the first municipalities to do a virtual PPA and this paves the way like it's complicated and it's paving the way for others to figure out how to replicate and do this kind of a project that's exciting of course if we can displace the dirtier fuels on the grid that's another benefit and then there is price hedging that could be a part of this equation because when we signed a contract we're gonna walk in and electric rate so if the electric rate skyrockets in ten years were not affected because we've locked in a rate with our utility so there's some potential price hedging of course it can go the other way if prices dropped - but I don't see that realistically happening so those are just some of the things that we're excited about in terms of this project for the Commission itself it would be wonderful if you do support this project to share that support as we go into council next week we would certainly welcome that again if the $90,000 asked we would appreciate your support of the pewdie amendment there's nothing I necessarily haven't asked for you at this moment unless you have an interest in coming with us when we go to the township to make the petition and then we commit to keep giving you updates if you want them on how the project is progressing if we're wildly successful we'll be able to actually safe harbor at the end of this year and we'll be coming back and you'll hear every month from Josh about how we're progressing on this project but we are committed to coming with a much more detailed analysis when we have the detail to give to you or just again at step two of that this is the project I did want to mention really quickly thanks to marc levy we do have a resolution in support of Pittsfield township as well and commissioners do have a copy of this questions is just you're gonna find very quickly it's not sustainable it's just very expensive two years is not even a fixed clock queue is even extending longer so I would not hold that up as being a real competitive ideal it's just not really feasible I agree that my son's time schedules are not always reliable thank you if you want to see a 24 megawatt project at a municipality you can come see that's the one I built the fears ago and that's running reasonably well and I can share performance data if you're interested to show you what it does yeah so that is part of the detail that we're working out especially if that floating solar is on the same parcel line like it could potentially make sense we did model rooftop solar and solar carports and other things and in the end those proved more cost prohibitive so as we design the system if we could get the same output we went the other way so I appreciate that and it is definitely in our mind we just haven't crossed that detail Bridgette I'm just curious about the role of DT so you said DT is essentially the developer in this and a partner and I guess the question I have I think it's more because I think counsel will ask that is doing the sole source with DTE is that more efficient then could you do a competitive RFP or something something like that yeah it's a good question so we made the choice of working whoever is the developer is gonna have to work with DT right like they're gonna have to go through this whole process anyway we made the choice of working directly with them we are working on with our legal department on a memorandum of agreement with DT that explicitly outlines the roles they have from the city that roles and expectations for DTE so that we're all really transparently honest with each other about what we expect and protecting ourselves honestly from anything that could happen in that experience and that's true also very candidly on DTU side right like they're taking a risk going through this project with us and so we all need to make sure that we're in good faith going into this relationship so we could we could put an RFP out and go through this process we have chosen the path of working directly with the utility since we'll have to someone's gonna have to work with utility anyway yeah I guess the question that again this isn't so I don't have any problem with this but is there a difference in cost when you take that perspective I cannot answer that in a way I think others at the table can my understanding is that timing material would be charged period so we would be paying what we're paying what is I think perhaps some different in this is they've agreed to open the books so we can see very transparently what is being charged to how the process is unfolding in a way that hypothetically should Delta do this project they may not be a kind of generous endpoint so I my understanding and I'm going to turn this over to any of our more experienced colleagues who have done these kinds of projects my understanding is that no we're not getting a different price there's there's no rules on the pricing but you know the fact that the utility needs to follow a process that the MPSC approved is there so I think by them acknowledging that they're gonna maintain a cap with an open mindset helps a lot the also I think the operative term here is this is a customer request so if it was General Motors or or steel case or someone saying to the utility we would like you to you know give us green energy they could dedicate and carve out and and do that in this instance the there was not power available so this is a customer request to do you know on-site new stall or new stuff here yeah this is this this is DTES property and they will charge you know as they're allowed to and they don't even need public service commute my under sayings you don't need Public Service Commission approval because responding to customer requests is the utilities choice of how to do that no no those but that said I do think we have to go to the NPS see well the NPC was made to make sure that you're not violating any any laws or rules it's that kind of clearance but this isn't part of the dte integrated resource plan although it will count against it but they don't have it's not in their plan to put up 25 megawatts of solar energy and so so I think so the partnership is yet it's very important as a model setting partnership because it's taking the idea of customer requests and cities taking or taking a lead and out on that being a customer as opposed to General Motors or someone someone else like that and it's happiness they probably have examples of customer request response relationship as long as they're armed at least and other things this is a routine this is not something exceptions they do also just want to piggyback off that the DTE is creating kind of a different basically not quite office but they're creating a division to kind of create similar things like this yeah so I do think that it is very groundbreaking in the sense that you know this is kind of a model that can go forward yes so I would I would figure that DTE is probably looking at this as one of their voluntary customer programs and under the section 61 and being able to completely bet the project so that the costs are completely borne by the city of Ann Arbor in a bilateral agreement right that is correct I have I guess a comment about the first part of your presentation can you go back to the greenhouse gas inventory slide and I'm glad that you showed that right up front what I think is really striking and what we need to keep on reiterating to all of our stakeholders if you look at the slope of the curve between 2000 and 2018 and then we have a commitment that it goes to zero by 2030 that as Ken Garber mentioned earlier means we have to change our behaviors and we've done a lot of what we what you presented earlier in the past I under different leadership under different circumstances we have a much more robust plan going forward but I'd like to point out a couple things U of M now posts their greenhouse gas emissions for 2019 on their site and they went up 2.4% hmm so they're going in the wrong direction um I assume that the number is correct I checked tonight again it's the same and I look about that first looked about a week or ten days ago so they were obviously very fast and in showing it but they're going the wrong direction and I think the message has to be to all of us and the council that we can't keep on doing things the way we did them in the past and you cannot count on new technologies there's a really good video that I can't remember if I don't think I sent it to commissioners but I sent it to some other people in the community I'm talking about the challenge and new technologies are adopted during sort of their major adoption phase at about 2% per year in terms of penetration rate we're not going to be able to depend on new technologies we have to deploy what we're doing right now and that's why I think the resolution that's we have later in front of us about natural gas are the kinds of radical things that we need to think about doing because you can see business as usual and that got us not very far yeah and if I can add to that most of that for a fairly large chunk of that business as usual decreased from 2000 to 2016 really came from the grid and did not require any behavior change people still got the same reliable electricity and natural gas and and drove the same vehicles and it all came pretty cheaply too because of cheap shale gas coming out during that time that transition off of coal and on to natural gas for electricity generation meant that you know over that period of time it's you know people's energy costs and growing it not more than the rate of inflation right and what we're talking about to get from here to 2030 you know we're talking about things that are behavior change things that are kind of lifestyle change or at least people feeling like there's a risk to that with some of these newer phase technologies and and certainly higher costs right so all of that I think just has to be kind of acknowledged and and it makes it a lot harder that it's behavior change and in systems change right like it is fundamentally how are we changing the system because it doesn't matter if you can't have an option in terms of your electricity you just have to real interest see it doesn't matter right like we have to change the system across the board and so I think that's what we're intentionally thinking about whatever behavior changes that the individuals can make it a household level whatever neighborhood base changes whatever changes the city that's a regulator can make whatever changes to be is an influencer can make right so where do we have to be thinking about the policy change where do we we can't control building pills right but that is a big so we're trying to think across those scales so I just wanted to say and mostly because it's it's a pet peeve of mine when people put it all on the individual because the individuals in a capitalist system don't have much choices we think they do they just the city is a microcosm that's really if you look at it from a macro level so I'm a micro micro micro macro economists from an undergrad so I have these little theories but think about the state of Michigan I mean we haven't if you think we have to make personal changes the state's got to make some some changes as well because we depend on manufacturing and tourism for our economy are we willing to forego those things because that number one obviously tourism brings transportation to the equation manufacturing has tremendous amount of use of heat the missions are a byproduct so are we willing to forego state based economy driven behaviors and if we if we make differences there what we do is an individual might make a difference but I think will be less impactful well it's that's maybe the difference during I thought I would say it's not forego its transition but that's a different it's a different thing I just want to take us back to the initial presentation just and really just take a minute to thank you for running what is I think an accelerated process to get the planes I you know I'll speak for myself but I know I've talked with those who shared this could a enthusiasm for going towards carbon neutrality but a little bit of fatigue of planning right because we spent many many years on this commission planning but without any dedicated energy dollars right and then we get energy dollars some of us are going well do we really want to spend a lot of time planning and I just think you're doing a masterful job of both you know doing a plan which we absolutely need quick throw engaged away while still moving for it so I just just want to take a minute to acknowledge X I know there's some skepticism I'll own it from me and others saying this is great but we want action I'd like to just I know we need to get back to the landfill solar thing and and talk about the resolution but on the on the original presentation around your actions I did want to just ask kind of the question about you talked about coming to Council March 30th and then you said I think mid mid April timeframe having something for them to vote on and I just wanted to ask you can either let us know or come back at another time with how you guys are thinking about the political engagement on that because when it comes to council you know that getting the votes it is really important and I guess you know I wonder kind of how you guys are thinking about it strategically in terms of is it gonna be one plan that's up or down is it gonna be a buffet of you can pick and choose the things you do or don't like if it's one plan is everybody gonna have the one thing that to them is is you know makes it a veto right and how how do you then come with the plan B and so forth and and then so that's kind of this this the question around how you guys are thinking about that strategically and then I think more importantly is how can we on the Commission help if the plan is gonna be ready on March 30th you know and you want to vote in mid-april do we need to make sure we are prepared to have a meeting during that time even if it's a special meeting so we can vote on a resolution in support I don't know if you want to react now or just think on it and come back at another time thank you we've started to think through these issues as well and I believe and I hope that chair Olinsky got an invite for this Friday we're gonna be meeting if you were free with you the chair of the Planning Commission the chair of the Transportation Commission the and the chair of a department Commission to start thinking about these questions together in the roles for the different Commission's and kind of supporting this or not if you don't support what comes out so we're gonna bring you into that discussion actually so I don't have an answer for you because I particularly want to hear your ideas okay thank you one quick question on looking at the bar chart here want to be possible to put essentially the impact of that 24 megawatts and what is that what is that get us out of that bar just under 2% but it's not saying it give you a sense it's just under 2% okay thank you do we want to move to we have a resolution in front of us on the landfill solar do we have a motion to discuss so much that second second okay so I think we should probably read it for members of the public out there does somebody want to thank you no problem resolution in support of a purchase order with DTE Energy DTE to conduct initial engineering and distribution studies regarding a potential solar energy facility and surrounding on and surrounding the Ann Arbor landfill not to exceed $90,000 can I pause you there for a second because I think what that first pages is a lot of what Missy just took us through the second page has the where asses and the what we're actually voting on I think I think that's right right yeah is that okay with everyone just so that we don't know yes thank you whereas the city of Ann Arbor has said aggressive climate and energy goals including the goal of powering 100% of municipal operations with clean and renewable energy by the year 2035 whereas City Council recently passed a climate emergency declaration and requested that staff identify how the community could achieve carbon neutrality by the 2030 whereas the land known as the former Ann Arbor landfill the land surrounding the wheeler service center and parts of land currently held in a Planned Unit development with Pittsfield Township known as the landfill have been identified as a strong location for a large solar installation whereas preliminary analysis of the site has found that a significant solar array could be developed at the site whereas staff have already submitted a Planned Unit development amendment to Pittsfield Township that would allow this portion of the site to have solar whereas developing the site as a solar energy facility would significantly advance the city's climate and energy goals whereas DTE has agreed to work in partnership with the city to understand what it would take to develop the landfill into a solar energy facility whereas the next steps in the process include the completion of an engineering review and a