001Mr. Hy here. Mrs. Ivort here. Mr. Rodiv here. Mrs. Phil here. Mr. West here. Can I have a motion to dispense with the agenda? Second call, please. Mrs. Eyeball. Yes. Mr. Gordon. Yes. Mr. Philpot. Yes. Mr. West. Yes. Yes. Go ahead. That's okay. All right. Very good. Okay. Well, good evening everyone. Uh thank you for being here. Uh exciting times obviously this evening. Uh the last time we embarked on this journey was nearly 30 years ago and it's here right every other district in Hamilton County has embarked on a similar journey since the last time we did which was in 1997. Talk about our facilities. A huge shout out and thank you to all of our partners. We'll talk about them specifically here in a minute. Uh but realize you know this evening is a
002discussion and this evening's discussion is adopting a master plan. What does that mean? What that means is is we need to identify what we want to do for the future of our district, but not down to necessarily the specific level of this building or that building, but that time is coming very, very quickly, very quickly. We've talked about this uh really this process started February a year ago, February 2024 when OFCC showed up here with their first discussion. So again, this evening's discussion is really just moving forward with the process. We are going to get into great detail. We're going to get into great detail on a recommendation that would come from the board potentially here at the June meeting in two weeks. So this evening is again just to reiterate is really just to
003get thoughts, ideas on adopting this plan, sending this plan up to the state and then we have a couple weeks to actually formally identify what we want to do out of the entire portion. Does that make sense? Okay. So again, exciting times. Thank you all for being here this evening. Uh really first and foremost, first and foremost, I know you're here. Okay. So, again, huge shout out and a huge thank you first goes out to obviously our board for embarking on this endeavor. Um, but certainly as well the community and we spent a ton of time with our community getting feedback. We sent surveys. We met with small groups. We met with large groups. We met at Delh High when there was an inch and a half of snow on the ground. Uh so I
004see several community members here that were part of our original group which was a community advisory team. So a huge thank you for your time and this process is going to continue. Maybe that's good news for you, maybe it's not. Uh but we really really appreciate everything that you've done for our community and our district. So we do have partnerships uh certainly the partnership with our local community advisory team we have partnership with SHP and so thank you SHP as this journey evolves and continues SHP has led us in those community engagements they've not only led us in our community engagements uh they've really sharpened their pencil and and held OFCC the state of Ohio um held them accountable quite frankly they said you know if numbers don't seem where they need to be they
005really push them on enrollment they really push them on subdivision developments. We have we have some pockets of development in our community and all of those numbers are essential to coming back to securing as much funding as we can from the state which obviously reduces our local funding that we have to contribute to this project. Another shout out and a huge thank you uh so Jeff Parker um Charlie John, Mike Parkinson, Frank Forsel, thank you for being here this evening. Thank you for all of your help uh this evening as well. Um, a shout out to Shout out to our three partners on the financial sector as well as legal sector. So Greg Ruy with Dinsel uh they are a legal counsel when it comes to the bond issue recommendations as well as Brain Adviser
006Annie Brart back there. Thank you for being here this evening as well as our underwriter partnership with RBC Capital. All of these partners have publicly been communicated in previous meetings but again I on behalf of the board we really appreciate everything that you've done during this process a little bit slow on the catching up here. So, let's jump right into it. We've talked about this many, many different times. If you come to meetings, I know we're playing a little bit of catch-up for the public that's as that's watching this on video. Just understanding we've spliced this a number of different ways. Historically, I've I've spliced the dollar allocated on how we spend funds in our school district. Um, how we allocate our resources. I've used buckets. Uh, this evening, we're just going to use a
007basic pie chart on how we allocate our resources. So, how we're allocating our resources is you can see here obviously the mission of our district is our general fund to educate students. 79 cents on the dollar goes directly to instruction uh personnel, utilities, just daily operations of our district. That 79 cents is consistent with any school district in the state of Ohio. Public school districts, just like most governmental entities, are service-based industries. The largest portion of our mission falls in personnel to obviously provide high quality education to our students. 13% up there is our permanent improvement fund and then our debt service fund represents 8%. Uh to jump into a little bit greater detail on what these funds represent. Apologize slow. So again, really just hitting home on these different areas of our district and
008how we allocate our resources. So if we break this down further and we look specifically at we're not talking this evening about our general funds. It'll it'll intertwine in some portion this evening, but but the focus of this evening again is on our two other funds. our infrastructure fund which is our permanent improvement fund and our debt service fund which represents eight cents on the dollar. So specifically let's jump into our PI fund our permanent improvement fund and permanent improvement fund at that 13 cents on the dollar. You can see here that with the permanent improvement fund our revenue is relatively stable. So in the PI fund you can see anywhere between seven and a half and $8 million. That's pretty locked. Okay. So when we look at that annually every five years um for
009the most part you might see a slight increase if we have reappraisals but for the most part that number is is stagnant at 7.5 to to $8 million approximately. Conversely on the expenditure side of the world our expenditures fluctuate. So our PI fund includes things like we've talked about buses, roofs, pavements, um uh any sort of technology curriculum. So we have things on site. So why I bring this up is is while revenues are stagnant, our expenditures seem to be relatively volatile depending on, you know, if we have a chiller that we need to replace, so on and so forth, our expenditures can can really fluctuate in our 5-year forecast year to year. And why is that important to know? Because as we look forward and try and vision out not only 5 years but
010we look past 5 years it becomes very difficult really to project exactly how much we're going to u be budgeting for in our PI fund. Again going in a little bit greater detail on what we spend our PI fund on. Again I mentioned personnel operations tech transportation. Uh it's important to note that we do have some debt out of our PI fund. Uh we have some debt out of our PI fund for the high school auditorium project uh the LED project uh energy conservation project and those are locked. So those debt payments depending on which one of those three those debt payments mature as quick as 2030 uh or they may extend into the 2040 2045 range auditor fees and then I think what the crux of this evening's conversation is is are we interested
011in borrowing any more out of our PI funds. Okay, and we'll get into that in greater greater detail here. So we're going to hit hit on that OFCC borrowing here uh this evening as well. The other item that you see up there is the half mill requirement. If we go on the ballot in November and anytime a district goes on the ballot and you accept OFCC dollars, Ohio Facility Construction Commission state dollars, if you accept state dollars, there's a requirement that you have a half mill set aside for maintenance. Okay? That's not going to be in addition to our bond issue. we can absorb that cost in our PI fund. That make sense to board. Okay. So, borrowing from the PI funds I mentioned down at the bottom there, the OFCC borrowing. Okay. What do
012we currently have baked in our forecast? How much do we have the ability to borrow right now comfortably in our forecast? If we want to borrow for a bond issue and we want some of that borrowing to come from the PI fund, we have 10 and a half million built in. So you have a bond issue community would vote on and then you could borrow from the PI fund which the district would just embark on issuing data out of the PI fund which would not be part of the ballot language or anything like that. Okay. But just like the high school auditorium was a part of the ballot language, you have the ability for Ohio revised code to issue debt moving forward. So we have 10 and a half million currently set aside over 30
013years in our PI fund. All right. Terms, thank you Andy and thanks to RBC as well. Terms are 5%. Um and so the annual obligation on that is about 683,000. So through the work and collaboration with our with our district office directors, uh we are in a comfortable position with the 683,000 that we're able to make that bond payment, make that annual debt payment for 30 years. If you're saying, "Wow, you know, you have you have almost $700,000 just sitting around." Well, the answer is no. We don't have $700,000 sitting around. The answer is, as I mentioned earlier, we have debt from one of our energy projects that will be rolling off in 2030. And so once that rolls off in 2030, that's to the tune of about $330,000. That will help alleviate and assist
