001e e e they were clearly Los all right if you had um if you wanted to speak tonight make sure that you sign up on one of the sheets I'll give that heads up before I call the meeting to order so I will go ahead then and we'll flip back over to my agenda and call the meeting to order we have six members present and Quorum so I'll entertain a motion to approve the agenda so moved second moved by Shields cook seconded by beer bomb all in favor say I I oppose nay passes 60 and then our next item is the celebrations and recognitions and I will hand that over to director delashmet do you have a update on the basketball score too it was 50 to 52 there were 14 seconds left my gosh
002so Eric will have to give the update here well thanks for joining us tonight Ames High Ana BAGI has been named a 2025 Coca-Cola scholar one of just 150 students Nationwide to receive this prestigious $20,000 scholarship selected from an initial pool of over 105 applicants an represents the top less than one 16th of 1% of students Nationwide this is an incredible achievement Coca-Cola Scholars are chosen for their exceptional leadership service and academic Excellence making a positive impact in their communities as part of this honor she will attend Coca-Cola Scholars weekend in Atlanta in April where she will be celebrated at the 37th annual Coca-Cola Scholars banquet and take part in a leadership development Institute alongside fellow Scholars Ana if you'll stand up so that we can recognize you congratulations your hard work is very inspirational
003thank you for joining us yes congratulations Anya we we are so proud of you and you're welcome to stay for the meeting but you don't have to all right um next is our public forum so I will read our statement do you have the aome thank you uh I'm not on the right thing oh yeah uh residents of the district students attending the district parents or guardians of students attending the district and District staff members May address the board about any topic relevant to the district whether on the current agenda or not those who wish to speak must sign up at the beginning of the meeting speaker participation is limited to 3 minutes once per item the views and opinions of citizens addressing the board do not necessarily reflect those of the Board District administration
004or staff speakers are to remember that Iowa law prohibits the board from discussing specific employees students or their performance student speakers will state their name and school others will state their name and address and um Dan will have a timer up for us too great thank you uh we'll start with Jennifer Andreas Andrew okay right there yeah so my name is Jennifer Andress I'm the regional manager for Durham school services and we've serviced the as Community School District for 16 years um I spent the day with many of our beloved bus drivers who are here with us tonight and employees um and I come to you tonight with several concerns in regards to the transportation recommendation you will receive later this evening first of all we'd like to thank thank you for allowing us to
005service you for the last 16 years um we're disappointed that we were not given the opportunity to meet with school administrators to discuss our proposal after our dedicated years of service my main concern is that the potential for significant pay cuts for drivers and monitors which puts the district at a risk of a shortage and the inability to get all students to school on time will impact operations for the last eight years drivers have been guaranteed 6 hours per day for their AM and PM route package our proposal kept those employees emplo hold for their compensation the RFP pricing ask for a 4-Hour rate per bus per day our proposal includes honoring the 6 hour per day guarantee even though we would only get paid four hours per day of work per route our proposal
006also saves the district $300,000 per year compared to current spend and is the lowest cost proposed to by any bidder we are able to keep pay where it is and save the district money by right sizing the fleet we are requesting tonight that the board tables this decision so that the district can further evaluate the proposals and risk due to Reliable service next year thank you uh next we have Mike Miller hi my name is Mike Miller I live at 928 Garfield laue here in a I've been living in a since 1977 when I came here to go school I graduated Iowa State I've owned uh businesses downtown Gallery 319 I have been at the Octagon center of the art raising money for them but now I am a school bus driver I started 15
007years ago I have seen three classes come through as I've been a bu bus driver and graduate many of those kids know me and I know them one kid when he was a kindergartener he was scared the first day to get off that bus it was my first year driving I took him by the hand I took him up to Edwards the old Edwards and handed him off to kindergarten teacher and said you'll be all right you'll be fine he rode my bus the rest of the year he was usually one of the first kids off that bus I've had kids write letters to me of thanking me I've had a kid make me an ornament that's still hangs on my Christmas tree every year now this is what you're going to be losing I