distribution study where as DTE has provided guidance that these two studies will not exceed $90,000 and whereas funding for these studies is currently available in the fiscal year 2020 budget of the office of sustainability and innovations resolved the Ann Arbor Energy Commission supports the development of a solar facility at the former Ann Arbor landfill and the land surrounding the site and resolved the Ann Arbor Energy Commission supports the opening of a purchase order with DTE not to exceed $90,000 for the completion of a preliminary engineering review and distribution study without regard to fiscal year and resolved the Ann Arbor Energy Commission encouraged of City Council to support the opening of a purchase order with DTE not to exceed $90,000 for the completion of a preliminary engineering review and distribution study to understand if the former Ann Arbor landfill is a viable site for solar energy and thank you very much I'll open with a quick piece of feedback I had sent along it's I hope seen as a friendly amendment here but I was concerned in this the first resolved we say that we support the development of the solar facility and in the third we say we want to look at whether it's viable and I can't support something that I don't know whether it's viable or not you know so I just propose that we the language I think supports continued exploration of the development and another option would be simply supports the concept of yes so we just substitute development for concept yeah I mean I think you could probably get rid of the second resolved and simply say that we encourage City Council to support it so much people buy it fiscal year are we trying to get this accomplished this year does it matter when we spend I'm sorry which is why that needed to be in for the fiscal year for how for planning purposes so that is more of a internal finance phrase that's in their first standard okay so we've had two friendly amendments introduced any other discussion questions debate okay do people have a preference on the first amendment whether it's a concept or continued exploration concept okay the word development in the first the first resolves call it the concept of a solar facility will delete the second resolved paragraph keep the third one in there and I guess we can vote on it all in favor aye all opposed I just there's one con the the phrase of without regard to fiscal year if that needs to be in it we need to slide that part down into probably the last resolved do we need that if we're if we're supporting the third resolved misty please means that I don't have to come back to you and ask permission if the study goes in to the next fiscal year which would be July 1st so without regard for fiscal year means we have this money this Bo may be open not aligned with fiscal years that make sense so it is should we move it down then yes included then I apologize because I'm not looking exactly what you're looking at it does not hurt to move it down with regard to fiscal use in the second result which we have eliminated yes I would HIGHLY support that movie yeah okay so so I think in the second resolved clause it comes after the completion of a preliminary engineering review and distribution study and that same phrase shows up in the third so we would add it after study comma without regard to fiscal year comma to understand ah okay we gotta go it again all in favor all right all opposed okay thank you passes and we can move to our next agenda item on the solar access resolution date wait do we have something in front of us on this one or this is up for discussion the update is it's with legal they honest answer is we heard that they are working on a memo to go to Council in advance of their February 3rd meeting so they'll have recommendations we thank you all for the analysis that you put into this we have handed over things I mean months ago this is tricky so legal has really really started struggled with this question they've been looking at other examples and figuring out what is it is not possible so what I understand is going to council is basically here are your options here are the pros and the cons and here's kind of legals recommendation so they will have that for February that's what I have for you thank you okay and I guess we'll we'll hear then coming out of that will see the memo and can come back together discuss what if any next steps we have after that yeah okay on to the next agenda item then the Evie ordinance and we have a presentation for that as well as do we have a document on that one not not for that one yeah that'd be good so maybe I'll start real quickly while you're doing that so we're gonna sort of team tag this Carlene and Jay and I are among the commissioners that serve on this subcommittee the other people serving on the subcommittee are just not a freak that's true but you've been part-time at least okay but we've had a staff emily Drennan robert gordon as resident charles griffith also as a resident and expert from the ecology center Estes Anna Stefan Apple who's with the University of Michigan and head of the Energy Institute and then also when Apple Yard former commissioner along with myself and you're right sorry Thank You Craig top floor - yep he wasn't on the email that I looked at distribution so that's why I missed him thanks good catch so we're gonna give you a status update on where we are with the opportunity maybe to give some comments we don't have a resolution but I think we would like to do is then bring a resolution in support of the ordinance to our next meeting so that we can get it approve that it can then move on to other commissions and to Council so I'm gonna take the steering wheel and as I told Carlene and Jay is to step in and then I'm gonna take the steering wheel and give it to Carlene hopefully we don't go off the road and doing that so this is a pie chart of greenhouse gas emissions nationwide you can see transportation is 29% and this is how it breaks down into contributions from various types of modes of transportation xand and vehicles and you can see the majority by far is light duty vehicles and medium heavy trucks and then you got a bunch of other miscellaneous types of transportation in the city of Ann Arbor transportation is in the 17 to 18 percent range I apologize some of these charts certainly for people that are viewing the video may have a hard time reading some of the numbers but I'll try to read them so in Ann Arbor it's roughly 17 to 18 percent and the difference is the different modes of transportation that are included in the national figures that aren't included in our inventory so we're not including air travel we're not including boat in you know major logistics types of travel we're only really including the kind of travel that's within the city balance and that doesn't include you know rail those kinds of things so that explains the made the majority of the difference and it doesn't I mean until they get to the city correct correct and then you know this is just another breakdown of the chart that we've seen before that Missy also showed us the same same figures for transportation I tried with Europe maybe yeah okay very briefly as an overview not so much for us but for the general public we had with climate plan emission targets 90 percent reduction by 2050 with the resolution adopted by council that's now carbon neutrality by 2019 as Missy had presented earlier so we have the context we also have the Office of Sustainability innovations five-year work plan here that'll probably be updated as a result of the whole with a 2-0 and all the projects that the technical advisory teams are working on as well as what we get out of the budget process with the city but you can see Evy readiness was a part of that and we've had a committee the one that I talked about that's been meeting regularly for probably a year now so why are we doing this if you look at growth of EVs this sort of gives a spread of different scenarios you can see there's one very slow scenario from ISO which basically is just a flat curve it's not really very typical of what you'd see for adoption of new technologies the Bloomberg scenario is something that's the more typical kind of s-curve here but you can see the range at least that we're working at so anywhere some between six and 12 percent I think almost all of us that have been working on this think that the Bloomberg scenario is by far the more likely scenario so here's another way of looking at that with the moderate and high growth scenarios just to put things in context the total number of registered vehicles this I think Charles told us was actually Washtenaw County but there was an email that he sent to some of us today saying he thinks that number is low 250,000 vehicles also I in the same email he confirmed that the the number in the box about my notes is actually incorrect the 1564 let's see no that's yeah that is the correct number in the Box 1564 the number that's incorrect is 2018 that was 100 1171 so you can see that in just a period of roughly one year we had an increase of almost 400 V's in the city of Ann Arbor and again you can see significant growth projected in terms of infrastructure the idea this is by the way a study that Charles did together with an intern at the ecology Center showing what is probably needed in terms of charging requirements and charging stations in the Ann Arbor to be able to accommodate those accommodate those growth scenarios you can see the current infrastructure on the Left 14 and 60 which you're probably having a hard time reading is the needs so the the belief is that by 2024 we need to get from 14 fast DC fast chargers up to 49 in a moderate growth scenario and up to 60 DC fast charges level 2 chargers we need to get to sorry there's two different colors that's actually yellow and the one box and red and the other we all need to correct that I'll make some of these Corrections just and send it to you so we can post this correctly what is the blue those are DC fast chargers yes so that's it that's the the 14 that we have right now we'll need between 49 and 60 by 2024 on level 2 the number that shown is 339 in moderate 405 right now we have 60 so you can see there's a dramatic increase that we need there and then workplace level twos 486 and the low or the moderate growth scenario and 614 so clearly we're going to need a lot more charging infrastructure and that's what's behind the rationale for the ordinance can I ask what what kind of assumptions or ratio are used to get to the number of charges needed compared to the number of vehicles I mean it's clearly not one for one and how do you know is that I don't know the details I didn't see any of the notes about you know we can how many days they're driven in or parks or need to be charged and all of that but just out of curiosity no okay we'll try to provide that and maybe next meeting I don't know why help here these are animated sorry so what are some of the basics behind the rationale for the ordinance and how it will be structured it will amend Ann Arbor's uniform development code or the UDC it will apply to all projects requiring a site plan similar policies have been adopted by several other cities throughout the u.s. you'll see that on a next slide it mandates the percentage of new parking spaces be either evie capable Evie ready or Evie in stalled it's obviously intended to prepare the city for the expected growth of Evie's that we saw and one of the basics behind it is that by installing conduit and or wire in new construction we save a tremendous amount of money and though there was an estimate that I'll show in the next slide so our status is that we have a complete draft our parking space requirements by use type have been defined and I'll show you a high-level overview of what those are so this is without getting into a whole lot of detail this is the basically the three levels the first is that you have size the electric panel and put conduit in place or wiring in place to be able to put a charger in at some future date evie ready means not not only have you put the conduit in but you have actually wired it you pulled the wire and you've put in the circuit breakers and you've put a plug in so that all you basically need to do is plug in or somehow tie in a charger to that and then Evie installed is as the picture shows everything is complete and all someone has to need to do is basically pull up and start charging their vehicle potentially with a credit card or something like that to pay for the electricity so this was a study that San Francisco did in 2016 showing a cost breakdown of putting in a charger in new construction this is in a kind of commercial situation and you can see for new construction it's basically nine hundred and twenty dollars but you have to if you have to go in and retrofit that basically digging up things and stuff like that replacing panels in certain cases then there's a tremendous increase in cost to roughly thirty five hundred dollars or roughly an increase of two hundred and eighty five percent so it really makes sense we think not to do this upfront and we think you know there's there's rationale for having an ordinance but there's rationale just from the perspective of anyone looking at a project to doing this upfront if they want to attract customers if there are you know a hotel or a B&B or if they're a retailer if their employer that it makes sense that they work on this proactively and this financial argument is a good one so without getting into all the details you can see that for those of you who are able to read the fall small print come out of cities that have done this already Boulder Colorado Denver Colorado Lansing Michigan Los Angeles Palo Alto San Francisco Atlanta these are all cities that we benchmarked you can see there's various levels and what we've also seen is that as ordinances such as the one Ann Arbor is looking at the the requirements have gone up as time has gone on as people have seen that the adoption rate is going up higher and higher no we benchmark any specific one of these no we we looked at all of them we even had phone calls with them with some of them city staff dinner and other people so this is just sort of a high-level view of what is currently in the parking table actually going to go one forward and then come back so this is really difficult for anybody that's not here behind the podium to read and even then it's difficult so there is a parking table that is currently in the UDC that says if you build a new building this is the minimum number of spaces that you have to put in and we're just adding a column that basically says of those spaces that when someone installs those these are the percentages minimum percentages of EVC Evi capable evie ready any eating salt places that need to be put in if the ordinance worth the power the percentages come from so the percentages were based on benchmarking and then just looking at each one of these different types of uses so this is just cut and pasted together some various areas so the residential uses you know I just took group living here but there's a single family there's a multi-family section under Republicans you know in institutional uses this shows health care but there's retail and other things are that's under commercial actually it Co is lodging here but there's a section on retail this is just to show you what the structure of the table looks like and what the group did was over I would say multiple iterations including feedback from presenting this to the ordinance review committee came up with the the figures that are in the table now and these are basically the high level categories that I think are of interest to this group so you can see single-family and townhouses were saying should be a hundred percent evie ready so any new construction rather than paying the premium later should be basically made evey ready we're not reading mandating that the charger be installed if you're looking at multifamily and student cooperatives other types of you know multi-family residential we're saying 65% EVC 25% EVR and 10% Evi you can see offices parking structures health care health care in schools 25 percent capable 15 percent ready percent installed hotels B&BS and other types of lodging 50 or 25% capable 50 percent ready 25 percent installed in that case obviously we're assuming people are going to be coming in there maybe coming in from somewhere afar they're gonna drive in with their electric vehicle and if they don't have charging capability then they're gonna be stuck the next morning potentially so we really think that there's it's in their interest to have a relatively high level of readiness recreational public and institutional in those cases other than employees there's probably not a whole lot of people that are staying for a very long time at these kinds of places so we have somewhat lower levels of readiness and the same thing with retail most retail other than the employees and that's why we have 10% for evey installed most retailers people are