014in picking up this cost here. Very important to understand anytime that you're going to issue any sort of debt out of the PI fund, we talked about this with the community advisory team, certainly with the board, there's a state match. There's a state share. And so if you're looking at the state share, the state's simply going to ask us how much are you going to fund locally? They don't care where it's coming from locally. It could come from a bond issue. It could come from the PI fund. They just want to know what is the amount that you are going to fund locally. And so certainly in this case, anytime you fund something, the estimated amount that the state's going to kick back to the district is 60%. So we've we've talked about that number
015quite a bit. Um and so the 60% on the dollar uh certainly is part of issuing debt fund as well. So if we look at an example right now, I mentioned we're issuing 10 and a half on our forecast. So what does that mean as far as dollars and cents? Um you can see the three examples that'll be coming up here. If locally we fund 5 million, the state's going to give us an additional 7.5 million. If we fund 10 million, the state's going to give us 15 million. And then of course at the bottom if we fund a little bit out of our comfort zone and we go up to about 15 million uh the state's going to kick in 22 million. So that's something certainly that we're going to have to consider and
016wrestle with uh that these are funds directly from the state uh that our local community would not have to uh would have to fund. But again right there in the middle at that 10 to 10 a.5 million is currently what we have built in our forecast uh as of today. So then the question comes in, can we afford to borrow more than 10.5 million? And really that's what we're that that's part of the discussion this evening and can we go above that? We can go above that. Uh there is going to be some risk tolerance involved with doing that. And we'll talk about that v those variables about what that risk is. is if you want to borrow any more than 10.5 million, if you want to borrow 12, 13, 14, 15 million, what some
017of the options are that are available uh this evening. So, really the focus that our community advisory team came back to our board with, their input, so on and so forth. And keep in mind, there was many, many moving factors, many moving parts. Uh, I know our board, I know our administrative team, certainly SHP did not commit to anything throughout this entire process because it's evolving. As I mentioned, SHP did a nice job of having the state uh sharpen their pencil and so the numbers become fluid, but they're becoming more into focus really this evening. So, looking at these three schools, um, and again, not committing for the board, but these are our three oldest schools, uh, in no particular order, Bridgetown, Delh High, and Spring Meer. Those are our three oldest buildings. Uh, Delh
018High will be, uh, 100 years old next year. So, certainly some aging facilities, but as a resident of Oakills, that doesn't really resonate with me that you have older facilities. If if that this is personally Steve speaking if that's the sole reason why you are going out for new facilities uh for me personally I struggle with that explanation uh there are other explanations as well namely capacity is becoming an issue uh operating costs are becoming an issue um and I should jump back to we're all aware of some pockets of those developments so for example trailside village over there trailside over by uh Zip Dip and and Dwy's over there in that Harrison corridor Harrison Westwood northern corridor uh they're in they're estimating they being Green Township uh is estimating over 180 single family homes
019uh in that subdivision alone. So, we're already at capacity issues uh in some of our buildings and so that becomes certainly a problem along with again the operating costs uh with the aging facilities. So, jumping into dollars and cents, uh if we were to embark on a new Bridtown Middle School, uh what would something like that cost uh the school district? And so Rootstown Middle School uh is coming in at an all-in cost of 45.3 million. You can see our estimated enrollment that we would need for capacity at Bridgetown Middle School would be 630 students. Uh current enrollment is 617 students. So that 45.3 million is all in cost. Uh keep in mind that assuming that the community supports a levy in November, uh there is a year to a really 12 to 18 months
020of design before shovels actually go in the ground. And that's very very very important to understand that, you know, assuming our community supports an issue in November, shovels don't go in the ground in January. But why is that important? That's important because of things like tariffs, things like labor costs, things like inflation, and so on and so forth. There are variables here that are unknown by the time the shovels go in the ground. And oh, by the way, when the shovels go in the ground, it's not turnkey, obviously, on that day or that month. You're still, you know, you're looking at a 12 to 18 month, if that's fair to say, for construction for construction or maybe long two and a half years. I apologize. So, two two and a half years. So the purpose
021of this slide is is that built into this 45.3 million and allin cost for Bridgetown Middle School is assuming a 20% increase uh for things like market volatility um inflation so on and so forth. Uh that number includes allin as as of our best estimate today and certainly it's been a wild ride in the economy for the last 5 to 10 years and that projection um as of today is a reg reasonable projection with the 20%. But that is all in cost including demo utility soft cost permits um architect fees so on and so forth 45.3 million. If we move to Delh High Middle School, similar exercise. Uh the total for Delhigh Middle School is going to come in at 37.3 million. Again, the capacity of the new building and the current enrollment are again
022relative from a percentage perspective. Um you know, with current enrollment here at Bell Middle School. And then the final option uh is Spring Meer Elementary. And so Springmire Elementary, uh, we have increased the enrollment at Spring Meer Elementary. Again, I just mentioned some of the subdivisions that are being developed over in Green Township. Uh, and you can see the increase in enrollment is moving from 4 433 up to 550. Uh and the total price tag on that's 33 million uh all-in cost. Obviously the spring wire has a little bit of leeway if again it all comes down to risk tolerance. There is a little bit of wiggle room on spring wire if you're interested in potentially uh reducing that enrollment uh slightly. Okay. So, we have the options up here of Bridgetown, Delh High, and
023Spring Wire. Let's talk about the options that are available. Okay. And before we talk about that, we already talked about the total cost for each of those. How much would a bond issue fund an entire project? So, just to shoot to the chase, it's looking like potentially we would be able to fund potentially in the first round two of those three buildings. Okay. A potential levy in November would generate 68.5 million. So, that could certainly tackle one building on its own. But again, by potentially looking into borrowing from our PI fund, there may be an avenue to potentially have two buildings completed in the first round. So, let's look at the options that are available to us. Uh, certainly two middle schools is an option and then we have Delhigh Spring Meyer and then Bridgetown
024Springer. So, two of the three. So, let's start with two middle schools and you can see the price tag on two middle schools is $82.6 million. So, about $83 million. Okay, for two middle schools. All right. Again, we will receive local funding of 68.5 million, which leaves an outstanding obligation of 14 million. This comes back to the risk tolerance that we talked about from do we want to exceed or borrow more than 10.5 million out of our PI funds. Everybody following? Okay. So obviously to give any sort of buffer at all uh you would need to borrow it would be recommended to borrow 15 million. A lot of contingencies a lot of variables. If the number comes in under 20% we have 20% built in as a contingency. If it comes under 20% then obviously
025we have some excess and some wiggle room. Nobody knows what that's going to look like because again that's several years down the road. If we're looking at Delh High and Springwire, I'm sorry, let me back up. So, let's take into consideration. Let's talk about two middle schools. What's the benefit of two middle schools? Just like anyone does, you look at your pros and your cons of two middle schools. Obviously, two middle schools makes a lot of sense for a number of reasons. Okay, remember what I mentioned. Anytime we borrow something or I'm sorry, anytime we issue local dollars, whether it's through a bond issue or the PI fund, the state's going to match. Okay? So, if we need to borrow 15 million, we can secure an additional 7 million from the state. That's $7 million
026that we would not have if we only issued 10.5 million. If we issue 15 million, we're borrowing almost five more, which the state's saying, okay, I'll look at your overall overall funding from the local community, just increase by 5 million from 10, 10 and a half up to 15. So, that's certainly a benefit that we could secure additional funding from the state at 7 million. Uh certainly, this is the cleanest approach. Uh you have two middle schools. It takes care of the entire middle school level with obviously Rapid Run being our newest school in the district that 27 years. Uh but you would now have all three middle schools would be addressed. Um obviously two of our three oldest buildings would be addressed. You would touch both sides of our district in Green and Delh
