001It is 6:30 p.m. on March 24th, 2025, and I would like to call to order the meeting of the finance committee for Lyall Community School District 202. Uh, item number two on our agenda is public comment. Is there any public comment today? We have received no request for public comment. Excellent. Thank you very much. Item three is the agenda for the minutes of the February 24th, 2025 finance committee meeting. Does anyone have any uh questions, changes, comments to those minutes? Excellent. Good. So, we are in agreement that the minutes accurately reflect the finance ah the February finance committee meeting. Excellent. Good. So, item four is the audit services engagement letter for fiscal years 2025, 2026, and 2027. The information for this can be found under item 6A11 of the regular board meeting packet. Mr. Wilkinson,
002if you would please. Thank you. Uh Lauderbach and Amen has served as our independent auditor since 2019 uh when we conducted an RFP process. They've been um with us for another three-year extension which concluded with the fiscal year 2024 audit that we just wrapped up. The new three-year proposal that's included in your um in the board meeting tonight reflects a slight increase of about $1,200 for the FY25 audit and then incremental increases of a little over $1,000 each year for the FY26 and FY27 audits. Uh the total cost proposed is around $29,000 in the first year, 30,000 in the second year, and 31,000 in the last year of the contract. Um, and that is in line with audit pricing of our neighboring districts. I did a survey um of what other districts are paying for
003their audit and this was kind of right in the middle. There was a couple that were lower, but then there were quite a few that were also uh quite a bit higher than ours. Um, these amounts will be included in the respective annual budgets. This is for a three-year uh engagement letter. So, each year obviously we'll include this amount in the budget that's approved by the board. I did get a question from a board member regarding the following language that's included in the engagement letter. Um, just for purposes of the question, I will go ahead and quote what that sentence says. It says, "We will evaluate the appropriateness of accounting policies used and the reasonleness of significant accounting estimates made by management." And the question specifically was whether their review includes a review of the
004budget and levy presentations that um are provided by administration on annual basis. And the short answer to that is is kind of not directly uh but maybe indirectly. In terms of the um audit, it primarily looks at the district's financial statements and when it talks about estimates, it's talking about the estimates within those financial statements. for example, uh there's a lot of estimates surrounding pension liabilities within those financial statements. And so, uh obviously the audits auditors look at that as well as if you have any kind of accounts payable or accounts receivable items. Those are just some examples of some of the estimates that they're um they're reviewing and taking a look at. You know, they do kind of throughout the audit process validate kind of the integrity of our reporting process and our financial
005reporting process. So in terms of um how that kind of supports the credibility of our budget and our levy presentation and those kinds of things kind of indirectly but they're not directly looking at those uh particular presentations that we um go through on an annual basis and so ultimately uh we are recommending as the administration acceptance of the uh three-year proposal from Lauder Bakanaman as presented. Are there any other questions? Okay, thank you very much. All right, so item five is the contract renewal agreement for the food service management company for the 2025 2026 school year. That information can be found under item 6 A10 in the regular board meeting packet. Mr. Wilkinson. And so last year we went through a very detailed and thorough RFP process and ultimately ended up awarding that contract to
006Chartwells, our current food service provider. Um the current renewal that we're discussing this evening is year one of a potential four years worth of renewals um which is allowed by the uh national school lunch program with a contract for um food service management company per the original contract. So within the bid specifications, um it provided that any annual increases would be based on the CPI for urban consumers food away from home. So it's a little bit different than obviously what we use for our tax levy, but it's very specific to food service contracts. And so for December 2024, which is the last uh reported annual amount, the CPI was 3.6%. And so the proposed rates within the contract reflect those increases. Uh the projected cost kind of before any reimbursements that we get from the