008have been recruited the past year by Gilbert nadaa Ballard schools down in De Mo because I'm a 15year bus driver and I know how to do my job I did not go to those schools even though I did look at them I did not go to those schools because I live in as I wanted to be a bus driver here in as I recruited when I owned Gallery 319 I owned it but I took my mornings off before I went to to work in my afternoons I took off to go drive a school bus then I went back to work this is what you're going to be losing you have the possibility of losing most of your drivers people who have been here here 15 16 years some people who are just started I've been
009a bus trainer teaching kids teaching drivers how to drive a school bus I have been in the office as the dispatcher I've been in the safety office as a safety guy during covid it was me and the general manager in the office my job was to punch everybody in and punch everybody out because the school district decided they were worth pain throughout the co your people before you these people worth it were worth it we're worth the money and the 6 hours that we get paid that doesn't include washing the bus filling the bus leaning the bus checking the bus out before it goes out checking the bus before it comes in there's a lot to drive in a school bus that you don't know writing reports about kids who have bad attitudes and getting
010them turned around I got four of them now that I'm working on that's all I got to say don't lose these people you can't afford it and then next I have Todd Bell hello my name is Todd Bell I'm bus driver training currently uh so the things I've seen is just very impressive on the training and everything else that they've been doing and it's just a privilege to be able to work there uh and I'm I'm kind of a numbered guy I don't want to beat a dead horse he's already talked about you know potentially losing people if it get switched over but uh something that might resonate with you guys so I looked up the average salary for a a board member for uh for what you guys do and it was around 31
011to 32,000 and I don't I don't know if that's the case but I broke it down and I was like that's about $16 an hour I was like so if you take $1 an hour and then you take 10 hours every week for 50 weeks that's about $9,500 like per year that you're losing so that roughly translates every 10 bus drivers that's $95,000 that could be potentially going into the community as well for business owners and everything else so that's also something that the business Community is also losing if you end up switching over contract as well so like I said there between that and the the students you know like having a a sustainable you know ride to school and everything else and season veterans that are you know willing to do the job
012and not willing to take other higher paying jobs or something like that like I said there's a lot to consider and I I would urge the board to consider those factors of not only the drivers themselves but also the the impact of the business the business Community as a whole so thank you have a good day thank [Music] you that is everyone I have signed up so we will close the public forum and move to our consent agenda I move the board approve the consent agenda as presented second all right moved by Shields cook seconded by deward all in favor say I I oppos n passes 60 then we'll move to our reports uh we'll start with our Chief Financial Officer and the proposed tax levy sure so um on March 13th the first um
013public hearing notice which we'll call public hearing notice a for our property tax levy will be published in the ases Tribune and so I just wanted to kind of go over this property tax um Levy information and kind of let you know what is on it that up D um to begin with I'll let you know that the um state has not set supplemental state aid yet so this is based off zero% allowable growth from the state so um we'll kind of go down the The Columns of information and the very first column is our current current property tax levy rate So currently we're at 14 like right right solid at about $144,000 for our property tax levy so our the second column um is it's something that would never happen but it's it's a
014requirement to publish it so what it is is that our same asking would be or the same dollar amount asking this current year would be for next year however with the valuation increases in businesses and home that is applied to the current year asking and so that rate is 13.68% supplemental state aid with um new asking and new valuations so it's $14.23 the if we receive you know like a 2% supplemental state aid we've heard 2.25 obviously these this will Levy rate will go down um so I I assume that we'll be kind of right around the $14 range now there is a couple increases um the main increases in the management fund for dollars levied and that's because um our valuations have increased as well and so we have to pay more for insurance
015and so on and otherwise everything else pretty much stayed the same for total asking other than the increase of valuations which caused a little bit uptick in that any questions want to give everybody a second because I know there's a lot of numbers on SC so I will let you know that when you receive your information from the county in the mail so there's always like the school district asking the city asking in the county asking that comes on one sheet of paper this is the school's information that will be on that sheet of paper and just to clarify that it is likely that after they they set supplemental state aid that we would be close to where we are now correct we just don't know so we have to put the high amounts I