027High Township. This was the recommendation of our community advisory team uh prior to getting additional numbers that have come back recently within the last few weeks. This was uh also the largest response from our survey respondents. Over 500 responses from our community about 80% supported the two middle school model. Again, this was prior to updated figures coming in here within the last two to three weeks. Uh cons of two middle schools. Obviously, as I mentioned, anytime you're borrowing more from the PI, we're comfortable at 10 and a half. Once we start going north of 10 and a half, uh we're going to have to start having some pressure points, potentially reductions, potentially looking to offset costs, uh or or just delay. Quite frankly, you you may have to delay things like we talked about in
028the infrastructure, uh all of those items that I mentioned uh earlier. Um, and then you know through this process we've discussed potentially high school air conditioning and that has been discussed. Again, nothing has been committed to. But if you're looking at two middle schools at 83 million, again, I had the math up there, but if you have 68 local, you got to make up 15. at 83 million it really leaves a little wiggle room for any sort of additional projects other than brick and mortar um for those two middle schools. So I have a question on that. So I mean if that's the case is I mean you may delay high school air conditioning is highly likely that it would be delayed unless some of these numbers come in less than we anticipate. Right. Good
029question. That is the that's the risk tolerance. So depending on the board's risk tolerance of 20%. Uh the answer is yes. Another another con is um that if we do both middle schools and don't do an updated Spring Meire we're at capacity at a lot of the schools Oakdale and Spring Me if we get a big influx of people with those new subdivisions up there we have nowhere to put them. So, um, since this other project could be eight years behind or 10 years from now, um, that could cause problems. That's another plan. That's the first option. Option A, uh, no priority. Option B, uh, would be looking at a middle school and an elementary. So, we'll start with Delh High and Spring Meer. So if we're looking at Delh High and Spring Meyer, total
030price tag of Delh High and Spring Meer is a little over $70 million. Again, locally funded 68.5 million. So we would need to come up locally uh through our PI fund through borrowing uh approximately 2 million to cover that cost. And again, if there were any other projects that we wanted to embark on, potentially high school air conditioning, potentially other upgrades uh around the district, um we could look into that. Now, what we have to be careful about is the state has communicated to us that there are two buildings that pass their 2thirds recommendation. We've we've talked about that at Nauseium, but the only two buildings where we could use local dollars um and still get potentially a state match or Rapid Run in the high school. So, if we issue dollars from our permanent
031improvement funds and we address any of the seven other buildings, we're not going to get any state funding from that. Why? Because they're saying it needs to be completely replaced. Everybody get that? Okay. So really you would have limited opportunity on what you could use those dollars for um that the state match would be. So again you can see the total price tag there. Uh go through the same uh the same exercise as far as pros and cons for Delh High and Spring Meer. Um certainly at Delh High and Spring Meer uh obviously only at that 2 million outstanding uh it provides more flexibility in our PI fund. uh it doesn't doesn't really push us to that pressure point of of the maximum 15. Um certainly less borrowing obviously addresses two of our oldest building
032and it still accomplishes one of the recommendations from our community advisory team which was touch both sides of our district both Green and Delhigh Township. Um again obviously borrowing less uh would reduce our state match. Um, and then one one item that certainly needs to be taken into consideration if we're looking at brand new buildings at Delhigh and Spring Meer is what about Bridgetown, one of our older facilities in our district, one of our old oldest buildings in our district. What do we do with Bridgetown? Um, and you would then also have eight out of nine buildings that would have air conditioning and Brucetown would not have air conditioning. And so that's been discussed as well. Uh I don't want to speak on behalf of the board or or Mr. Nash. Uh but there could
033be an opportunity uh to potentially look into air conditioning at Bridgetown. Again, I'm not speaking on behalf of anyone. I'm simply speaking from finan a financial lens that we would be able to support temporary air conditioning until phase two of the project came, which is when the state money would arrive several years down the road. And then we we recently installed air conditioning at Spring Meyer. Uh and then you would tear the building down however you're able to move those units if you needed to. So you could you could recycle those units uh to a place of using those same units from Spring Meer into Bridgetown uh in phase uh here in the next several years as Spring Meer was built um on site there. So and I think it's also important to reiterate we
034talked about community advisory team. How do we do something without displacing students? All of these options would would not affect students in their current building. There would not be any displacement of of current students. The final option is Bridgetown Spring Meer. Uh you can see the price tag there at 78. The outstanding obligation of 10 million. Uh and again, you know, that that puts us in a place of, you know, a relatively comfortable spot. Um but at the same time that doesn't address high school air conditioning uh which has seemed to be a theme from our community advisory team of importance to our community. Uh again provides a little bit more flexibility than obviously uh the two middle school option um and addresses our oldest buildings state match as you know. Uh again, similar to
035what we just talked about, Delh High could get air conditioning. Uh but however, you have to realize that you're only impacting one side of our community uh and not both Korean and Delh High Township. So those are the options uh that are available for discussion and let's talk about some price tags and some variables and other considerations. So, high school air conditioning, just to continue on that theme, what's the cost of high school air conditioning? The cost is approximately our estimate and our numbers that we know as of today is $5 million. So, you can start doing the math in your head on those options that we had available if that fits. Uh 68.5 million comes from a bond issue and then anything above 68 and a half is borrowing from our PI um which
036we have 10.5 million built in right now. uh market rate volatility. We talked about that quite a bit. Um I talked about locally funded initiatives which will be coming up here on the screen any second. What are locally funded initiatives? So LFI locally funded initiative uh is an enhancement to your building that is 100% funded by your local community. The state does not pay a dime on it. It's all funded by the locals. So why is that important? So hypothetically if we use the number of let's just say 70 million when I talked about Delhigh and Spring Meer that price tag was about 70 million. Okay? Depending on how much you borrow if if we borrowed to the tune of of 10 million um we have some excess funds available is the best way to
037say it. But what we have to take into consideration are these LFIS. So if the state's not going to co-und and not going to match dollars, I'm particularly looking at this phase right here, phase two. That make sense? So if we want something or we want an upgrade and the state says, "No, that's not in our specs. That's not part of what we have provided you." Well, guess who's funding it? We are. Okay? So, if we're funding it all at 100% locally, we're going to have to be very comfortable in phase two getting used to playing by the rules of the state if we don't have any excess dollars in our PI fund. I know that's kind of Yeah, I got a question about that. So, the uh the funds we give us in phase
038two can only be used for those purposes, right? So, to your point, if there's anything extra we want to do, we have to pay for it on our own, right? So, we have to take that into consideration because if we leverage the PI fund too much in phase one and we don't have anything left in phase two, we could be left unable to do some things that we really want to do in phase two because we just don't have any money. Correct. Right. Or or property acquisition would be another example. If we needed to buy us property because it came down we wanted to do phase two delsh we need to be pro buy property that was all on us. So there really isn't any money left over in certain plans and more money left
039over for LFI in phase two and I I SHB I give you a heads up on this one. So do you have any thoughts? Um and this is all opinion based and I I I don't I don't know much about building construction and and labor and materials. But in your experience is the state model that the state requires and the state specs. Would you consider that a good, better or best? In my experience is is a solid good. Right. So that that creates some some room to you want to skimp a little bit on one thing and go, I'm sorry, it's solid better. Yeah. So, you you you might skimp on something down to the good level. You might push up on some things up to the best level, but your average is that better.