coming in they may be spending you know an hour or less doing their shopping and then leaving and so the the number of people that will actually be charging there is set at a low minimum again these are floors that does not present a mean that a casco or someone else could say well our profile of users is different and we want to have a higher level because this is what we think our customers um need and will demand so maybe I'll finish and then maybe come back to this table for a comment so this is trying to show the iterative process and the give-and-take of what we've done is so as you can see here the evie working group we've already have our our drafts and our model requirements we met with the ordinance revision committee or review committee at the bottom we're doing the Energy Commission review right now next step would be to gather some stakeholder input and then go to the Planning Commission after that there would be a legal review and it would go to council and then finally Carleen do you want to speak to this can you see it I can sure well the the figures in this slide reflect the computation that I did I looked at all of well not all of them they were more at it after I later in the year after I was done with the study I looked at 22 of the site plans that were added to the city's projects website there each racket for 2019 and based on the costs that were presented and put together again by Charles Griffith in the ecology Center they did a parallel analysis of costs for installing AV charging stations I can up to make ready not including the station itself for the city of Ann Arbor like the one that was done for San Francisco but they just utilized the prices that are reflective of this part of the country and based on the listed cost for every single site plan in the city's database and calculating the number of required evie capable ready or installed or it actually is EB EB EB Freddy's what I was focusing on the prices for the comparative prices for installing of the percentage of installing making the make ready was a 0.3% to 0.4 percent of the overall cost for new installation the entire project cost and then if they'd be installed as a retrofitted B it would be point from zero point seven percent to zero point one nine one nine percent of the overall project you said overall project cost or just that parking spot cost so if the the listed cost for the entire construction project in the like a site plan you know the entire project set because there's a couple parking three hundred three hundred seven percent yeah be ready okay is that supposed to be a new installation up to a point oh four or yeah I've known 0.4 0.4 0.0 0.4 yes is it seems like for the new installation then it goes up many fold more than for the retrofit installation which only goes up a few times more help me understand why the point one nine on this light now that I look at it looks long it can't be right okay because we showed in the san francisco case said that went up two hundred and eighty-five percent and this is actually lower under retrofit scenario than it is frayed it's like three axles or maybe i can double check that but i I did notice the seemed kind of weird but it also depended on the type of construction project so I don't know what kind of person construction projects that the San Francisco study included but there was a lot of residential and where it was a hundred percent requirement you know so that I was looking at all of that all of those those examples and I can I can look back at the numbers and and and update the Commission on their to do with the type of projects okay so they may not be apples to apples exactly managed to compare this okay were all offices that the the San Francisco study was looking at or yeah okay well so um when I just added up all of the number of evie ready spaces are Evy prepared spaces I should say because the term ready is being utilized or anything in this as a definition there are a number of different spaces that you know let's say if they were all required alright if the ordinance was in play for the year 2019 based on the 22 site studies we could have these many spaces we'd have thirteen hundred and nine Evy capable spaces already and we'd have or at least going in we'd have a night 1192 Evy ready spaces in 175 Evy installed spaces so it's it's clear not all of these projects are you know basically planned completed and done in 2019 some of these might be done over a period of you know two or three years but for those 22 that were being considered for site plans in 2019 over the period they were they all to be approved and where this ordinance to have been in place this is the number of additional spaces that we would have added right now I think mmm I can't remember were there any that you saw that were planned already for IDI readiness there was there was one one project uh-huh and that was a late comer that was that isn't last one that I reviewed and it's yeah so this is in effect the opportunity cost for not having an ordinance in place is we could have had this many and instead there was only one of the 22 that foresaw any charging capability maybe one take away I I get from this if I'm reading it correctly is that if we were to put the ordinance in place very quickly within a year to you know depending on these projects cycle times we would achieve the required number of parking spaces basically projections right yes it's not it's not like a there's a sad question to that maybe Jan you can answer this I went through an audit today so compliance is big on my head is the is the floor table the table has four values if a site plan is gonna be reviewed by Planning Commission and you don't have enough to meet the table is the site plan rejected or is there an alternative pathway to get a site plan approved that would not necessarily build those EB components I think I understand so the ordinance requires a certain number of parking spaces the ordinance would require certain percentages of those to include edy charging and so basically if the site plan was brought in front of the Planning Commission didn't meet that then I'm assuming it would either be rejected or there would be some type of negotiation okay but there is room for negotiation well assuming that it's proportional so if they reduced the overall parking places they don't take a lot of all going to push for fewer parking spaces than what's in the current table and so now the percentages are gonna get all goofed up yeah I'm just curious how that works and so it'll have to be a negotiation I am presuming I don't Wayne do you have any idea or in the ordinance that said that see normally if you come with a site plan and you're proposing less than the number required by code we actually have to have space allotted and our ordinance said that the percentage installed for instance had to be of the total including the ones that they weren't putting in oh yes we do have one it's actually that's in one of the slides includes that verbage so we can actually see what that is but it's a percentage of the total parking spaces not so if it's so it's a subset of the required number of parking spaces so if if a developer negotiates a smaller number than the required number of parking spaces there's still a the percentage of the EVC are or I spaces that have to be met that's part of photo the idea is at this time ignorant question here which is what is what is he ready so we be ready means that yep 240 volt outlet or or a blank box I listen yeah okay just trying to see what so maybe we can come back to this but so all of us have access to this through the city website and this includes a lot of the detailed information so you can go through this to review it my recommendation is that we you know I'm just gonna click through some of these we not go through all of this tonight but that we then oops I don't want to do that we what I think what I would propose that we do is ask commissioners to review this and that we bring a resolution in support of what we have so far so that we as we move on to the other commissions and to legal that we have the support of the Commission and moving forward does that make sense to everybody here yes I'd like to voice a concern yep I'm following missing tracking this at the state level there's some hearings and stuff that are going on as well there doesn't seem to be much concern or an appetite for requiring that EB charges be powered what with renewable energy and I remain concerned that we're putting a lot of public dollars in and a lot of effort and to put these in and they're powered with the with the non renewable energy that has a lot of a lot of emissions related issues associated with them so I'm not sure whether it's in this ordinance or where but I've got it seems to me that these two things go hand in hand all for putting in EB charging stations and just like the picture here this one is powered with residential so if we're not going to do publicly funded and supported EB charges that are tied to to renewable energy perhaps we should be encouraging more of these standalone ones instead so I'm not sure how to how to do that but I'd certainly like to see at least a statement in the ordinance that we the city would be encouraged to figure out how to do that because I know that missus shares my concerns on this so we we talked about this mark UE made of made have to comment I think in an email so this supplies we're just inserting this in an existing parking table there's gonna be there's gonna apply to all different kinds of buildings in all kinds of situations so you may have a residents going in in an area where there's no solar access it may be going in and may apply to a built new building going in downtown where you have I'm not talking about on-site solar I'm just saying that if it requires a another customer requests with DTE or a dedication or you know whatever but so we link essentially mandating that the anybody that puts yelling public okay yeah well notice this applies to everything so this applies to any kind of construction whether it's residential multifamily retail funeral homes I mean everything's in here we would basically be mandating with this ordinance that they buy renewable energy to be able to power their evey charging and we felt that was a step too far for where we're at right now if I can add on to that it I think risks being counterproductive if you the Union of Concerned Scientists has an awesome calculator on their website that I encourage anyone who's considering a vehicle just to look at I looked at it when I was trying to decide on my latest vehicle purchase a few years ago now but whether to go hybrid or electric and they allow you to put basically your state so you know what the electric grid mix is and electric vehicles are just more efficient flatout so even if you were on you know Michigan's grid from five years ago an electric vehicle is still from a life cycle perspective still significantly lower emissions than gasoline vehicle so while I don't disagree that we should hope that you know this additional load gets more and more of it coming from renewables I think we'd actually be counterproductive we should we should all go to elect you know from an emissions perspective we should all go to electric even on today's grid so I just like response to this is that we started out the meeting with showing you know our where we are in terms of emissions and where we have to get to in this really hard curve we're gonna have to go through and here we're in parking on a an effort to encourage a lot more electric vehicle charging and those electrical vehicle chargers run on electricity so it seems logical to me to encourage them being charged with renewables and if we don't say that then the discipline is not put forth to at least ask the question should we be doing this or not on this particular instance well I can answer I can address that with regards to this exact in particular project what we did is then when I with the site plan study that I did is I looked at these formulas and then I went you know planned by plan and just like put myself in the position of the architects and engineers and also the the planners who are gonna be reviewing these these projects to see what they'll be looking at and it really it's like a nuts inside of the parking table there's just an added you know subgroup and it just rolls up so thinking about where you would add the requirement or even the suggestion of connecting the you know those charging stations or at least the you know the power that is gonna be using being used to charge those those vehicles to solar there was not a place that was like you know prescriptive and and what you're talking about is more like aspirational and and this this is what you know we're here to work on at this point in time and and the evey ordinance is one one piece of it it's one block that will be helping to hopefully make it easier for that energy to try to charge our transportation to be renewable so we're gonna put 25 megawatts of new solar and and what I'm hearing is is that even though that solar will go to a public building there's no guarantee or encouragement that the EB charger that is at that public building library or City Hall etc that part of that 25 megawatt should be allocated or accounted for with that you be charging him it just doesn't make sense I respectfully disagree mark because I think everything we're working on here is to push toward more renewables and cleaner electricity generation I think it complicates things very much and potentially slow you know slows things down and everything if you try to combine those two because they are quite distinct you know one of them having to do with the Chargers and then all the other things we're working on many of the other things we're working on having to do with greening the the electricity that charges it and and so I don't think it means we're not working on it or not encouraging it we're just separating them out because even if we aren't able to achieve the one the grid clean the cleaning up the grid even if we're not able to achieve that it's still worth our while to have the EBS so if I if I may I I applaud marks thrust so what I've done is I've written it down I would recommend that the subcommittee at the point see if it could somehow be accommodated or if there's some other work around that essentially promotes what Mark is getting at we're not we haven't finalized the resolution we haven't come to you with but to me an ordinance we haven't finalized the ordinance we have it we're not bringing you an ordinance or excuse me sorry the ordinance and a resolution tonight so I would recommend that when we do come back we anticipate Mark's question again and we be in a position to respond to it beyond what we said already tonight with more specificity thank you and I think we need to do this to each other all the time and that's Mark's point I think it's a point well taken thank you so I'm good okay yes so so you said um come back in February with a resolution are you planning to draft a resolution for us to review then at that point yeah we can do that I mean I would say tentatively let's plan on that we haven't taken this to the full Planning Commission yeah so it may be out of order it might make more sense for us to take the Planning Commission but we can talk about that with staff and with Planning Commission and within the subcommittee and if the alignment is that it makes sense to get some type of resolution of support from this commission first then we'll do that if the there's a consensus that that's just the wrong order of doing things then we'll come back and inform you how's that sound just to let you know - we have already submitted this for legal we meet with them and sort of started briefing so what is already drafted has been put in a queue in case there is any kind of fatal issue we wanted to address it early so it just why don't you do we started that put a dot in check yeah gotta check and then so Planning Commission is next week right that we're gonna be presenting to thanks you guys for the very good and hard work on this it's been a it's been a while yeah we started November of 18 when our first meeting was okay if we are done with that presentation and conversation then we can move on to the electrification ordinance resolution conversation and this one you do have in front of you it says draft copy drafted by the climate mobilization this is the one that was mentioning to us and I guess I'm trying to remember Josh was this one circulated beforehand or should we read it before we begin the discussion that's the only reason but let's go ahead we can read it just good we introduced as emotions before we start reading inter now I think this was more kind of just a conversation I think the ordinance process is usually more involved we have to go through for example legal and make sure you have a staff review the whole process so it's more I think just getting a sense as to what what the content is yeah so and I think that is how mr.