016have to publish at the highest rate because I I can never raise a rate but I can lower a rate after been published thank you I know that's confusing for folks since we don't have those numbers we've got to assume zero correct they haven't promised us anything yeah all right we don't have any questions we will move on to any items from our student representatives are not here so maybe they're supporting our basketball team most and my computer is not doing the thing so uh next any items from board members the only item I have is just to say I assure everyone we do not get paid to do anything we do I wish we did yes we we do not we do we are volunteers we are volunteers uh and I just want to
017make sure everybody knew okay city council does uh yes and I'll say um you know we'll have our discussion about the the item on the agenda but I do want to thank all of you that have worked for the district um as bus drivers and helped our kids get to where they need to be that is appreciated we'll have the other I can't have the other discussion now but I just wanted to say thank you and thank you for coming to speak too um one other thing that I have is actually a recognition to vice president Shields cook for your Iowa Association of school board um award for uh what is the award for it's just because I didn't pick it up at the conference yes it is your individual Achievement Award that's the word
018I was going so you have your individual Achievement Award uh for doing um 15 hours or more of um professional development as a board member thank you here you can have this [Applause] to sorry it's J's fault we embarrass um all right so we will go ahead and move to Old business which we have the policies for Action I believe these are all the items we discussed last time there was the updating language for the one or was that already taken care of it was the last one okay any discussion for our policies for Action so I'll make a motion okay I move the board approve the policies as presented second I'm still getting used to our new format so I'm used to our discussion items uh any discussion now on policies for Action it
019was moved by Shields cook seconded by Becker all in favor say I I oppose nay passes 60 then we have our new business and we will start uh with the transportation RFP award and contract approval discussion I move to approve the award of the transportation services agreement to First Student Inc for transportation services as presented we get a second so we can discuss thank you all right we have to do that part to discuss uh I'm going to go ahead and hand it over to Sher or and or Eric to talk about that decision is that sure no that's fine okay so when the the district had not submitted um a request for proposals for transportation services since 2015 and so that was one of my asks when I um took over this position so
020um we didn't do it the first year we had a lot of food service everything else so we did that this year and um when we put together the RFP we we submitted that out and we asked that um any company that was interested in submitting a response to our RFP to attend a meeting well we had three companies attend our meeting and then two of the companies submitted actual responses so after we receiv received the responses there was a seven member committee that was put together to like evaluate the responses so we asked for the pricing to be in a separate envelope so we went down um and I can tell you what what we um evaluated on responsiveness to the RFP understanding The District's procurement intent demonstrated ability ability and willingness to partner
021with the district in the delivery of services the contractor's experience in providing similar Services effectively the financial condition and strength of the contractor the contractor's organization methodologies processes and procedures qualifications of the contractor's management team safy program and safety history and the strength of the contractor's references so we did um score um I would say score like evaluated the the RFP and then we called references and um we did I we tried to get a reference from waterl they did not respond we talked with Ankeny and then we talked with Council Bluffs so those were the three that we Contra we contacted and Council Bluffs and Ankeny provided references to us and then based on um just all the information that we received we um determined that we wanted to look at look at the
022pricing so we looked at the pricing and we put the pricing to what the actual services that were provided to us like as far as sped routes and routes and everything for just like our February invoice let's say and so we tabulated you know all the routes and everything um based on both pricing and and and the pricing for First Service um was less overall than the pricing for Durham by over a million dollars that's what general fund right general fund we we can't sorry no you're welcome to email and follow up with anyone um afterwards too you can um email if you have questions to the board later or talk with us after the meeting would postponing a decision as one of our speakers suggested provide us with a time for to get any