007federal government is expected to be about 540,000 based on kind of where the meals that we've served are so far year to date and kind of projecting that out for the rest of the year. Um and those costs would be included in the fiscal year budget. I did get a question from a board member regarding the federal reimbursement trends uh and kind of our contingency planning in the event of uh federal funding being disrupted with what's going on uh obviously at the capital and kind of looking at the last three years in fiscal year 2022 we received approximately $647,000. uh in fiscal year 23 it was just under $300,000 and then in fiscal year 24 it was just over $300,000. And so you might be wondering why why that significant fluctuation from the first year
008of 647,000 down to just under 300,000 the following year. And if you recall during the COVID period of time they were offering universal free meals to everybody. And so the reimbursements uh increased significantly uh during those years. And so these last two years right around 300,000 is more of our normal reimbursement levels that we would expect to see going forward as well. Um you know at this time we haven't received any correspondence from the Illinois State Board of Education or the USDA or anything that would say that the funding is going to be significantly reduced or cut alto together. I know they've talked about even if the Department of Education gets rolled in, they'll kind of convert some of those grants and some of those other things to I think it's the Small Business Administration
009at this point is what they've talked about. And so, you know, obviously if such a scenario like that would occur, we'd have to kind of re-evaluate um the the program's operations, the meal costs. We'd have to look a little bit closer at our fund balances in our school nutrition program. and uh obviously evaluate from there and and see what we can do to continue offering those services. Uh but at present uh what's included is a recommendation to renew the contract with charts for one more year and uh it's as presented and then obviously ESB will have to approve it and it will go to them uh for the final approval to move forward with Chartwells. Are there any other questions regarding the food service contract? Excellent. Thank you for the presentation. Thank you, Dave. You're
010welcome. Uh let's see here. Item six is the junior high uh RTU replacement and theater stair renovations bid. That information can be found under item 6 A12 of the regular board meeting packet. Mr. Wilkinson. So, this is actually a rebid of what was uh discussed at our last meeting in terms of bidding out the original project. That original project included not only the cafeteria rooftop unit over at the junior high, but also uh our ambitions to replace the auditorium rooftop unit with two smaller units that would allow us to operate both the house area and the stage area kind of separately. Um, and then also, uh, some theater stair renovations that are part of our life safety requirements. And as we talked about last month, it the the bids that were open, we got a
011fair amount of bids. I think we got five or six and they were pretty uh pretty tightly spaced. So, we felt pretty good about the price that we got, but at just over 1.5 million, um, it was pretty well over our original kind of budget expectations for the project. So in response, we we talked with Perkins and Will and we decided to go back out to bid and actually reduce the scope by removing the auditorium unit and rebidding the project. The auditorium unit is is a nice to have at this point. It's not um a requirement like the uh cafeteria unit which currently is down a compressor and so we only have one compressor operating for air conditioning and it's just an older unit in general and we're just nervous about um it not being
012able to be repaired and it it is at end of life. So we kind of we reduced the scope focused on just the uh the cafeteria rooftop unit and the theater stair work and the cost of those we did get five contractors submitting bids. So, we had a pretty good um a pretty good turnout for that rebid as well. And the the um bids were all tightly spaced with the lowest bid being just under $937,000. And that low bidder was FE Moran, Inc., there is a an alternate that was put into the bid documents uh for what I'll call external grill steel. And so basically instead of supporting the new units with steel that's kind of inside the roof, we were actually going to put it up on top of the roof kind of in
013an effort to save some cost and see if that was less expensive as far as the actual work to implement the solution versus having to do it from underneath and take the ceiling tiles down. We thought maybe we could get some savings by doing uh some external steel, but it ended up only being a savings of $17,000. And so our concern with that is by using external steel, we would actually be raising up those units, you know, three, four, five feet. And so aesthetically, we're a little bit concerned that they would be that much higher on the roof where they'd be much more noticeable from the street level as you're looking at the junior high. So, our recommendation would be to not accept that alternate for the $17,000 deduct simply for the aesthetics of of