040So, there are some things that they don't cover, right? Like they wouldn't cover gym. Is that right? Auditorium stadium. Okay. It's it's generally also like heavy the best like tozo floors they don't doz they have a good floor they have a better floor which is other products they you know higher than that and above that ter they don't they don't fund metal roofs metal roofs so districts certain communities have a priority to have a metal roof So they then up but a solid a good OFCC budget is can still get you a good like a a great So what what does it just a guess what what does the average district go over the amount allocated by the state I mean is it 5% on the low end would be 5%. That would be the
041low end. We The low end would be 5% and on the high end, you know, 10%. And I I would say those those that exceed the high on the higher end, they are they are probably driven by wanting to add capacity to the buildings, right? And less about kind of finished up material upgrades. So, you know, as we've talked in this room before about the state says you should plan for this this number and apps think we need to plan for this number. So, that is also and and that tends to be that's a very expensive more class rather than going from a $10 floor to a $15 one. Can you think of any other phase 2 expenses that would be LFI that we haven't thought about that they don't cover for whatever reason talking
042about upgrades on flooring space? Anything else? In other words, with certain plans like you look at one plan and we do air conditioning at Spring Meer and and I mean air conditioning at Oak Hills and we do Spring Meer at Delh High, we have about 3.7 million left over. Okay. If we do some other plans, we have virtually nothing left over. Correct. So, I know you say five and 10% is very helpful, but is there anything for sure, you know, definitely covered by the state? They they the one thing that they pay on districts locally is it's there's major cost of dirt. Dirt certainly it's a really great topic soils. So, we're in Hamilton County down even south to southwest Ohio with a lot of clay and so it's tends there tends to be some
043additional costs because our dirt your your buildings are now probably on the best spot. If I were to go behind stream and start digging up it's kind of needs some remediation before you put a building on it. So that's your cost because we can't predict that you own the site. unpredicted stuff that they said on the low end like 5% would be over what what percent of projects have you worked because I know you did a lot where they they've just done what was projected through the base plan he did during CO yeah and it's a great building um you know it had it struggles during COVID and all that and uh it it projected itself really well and got through and on budget. It was on budget. I'm trying to think we had to,
044you know, we when we were going through design one, I think we had to use lower that typically were 14 ft for the floor. So, we had to do like 13 floors. So, there was some strategies designwise, things that you wouldn't perceive per se. Um, but so that we had a very nice, we had breakout building. They were talking about seeing you at one point. I wouldn't recommend that. Brick. Brick was a is typically your standard stock uh appealing uh material for a community and a school district. Um it did not have an auditorium, but it had a a great gym. Uh they wish they could have another. They ended up uh through creative financing ended up doing a fieldhouse to get that second gym. There's certain strategies like that that you could say would
045you say the majority of them go over like I'm just trying to go over budget. No, their their budgets are solid budgets. They're they're very very solid as Mr. B shared it's it's a total it's it's from from the chairs to the pencil servers to the garbage cans and everything in between is in that budget. So um they are very and they're and the other thing is that they are very heavyduty buildings. They are built but they're not a 20-year solution. They are 50 60 70 year long-term solutions. So we have a it doesn't matter what property we have. We have a project we work within the budget to find find the methods. The the thing is that all all things there's good better and best. And in tough times, we side with more being
046just the good level, which Mike's this job that he was referred to, we got hired fall 2019. Everything was peachy and then CO hit and then the cost got out of whack and uh but we we made it happen. So, um it's just we we recommend the 5% because we know most districts say, "Oh, you know, we we we need more special ed accommodations, so we want to do XYZ." We have We want our lobbies to look really nice when they're all building. We want to do that. There there is though, you know, built into the the state's prescribed dollars per square foot. There's a 5% contingency built into that number that that isn't part of that 20% volatility cushion that we that we're recommending. So, okay. So, one last question. So if it's a
047long time before we move on to phase two for whatever reason, okay, they don't come across their money, inflation's gone crazy, etc., then some of those dollars are LFI dollars at that point or do they fund everything the bill they they will fund the credited amount that you earn. So if it goes over that, then we need not necessarily called LFI dollars. We need money from that, right? If you see again is it so let's just hypothetically say the district spent $75 million and your credit on that is I'll just call it 100 really fat numbers they will come you say hey we have $100 million okay let's do a $100 million project from there we would then work with or whoever at that time the district and the state and their adviserss work together
048to carve out that $und00 million job they wouldn't come and say It's 100. It would be you that says, "Oh, well, it's 125. We need to get paid 12 the delta the $25 million, right?" But if you're planning on doing a building, two buildings that you know by the budget that we have that are $100 million and now it's $125 million. That's on us. It would be that's what you want to do. Or they would say, "We're going to give you your 100. Let's figure out a scope to spend the 100." Right. So, we'd have to we'd have to scale down our plans in phase two. Yes. or we should have some dollars left over that we can use to utilize ideally plus the 5%. Yes. Just so you guys Jeff can you talk a
049little bit I know we went through classrooms just to make sure in those plans that we we are on pace to keep the model that we have. So middle schools, I know, you know, we went through core classrooms. We looked at, you know, obviously an art classroom, a book of music, choir, band orchestra. We put in some small group intervention rooms as well as specialized classrooms because obviously we believe it's important that students even in specialized classrooms can rotate back to their home school. As you guys know, right now, in particular, middle school, we, you know, we lost the only one ADA compliant right now. So you just as you're thinking about these plans, they they do include the current models that we have. Okay. And as Steve said, you know, one of the reasons
050we looked at Springmire was twofold. One is that's where the development is. Those students would and families would rotate into Springer to Bridgetown as well as if we wanted to rotate kids back to uh specialized classroom students back to their home school, then that's why you see 550 at Spray. Okay. Um, you know, now again, if we went to 500, there's a savings there, you know, three, you know, 30, I think you say about $3 million in assets, which drops that, which gives us a little more cushion. But, you know, that I would just tell you from my perspective, that would make me a little bit nervous because all the development in the area seems to be that's the boundary line that goes to Spring Bridgetown. So, you don't we don't want to build a
051building too small, then all of a sudden, you know, you start cutting corners there. That that that'll be a bigger issue down the road. um in this community. So that's why, you know, we felt like 550 was was a good solid number to accommodate growth as well as getting students with special needs back to going. So the I just don't understand if there's a big jump for the spring number, why isn't there a big jump for the first time as well? Well, it's a great question, but it's about the model, right? So, you know, right now the middle school model is pretty clean. You got you got two teams per grade level, so you got six foot academic teams. We're we're around 100 to 125 students per class. So your average is you still have
052some room. I got it. You know, we talk about crowding and space. You you know, the likelihood that you're going to pick up, you know, another probably 75 kids out of there is probably unlikely. Our enrollment there has stayed pretty steady. Um but as we mentioned, it's it truly is a spring. It is a space issue. I mean, we we we are packed in there and we've turned I mean, Jason and his team's done an amazing job at turning spaces into small intervention rooms. I I'll just tell you, I mean, I know up on the top floor there's a there's an old tech uh closet and we got students and groups of three working in there and a tech closet with wires and and and so, you know, those things those things we have to