Garber presented it as not necessarily an ordinance that's ready to vote on or a resolution ready to vote on but to ask us to consider it and discuss it and you know if we decide we want to move forward with it after tonight to have probably one of our subcommittees take a deeper dive on it over the next you know month or two or however long it takes and then to come back with a recommendation of any edits or so forth and and at that point think about taking a vote so so I don't I had a question first of all personally I would prefer that we not read it through all this because I don't think there's a lot of value added unless we are resolved to vote on this tonight there was some email correspondence Missy I think from you to Ken about this specifically and I think it might be relevant to the Commission's work tonight and I was wondering if you might then share that with the entire Commission and we might take that in consideration about how indeed we handle this matter tonight yeah so there I think you addressed many of the ideas here one we should say electrification is unequivocally one of the things that's gonna be part of a 2-0 it's it's very clear that's coming up and this is very much in that vein so rest assured we are asking these kinds of questions too we know we're preempted at the moment from changes in the Building Code and I think what's really interesting about this I need to spend it that we actually need to spend far more time looking at this in depth but this is really well craft it's very creative kind of getting around that but because it's creative it means we're gonna have to do some legal analysis about is there precedent around this what does this actually look like so that's where we are gonna move in that direction simultaneously we know that other communities especially in California in you heard Brookline Massachusetts have done bands and so we we're reaching out to those communities to pull what those ordinances look like to understand the replicability here so I think the recommendation of a subcommittee is a really smart one for this because we have a great template that I think we're gonna want to move but I wanted just like you to pass what it does to actually have traffic attraction so I think we have to spend a little bit of time packing it is this already with legal or not yet not yet not yet without you concept oh yeah that's concept is solidly with legal in that space so they know this is coming we have a list of lots and lots of ideas that have emerged that are gonna need legal analysis so it has not formally gone in this format yet and that's partly because staff have really has to understand the ask we're not ready to go and answer all of the questions that are going to come from this particular drive in the details always had many updates and a couple of other things this is a project that was brainstormed as a part of the energy portion of a 2-0 so the tech Technical Advisory Committee is going to be evaluating this along with the other ones I think it's highly likely that this will emerge I said also an email round to some people I can't remember exactly to whom there was an article in The New York Times about a week ago Bellingham Washington is actually looking at a complete ban all gas which would essentially require by a date certain and this third they have not yet finalized their resolution and the ordinance they would define a date five every time all appliances and all HVAC equipment etc would have to be converted to fully electric so not only is this being looked at residentially in terms of bans on new construction there's obviously people that are pushing the envelope and we would be potentially in that group certainly here in the state of Michigan and personally I think these are the kinds of things we need to do when we're talking about an emergency one of the things that I would ask if if we do approach legal having work in my earlier work professionally when we go to legal good legal advice is not just what we can't do but also what you can do what your options are and what your risks are for each one of those and I would hope that when we go to legal they can tell us this is what you absolutely can't do these are potential workarounds and things like that with the following potential risks yeah so the discourse has changed historically it has been this is what we're thinking to do what can we can we do this and we've totally changed that discourse I also should add that part of our a20 is also internal and so we've met with each of the departments and we're going to legal to get their ideas for what we should be doing around carbon neutrality and to present these and say we're gonna need you like here look at this this is the a spark of things that we're thinking about so completely agree and understand arre iterate that we have to question the possible radium and that's what we're asking folks to do so just um I know it didn't happen here but it happened in the Netherlands but the recent court about the forcing the countries Denmark to have to meet its 25 produces stuff that that precedent that legal precedent may not make impress the you know the lawyers who work for City event are because but it will affect risk assessment and that really will affect insurance issues so I would hope when the legal looks at this that they look at the larger issues of if we don't do something what are our potential liabilities if this issue of Health and Safety and existential threat to humanity is somehow packaged as a lawsuit and what that means appreciate that yeah so it's it will be if I can just take a moment since we're not gonna read the ordinance but for anybody who doesn't have it in front of them might be watching on TV you know what we have in front of us is a draft that is proposing prohibiting new natural gas natural gas hookups for new construction and so you know we've talked about different permutations of that and I think if a subcommittee takes and looks at this you know this this version will be one consideration but I just wanted to make sure people knew roughly the outlines of what we were looking at other thoughts or reactions on this like I said just a comment um it's just an idea it'll get further developed by other subcommittees or whatever now I always support the banding you know at some time period there's a legal review of that but just another idea to think of it's just what kind of carrots and sticks do we have as a city what kind of financial fees or permits you know for for gas lines that we can progressively increase over time to D incentivize the gas line installations so that people can kind of land for it instead of an immediate 100 percent ban kind of a phasing economic cost of installing it in Korea I think this is new buildings and major rehabilitation so right evensong major reactors up the husband dollars on your building yeah permit feed or yes line hook up this year and it's five thousand dollars next year ten thousand dollars a year after something where we can you know and maybe that money can go towards you know low-income housing or something where we could use the money to incentivize the neckroll you know transition for people who can't afford higher cost electrical or something so some kind of phased in economic policy based on whatever kind of things that the city can actually charge whether it's in property tax or building permits or whatever [Applause] yeah I guess I I would acknowledge that I have a lot of questions about this and and truly like genuine questions a lot of things I don't know many things that are probably unknown but to the extent you know that a subcommittee is gonna take this up I just want to share kind of the questions in my head for consideration and you know one of them is just thinking about kind of the degree of impact this is maybe a little bit like v's but probably much slower like it takes a very long time for stock to change so the near-term impact is pretty small the longer-term impact you know could be bigger although you know our housing stock is is you know hundred year cycles right and so so how much of a lift do you actually get in terms of total impact of this over what period of time and then how much of a lift is it in terms of time and energy and legal battles and political will and all to actually make this happen versus something else you know that might have a nearer term or larger impact longer term with similar lower level levels of you know challenge associated with actually getting it done and I don't know the answer to that but I'd be interested in hearing how people think about you know what are those what are those trade-offs I mean I just even think about the energy audit at time of sale issue that we have a subcommittee looking at and kind of the what I heard to be the visceral and immediate reaction of the realtor community and you know you think about the Builder community here in developer community and and what that would look like to engage them and and whether the the battle would be enormous or not I don't know I think about the I'd like to see data on like the cost differential right now and you know down the line of a non-natural gas of electrified you know residential electrification compared to natural gas and thinking about that in terms of kind of the public response whether there is appetite for that you know I think I tried to articulate this and I think not very articulately at all at our last work session when we were talking about some of the issues and the economics associated with them but for my day job I know that most people are actually pretty price sensitive to the cost of their energy and you know a 3% increase you know here and there and and people start to get pretty frustrated and push back on a lot of things it's not to say it's not the right thing to do but what do we think about kind of the the public aspect there I think from bigger like impact question I I do wonder if this is in Ann Arbor and not in our outlying communities do we start to get folks who don't see it as worthwhile to either build new and Ann Arbor which you know maybe not so much it's not like there's all that much land remaining in Ann Arbor for brand new builds but I think we do have a lot of old housing stock that younger families are trying to come in and you know add on a second storey to some of our older stuff and and renovate and do a major maybe gut renovation that this could apply to and is this enough of a disincentive that some of those folks will go to new construction you know further out and and I firmly believe that density has to be and keeping people living close to where they work has to be a big piece of how Ann Arbor responds to the climate challenge and so what's the what's the trade-off there do you actually end up pushing people to the suburbs and then you've kind of negated any other benefit you thought you might get and then and then I'm gonna fully admit that like so I just I just had all these questions floating around in my head and there's also a trade-off between like spending the massive amount of time I think it would be to try and answer those and even think through them versus the fact that we're in an emergency and we do need to move quickly right and so I don't like I just throw this out there to let you guys know kind of where my head is that because I think I'm gonna run into these roadblocks just like intellectually for me as we move forward with this one because it does feel like it has a lot of complicating factors sorry I just forgot I believe in karma I think this is the right thing to do so you know when we did the solar thing less than seven communities actually taxed solar and nobody cared about it and it had been locked up in committee for eight years and and everybody that we talked to said you know this is not going to happen there's no nothing there and then we've been again to get allies and people began to see what the future implications the things were I think we dive into this and see I think we're gonna yeah we're some people are gonna walk away but other people gonna walk in and new things so so if you have to retrofit a house that means you have to probably you know maybe you could extend the life of that old stove a little longer but you know if you're gonna have to buy new ones and now you got a bad electric one so it gets you know there are ways if we need to incentivize this then that's that's a conversation worth having you know if you're if you are a house that's 100 cent electric you should get a tax break for doing so and that's something the city can do and it has control over and so to me it's not a question of you know should we do it but how do we how do we do it and let's begin to look at it and push it and objections will rise but so will support so um do we I know we'll move after this I think well we've got one more thing we can talk about but we will move into our energy our commit subcommittee updates do we have a committee I think it would I my gut feels it would fall into the the housing and built environment committee or the energy production committee but I'll be happy to join that community to work on this with them okay thank you okay anything else on the electrification and conversation okay thank you moving on to solar installs so this was a request an action item to Josh to look at how the city has done with solar installs year over year so as you can see from the graphs here 2019 was a very good year for solar installs you know we kind of look at previous permits pulled so this was done both through permits we have a tracking system and then from there we dig a little deeper to get design plans that we can get the actual capacity of each of the installs and so you can see from basically 2018 you know you get some fluctuation right around the 33 34 right around there and then for 2019 we close out at 88 I would like to think that a lot of the outreach we did contributed to this I do think it did I mean we had three power hours with you know $300,000 worth of installs Missy talked a little bit about a solarized program where we were getting you know 60 people out with 19 installs after that I do think that there's probably something else going in here as well which is net metering and the fact that people knew that net metering was running out and so obviously I think that plays heavily into this I tried to kind of look at the numbers on a monthly basis and I did see that you know right around December cuz not metering they had kind of a window from the time that they pulled the permit to when they actually installed right around December there was a bit of a drop-off it could be because you know it's the winter season that's to be expected somewhat but I think next year we'll really get a sense as to how much this was kind of a result of net metering versus you know some momentum I think it's probably a combination of both I know installers that we're putting installing solar on Christmas Day yeah yeah but I mean it's at the same time I think it's really good to see it especially when you're looking at everything before 2019 at 2019 year does look you know very a kind of outlier even though we still have a very long way to go I can't do the math in my head but do you know if there's been any meaningful change in the size yes you know so that's the other thing I found when I was looking at the permits I thought was really interesting the average size has actually gone up yeah so it was around four kilowatts roughly on average and I did kind of just a rough average to see how it all panned out before I like 2015-2016 and then it went up to about six I think was six point eight average everything look forward to they're getting more efficient right so per panel on the same on the same square footage of roof yeah well yeah and I was also wondering if the price of solar going down meant that people are willing to get larger systems especially as we've seen you know I remember when I stood first started and you were seeing you know three dollars per you know what installed and now