001Good evening everyone. This is the June finance and share services committee meeting. We have a packed agenda tonight because we have a lot of contract renewals. I am going to start the meeting with the first item on the agenda which is the monthly attorney fees. Um if any of the board members here have any questions uh we only have uh Bush law attorney fees this month. no poor zero attorney fees which is great. Uh it it feels good to have just one one bill. Um and we got it yesterday. I hope everybody had a chance to review it. I personally don't have any questions. So if nobody else does, we can move right on to the second item on the agenda which is the bill list. Um any questions from the board members on the
002bill list? All right. Um I do I'll but I'll ask it later. I want to ask it out on the bill. Not right now. No, I'll ask it I'll ask it off camera. Okay. I'm not sure. Okay. I I'm just going to um I'm just going to update everybody on the questions I did have that I um asked Miss uh Allen in a premeating was for a couple of checks that we had to do premeating between the meetings that um so as members of the public are aware that we do what is necessary between meetings but most of the bill list that is approved is approved during the board meeting public board meeting. We did have one lacrosse official check sack, but um Miss Alen let me know that that check was lost in the
003mail. It was board approved and so they had to cancel that check and send another one and that's why that happened between board meetings. The other one was something that the board members approved for a team PEP. That was just something that had to be prepaid instead of postpaid. Um just something that um again it was approved by the finance committee chair which is me and the board leadership Mrs. Fabiano. So uh we'll go with those two. And the other question I had on the bill list was for uh Oceanceans Computer Group which is service for $20,000 for message ar uh archiving facility. Then Dr. Leen helped me get the answer for it with uh Mr. Palman. We do use another backup service called CISCloud. But this is more for legal purposes. The ability of
004this service is very different from the one in syscloud which helps us back up Google and Microsoft accounts. So this is more from a legal perspective uh to put you know the long story short and those were all my questions. So if nobody else has any other questions we are going to move on to the next item on the agenda. Miss Allen, if you could talk about the GV deals technology sale. Yes. So, this is um Mr. Feldman will be um holding a sale um through GV deals um in either late August or early September. He plans to sell about 2,300 iPads um and cases and drivers. Um so that will take place that you know since we're doing the iPad refresh this year that is what this um surplus of iPads will be. And
005Dr. Leman could you speak to how often we do the refresh is happening this year but so the refresh is on target now to occur once every four years. That's our refreshment plan as well. Our payment plan is over four years. Our refresh cycle is four years now. Insurance coverage is four years. Everything's the same. So any any community members listening in, this is when your iPads, your children's iPads need to come in because they refresh. 2300 iPads will get refreshed in the month of July. Uh and so this committee is going to authorize and move it forward to the board to um sell these iPads on govdees.com, which is where we get the refurbishment money from. Is that all on the agenda item? All right. The next one is least riches update. Wow, we're
006on number four out of five. We're barely five minutes into the meeting. We're going at rocket speed today. I'm done with curriculum in what? An hour. An hour. Please don't say it was because I wasn't here. I'm wearing my Monroe Senior Mom t-shirt because I just came from a volleyball game. But that was the reason I wasn't here today. Yesterday. Um so lease purchase update. Would you please let us know? So, um we are looking to um have a lease purchase of equipment of in the amount of 1.6 1,623,000 this year. Um that would include a computer equipment, a copier, instructional equipment, some water bottle refilling stations, textbooks, um floor scrubber machines, AEVs. Um and that's pretty much it. Um so what will happen then is we will go you know ask the board to
007approve this to go forward with this on Wednesday. Um we'll publish um advertisement for um the financing notice um for the bid. Um July 23rd we would have the financing bid opening. July 30th we would ask for the board to approve the um the bid award. And then July or August 15th, we would expect to have the um the closing on finance. And that is when we can start to spend uh the money. So, uh just so that everybody knows, June is when we close our financial year and July is the beginning of our next financial year and that's when this lease purchase happened. Um, Miss Allen, do you want to um um highlight the fact that this is the first year in a lot of years that we've not had to purchase a bus?