014kind of what the junior high will look like from the street level. Terms of the budget, we do have $500,000 of this project budgeted for in the current fiscal year. Obviously, we're going to start the project in June and so some of those costs will be put into the current year that we're in. And then once we know how much of those costs finish out this fiscal year, we will budget the remainder in the fiscal year 2026 budget. A board member did ask for clarification on the anticipated cost of the auditorium rooftop unit in phase three and how that kind of compares to our original budget. Um the original bid, the first bid that we talked about last month came in at just over 1.5 million. And so looking at this bid of just about
015937,000, we can kind of extrapolate that that rooftop unit is about a $600,000 cost. If we decide to do this in summer 2027, you're looking at kind of two years of escalation in terms of labor costs, material costs, those kinds of things. So, I would anticipate that that cost would be around $650 to $700,000. Um, again, we'll be doing some additional rooftop or HVAC work at that time. So, hopefully we can kind of get some economies of scale of having that all wrapped into one project. Um, regarding the original budget, our internal budget for this this summer phase that we're working on, which was the cafeteria, the auditorium, and the stairs. We estimated kind of working with Pepper and Perkins and Will that would be about 650,000. Obvious, as we know, it came in at
0161.5 million. It was significantly more. And and I think the the challenge we ran into is when we first started working with Perkins and Pepper on the project, we were looking at all three phases. And so the estimates that Pepper did were kind of that entire project alto together. And so we took that information and we tried to isolate very specific scope items for this particular budget. And unfortunately that proved a little bit more challenging than we realized. And so I think kind of extrapolating that from our original estimates, we missed kind of what the current market is and what the full cost of all of that project is. So kind of moving forward, you know, do we want to get more estimates for phase three? That's something we'll certainly talk to them about. Some
017something we would consider, but that would yield an additional cost to work with Pepper and to get those estimates. So, it might be better to just focus on what we want our scope to be, build in some alternates into that phase three bidding process and then actually see what the market is going to is going to cost for that particular work. So, we'll kind of navigate that as we move forward. But, I did want to address uh that question. And then secondly, in our last meeting, there was some question about the energy savings for those new rooftop units. And so I did reach back out to our architects who also consulted with the engineers. Again, it's kind of a technical response. Um I'll try and give a little bit of kind of the shorter version
018of a long email, but um what we're looking at doing is with the new kind of structure. There's going to be three rooftop units that are replacing a single multiszone unit. And so with those new units, they actually have these energy recovery wheels built into them. And so kind of based on the industry standards of those of those recovery wheels being involved now, they're estimating we could reduce energy by approximately 15%. But that's all things being equal. And so when you actually look at the new systems, it's not a one forone replacement. And so to kind of get a precise estimate of what that would entail, they'd have to do a full energy modeling based on, you know, the the thermal envelope of the building, the usage schedules, the lighting and equipment loads. Like there
019would be a lot of other factors that would go into that and obviously there would be a cost to that as well. Um, so with that, they don't feel like the the cost of the study would yield a reliable return. I mean, it's certainly something they could do. Um, but in general, they're expecting some energy efficiency as, you know, there'll be no more target zone control because we're now going to have three units instead of one. So, we can target specific areas that we want to heat and cool. So, that's going to help. Um, and then just having a a more modern system with that energy recovery wheel, we'll see some energy savings as well, uh, from that standpoint. But in terms of a specific number, they really can't they don't feel comfortable providing that
020without a full energy model. audit. Um, so those are kind of the questions I got to try and address. I don't know if there's any other questions based on kind of what I've shared so far as we kind of move forward here. I was just curious other board members opinions on like the an extra $100,000 in two years for the the the auditorium unit. Do we want to just spend that this year or in two years spend $100,000 more potentially? I mean, I can go either way. I'm just, you know, it's we know these costs go up and if we have room in the budget this year or I mean and you know and often we do can we do if we do it this year save 100,000 or 50,000k over the next two years.