we're getting down to 250 I mean I've even seen you know some of the stuff that we've installed in our own buildings two dollars so yeah I think that might also be playing into this somewhat so in 2018 we put in 330 watt panels yeah 18 they were the best you could buy all right 400 plus right for the same price or less yeah so there you're seeing a major yeah so I think there's multiple factors we also do have exploited permitting which I like to think somewhat helps we're doing it as well I don't know how much we talked about this at the Energy Commission but we did a similar thing for commercial buildings it was very cost prohibitive to go through permitting with the city so we reduce those costs significantly to ensure you know that it didn't put too much burden on installing solar so those are a few things a few highlights yeah yeah thank you for bringing that Josh real appreciate it yeah can you send me a copy of this slide of course yeah yeah I can it's actually so it is on ledges Turk oh but I'll go ahead and send it to the group yeah as a percentage of like total you know homes or roots or properties and be interesting to see how this is the total yeah yeah so I could just do quick yeah fifty thousand roughly units versus two hundred ninety-one it's still a rather small number but I mean still it's one of those things I think if we can continue that kind of momentum there's one line that's going on here it's the the steam school because that went through the the state okay yeah building so we're technically yeah and so that one went in just after Thanksgiving yeah twelve kilowatt all right so 292 thank you all right moving on then to committee updates so we've this is welcome to 2020 by the way I should have said happy new year we've got a new list of committees so these are the new committees that we developed kind of under our work session back in the fall and obviously some of the old subcommittee projects that are still open or folded under these but housing built environment and energy efficiency that one has the time of sale audit fell under it is there any update from anyone who's been engaged in that and wants to otherwise we're just giving you an assignment electrification so yeah i will say i sent out doodle poles for each of these groups and i'm gonna go ahead and finalize those i wanted to give everyone up to commission basically I'll finalize those and send out basically a calendar invite based off those doodle posts so we know when they are I do know that there's things that are rolling over into them so just honest you were saying kind of the you know time of marketing which we have kind of an update I guess the update I'll give is that we're looking at some I got a phone call that we had with both Austin as well as Portland to see the the outcome of their time of marketing ordinances in particularly with an eye towards you know total energy efficiency upgrades that came from those kind of energy disclosures and so I think we took a lot of notes and I think our next meeting we agreed that we were going to kind of pour over those notes and try to really assess us to do what was going on on that front I think now we had the electrification as well transportation I think is yeah Evy readiness we covered is there anything else on transportation I would just mention we had one action item from a ways back this past summer around the rolling sculpture Car Show we wanted to make sure we reached out to them with plenty of lead time to see whether they would consider including some v's there so I did contact someone at Main Street area association just yesterday but I did an initial response was that it was a great idea and they're gonna take it to their committee and get back to me so the conversation is perfect thank you let's try to get more focused on their processes hopefully have more for next month awesome thanks so much okay and she didn't yep didn't seem like it was too late yet so I think okay very good anything else on transportation that we missed okay energy production we're scheduling our first meeting we've met tonight and we're preparing calendars and emails going back forth are too crazy so we we're doing it the old-fashioned way it's looking each other in the eye on a paper towel I see okay thank you mark and community engagement again a new a new commission a new committee pardon me did we get a date set for those meetings yeah okay okay um anything else on subcommittees okay with that we will move on to open it up for public input again if any of the members of the public would like to share something seeing no takers I will move on items for the next agenda I captured that we will have a resolution and support of the draft evie ordinance and I believe John will bring that draft that resolution here for us I'm just looking at our action items which I did print out for folks by the way is there anything else on here we had talked about I believe the transportation subcommittee but more broadly for the Commission and in its entirety following up on our work session last month was interested in having a couple folks from the transportation group coming to talk to us about what that survey that we talked about around the major infrastructure and what kind of you know how they would like to engage with us so hopefully we'll have them here in February so we do yeah we have a meeting set up for Friday where the chairs will all get together and we'll try to figure out what best way to kind of interact with the different Commission's part of it was that they have a subcommittee the transportation subcommittee that we give updates to and so there's a question as to whether it makes sense to have kind of a leis on model all right what what best way to interact with with the different Commission's going forward especially with our joint goals the other side of that too I did ask specifically about the the survey and they again kind of referred me back to the subcommittee and said if there was more information that in this Friday meeting we could ask more okay all right so other than then promoting and the work with the e V readiness ordinance and then promoting electric vehicle adoption what are some of the other transportation initiatives that the Energy Commission in particular would be wanting to take on so I mean my action isn't like they were that sir I mean the Transportation Committee certainly that survey was looking at all modes of transit on major thoroughfares in the city and looking at public input on whether public transit motor vehicles bicycle or pedestrian traffic should be prioritized and you know as I kind of shared in our work session I think if you're looking at the energy and environmental impact you know on these major thoroughfares there's clear you know implications of choosing one of those methods over others right and prioritizing them and and those are you know it sounds like major projects right so like gonna have a very long term you know 30-year impact on what modes of transit are really feasible for people so I had proposed you know should our Commission be providing our input to that and and providing guidance around you know the potential energy and climate impacts of making different decisions about those different modes of transit so I'm not just you know the easy stuff is about is about our vehicles our public or private vehicles but what if what are we providing around public transit or unlock ability mm-hmm you know bicycle infrastructure and I you know I kind of put that out there to say if and how do we want to and how would they like our input I guess if they don't want our input we could still give it I think we can leverage kind of yeah yeah absolutely yeah and I think that's an important point Jay you know from a broader perspective right as we've talked about over the last couple of months we want to make sure that what we're working on here doesn't get completely out of sync with with what the tacks are working on them and what they're recommending if you know it doesn't make sense to be walking in opposite direction all right thanks okay anything else coming up February no not on our list our actual item list had two things in February that were covered today on the solar installs in the OSI update so I think we can check those off but anybody that has anything they want to add over the course of the next month send a note to Josh to add to the agenda okay do we have a motion to adjourn all in favor the post okay we adjourned thank you very much
that's not good morning big Hollow today is January 17 2020 it is the 19th first day of school this is WBZ news I never and I'm top today for lunch there will be popcorn chicken potatoes Miley's cherry tomatoes orange naps and milk yep tomorrow for breakfast nairobi cinnamon rolls orange house sunset juice and milk we have some friends celebrating birthdays celebrating their kids this weekend is abigail d bench Ben M Bowie H Maya s angel Oh Brooke s and Dylan B please go to the office to pick out a birthday book yesterday's ones that question was what state has a radiation WI the answer is Wisconsin the winner is Marly three Glover Hongkong this to pick out your prize this fun fact question is what famous activist delivered a speech title I have a dream in 1963 to promote breast equally in the United States remember to write your answer neatly we have a special announcement are you looking for something fun to do after school on a Friday well Friday night out is the place to come please join us for an afternoon of games snapped some friends on Friday January 31st from 3:30 to 5:00 o'clock permission slips will be coming soon so be on the lookout this is not something you are going to want to miss out on and now we all deserve a treat Pierre decides to reflect on the anticipated activities please I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all Carson will lead us in the big Colin plan I pledge to be a pH storm I pledge to be a pH star whether I'm at school or travel farm whether they're at school or travel far I pledge to be safe in every way I pledge to be safe in every way take responsibility during work and play I will be respectful and all I do I will be respectful and of all I do and be a star the whole day through and be our star the whole desert have a friendly Friday remember time people are the best kind of people kind of people thanks for watching five
[Music] I'm on the board selected the order I'd like to call the board a financed order and I will call the special meeting of the Board of Education to order everybody join us in the pledge mistress the United States of America to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God okay so I would like to welcome everyone here tonight and I thank you all for viewing this evening as another opportunity to collaborate we think it's really important that we have an open sharing of communication and this has really served all of our boards well in the past and I'm hoping that by the end of tonight that it will all become clear the very real and very big issues that our town is facing particularly with our students I just want to remind any members of the public that this is a special meeting of all three of these boards so we do not have public comment on the agenda purposefully we have a very focused agenda and any comments here this is really just a presentation so thank you in advance and I really am going to turn it over to dr.
Burrell who's going to have some opening remarks if you take a look at the topics for discussion we'll go through an overview of the budget exposures related to special education we'll have we'll go into detail about the exposures and tuition professional services and transportation as those are our bigger our biggest items we'll talk about actions taken thus far provide a summary of our budgetary exposures and then provide a small glimpse at the 2020 2021 budget for a special education tuition explain excess cost implications and then of course have questions comments and discussion so just for the some of the new board members that are that are here I just kind of want to go around and just have some introductions first so I'll start I'm Rosa Fernandes Board of Ed chair kento stricter business operations for the port of it John burrows superintendent schools before supportive education gen Leighton Board of Education Amy foster Board of Education Michael Murphy Board of Education joy greens I'm rid of it Harry shaker Lord selectmen this later boy slacker Steve Don Board of Selectmen glen rooney board a finance mark movi boarder finance john lucas town treasurer mrs.
sarasota okay thank you so dr. Burrell Thank You Rosa um can everybody hear me I wanna make sure the mic sound okay so this meeting tonight is important enough that I really took the time to prepare some opening remarks I would like to think that my memory is so good that I could remember every one of the opening remarks but I will refer to my notes to make sure that I share these very important information regarding what Rosa started to introduce and we're here to talk about as you know the overage in the budget this year for special education students frankly I wish we didn't have to have this meeting you know we have a shortfall mrs. Sturm shared that in the fall with the the Board of Finance and it's because of an increase in special education services for students with major social emotional and mental health diagnosed diagnosis for the last five years it's very important for me to say for the last five years I've been in Brookfield and the Board of Finance and Board of Selectmen have always wanted to be informed of matters and ask the Board of Ed and me that if we need additional funds to come forward and make such requests I emphatically state tonight that all of you have always come through for the board and the schools and we're extremely grateful we're grateful for your partnership and we've done a lot together whether it's the annual operating budget knocking down the portables supporting the new elementary school the special appropriation for special education we asked for a couple of years ago the additional kindergarten teacher this year due to the unexpected enrollment spike you've always been there and we really appreciate it and I think I could speak on behalf of the board the administration teachers the school system we really do thank you well I wish I didn't have to request the additional funds and talk about this tonight my job in the board's job is to advocate for all of the students of Brookfield it's important you know the big picture and that the public understands the big picture what's going on today with students the issue of mental health and the increasing number of students in Brookfield regionally across our state and across our nation is rising to epidemic proportions we have more children entering pre-k in the primary grades with both neurological and profound emotional needs that you couldn't even imagine some needs and subsequent behaviors are so profound that many of the children are danger to themselves and sometimes to others we just reviewed the results of the developmental assets survey in partnership with Brookfield cares the number of grades 7 through 12 students reporting feelings of depression and suicide is alarming we'll be sharing those that data publicly in the next couple of months we also have put the educational needs of the children we are discussing as a priority for us but simultaneously we also must prioritize the safety and non disrupted education of the majority of our students and let's not forget we must provide a safe working environment for a faculty and staff these are serious concerns in fact before we talk about the out placements tonight it is important that you know that with the ebb and flow of enrollment that almost 30 new students with identified special needs moved into Brookfield this year these kids are not students needing out placement that I'm referring to right now rather these children come with more typical reading math and speech concerns you may wonder dr.