008Yes. Um, yes. It is I I'm not sure how many years, but it's been quite a few years since um we that we have been purchasing school buses. Um several school buses usually every year and it's the first year we don't have to. So, um so it is a little less this year. Um, but we kind of filled it in with the textbooks, which we don't normally lease purchase. Um, and it's it's the lease purchase. So, it's it'll be a five-year lease that will make payments over the five years. And um, the items that are in the lease purchase are um considered capital equipment items that last at least five years. And that's why they're not like consumables that we would just use in one year. So, we don't put those in the budget as
009a one-year thing. So it kind of lines um we the life of the equipment um lines of the payments right. So what I what additionally I want to highlight is that this 1.623 million is part of our 2526 budget. And uh because we did not force the purchase of a school bus um we got smart in the way we put that money into our budget for consumable that will last us 5 years. So I did raise my eyebrows on floor scrubbers and laminators, but it it goes to say that we were smart enough to do what we do typically every year and it's a process that we are very familiar with. It helps us extend our money and we are able to get equipment and textbooks and instructional material including you know stuff like AED
010which would then become a budget line item without even without the lease purchase. So, because we don't have to buy a bus, it just helps us get that much extra money into uh to use tours, smaller line items, but it helps definitely helps the bottom line of the budget, which we're balancing on pennies. So, I I had no concerns with this. Does anybody on the committee have any concerns with this? Excellent. We'll move it over to the main board. The next item on the agenda is the annual contracts and we have quite a few of those and one of my asks for Miss Allen was that if anything uh that any any provider service provider or any software tool services um if we are going to go over 3% annual increase year-over-year we would like
011to know what but besides that most of these are renewals. rules. They are not new. Uh so, Miss Allan, all yours. Help us walk through this. Do you want me to walk through each one or just the ones that are over 3%. That would be a question for rescue board members. Would you like I think 55 contracts are Let's go over what's So, the reason I I use the 3% benchmark is that it um it's just industry practice. Usually everything goes up by almost 3% year-over-year and if it's over that then it it gives a pause to see what it is and why it is higher than 3%. And so I think we can focus on those ones and then I do have a couple that I have a question on that we can discuss
012later. So anything that's over 3% if you could just touch on those for now. Well that would be simple because there's only a couple. Um, so one of them that's over 3% is Genesis Student Information um program. Um, that's 5% increase from last year, which is $1,340, but it is a 5% increase on $28,000. Genesis is I believe I can open up $38,000. $38,000. What does that entail? status. Can we just go to Genesis to add some fory? This is different. So, this is just the student portion, the student information portion of Genesis. The um we did just go into the HR um portion of Genesis and that was $25,000 which we paid in this in this school year. And then next year it will be $5,000. Not next year, but the following year $5,000.
013No, next year it's free. No, next year is free. the following year will be a $5,000 um annual maintenance fee on that, but that's not included in this 38,000. So, this is 38 is just the flat for services that we've had for years on data. Yes. So, we have um the student information system. Um and there's different um interfaces that will pay for that add that um you know add up to that that total amount. They're about $350 each, but the main the main um program really is the 26,000 for the um Yeah, 26,000. 38 is what I'm looking at. 38. The full amount is 38. The total amount is 38. Oh, the main pro. Yeah. And the others are the smaller is the is the tie. Yeah. Yep. So that's that that is one.
014Um if I can just highlight so what Miss Allen said was the student information annual maintenance fee is about $28,000 for the next year's contract but then we we tie in Genesis to several other software that we use like linkit the Apple school manager the lunch tracking student student bus frontline IP interface as absence management. All of those, just to name a few, all of those have a $350 to $700 um rate added to those tieins into those which helps us get everything in one place. Um the other um one if I can pause you for a second. So they are 5% but have they traditionally been 5%. Genesis, why are they by Is this an anomaly year or they typically um Oh, for 2324 it was $37,000. Um total. Um last year 30 for
015this year was 36,000. So now this year was 36,000. Yeah. I think we were also interfacing more. Yeah, if you look at the the interface, I think we the bus piece has always been there. Um, we have we're linking it with link now. So, there's $350. I don't know if Link was necessarily in the build for last year, the new thing that we've added. Right. Right. Right. There was a lesson planner that I think we didn't use that we used before. So every like now this year we have another I think two interfaces that we didn't have last year. So we've added that. Um so every year to change a little bit the difference is 585 over the 5% increase. So it could either be that their increase was slightly lower and we added a
016couple more integrations. It was a 5% increase plus we added $1340 in new integrations. So it technically it's more than 5% but we've added those two things. That makes sense. Yeah. I don't have any more. Um the other one is CI group. Um they're hourly. The architects that we use um a lot. You use them a lot. Yes. Um the principal rates remained the same but just some of the other rates um have increased um in various various percentages um third six and we pay them after they render their services. Yes. Okay. So you're talking about the rate increase in percentage. Yeah. We use it as needed. As needed. Yeah. So the principal rate hasn't changed but and that's who we normally use is the principal um right and then we have the architect other
017um architect project man we don't really use it we use the architect and the principal so there the princ the architecturally increased between the range um from 120 110 an hour 110 to 155 an hour to 125 to 165 an hour but so that's That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Any concerns? Any questions? Definitely one of our uh go to um service providers. Uh but given that the principle that we use the most is the same. Yep. I don't have anything to Okay. Um and the only other one that increased over five point or over 3% was the New Jersey um school jobs which we had used for unlimited advertising. Um and that's it's a small amount to begin with. Um so it's 5.5% increase which is only do they have any competitors that increase? So