023more new information or yeah you can do that what kind of new information would we be requesting from staff I think is the the next question then the we went through the the M The Matrix or your um scoring criteria you said there would be new information you could get us so what I I mean I yeah if if whatever information you requested yeah we could look at but I don't know what that's what I'm asking do you feel that there's additional information that's available to us that we haven't looked at or considered I will defer to Eric I mean we can talk about this together I mean do you know of any other information that Ian if there's something that you're looking at as a board it would be obviously entertain that but went
024right through the RF process and Val on the RFP the criteria that were asked for was there anything else that you or Eric Sherry wanted to discuss or present about I mean you went through the idea of what the process was like and you told us that this is the consensus you came up with based upon that process and based upon the rubric is there anything else we need to have summarized I mean I mean I know you let me put different I know you're prepared to answer any questions we have are there any questions you think we should ask that are not in the documents we have that I think so I mean I think that we have everything outlined for you um on everything that we asked for I the maybe we could
025um just talk through uh real quickly the difference in um I know we've we looked at the before you looked at prices before the the committee looked at the quotes you look you had already rated the other correct the the change um for a student as higher on the other criteria in the RFP when we look at the cost breakdown comparison um could you speak a little so we heard there's the difference in the um 4our the route timing right that was one of the questions but we also it looks like there's some significant differences in a lot of areas um so and for people at home wondering where's we have massive amounts of PDFs and files we're looking at here that aren't up on the screen the district has given us and the district
026has reviewed so great which are all attached to the agenda as well correct people can look at those they are publicly available okay so for for like the sped routes I mean one of one of their one thing that they came back with their their sped route rate is lower and it basically has to do with um not using a bus all the time but using a van some of the time if it's just like one student or things like that so they just had they call it first all like so it's a different type of mode of vehicle that's less expensive um as far as the routes I mean it's just that there the total price that they gave us for the route was less just the per route yeah that's a that's a
027that's a half a million dollars right and so like both both Durham and first student um indicated that they could probably find some efficiencies there you know to reduce the number of routs and so on but we just based it on what our current what we were provided for the number of RS that we're running currently so it sounds like you did check with references of other districts within the area and all of those came back that are extremely happy with the service satisfied now yeah I mean we didn't have that we didn't find any red flags in any of the references that that we spoke to I know Eric spoke directly to inany and Justin Justin justff called Council blocks so yeah there was a wide variety of people on our on the evaluating
028team um we had we had an administrative assistant on our team and then Eric and myself and Mr Grimes and then we had a principal and data strategist and it was just a wde a wide array of people okay no and thank you for going through that I know we've seen things for several a while now about how this process is going to lay out and how you're doing it and what the reason for doing it is and everything now seeing this conclusion it looks to me like you did all the things you said you were going to and you followed all the procedures and um I'm personally I'm happy to take your recommendation because I trust that you guys have evaluated everything as we would anticipate you would so Sher can you con confir
029I I'm not a specialist at reading bus uh rfps shockingly um what I'm seeing is that the 4our is the minimum is that correct for the for the that's not the cap that's that's the minimum that's guaranteed we asked them to both bid that so that we had so that they oh so the bids are the same for the 4 Hour correct each are Bid at that's what I was wondering okay thank you and the cost isn't the same the ask was the same right okay thank you I appreciate the clarification can you respond to the concern that was raised about why the Durham folks weren't consulted or brought into the guess negotiating process we didn't bring anyone into our negotiating process that's what the rfps are are for right is to present your your
030proposal right negotiations on an RFP start after an award well Sher I'll thank you and Eric for um and and the rest of the committee for doing this work I know this isn't easy um and especially in a time when well we don't even know what our supplemental state aid will be so we don't know how much money we have even for the programming of our students uh so finding savings wherever we can is necessary uh to provide um the services to students with less money to do less money to do more in many cases so thank you all for doing that work are we ready to vote I have a comment but I'm trying to think how to say it nothing about this vote is saying anybody is unhappy with the people that have