Burrell how do you accommodate services for such a dynamic change in the student body the answer is pretty clear we have a great staff and we creatively exercise schedules to make it work we increase teacher caseloads and we simply figure it out we don't dream of coming for extra funding on things like this we just handle it we work to keep students in our district in an outplacement is the last resort for programming when nothing else is working at the school mrs. white want why Ghana will review that process a little bit later in tonight's present an important fact regarding the students needing out placement while the costs are significant it may feel as though we have many many more students being out placed the total number of children we will be discussing tonight has actually remained relatively steady over the last couple of years since the spike in 2017-18 the students needing an outplacement when we increased from sixteen to thirty students and some of you were on the board finance at that time in the Board of Selectmen you may recall that we have remained at about thirty students being out placed at any given time you will see through a conversation tonight they're from 1718 the last year 1819 through budgeting for this year the 2019 2020 year we actually budgeted less money for fewer out placements as we projected two years ago when the Board of Finance provided the special appropriation 26 students for this current year were budgeted for six of the 26 students actually moved out of town or came back to our local school schools were saved on out placement costs however twelve students either moved into Brookfield or were currently in our schools and it was all to ultimately determined that an outplacement was a better setting for them that's a swing of 18 students from the original budget of 26 kids this is a dynamic and ever-changing process just yesterday while preparing for tonight's meeting mrs.
y gana cor jeana's will call her you'll get to know Jena soon ken and I were informed about another student with significant special needs and will ultimately be responsible for them three students in the last week what is the district doing to address the matter the board financed import of Selectmen have been witnesses and sometimes partners too many of the district initiatives the Board of Ed in administration is conducting to mitigate costs to manage our programs and develop the capacity to improve services I've been fortunate to be one of the leaders working on the regional work with developing transportation and purchasing efficiencies we also ride share for students attending the same out of district schools we have focused on supporting social emotional needs with the Yale ruler approach k12 we've developed therapeutic in district programming for our students with these kinds of needs we already have developed an ELC program which is an in-district program that helps them most profound students this saves on cost while at the same time enhancing programs we have provide a professional learning and trauma-sensitive schooling so staff can better service our students with these profound issues we also reorganized special education leadership to ensure that at both the elementary and secondary levels we are staffed with an administrator decision maker at key planning and placement team meetings in just last Thursday last week I attended a legislative breakfast with Debbie and Mike and Rosa and also Steve Harding to work with our regional legislators and other superintendents to urge the state to support local districts with the rising cost of special education I can tell you every district you talk to anybody is dealing with this issue this is this is not just Brookfield one area we plan to pursue is working to make sure insurance companies cover large portions of services for these diagnosed mental illnesses rather than passing all the costs on to the local school system and we could certainly use your help in that I thank you for listening and I just wanted to set the tone and B provide that information to you this evening thank you so much okay so the first thing I want to kind of go over I want to start sort of big picture get into the nitty-gritty details then bring us back out to the big picture again so the first thing I want to talk about is our significant special education budget exposures so I'll talk sort of very briefly high-level about them now and then mrs.
wagon ik is going to go through each of these in these order in this order and explain to you all the detail so when you look at special education outplacement tuition we're looking or projecting in excess of the budget of around four hundred and fourteen thousand this is due to the number an increased number of students out placed and the cost of that out placement so it's important to note that it's not necessarily that tuition itself has gotten more expensive but the needs of the students themselves have gotten worse pensive professional services we're looking at an exposure of about 257,000 these are for all general special education services not just related to outplacement but in district as well special and transportation fifty-eight thousand seven hundred forty one dollars this is an increase in the in district extended school year or as you will probably remember it a summer school program this is an increase in the in district transportation more students participating in that program so ultimately we are looking at a general exposure of a round of a known exposure of around seven hundred and thirty thousand dollars but it is very important that we understand that this number is changing the 730 is the known that we know for sure but there are an additional five students that are still pending as probably as early as next month we will know more definitively what those costs will be but as of right now for those five students we are looking at an additional two hundred and sixty-five thousand again it can't be overstated as dr.
Brill mentioned these numbers change seemingly weekly so we will keep you as up-to-date as we possibly can but as you can see we are already dealing with a very significant exposure right now so missus why Ganic will take you through tuition professional services and transportation thank you before I get into all the outlets to which tuition slide that is in front of you you just want to share some insights that before we even think about out placing students we go through a pretty rigorous list of process to just really really work with the parents work with a variety of outside specialists we work with inside specialists we work with board certified behavior analysts because having a student out place you are putting them in the most restrict and our goal is to put them in the least restrictive environment and keep them in our community keeping them in the community provides them to be with their peers participate in after-school activities athletics and role models here in Brookfield so we really take a really strong look at a variety of things before we even consider moving to out place a student so if you take a look at the slide that is presented before you as of July 1 the we budgeted for 26 students the start of the school year we had six students returned to Brookfield for services or were no longer in Brookfield the savings for twenty students the cost of thirty-one thousand five hundred fifty less than tuition and related services also an overestimate of AIS students the new students tuition would be seven hundred twenty-three thousand eight hundred and eight which is the current net overage of four hundred fourteen thousand three hundred and seventy eight the unknown students we are in the process right now where it's under evaluation as to where and if those students will be out place we are in the process right now so that's the unknown if you turn to the next slide you will see pretty much the same information just provided in more of a graphic you have the six students and again we don't have we have it listed there from one to thirty eight we have our six students who have returned we have our twenty students listed and our twelve new students to the right of that is the savings for the students that are in district that were that were under budgeted and that would come to the four fourteen 378 on the next side slide what rows are referred to as the professional services we had to outsource for a speech and language pathologists because we had an employee go out on leave we had an additional outsource SLP assistant to support caseloads and we also had an increase in outsourced services for students who were hearing impaired we also need to provide the to non-public schools with a nurse which is Christian life Academy and st.
Joe's unfortunately the shortage we could not find a nurse that wanted to part-time positions because it is part-time in each building so we again had to outsource to an agency to fill that position we had another employee go out on leave so we needed to outsource to cover that employee's IEP mandated services and we also increased with a board certified behavior analyst because of the behavioral needs in district the other professional service accounts which were some other budget underruns which are tutoring evaluations outside evaluations that we needed to do for a population of students so the total of that was the two hundred fifty seven thousand four hundred thirteen the transportation piece for special education where you see the 18,000 842 where it says more buses this was for extended school year we had more buses more students attend extended school year we had approximately 60 more students at 10 because we changed the program to support the needs of the IEP s so there was an increase in number we also transported 18 students which are the ELL students who had a program that was skinnier this summer the 14200 the outsourcing of a driver for the life skills program which is a wonderful program that supports the students at the high school to support their vocational and therapeutic activities outside of Brookfield high school and the 25,000 240 special vehicle this is for students who cannot take regular transportation and the total for that would be the 58,000 741 so dr.
Brill spoke at length about most of these points but I don't think that I think it's worth restating here that we as a board and as a district are always engaged in an ongoing effort to manage programming capacity and thus costs from a whole system's leadership based approach so some examples of these are organizing with regional transportation efficiencies and district ride-sharing as you know we are well on our way to rolling out our social-emotional program the ruler approach in addition to trauma-sensitive training for teachers and staff as well as the therapeutic programming at huckleberry whisk an ear and the high school so this speaks to the specific needs of the students that we're discussing tonight we have reorganized special education leadership which speaks to capacity and place decision-makers in each of the schools that along with professional development for teachers means that there can be a more direct support fidelity to our programs and more accountability not only do the clinical teams meet every other month but there's a lot of collaboration between these special education teachers and the regular education teachers I think it's really important that we understand that our students with special needs are part of our district even the ones that are out placed and their school community so it's important that regular education teachers view them as their students as well this is the climate that we are trying to build and these are the goals of the Brookfield Board of Education so mrs.
Wagga Nick has and will continue to speak to the great work that's being done but I hope this gives you a more holistic high level approach or view of what we're trying to accomplish and why it's so important that we remain on track to doing just that so on this last slide we this is sort of our summary slide so in sum we're looking at a total special education exposure at a minimum so what's known now is seven hundred and thirty thousand five hundred and thirty two dollars to upwards of nine hundred and ninety five thousand five hundred and thirty two I'm going to talk about that high number in a minute but I want to be solutions oriented tonight so first I want to explain in this table most on the left the first three items Chromebook revenues savings from leaves and vacancies the one percent discount for transportation prepayment I just wanted to list those specifically here as those were referenced in the December financial report really everything in this table here we've got some smaller overages elsewhere but the bigger picture here if you see this is ongoing normal district budget management we could if you look at the bottom number the one forty five 0-62 we could have easily handled an exposure of around this size this is normal and this is typically pluses and minuses that we deal with regularly what we've done for this issue is more of the actions taken by the district and you'll see that in a table in the middle so immediately we implement sit or freeze a two hundred thousand dollar freeze so I think it's really important that we talk specifically about the freeze now because the extended duty spending freeze in particular is our curriculum writing work so when we put a freeze on that we are putting a hold on the very important work which is our curriculum work and at our last board meeting we had a very thorough presentation of detailing all of that work and it's important that we understand that that work is now suspended and not being done the supplies and under and other accounts pending freeze some of these may include field trip transportations custodial building maintenance supplies and straw shanell supplies and these are freezes that are not easily implemented so when we enact a freeze it's not as simple doesn't affect very much these are very real things that our students are not in terms of the going back to the extended duty we are essentially not allowing our teachers to become the curriculum owners and experts and instructional leaders that we want them to be and that they want to be and that we expect them to be so I can't underestimate or sort of not talk about that specifically enough now what we need to discuss tonight is mostly this table on the right so we do thank you again for allowing us to consider the non lapsing fund balance that was something that we didn't want to necessarily assume but we thank you for your cooperation and allowing us to consider that our known exposure remains this that 208,000 zero eighty one dollars that is for the known overages as of this moment in the future potentially even as early as next month again we are returning to that 265 number for a total of six hundred and fifty thousand four hundred and seventy again that number can change so if you want we can stop for questions and comments now or we can talk about the implications on next year's budget sort of however you want whatever you're more comfortable with doing just so you know there's only about three slides left in the deck so if the pencil yeah I'd rather keep it to this right now I think that's okay we're used to you all right I'll go how's that I don't think it's a question of the expenditures that we're really concerned with it's the tightening of the numbers aspect of where we really stand I asked a lot of questions last week and got back some answers and I'm not so sure the numbers tell the story that we really have so I'll just pick a number savings from leaves and vacancies just a number to help me get situated so we have a number here of 189 thousand and savings which is based on Ken's letter based on two items it's the monthly report from human resources department that shows unpaid leave and how long the person will be out and you calculate that out and to you monitor the vacant positions and you calculate that now in years past there has always been the retirements versus the replacements which you put 120 and on the budget line but you have no costs against you in your financial reports so are you holding to that 120 and your savings on retirements versus replacements yes that number where does that number built into the 189 is that part of that 189 could you only list the two items that you brought into that 189 in my 189 I'm not including retirement savings so then did we meet the 120 or is there extra money in that one we just barely met it barely met ador we added over it I mean when we're talking I can say ten dollars I'm looking at escaping dollars then where would you also put in we appropriated eighty-nine thousand four hundred dollars this year for a kindergarten teacher which was a step7 teacher with benefits we hired I believe a step 2.5 teacher to fill that position so there's another $12,000 there where is that accounted for in this number of 189 that would be in the teacher turnover savings in the to another 120 so that is in that 120 now that you're saying we've barely met or we met because that this is my trying to see is the big picture of where we really stand in us you know because it the numbers and their explanation don't tie it together because you know 120 line in your budget you have zero dollars against it like you didn't achieve it so I just trying to figure out where we stand as of the full costs of the tuitions that number should not change now unless the students change in the past three months we've gone from 404 down to 350 up to 415 but your presentation now shows that that's a fixed number unless we add a student or students program changes so a student's program could change within the month Gina can you briefly explain how a student who we're paying outplacement tuition for might have other services above and beyond the base tuition and how that might change is a hypothetical brief example for example if we have a student that is out place once that transition PPT takes place we provide them the IEP that we've had here in brookfield and what they do is they monitor that student they provide the IEP that was put in place but we may have to go back to PPT because there may be some ot PT speech and language behavioral additions to that IEP which are additional costs sorry occupational therapists physical therapists speech and language behavioral specialists so those may be those are like a la carte they may be added to the program which is an increase in service because it's an increase in they're utilizing their staff and sometimes sometimes they can talk if the child is succeeding and write better so it all depends right thank for now that's all I really have John II have a question I'm looking at more of a long-term I don't wanna say solution but a long-term fix rather than an annual fix and with the the cost of the outplacement students are we at a point when I first came out to the Board of Education we brought in a number of specialists which increased our salary line by a certain amount but it decreased our cost tremendously are we in a situation where we can bring in the specialists needed to lower that number of outsourced students to where we can start to not just fix this annual situation but in the long run drastically reduce or hopefully drastically reduce the number of outplacement students Gina if I could just address that first then turn it over you said Gina right on that one er was a job well as I said John I have a question but are you looking at you letting me know I just wanted you to know I appreciate that Harry so I think there's there's two things and I think you might be referring to the ELC program when you first got on the board right that was established in district which is a very successful program we have here and over the long term has avoided a great deal extra Learning Center those for the most part are students a lot of one-on-one paraprofessionals in the program a dedicated teacher to the three different programs we have and that to your point there was savings there and likely cost avoidance over the long long term we brought those specialists in-house recently we in a budget neutral manner introduced a therapeutic program for some folks you might remember the concept of an alternative education at the high school or the alternative school within a school we felt when dr.