018it's really not a substantial amount of money. So the other ones that you know have may you may see increases are the ones the student services certain evaluations or hourly fees have gone up more than that and that's just what's going on there. Um but those are the ones that we pay once those aren't our annual decided amount. These are people that we pay as Y. So that's really it. Everything else has remained under the uh 3%. Okay. So let me start with the good news. So Comcast Comcast contract uh there was a reduction. We went down I think from 10,000 to 7,000 or something like that. I I don't know. I can look at the exact numbers but there's a reduction significant reduction in the monthly payment. And um I was having a conversation
019in the premeating and Dr. just informed me that there's a reduction in the rates like Comcast, which is great news. Um, and I think that's a great saving monthly on that contract. And Mr. Feldman said we have slightly increased bandwidth and the reduced rates. So, we're getting a little bit more bandwidth. Wow. And it's cheaper. It gets better. Yep. But he's he's he believes it's just the competitive bidding out there, right, for Comcast and their competitors. and and I knew that it happened at personal level but to know that it happened at enterprise levels is is definitely good news uh for the district. The one that another one that I saw that was new I believe um added recently with energy for America is um I believe they're used for BAS and HBAC management. What
020is BAS? Remind me. So, um, building modification system. That's I'm looking at the I'm looking at the the I think it's in that contract. Yeah, it's on page two at the bottom. says buildings and BAS installations included and then it says brand included building automation system. So I'm Oh, you're right. It could be building. What they're doing is they are they automate the temperature control. Right. Right. And they do that. We've been using them for a long time. Right. So their contract price for the year is $173,000 832. And the reason I I had this marked up for a question was that the contract says and maybe I didn't pay attention in the previous years was that it gives us back $4.20 for per program fee. Is that program fee like per dollar of the
021program fee? Is that the $173,000 or is program fee something else? And I think what I'm reading is in the first page of the contract. Historically, the program's annual saved energy value is over 420, sorry, over $4.20 per dollar program fee and the contract charges are $173,000 832. Um it it it it just sounds like great uh value to me, but I just wanted to make sure that and they did have some caveat on, you know, they they're being conservative on these numbers because they don't know how the new HVAC will behave in in Apple. So I just wanted to know historically and and this could be answered over email later by Mr. Okay. But is that what our savings have been by being in, you know, by using these EAS systems uh with Energy
022for America? Have we been historically seen? And what is what does program fee mean? Does it mean the $173,000 or does it mean something else? Um I would I would discuss this with Mr. T. more familiar with this um the details. Sure. No, and I my interpretation I believe is like yours. Yeah, I think you can confirm it, but I think if we put out that 173, we should get we should be saving for every dollar we put out, they anticipate us saving $4.20 per dollar we put out. And this is just through the automation systems in every building that regulates temperatures for us. Yeah. which is why like at five o'clock if the building isn't scheduled for something the air turns off you know and so we contact a minion staff member custodian if
023we have a night event they contact energy for America they turn heat back on they turn the AC back on they we could schedule it to leave on but other than that the buildings are automated to and all of our buildings all eight buildings plus any other yeah that is my understanding we can confirm because I know we've done some recent updates with parts of the middle school and We just have to make sure the new stuff is connected. Um, they have a square footage piece, but we just make sure all the new input inputs we have are synced to the old ones that we still have in the building and that those systems can both be regulated. So that's my interpretation of it. I don't know if that's No, I'm just glad I read
024that from Mr. and I'll wait for you to let me know, but it's just it was just one of the questions on one of the contract that I had. Everything else seems pretty straightforward. Anybody else have any questions on any of the other contracts? And given that I was on curriculum, I'm on curriculum. Uh I didn't have any concerns with the contracts proposed there. So, um but you know, any of you that are not aware of it can bring your concerns to the board meeting. But any other concerns, any questions? 22 minutes into the meeting. What? It's a record. I know. We're setting records this this month. June. All right. That brings us to the conclusion of the finance and shared services meeting. Oh, wait. What question? Never. I changed it. So, one last question
025or discussion. One of the contracts that we are approving tonight is the graduation venue contract for curing. And um I did have a premeating uh ask for this. I'm not sure if Miss Allen uh has been able to hear back from that. Were you able to hear back? Oh, I did not hear and but I talked to them uh actually right before the meeting. Uh and they'll they're reaching out to get the number. They just don't have that back. So So um as a background to everybody here, um the contract is for Cure Arena again for the graduation ceremony of 2026. the the amount in the contract is $16,500 plus any additional services and the only additional service we've taken historically is videography which is $300. So our graduation costs for that venue are under
026$17,000. Um I did my ask to the administration was to price Jersey Mike's arena again because we had contemplated using them last year. The reason we did not use them last year because their costs came to close to42,000 $42,000 relative to the $17,000 that we're looking at. So we have asked Dr. patience from the Monroe High School to have a conversation again with Rutgers to see what their cost is um for transparency purposes that we are not choosing cure Arena for any other reason but because it's a fiscally responsible uh location to use. Um we hopefully before the board meeting we will have that number uh for the Jersey Mic Arena for 2026 graduation. But given that last year's number was $42,000 and this year's number for Cure Arena is still $17,000 uh this committee
027is going to move forward with that recommendation for the board to approve uh in the June board meeting. And that was the last thing. And with that we come to the conclusion of the finance and share services committee meeting. Have a good night everybody. Thank you.