031served the district I mean I've on been the board for seven years almost eight years been very happy my kids been on the buses I loveed the system it's worked well I think one thing to take into account the way we work is state is not providing us enough money year-over-year to support all the teachers we have so when something could be less expensive as the RFP says of a million dollars that's a lot of teachers that we're able to keep and keep paying and have helping our kids so it's not none of the decisions we have are easy because we have this constraint so I just want people to make sure that you understand this isn't a judgment to say that we don't appreciate everything's being done or that we think anybody's been done
032badly at it we have to go with what we have um and I just want to make sure everybody understood that and I want to Echo that um that what I felt good about hearing was that the four hours wasn't saying that that's the max that people are going to get that was just we needed a Baseline and that was the Baseline so made me feel a lot better about the question as well yeah I I I appreciate you both saying that I'll say um now that we've had that discussion that this decision by the committee and by the board is made based on the quality of The Proposal uh that Durham provided as opposed to the Quality The Proposal that was provided by first student the services and the cost of those services and
033we have to make those decisions based on those proposals and what it will cost our district um so that we can continue to offer all the services that we need I hope that we still see you as bus drivers in the district but I you know who knows what will happen um and we do appreciate the work that that you do um this isn't an easy decision it's it's not an easy decision because we know there are people real human beings involved and we do appreciate you um we also have real students that you know and teachers that we have to think about in terms of our budget as well and quality of service so if no one else has any comments I would call the question for the vote all right so it was
034moved by uh Shields cook seconded by beer bomb all in favor say I I I I oppose nay nay no extensions passes 51 our next item is the Iowa local government risk pool for natural gas I move the board approve the renewal of the district's participation in the Iowa local government risk pool commission natural program for 2025 to 2026 as presented second all right any discussion on the local government risk pool have good any discussion sorry all right um all in favor uh wait move by Shield's cook who seconded any second I think I did okay sorry sorry can I ask one Sher can you just give the 30 second summary again of what this gets us and why this is a good thing because it's a good thing we were do it yeah okay
035so actually our premium only went up $180 this year so that's really good and what it does is it provides us protection against natural gas price fluctuations and so we pay this entire premium out of our management fund and so our management fund is basically paying for a natural gas right now we are using some natural gas because we're having a few boiler problems at the middle school so I can see like what those natural gas bills are at the middle school right now since it is kicking in um so it's a good move to get that off of the general plan it's about $130,000 year offer general fund thank you you're welcome all right it was moved by Shields cook uh seconded by deard all in favor say I I I oppose nay all
036right passes 60 our next item is to set the public hearing date for proposed tax levity for fiscal year 26 I move yep I move the board to order the board secretary to publish the proposed 20 2526 tax levy and to set the date and time of the public hearing for March 24th 2025 at 5:30 p.m. second any discussion all right all in favor say I I oppose nay passes 60 next is the aim center phase 2 I move the board to approve the change order is presented second any discussion all right move by dward second by Rodriguez all in favor say I I I oppos nay passes 60 and our next change order or completion final acceptance I move the board approve the final acceptance and completion of work for bid packages 26-1 for
037phase two of the aim Center renovation project second any discussion all right all in move by Shields cook second by beer bomb all in favor say I I oppose nay passes 60 um I didn't have any any requests for the superintendent our board planning calendar our next meeting special meeting uh is at 5:30 that'll be our public hearing uh on the tax levy and that will be followed by our regular meeting at 5:45 it is my intention to keep that 5:30 meeting open for at least 10 minutes uh for folks to show up since last time we closed it so fast that people came right after so just FYI will'll sit here quietly for 10 minutes if we need to bring a book yes because we can't have psych so entertain yourselves I move we
038adjourn second all right Me by beer bomb second and by award all in favor of auring say I I I oppose nay pass is 60 I didn't know the books anym it's