Cipolla was here and working our administration that we needed to develop therapeutic programming for the long term for students with social emotional issues and so two years ago we embarked on that and we're having success with that program I don't know if this the rest of this will answer your question but it goes back to my earlier comments we are seeing students with such profound mental health concerns that the therapeutic program we have established here is not enough and at the last resort when we've tried everything else and it's an exhaustive process as Jena started that outline the outplacement becomes a solution may not be a long term more than a year solution sometimes it is a very long term solution other times students might be up for six months and be able to come back others might be for a couple year or two and as noted in the numbers there's a lot of change in those students and you could see that that's evidenced in the actual data the other part of the long-term heri that we're trying to do is what I talked about with legislation I mean this is we all know that the funding at the state the formula frankly is arbitrary the other piece to that and we could talk a little bit about excess cost later we have some slides on that the other piece is this this really is we're seeing it not only in Brooklyn we're seeing in our neighboring districts you talk to any board member any teacher any any parent that that is you know happens to be paying attention to this it's everywhere and it's it's not only in our region it's in the state and it's nationwide you talk to any educator this is a difficult difficult circumstance that we're in now the students you're talking about are these students with social and emotional issues that you're talking about okay now when they are outsourced are they outsourced are they coming home each day or are you talking about students that are outsourced combination and staying on campus but I'm still like I'm still not I don't see now to understand you but are you saying that we can't bring those specialists in-house that handle that would be able to handle these types of situations that the children we have brought in behavioral therapists into district into the ELC programs and like John had said there are situations where the capacity we just do not do not have the capacity to bring in specialists to not have to out place them it is pretty costly because you really need to develop programming for all four schools to have that so it could be pretty costly to do that the the other piece about the regional I don't know if you wanted to touch on that well I think the regional just kind of how yeah it's not be an advanced piece oh hold off okay I think we talked about day programming versus residential and we go through several steps no I don't want to breach anything we go through several steps and all of the students that we do decide to out place we have a psychiatric evaluation done on those students with outside providers and the recommendations that come in could be a third usually a therapeutic day school sometimes they will help us build within district a program to keep them in district and then the last resort would be if that programming does not work then the last resort is to put them in that least restrictive environment so they are therapeutic settings for students and there are a variety of reasons it could be disability it could be mental health issues there are a variety of reasons and again you know we we look at every possible opportunity to keep them in district because it is best for that child yeah the students that you're talking about the campus the campus is that they go to for these in conjunction with other towns is it's impossible is it possible to make Brookfield one of those cancel about one of those campuses to where we have those facilities and I'm not talking doing this next year in the future we're looking at possibly doing something with with the center school now is there a location or is it possible in the future to bring that campus here in conjunction with other towns so I think Harry that is an idea that can be explored and I think many times we have to have an open mind and say that hey there's there's an idea let's explore that so anything's possible I'd like to share a little bit about what we're doing in the regional programming with with that advance which is our local regional education service and I know this isn't something that can answer our question you know I understand but I think it's important for people to understand that we are trying on a long-term sure answer well can some of the administrative actions that we've talked about and I just want to explain a little bit about what we're doing so regionally we are working with all of our gosh 20 plus districts and sharing transportation and IDI advance is actually coordinating routes and we're doing the best we can with transportation providers as well as the ride-sharing that Gina's Department works on so those are some things significant cost avoidance with transportation imagine all of these students that are out placed if you match up the cost of transportation really not we don't have the significant overage and transportation as we do in the actual tuition and that typically is a match sometimes that's because of we're doing we're really working hard to mitigate that we are working with in advance to further develop an outplacement Center right and it happens to be in Danbury that advance would run the the educational resource center would run but the local districts would lower the cost because number one it's closer and we'd share services we'd also be running it essentially and have a say in the programming and actually be able to monitor things more closely and that average cost per per student for tuition actually drops when you compare it to all of the different private Institute schools that are out there of private organizations that provide the outplacement tuition so we're really working hard together the superintendent's and actually local legislators and trying to make that work as well so we are trying long term to look at how thank you thank you sure can I ask a question I apologize this first time I've seen some of these numbers and laid out this way look at your page 3 July 1st 2019 you started with a budget of 1 million 7 you save two hundred and three thousand 960 by the start of the school year because students returned for a left growth field then you take one hundred five thousand dollars off for 20 students clustering 1,000 bucks for a cement - 373 and then you have 12 new students with an additional 723 then you say current net over just for 14 when I in the back of a piece of paper add that up and subtract subtract subtract add it comes to 3/6 so how do we get from 4 14 to 316 unless I'm just saying 808 - 105 470 - 2 or 3 no I started one 705 miss exactly 203 subtract 105 at 7:23 then I come up with 360,000 the 414 is the amount of the overage so it saying out that we're over the million 705 so it's just the other three numbers and then added together the four 415 consists of the 723 in new tuition the 105 in savings on existing students and two or three savings on the students and it all do you see that do you see that 105 number at the bottom of that savings identified I think that's what you're missing well this is written you start it's the one 705 right then you have minus 203 the minus 105 plus 723 what's this are there to get with it you've got an area that says card net over it because the when you stop at 7:23 808 so when you stop it so even even if I'm the knob before where does how does the 414 relate to the 360 so when you add when you say and then you subtract the original budget of 1.7 and it shows you the overage of 414 Steve I see if you follow it like a flowchart like the arrows are pointing yeah yeah but I think I understand what you guys are saying see the arrows forget about the arrows yeah you had a budget and then you have some overages it needed like a subtotal right here two million 170 but it is confusing Steve if you want the following one the one that looks like this says the same exact information just much more detailed with a backup data maybe that's your fault let's move on to that because tuition and other differences plus minus plus minus depending on the student right for students who were in the school year not the new students not the ones that have left you're saying your to the good seventy-three nine point I'm sorry 105 for seventy there was 273 920 number so you're saying to save 7390 why is that in the same column as the 105 so so it's hard it's part of it yes it's it well up all those away that see this yeah I've got a 73 920 here and 79 20 year that's not what I'm saying is your your accounting um I know you guys do a great job with the students you work really hard to keep the cost down and meet the students needs but the way this is written it is very very difficult to follow and this is what I've done my whole life is run numbers it's just numbers so Steve I don't know why it's confusing I do math all the time I do budgeting all the time the 105 is the bottom of the column it's the total of everything above it including the 73,000 you had all the pluses and minuses in that column they had up to 105 thousand dollars so that's not a subtotal so the bottom the bottom row of numbers there are the sub holes of every column right so so the 73 is just the line ID on the end there somebody told me what a is is because I don't see it anywhere else against the American International School as the magnet school in Danbury okay so it was an over estimate on the note on the what it would cost to educate students who receive special education at that school that are our Brookfield students sorry for the alphabet soup there okay we understand from your alert you're teaching and that I'll take the opportunity just to share it again I don't want to confuse people because we've got a lot of information coming the that a is seventy three thousand dollar tuition not only was an over estimate last year going into this year for what those students would need so that's why shows as a savings doctor so Paula as she was putting the her budget together and how it ultimately made it all the way through this ended up it should have been in professional services she was counting those students in her head as out places students because they weren't and there were our students that we were responsible for but not in our district and so when you take the four students that we're talking about there and you add that to the twenty six outplacement we budgeted for that gets to and any of you can go check you'll see a number thirty on an old PowerPoint of mine that I talked about with thirty out place news so students at AAAS do not cost anywhere near out placement their your more typical it's a regular education setting so they're more typical they might have speech services they might have a learning disability focused in the language arts area math area those kind of things weren't magnet schools charging us our prorated share we have we have a base tuition we pay yeah I think it's 43 students then if students receive special education the sending town is responsible I just have a couple of questions pretty quick dr.