053address at some point, but you know, there is room on teams. You're not worried about trailside impact to Bridgetown. Yeah. Yeah, I mean that's again we we we feel though we we're at 630 right now. We're at 617. We fluctuate a little bit between that 615, 610 and 620. Um but again there that takes to 630 gives us a little more room but we also have still room on the academic teams to if we need additional. Now can we take another 100 kids? Uh probably not. Okay, but we do have some space there and and you know them enrollment studies um you can debate those all day long. It's hard to predict what that's going to produce. You know, it's a projection. I I I can't I don't know birth rates out of trailside. I
054don't know, you know, what families are going to move in. Are they all going to pick, you know, public? Are they going to go proves investors? So, you're you're basically working with a projected number and you try to you try to hit it on on where you need to. But, you know, this this gets into millions of dollars. You know, when you start adding enrollment, you're talking about millions of dollars. You're not you're not talking about $100. It's it's big money. It might be might be an advantage to do a bridge in phase two also because we'll know that you have yeah if it takes off on us we'll have time to adjust and I think that's why since we don't make commitments in particular in phase two until we know what the needs of
055the district are and so with OFCC when you move into like this phase two where we're at a point where they're matching do they reook at enrollment numbers yeah the one thing to be aware of is that we are looking to commit to a certain master plan here soon, but as things change and enrollment changes, they they will actually look at it as many times. Will they up that $und00 million credit because we have more students or just No, you so when you commit to them, we're going to lock in the 619, we're locking in. So that credit is now set and then from there, the only biggest factor for you is enrollment. Um they will add more dollars. There's a 15% growth. Why? K through 12. I see our current roll enrollment at Bridgetown
056is 617. How comfortable are we? What is the current capacity at Bridgetown right now? Do you have that? Our capacity or what FCC capacity is? That's a different number. That's true. as we all know. So I I can't tell you what how many more you can fit in. The OC thinks that Bridgetown has a capacity of 669. And that the new one won't be as big. We at 550. Um we said Bridgetown. So um actually the So currently Bridgetown is 103,000 square ft but that includes roughly 15,000 multi-purpose building. So that puts us call it 90 and we run some math on the on the new bridge cabinet. It's right at 90,000. So we could handle additional students until the phase two comes about. Yeah. If we're somewhat into phase two, if if that's the
057case. Yeah. If that ultimately is where we land, then then again, I think phase two is important when the money comes. You reevaluate. I mean, that could be seven years, eight years down the road. You got to you got to then evaluate where are we as a district. You know, what we think today would be phase two may not be right. And so that's that's the dilemma we run into a little bit. But I we would be able to evaluate at that time what our numbers are. You know what is the budget at that point and do if we need to increase enrollment to make it work then that might just mean we have to give something else up we don't have money for but we have more room at Bridgetown for students now than
058we do at Spring Meer for students. Absolutely. Yeah. For sure. For sure. Yeah. That building used to have how many students were a junior high. So probably 900. 900. at one point. I mean, I I'll go back to my days of school and there was only two junior highs. Delhi, I know I went to school with I think 900 students in grades 7 through nine, right? And I go through there now and I'm thinking I I don't know where we would put at that time. Del has about 500 kids where you put another 400 kids. But but we did part of part of that middle school bottle though. Yeah. Creates a little extra space. I mean, even if you pick up 30 kids, you got 16s, you're talking about, right? You're talking about five extra
059kids and they're not all one to one class. Remember you're spreading across four cores. You might add a kid or two. So there there there's there is some some ability to add more students. Now again I I don't know the middle school teachers would approve of that but uh sorry not to not to throw her into it but we'll leave it at that. There was a question earlier about phase two alibis that we might foresee. The only ones that we haven't articulated would be If we wanted to select the multi-purpose building, right? So that would still be on the body. But we've done our best to account for those figures in the numbers that you're saying. When we talk about borrow money, the 10.5 million versus 15 million or whatever, is there any reason why
060we borrowed all at once? If we do if we go with the the one plan, we borrow 10 and a half, right? And we don't need the 15 because we're not doing both middle schools at times we did the other plan. Then if we needed to, right, because we now need a bigger bridge town because we're doing that later or whatever comes up, couldn't we then go borrow another $4.5 million? Yeah, I asked Andy, you were on the call on this one as well as well Jeff. I asked that question this morning to Dinsour and they said there is a possibility that you could down the road uh still still get a state match. Um but it wasn't the recommendation. The recommendation is is within a year from Dmore to try to secure the portion
061that you want to provide and then obviously but I'm not sure you don't pay match though. It was just more about can you do a second but we might not get a state correct or but for example if you were in phase two and you were you know $5 million short of being able to do two schools or you could do you know whatever what you really needed to do and you needed to get another 5 million. You've already borrowed 15. You're out of luck, right? But if you borrowed 10, you might be able to be able to afford maybe to borrow a little bit more. You're out of luck on the state share, right? I knew that. I'm talking. But there's a borrow. So there there's a balance here between maximizing the state match
062and running out money later, right? Like you want to find that appropriate balance so that if unexpected things come up later, you've got some wiggle room because if you leverage it too much now, if something unexpected comes up, you got nowhere to go. Agree. Another factor to consider is is is interest rates. Right now, you know, refinance where correct, you can refinance down to wherever you need to. But that's absolutely, you know, what if you know that 20 20% buffer isn't enough, then certainly you could you could reissue additional debt um down the road. I don't mean to go off track, but I have a couple questions for Jason. I'm sure he's ready. Um, so I I know um we that he mentioned potentially being able to use the equipment spring for BMS um air
063air conditioning wise, but realizing that would be quite a while because spring is still going to use it until it gets built. Um so yes, you could potentially making sure I heard that right. Yeah. So let me elaborate a little bit. So what I did today was um there's like 38 rooms that we had to air condition. Okay. So my suggestions of the board would be I could go ahead and air condition the top floor. It's 15 classrooms that I need to do. I can do the top floor cuz that's the worst rooms in the summer. And then when spring wire come around when I tear it down those minutes and do the other 23 classrooms on the basement first. Okay. So up front we would up front we could do whenever you guys wanted
064me to. We could start next summer start air conditioning the top floor bridge town probably in a year by time school we'll start the next year we have air conditioning on top. And what are we looking at costwise? I know it's a million dollar question. No it's about 175,000 to do the top floor and that's for me to run off because remember last time I had to get the panels put in for electric. So that's the panel everything ready to go for the whole building and do the top floor and then when we bring the units from string wire be about another 75,000. So you're looking at 250 and then I just want to say to the board those 38 units I would uh save when we tear bridge down because we have those units
065all throughout the district that we've added over the years. So if a unit goes bad, I, you know, replace unit. Like this summer, I'm adding three of those in rooms this summer. So we're always adding. So I would try to use or I would use all 38. We wouldn't waste them. I wouldn't tear them down. Do you remember how much and the furnaces, right? Yes. Yeah. So that was the less spring mark because it's smaller and didn't include. Yeah, spring mark wasn't and that's what we're talking about doing. We be doing the same units we had in Spring, you know, they're just temporary. It's it's just a glorified lending unit to be honest with you. Just quiet. One other thing when we're talking about borrowing the I guess PI fund for the max 15 that
066makes that maybe a little tougher to come up with the money for the for the air and the top four bridtown but it also um we had planned on um putting an elevator at coairs. Okay. Correct. And ultimately personally I would love to see every building be accessible. Right. We're not going to be able to replace every building if we borrow the max on the PI fund. That's going to endanger that. And then according to one of the emails that that Jeff sent in regard to a question, um he doesn't think that we can take enough from the PI fund to do the 15 million and that we would have to take some dollars from our operating funds. That's right. We don't have any money left in our operating funds. we're going to be in
067a crisis situation um in in a couple years, right? If the state takes an extra $9 million away from us, we're going to be worse in a crisis situation. Okay? So, um personally, I cannot I cannot um agree to borrowing money from using money from from operating funds to to borrow money for buildings. I mean, we need buildings. were behind I think probably almost every district around but when you have to prioritize between the two we you know be the way I look at it if you've got a brand new building and you can't afford to pay your teachers and your aids and your intervention specialists that's a shame so um I I just I I just don't want to borrow to the point where we can't do the PI projects that we need to
068do that are important and the point where we need to use operating funds so whatever that number is um I think we got to keep it down to that. So just to clarify on the on the air conditioning the first town. So 175 top floor that's including adding the electric where I needed to do all of it in the future. Yep. Correct. And then um if we repurpose some of the some of those units from spring be an additional 75,000. So do the other 23 rooms 250 total to do the whole school. or we using some just just know by the time springire would get built probably. So Bridgetown would be four years before I even start moving. Right. So you do the top potentially the top floor and then we do but I would
069need you guys to give me the money to correct. Yeah. Correct. I'm just going to pull it out of my pocket right now. I mean I guess I'm just saying when you bring up PI money that's part of Right. I understand. And so I you might not know this. I just have two more questions for you. So what if you um did all of Bridgetown? Like what if you were to ask us to do all of Bridgetown right now, not reusing Spring Meers equipment? You have any idea? Um and if you don't, you can tell me later. Um probably so 175 probably roughly. Okay. So Okay. And then my last question for you is probably I can ask it two different ways, but like out of those three buildings, so we're talking Frenchtown, Delhi, Springer,
070like which building is most inefficient from an operating? Okay, that was quick. And so if I were to ask you personally, minus all this money discussion, which out of those three, which two out of those three buildings you would replace, which would you Sorry. Out of all three? Yeah. might all two. All two. I'm just curious. Well, bridge, it's hard for me to spring was built the same year. So, they're exactly the same. So, that's fair. It could be either one. That's fair. Okay. Just curious, Jason. How much was spent on putting the AC in spring? 450. 450 for both. So, two and a quarter. What's that? Springer. Springer. What you What you guess was less than that. Most among the dolls because I replaced all the furnaces, too. It's like 32 furnaces units and
071Dallas is bigger. Much bigger. Bigger. What would be your estimate of how much? It was maybe 100 of that quarting from 10.5 million borrowing. You recall previous slide 10.5 million borrowing is 683,000 annual payment for 30 years. 683,000. What would the annual payment be if we borrowed 15 million instead of 10.5 million? It would move from 683 up to approximately 975. And so what would be needed is we would need to reduce in our PI forecast the amount was asked the amount that will be needed to be reduced in our PI forecast be in the range of 300 to 320,000 annually throughout the forecast. And so that's that's what Mr. Brandt, you know, has has communicated working with our directors and and and to your point, Barbara, you're exactly right. I mean, it would have
072to come out of I mean, we met with curriculum tech. Um, we have commitments there obviously. So, it's going to ultimately come out of the operations side. Um, certainly Jason can't come up with 300 320 additional dollars, 300, you know, thousand. So that's the only other option is to your point, we we do have some some personnel in the PI, but to make up that 300,000, that's where we came up with that that 180 that we would have to move that personnel back into the general fund, which which Mark just talked about. So that that's just an option. That's certainly not a recommendation. But if we wanted to borrow against the 15 million, that's that's ultimately where we would have to go to do that. So that's what I say. It does stretch the budget
073beyond just that. you know, when you add that five million in, it's just there's nowhere else to take it from other than those two areas because we can't sacrifice curricular reviews. We have commitments there. We have a contract in our technology with Vtech. Um, so those are locked in numbers. Um, and we have a responsibility. I mean, our core business is instruction curriculum. So, you know, with state with state mandates and testing and laws, we do have to do curricular reviews and buy the materials and materials and software subscriptions and everything else. So, Would it be an option? I know I'm putting my What is that saying? Like, but um so if we did option B, which is our deli spring option, and we So we're we're short 1.9, correct? And if we borrow the
07410, which that payment's manageable, could we with that could we out of that get high school and Bridgetown Air actually. And I'm only asking that because I'm looking at obviously voter repeal. Sure. Um air is a big issue in her district. I would hate for Bridgetown to be the only one or looking like they may potentially be the only one for a while. And if it's not that much money realizing there might be waste um you know the building will come down eventually like but you'll reuse the unit. So I wouldn't say correct. So I mean I don't know if that's an option because I personally like that 15 a little scary to me. I would also if I could JC if you put those units in and we we assume seven years. Let's just
075let's assume the worst that state money wouldn't come in for that sevenyear mark another three years three and a half years. If we got 10 years out of those split system units that's all you can ask. I mean the life expecties probably I guess 10 12 years somewhere in there. It wouldn't be like, you know, I mean, we're going to get a good life expense. We use those as spares, right? You can use those at that time. We'll be rotating around other other buildings in the district probably won't be built. So, there'll be a use for those units to to be able to utilize across the district. But, yes, to your question, Michelle, that's that's kind of what our thinking was is that if you borrow the 10, it's already in the forecast. You don't
076stretch Jason's operation buds. You don't have to move personnel money out. and and you have that room for some contingencies. Uh, right. And and you also have the ability to get the high school done and potentially and it maximize. So, okay. So, in that model, if we borrow the 10, right, the 5 million that it's going to take to air condition the high school is matched by the state. The only thing that we're talking about them not matching out of that is air at Bridgetown, which is not that much. I mean it is but so like blood but but understanding that that match can also be used in phase two correct. Yeah. Yeah. I actually because somebody one of you two said you know it's kind of this game of maximizing your your maximum state
077but but not overextending yourself either. So so I did the math earlier and and if we do the I square springire and deli we have about 3.6 6 million left, which would then answer your question, would that be enough in Bridgetown? Would that be enough to do elevators if we decide to do it, you know, for for so we can have right now we're busing kids if if they need for for physical reasons need to um can't be in a building that's two or three floors. We bust them all the way from over by Delshshire all the way to Opel. That's crazy in my opinion. So So we would have 3.6 million left over. We could do a lot of things with that. We could also use some of that money then for any locally