Brio you had a kid yesterday you mentioned yes to the program so if I go back to page three where do we have that child is he already in the 12 new students that know so he's not an unknown already but his cost is under corrects okay so is he so he's not a five unknown it could be a six unknown so this is where it's very important as part we knew this would come up as part of this conversation is naturally brought up so thank you for the question so to Gina's point that student has not been evaluated the situation is very simple I said three in the last week they are not accounted for in this additional anticipated potential 245,000 it could be more than that and we've got to tell you that you need to know right those things change I want to be clear I appreciate that marker the next page on page four we have we have students costing us four outplacement anywhere from fifty seven hundred dollars to one hundred fifty five fifty five thousand dollars how much help policeman do you get for $5,700 I don't understand it seems like that should be higher disease does 26 and may have just been summer services so we've helped place summer services for a kid in the summer that we wouldn't during the school program because we don't have staffing during the summer season for him we're sorry sometimes I was on duty sometimes a student finishes up at the end of the summer so for example a student might be or they might come back so what I'm looking at these numbers these include last summer's special which would be part of this current fiscal year correct just a couple could this also be where still has needs have changed yes yes go to him back to district efforts so that they can come back with a budgeted almost 20 grand hear me all because I was assuming it wasn't that thank you page five your first item is out for service coverage for an employee on the house or services cost us roundoff $139,000 are we getting some savings from the teacher being on leave or is this a teacher that we're still paying a full salary - we are payments we are getting some savings with them nearly that much and that is in which is 10 right 189 it's in the 1 thank you mark can I expand on that just for a second I think it's very important with the nursing services and the speech services that we're talking about when we're in areas that speech is a recognized shortage area of speech teachers in Connecticut nursing it's hard to find school nurses pay is very different in hospitals and other care facilities compared to school nurses many are attracted to the school schedule and working with children in terms of becoming school nurses but that's a minority of candidates usually when you cannot find a long term sub for a speech teacher like this for example you spend on an outside vendor to provide those services and they charge quite a bit more and we don't have a choice we must provide the services to the students and so you're in a you're in a real pickle they're in situations like that and that's why it cost so much but certainly the teacher doesn't make that kind of money I I appreciate that we will have a discussion about outside vendors but that's not for tonight it's not good to do it specially you know that's coming I'm sure and I think I only had one other question you mentioned that we could help you you talked about getting insurance coverage for special ed students how does that work what would you so we're really taking a look at we're gonna be working with legislature don't be talking with Steve quite a bit one of the things and sometimes it happens often times most of the time it doesn't when the the insurance health insurance company a family's health insurance plan it could cover mental illness and so if there are and it's not for all of our special education through the students certainly but students with these profound emotional needs we would like to see families going through their health insurance we can't mandate that so there you go and so you use there's a lot there and it isn't for an entire year it might be a short term but stay there saving somewhere so there there's work we need to do there go ahead so I'm assuming you're handcuffed is to probably a bad term but mandated what you can or can't ask parents for whatever so but you guys are working on that we will work on that and I don't know that that is anything that would be a solution in the near term no yeah I wasn't suggesting I'll get me and just one other thing just a pet peeve of mine some of you have heard before other professional services of twenty four thousand dollars other variances of $459 all other variances of almost sixteen thousand dollars I like seeing line items don't lump things together I want to see what that stuff is I don't want to speak for everybody here but I think none of that is cheap I'll go now cuz I think that leads into what I want to say all right let's go to the proactive side of this now we've talked about the problems here I agree with mark on your page that you broke down the students and the pluses and the minuses that's great I'd like to see that for the salary lines and make sure we're talking real numbers as real as we can get that we can tie back to we can look it looks like right now as you stand today you need an X beyond the non lapsing funds of 177 you need two hundred eight thousand dollars now we know are pretty low well bezels right now yes absolutely Helen I'm a firm believer in you can't control the uncontrollable as you can control what you can control okay so this falls into my opinion so there's gives and takes everywhere in life right so we do have that will not affect the town side of operations which Steve gave me the numbers today on the teachers pension that we appropriated the eighty nine five out of there's still forty five thousand seven thirty two left there we have from the extra ECS grant money we have another one eighty 206 zero that was we budgeted for it between Steve and the Board of Finance last year we have a one eighty two surplus we've under budgeted the amount we were getting back from the state that would leave us with two hundred twenty seven thousand seven ninety two dollars that would not affect and see if you can step on my toes and almost speaking out of school that would not affect the town budget whatsoever now what I would be willing to consider is again we're looking at all these costs and the big numbers is if we were to procreate that 2:27 as a whole number I know it's more than the 208 now hear me out that would also alleviate you to do some manipulating between the extended duty maybe you could support that or support some of your supplies that you spent freeze thank you it's under consideration I understand Alice I think say thank you for the collaboration this also leads into we need help when we get to the next section of the 6.8% increase that the fear we're trying to we got to work together to find the solutions is what I'm trying to say so late now you don't have time and again and you go up and correct me if I'm speaking out of turn to is these are uncontrollables you can't steer the boat or land the plane as Bob used to like to say on short runway but we do have time to try to work together for next year's budget to get that number down a little bit where we can work together so I would be personally in favor of doing those appropriations to get you to 27 if you come back with the backup data like we asked for give me the the salaries give me the numbers that tie up the savings the free savings just make it work where the numbers 17 numbers add up to one eighty nine whatever seventeen fifty twelve I would be willing to consider for me my supposition to appropriate the 227 that wouldn't affect I mean if we get good back at Steve right well yes I see your point I would support the two hundred eight thousand and the reason being is if we have to go for a special appropriation or if we have to which I don't think we will or if we have to hit the general fund it looks really bad to the rating agencies I want to stay within our existing budget and find savings wherever we pass because we're gonna be borrowing sixty three million dollars in the next two years and we want to be able to show to the wall street and to the rating agencies we handle our problems we handle them within our budgets we do not hit our general fund so I would support the 208 at this point I'm just afraid we're gonna have more expenses here we're going to III my thing is they got to help out with the 265 on the other side too we don't have that this is what I'm saying is this 227 does not affect our town operations budget right now that doesn't affect you doing anything outside of the budget this is money they don't have we set aside for this is a budget it's in the budget and it's not being it it's not being utilized or designated for any of your services I I don't know on the 265 sign of things where we can go to help out with the appropriation other than go into general fund if we get that far right I don't and again I think I'll eNOS if she's she hated the fact we're freezing some of these supplies and everything else in the curriculum rating alone I mean that's that's an issue year after year it seems to be one of the first things that gets hit and you know we keep implementing new curriculum but if the teachers aren't supported what's the point of having it and and that really doesn't put us towards the future and keep us in line with where educational goals need to be so I have more in favor of the 227 and try to reduce some of these freezes I mean this 158,000 is that if we freeze the end of the year or is that up to this best reason to the end of the year we're not even halfway through the year now I mean that less than halfway through yeah that seems unreasonable I mean and again we all said to look at the majority of the students in the district too and not be taken away from their educational experience so I'm more in favor of the 227 thank you those actually you know reduce what you can but not freeze everything and and not you know have those lesser impact on the rest of the students so we know we're looking for absolutely looking at at 265 thousand and possibly potentially three more so some of them are gonna fall into something some of them are going to need to so be careful is that fair to say we were gonna have it's not zero there's gonna be something that yes all right thank you so into my mind's eye we're doing a financial disservice to the town if we don't we have almost no there $19,000 we've given the 208 we'd have almost another 19,000 to help start offsetting that I mean we know we have more costs coming but they also have more savings coming you were anticipating more savings on your salary lines possibly as well to help offset probably so this is where but again I I say this and part of this is uncontrollable it comes down to next year's budget as well as that six point five or a six point eight numbers a big number that we'd like to see if we can get that done it I'd like to see the process go the way it was set out to go the Board of Ed sets a budget we can't keep it tight as we can keep it and you come to the Board of Finance of the board of selection for appropriations instead of getting a big number let's try to get it down and work together on the appropriation side of this instead of having excess or dealing the numbers big that number is a big number we're looking at sure so in terms of it appropriating 208 versus 227 if your thought is well we'll give you the 227 don't do as much cutting on the things but by the way you guys got to go find savings to cover the 265 we're gonna end up having to freeze in anyhow right because it's mechanically you know you have to stay ahead of the curve right we can't wait for another month to find out whether what our costing of me and then start trying to say we have to keep it frozen for the time being so we would actually mechanically have to do the same thing whether you give us either number right so it might be easier just to clear the decks and then we'll come back when we learn more right now you know so appropriate the total amount but don't assume that's going to allow us to unfreeze things or not do the curriculum right and the curriculum writing's mostly in the summer ahead of us any at the beginning of the summer correct no no no it's weekend weekends after school things like that so so I just don't want to set an expectation that that's a magical panacea so that's point and I get that but we don't have a huge contingency fund we only the way yeah right so a special appropriation is still going to need to figure out where that money is coming from unless it's coming straight out at the general fund and I think that's you know to cleanse point that's what we're trying to understand we are very motivated we spent a lot of time on this to find every penny that we can save in order to cover this thing that's coming out of us at us from left field right this is so Glen I I understand your speech don't think we're fighting against that but we're there's not we don't believe there's a lot of additional stuff unless we end up having leaves that we didn't anticipate so I wouldn't presume there's a magical couple hundred thousand dollar just sitting around and so we we need to keep working this minimize to 65 I'll be frank if that's only five kids that's still a lot for a half a year's worth of tuitions right if they happen to be less expensive programs it'll be better I've spoken to mrs.
white on ik and she says she knows the cases and they're pretty significantly the odds are high that we will spend when we do that we have truly come in let's say we do need to outsource some how long does it take to evaluate them and then we have to outsource them how does that work it really depends on the student when they come in what the severity of their disability is the supports that they need I can tell you we go I could I could ramble off a few things here that we let's just take it for example a student who has some difficulty with behaviors we try to take some of the demands off we work with the behavioral therapists we have the school psychologist go into the classrooms and do an ecological evaluation to see what is setting that child off is it specific classrooms is it certain things that are going on in that classroom as the dynamics of the classroom we also look at additional assessments that we could do in-house to see if we could support that student with other academic pieces we provide counseling if needed we look at disciplinary issues is there a pattern where is it happening we look at the academic concerns are they subject related we look at the two programs we have in place can we support the student within the two programs that we have we also provide after-school support which is a focus group for students who need that extra academic support if they're having difficulty getting homework done it's just that's a very simplistic example we look at doing neuropsychological zhh we look at doing psychiatrics so it is a process before we even consider out placing a student because it is again the the most restrictive environment we work with students um so Gina can you four to directly answer mr.
Dunn's question about the exhaustive process you just went through and thanks I'm doing that since it's folks who are not in the business don't understand what it takes by law to grant these decisions this is also working with families how long if a student moved into town tomorrow and came with an individual education plan with many of the needs you're talking about that process you just outlined is there a range from a couple of weeks to two months I don't know that you can share I'm gonna say it's concretely as you can earliest three months three months and if we did have that source and all those programs monthly it depends on the recommendation from if it's that there's a psychiatric that is done it depends on the recommendation of what the programming is it could it could be six months it could be for the year it depends on the student and the recommendation okay we need one addition in there about these specifically that the mid correct me if I'm wrong is the majority of students who are out place are in day type program yes they come home and live with their family yes it's very rare that a student's in a residential campus therapeutic day school yeah therapeutic day support school is the terminology I appreciate it so I'll circle back to five here quick on there you say how you can't control certain cost you looked at things so in my world and I know might be different in your world over time was always something I could control you got forty thousand forty three thousand to the plus current year to pain and overtime that's a controllable item over time that's a choice management decision are these the things you're looking at to to the savings Glenn let's let's look let's just back up here I think your request was let's go into much more detail and look for other areas where we can find savings I'm with you 100% on that right I just want to set expectations we're not seeing it yet but we're gonna do that work we agree with you I thought you know what I would suggest we do is have Ken do an exhaustive under run over run versus where we are now line by line action by action what the to go spend is what's the going rate do all the things that you and I would do in the budgeting world controllable rapid controllable not controllable because the staffing is the 80 percent of our spend and most of that it's its happenstance whether you get savings or not you know some of it it's the rotation of your staffing that's where your to 120,000 yeah and some of it is like for example the example we used as we had a vacancy of our high school head janitor you have to fill that job but if you have two months before you fill it you got some savings right so that's the in fact what's happening that's what I want to see all stack up so we're talking the same thing so we're all on the same page we're 100% with you so absolutely we know what we know so far we'll go bang around on it further right we'll do it mark in exhaustive detail line by line and we'll come back and because we got this 265 to go deal with right I mean your support on this first tranche is wonderful thank you for that so unless that's to the next tranche we know we have to go key findings I think 65 are we just making our best guess based on our experience chantix what we know yeah then are being evaluated right don't eat a lot of detail but how comfortable you argue that 265 is with the current 5 students yes very close very close case scenario ah you believe it will be I that's what I believe it will be but now you think there's three potentially exact correct exactly plus direct mark from our side I'll go back to what Eileen said to about the 265 this money that we talked about tonight is money that like I say doesn't affect the town when we went through the budget process last year Steve to a huge shift and the Board of Finance and his contingency funds he asked for 300 we dropped him down to 50 he doesn't have a lot of room on the town side of any more money so any money above what we're talking about tonight is general fund money we don't really have it in we took away every one of his contingencies last year to get down the budget number so we even look good I just say you gave us a big cut too and and we had to yank a bunch of things out of our budget that we've been tight all year long so we've taken contingency out of a town budget overall you're missing my point tonight point where you are missed my point say there's not any more money that's all I'm saying there's not any extra money left on the town site in the current bunch of races all I'm trying to say is so the problem becomes we got to go to the bank to pick up the tab if we agree to do that it's not a matter of cutting contingencies what I'm saying is there is no no one never never expected on any of this sort of was a contingencies discuss as Steve did mentioned we do have to watch our triple-a ratings it it's very important especially with everything that we're doing and the new school project so it's a pretty big deal so we have to consider all know we it can't shortchange the children I agree what your we've done we have to find a happy medium but at the same time you are you know you're concerned about the triple-a rating well you know it's a big deal to talked about it laughs so I I understand that that is is your your major concern and I respect that I just want to say that we do not have a contingency and for the past several years we have been using our children's textbooks the curriculum work their supplies our building maintenance as our contingency fund we've had to freeze that in the beginning of the school year so that means all of our goals that are dependent on that just don't happen and so I understand there's no money but what our contingency is directly affects students beyond that number so when we talk about I am I get it but if we have to go deeper we start to directly affect students and we can list off a couple of suggestions I'm sure dr.