078funded initiatives in phase two or if we're close to the threshold of of you know okay now we do two buildings instead of one building we have some money left. So I I've got a couple questions from the PI make sure so if a bond issue passes when will we get that one? Yes that's a great question. So the interest income uh which Andy and Brley Payne provided is we would get the 68.5 million know the exact date on that probably March March first quarter first. So the 68 this is just like many things variables contingencies assumptions but the projection on the interest income that we would receive on that 68.5 million uh as we draw down for the construction for the 2 to threeyear building construction time frame will be between five five roughly
079five 5.8 million that's assuming a 4% interest rate. So so that's an additional that's not baked in here. Right. Correct. And then um so that gives us a little bit more space. The second question I had was on the half mill carve valve. So um I mean that's really intended to be spent on maintenance on new buildings that are built. Right. Correct. But the reality is we have that starting in fiscal year 27 and at that point in time we won't probably correct. Maybe we would have just started to build. Right. So like, so I see that that's here, but the reality is for a period of time we're not going to really be spending that money, right? Or I mean, we certainly wouldn't be spending the whole half mill on a couple brand new
080buildings, right? Correct. But those have to be earmarked forc. But but what if we don't spend it? Yeah, that has to stay in the reserve. That's designated for the maintenance of the project. It spurs major improvements down the road. So you build a new school in 25 years 2050, you need a new chiller, you need new boiler, you need you've been saving for it. So they require that you build up this correct excess. So it's a half mill plus a half mill plus a half. Correct. And part of the reason why looking down the road for future generations, it's a 23 year requirement on that half mill. Uh, and so, you know, I'm looking at it and saying, okay, 23 years, we also have other issues going on for 30 years, you know, with the
081borrowing of potentially 10.5 million. Um, if it's me, I'm trying to position the district down the road to start paying that sooner than later. So, I mean, we don't really gain a benefit there, but the extra 5 million or so interest income could be used or could help provide an extra buffer for phase two. Correct. Yes. Okay. So, uh the board you have uh you know you have your you have your menu there that that spells out uh you know all the options that are available to you. Um we'll move forward. Uh but again, just understanding that, you know, we the board's going to have to be very specific because what is coming down the road, we'll talk about this in a second, but what's coming down the road here at the next board meeting,
082assuming the board wants to proceed, passes the resolution this evening, what's coming down the road here in two weeks in June is they OFCC is going to want um as well as for ballot language purposes, uh they're going to on specifically what we're going to put on the ballot. Now, per our per our attorney, we don't have to be as specific to name the schools, but obviously based on this this evening's discussion, we know, you know, what we do on the ballot. So, um, we can continue discussion, but I'm going to pivot gears just briefly because really that's that's the focus of everything on the PI side of the world at 13 cents on the dollar. uh just very briefly talk about um this debt service fund again for folks that might be you know
083catching this on on video that 8 cents on the dollar which again matures here in December um that 8 cents on the dollar again all these projections were provided by um were provided by our financial partners u but what does that mean as far as ballot language uh for uh a potential pass to our community uh without increasing uh any sort of additional taxes, we'd be looking at 2.1 mills. Okay? And so 2.1 mil would be the ballot language. There's no additional funds collected by our school district if that's the case. Okay? So assuming your property value stays the same as the average increase. So if the average increase in our district is 5% property value, the average goes up 5% and your house goes from 100,000 to 105,000, you're not going to have property
084tax increase. Okay? And that's that's consistent um with any sort of millillage really any sort of levy regardless of operating andor um bond. But very important to understand that the district's not assessing any sort of additional taxes. And we talked and we talked and talked and talked. Uh this opportunity is better than buy one get one free, right? We're looking at potentially funding 68.5 million and the return on that could be depending on what me what plan we decide fund locally 68.5 million. We're anticipating receiving 90 to 100 million from the state in phase two uh moving forward. So that's that's obviously an opportunity that we haven't had at our fingertips um in many many years. So there's your 68.5 million on 2.1 mills. Coming up here a second. And we just talked uh there's
085your 68.5 million. We just talked on how much interest is 68.5 million to learn. So what's the financial impact to you the community, you the constituent? If you want to recommmit, you want to reinvest, uh, understanding that our facilities are aging, understanding that when we really started this process quite frankly back in 2017, 18 before CO and we had community engagement, a community team, advisory team that uh, drew up our strategic plan and what was in our strategic plan. There were four pillars. Uh, and one of those pillars, not only financial stewardship, more of my role, but one of those pillars that our community spoke to then, one of the missions, I believe, from our board based on their communication was a pillar of a destination district. How do we make this a destination district?
086How do we not have folks say, you know what, next to me is is Three Rivers. They have some pretty nice facilities down there. Next to me is Southwest. They have some pretty nice facilities down there. Northwest, CPS, look all around everywhere you look. Okay. So, how can we attract folks to Oak Hills? And a big reason is obviously facilities. So, what's the impact if you reinvest? If you recommmit to what you committed to in 1997, again, it's not going to cost you an additional dime. And that's an opportunity that certainly as an in as a resident of the district uh that that's an opportunity too good to pass up. I think one of the pillars in our district which I talked about was not only destination district and facilities but one of the pillars
087that I just talked about was fiscal stewardship and financial responsibility. To me, it would be irresponsible to pass up an opportunity when the state's going to hand you a check for9 to $100 million, and it's better than buy one get one free. So, a lot to digest. Um, what's next? As I mentioned, there are two steps next after this evening. If the board passes resolution before this evening, there are two steps. Uh the first is the pass resolution of necessity uh which will go to the county auditor andor uh the budget commission which will happen on the June 2nd board meeting and then the final resolution to move forward with the secretary of state board of elections uh would be there on our regular meeting at the July 7th. So um this evening what we
088will be requesting through a recommendation again as I started the meeting with is not specific down to the exact building the board wants to move forward with. It's approving a plan here which is our existing model as far as the number of buildings you have the resolution which was provided. So, this will be an addendum in addition to the resolution that you already have. Uh, that would be recommended. Um, but really at this point, you know, what we're going to be looking for uh in the next two weeks and open for discussion this evening is some clear direction on which way the board wants to move as far as what facilities we're going to address in phase one. So, that's where we are with it. Uh, there's any other discussion. You know, if the board
089wants to talk about it amongst themselves this evening or convene again on June 2nd, certainly we can do that. But and I and I also understand that you have scenarios in front of you on the legal sheet. I didn't want to go into extreme great detail. I get the gist of 10 and a half million borrowing versus 15 million borrowing. So, the the only thing I wanted to point out is is that because the the members of CAT um recommended doing both middle schools at the same time, the and and you touched on this, so I just want to kind of highlight this. The reason we're considering not doing that is because the numbers have completely changed since then. There was plenty of money to do that originally when it was presented to that team.
090those numbers have all changed and now we have to borrow um $15 million to be able to do that, right? So, which puts us in a lot of prop but I strongly would love to do what the cab team recommended. I deliberately stayed out of it because I you know I wanted them to come to their own conclusions as a community what what we should be doing but the numbers just have changed significantly. So that's the only reason I personally would consider not doing it in the order that they suggested is because it's financially not responsible. Now the numbers they had at the time. I mean when we had a meeting at Bridgetown, you know, was on the board two middle schools, right? That the numbers have just changed in time way more than anybody
091could have foreseen. And to be safe now really pushing it to go through two middle school. So it's not that we don't like the plan, don't respect the community plan. It's just that it's not I mean it's up to the board, but it's just really tough to do everything in the order that we plan on doing it. Yeah, thanks Mark because I I totally agree with that and so I feel like the CAT team did a great job of going through the information they had at the time. For me, when you had up there that one of the pros for the two middle school model was also the survey results, I don't actually look at that as a pro because we gave them that. That was the question on the survey like are you supportive
092of two middle schools? So, of course, they're going to be like, yeah, sounds great. So, that one I think it's unfortunate that the information's changed on on both accounts, but um I'm more worried about the messaging since we have been talking about middle schools a little bit. Um, which is also why I'm looking at you for creative solutions for how can we get kind of something for everyone because I, you know, I do feel back to those people at Bridgetown that have probably already been like, "Yeah, we're going to do school." Maybe not right now, but we can give you some air and then you're next on the list potentially. Potentially that's, you know, further down the road. Steve, I'm curious. I mean, your numbers guy borrowing 15 million seems or the PI fund seems
093really tight and leaves no margin for error. I mean, are you comfortable with that? You're not often quiet. Well, it comes down to risk tolerance and a 20% buffer. We will get interest coming in, interest income. Um, am I comfortable with it? I can say confidently, I'm fully confident that I'm comfortable with with the 15 million. Particularly, I think it's important to understand as well that the numbers, the only way the numbers work is if Mr. Brandt's recommendations are supported. And so the numbers ma financially the numbers do not work without impacting other areas of our district. So you know which to answer that question um my risk tolerance uh I do have some hesitancy. However on the same side I do believe 20% is a reasonable buffer. I do believe that that 68.5 million
094will generate interest income. Um, it's not my place though to speak on behalf of directors on what they can get by with and what they can't get by with. So, but what I'm gathering is that you aren't fully comfortable borrowing that much money cuz I mean if you can't get comfortable I can't get comfortable. Yeah. Yeah. I I think based on the volatility today with the way the economy is today and tariffs and labor and volatility uh it's very difficult for me to be comfortable with that not impossible but as I I'll help Steve I second that my role as superintendent I I I think you start cutting corn you start pinching on budgets when we're already tight. You just know there's no room for error. And the question is, you know, it's new to
095all of us, right? But this is the first opportunity we've had in this district to to get facilities. And I know there's there's always we said it from the get-go. And Trudy, I look at you because you're a key member of the CAT and we said it from the get-go. There'll be winners and losers because unfortunately, somebody asked me early in the process. Well, what do you want, Jeff? Well, you know what I want? I want $320 million project where every building gets gets a new building. That's what I want. Now, not I'm not going to get that. So, I lost. But the reality of it is, you know, we're trying to we're trying to attack the the three oldest buildings, okay, for a number of reasons. Capacity. Uh I'll even go another level. Again,
096our our business is curriculum, instruction, learning in in our buildings. I would say if we went around and did a survey of teachers and administrators in the building level, uh we're probably not in the modern times of how we deliver instruction either. And so unfortunately when you don't have enough to do everything you have to prioritize and you just this district has made a living and and and I'm very proud of that and and I think we all should be. We've been very fiscally responsible. But I guess my my point to the cat the community is would you rather us catch it now and make the right decision give ourselves some more contingency room or do we want to wait and maximize and all of a sudden things go at the end go a little
097astray. we can't provide the model because we got to trim on square footage. We got to roll back enrollment. I mean, is it better to to to to see that now? That's what we get paid to do to vision that out. And we should be able to see those issues ahead of time. Not not when we get in the planning phase. Mr. Parker and Charlie say, "Hey guys, sorry. Um, I know you had this goal, but we got we don't have the room and we don't the money doesn't work." I I don't think we should be in that position. So, I'll I'll second where Steve is. You know, I I think, you know, again, down the road, depending on what the needs of the community are, the building, you know, if we insult you and
098decide to go plan option 1B, one middle school, Delh High Spring, because it fits the budget, we might get obviously we can look at high school air condition, I think it's a big selling point. And if we can take care of Bridgetown with the hopes of Bridgetown being the first building in phase two, I will tell you, in my opinion, that's a win for this community. So, I mean, I think I appreciate that. I I mean, I think this is really exciting. But to the number of points made, right, we can't sacrifice curriculum. We can't sacrifice instruction to do this. So, and I don't want the excitement to be overshadowed by like uncertainty like I'm really excited, but I hope everything goes exactly two of many like we're hoping that it takes that way. What
099what is unique and and with our partners with SHP and I I think you would attest to this is We want to stick with our core values of being fiscally responsible conservative community on the west side of Cincinnati. And I say that because very few districts go on the ballot for two mills. We don't have wiggle room, right? And I respect any sort of investment that our community makes in our district. two mills is very very small when you look at any sort of levy operating bond whatever it is. So we don't have a whole lot of wiggle room which really puts us into these challenging discussions as far as what you have to give to get um but you're right let's not take away from the excitement of what's in front of us. The
100other thing is we we don't have to make a decision on this part of it today. We've got two more weeks to think about, you know, which whether we do plan one or plan B or whatever. Um, tonight we're just need to decide whether we're going to adopt a management plan, which is pretty simple. We're going to go with nine buildings. One one more question on the nine building, eight building thing. If we later in phase two decide to say, let's say we say Delshshire, we're going to build on Delhi High's campus. you know, the penalties we incur for not for doing the nine building model versus do we get a credit or some or do we still forfeit that same amount of money for doing nine buildings versus eight buildings if we do kind
101of like nine buildings on eight lots. So, um there is about $6.5 million for doing nine buildings versus eight buildings as recommended. So the I think your question as far as when when do you pay when do when does the state take that share off the table? Well, if we change our plan basically and we we put let's say we took Delshare because it's small. We put it on the same lot with Delhi Delhigh building's finished and we do Delshshire. Do we still have the same penalty? No. Because as you you would think that you would have to add add to middle school one IR can't be two separate and we can make that decision in that case. Yeah. So you would actually I would adise making that decision really early on middle school and
102say oh by the way is here. Yeah. I'm not saying we should make that decision. I'm just saying if it saves us I mean I don't know would it be a million dollars more we get from this state they're just we have to work with that to crush that. Yeah. Okay. I know they love they love consolidation. They do. I have a comment and a question. I first want to say I came in here tonight really wanting two middle schools and um just after hearing how much that's going to stretch us, it it it's just uh doesn't make me feel real warm and fuzzy. Um, I was very concerned about wasting money, just having to put the money into the air conditioning over at uh, Spring Meer and then tearing that down and then spending
103money on AC at Bridgetown that's going to be torn down in a few years. But knowing that Jason's able to recycle those units and the life expectancy of them, you know, makes me feel much better. And my question, I know we have to know which schools in phase one if we were to go on the ballot. Do we also have to know which schools for phase two before going on the ballot? We do not. And that's a great question because uh I believe the intention at that time when the state funding comes in we're going to we're going to reconvene with the community and see what can be see what the dollars look like and that's obviously the board and community on what phase two will look like. Although it sounds to me like we're
104pretty committed to Delh High at least being a part of phase two. I mean I was Bridgetown Bridgetown if we do if we do the Springer Delhigh that Bridgetown would be phase two and then there's money left over but how much it would be we don't know exactly. Great discussion. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Bang and SHP and Andy. Thanks again for your input, your help today, getting all those numbers over the course of I don't know how many months we've been banging on those numbers. So, thank you uh to give us a clear picture. So, yeah, thank great conversation. Thank you to the board for continuing along this journey to uh to bring stabilities to Oakill. It's been a long time and it's long overdue. the sight times. Okay. So, we can move on.
105Yes. To superintendent recommendation. Yeah. Thank you, Michelle. Uh, under item number one, I recommend the board approved the motion authorizing acceptance of the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission facilities plan for purpose of participating in the expedited liberal partnership program as attached. Second, Mr. Oll. Yes. Mrs. Philpot. Yes. Mr. West. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay, that's all we have on the agenda for this evening. We're going to need a motion to move into executive session. Second. Mrs. Philpot. Yes. Mr. West. Yes. Yes. Mrs. We will not come back to this building. I always have to mess something up.