021I'm just wondering want to know what admin's recommendation would be and whether we have that available in the budget. I mean that would be certainly two big factors. Yeah. I I think Keith and I discussed that a little bit and we kind of said, "Okay, there's three options. We can kind of defer the work altogether and not do anything, but we don't feel like that's a very good option because um we need to replace that cafeteria units. It's end of life. I'm worried that if the other compressor goes out, then we have no air conditioning, which is not a situation I want to be in." Um so deferred didn't seem like a good option. And then we have two bids here that we can choose from. One's 1.5 million and the other is 900,000. I
022think we were both leaning towards the going with the reduced scope project uh for two reasons. One, I'm not sure that the energy savings from splitting out one unit into two is going to make up that cost over time. We were we were looking at doing that. We were hopeful of doing that because then you could again control two different areas um based on which unit you wanted to run. but we just don't use that auditorium all that much to where I think we're going to make up that cost over time. And so when we look at doing it as part of phase three, we'll probably scale that back to just doing a replace in kind for the auditorium as well as um you know the budget for the overall junior high project is running
023a little bit I guess hot for lack of a better word. We're a little bit above that $20 million. And so by you know the auditorium unit doesn't have to be done now. It's not critical. It's not used all the time. I think if we defer that to phase three, it will allow us to look at the overall remaining scope of the project and make some decisions where right now if we spend that money this year, then we don't have that money to use for something else in phase three in the summer of 2027. I don't know if you have anything else to add to that, Keith, based on kind of our conversation. I think we're trying to do our best to put things into categories, necessities, at some point a necessity and a want.
024And this one feels like one we can defer. And so when a couple years from now when we're looking at the full scope, it it may not make that list of being a high priority. And so because we're feeling like the budget's already more than what we would expect in every single bid we open, we feel like we'd rather make this decision down the road knowing that it's not a high priority relative to probably other things we'd rather see happen in that building. So, it's it's we're recommending deferring and and maybe it'll be more expensive later, but maybe we'll choose to not even do it until further down the road and focus on things like the new science rooms and things of that nature. Okay. Thank you. Have we had any issues repairing the auditorium
025unit in the past? Like, is it is it very old or hard to get parts for? Anything like that? No. Sometimes it's they don't build them like they used to, to be honest. But um the one's actually been running pretty well. We did have to replace some duct work um as part of we actually applied for a school maintenance grant for a portion of that duct work. So I think it was about $100,000 and we got half of that paid for. So we have new duct work up there attached to the unit. The unit seems to be running pretty well. We don't use it a lot. It's it's not, you know, it's not nearly as important as the cafeteria commons unit. And so, um, I think we feel comfortable at this point deferring that one
026where we don't feel comfortable deferring the, uh, the cafeteria unit. All right. Thank you very much. Any more questions, comments, concerns? Oh, just um, two quick things. One, thank you so much for inquiring about the return on investment. I appreciate that and the technical readout. And then um, two, just one other question about the um, this this I'm going to probably describe it wrong, the alternate deduction with the steel. Is there any other benefits other than the $17,000 cost deduction to have it raised? Like is that better structurally for the building or anything like that? No. Again, the only benefit we were exploring is if it would be cheaper to install. And that's that's obviously the the credit here of the 17,000. But um there is no functional benefit between the two. It's just a
027matter of whether you I mean I think in in talking to to the contractor as well, they kind of felt like they're going to have to remove the same amount of ceiling underneath uh in the cafeteria either way. So there other than the 17,000 there there isn't any other significant benefit. Okay. And that wouldn't help them with like repairs or anything in the future. No, I asked Jeff that question. That's a that's a good question and and I did talk to Jeff about that like is it going to be better or worse? And he's like no, they can they can work around anything. It it it doesn't matter. So, okay. And it wouldn't create like I I don't know if risk is the right word, but I'm just thinking like snow leaves, animals in the
028gap, like would that cause problems for us if we put it up there? Well, I think if anything by raising them up to the three or four years, you three or four feet, you'd probably be more apt to have those those challenges where if they're literally mounted right kind of on the roof, some of that will go away. So, there might be some, I guess, leaf maintenance improvements and things like that. Yeah. Well, I'm just thinking we have to send someone up there because of a a nest. Yeah. No, that's a great question. I did ask Jeff. I was like, Jeff, is there any other reason to do this? And he he he he recommended it as an alternate just to see how much we would save. If we were saving 50, 75, $100,000, I
029think we'd be looking at it a lot closer. But, you know, I I I don't know if you guys recall the units over at the high school. They were more energy efficient. They were much larger. You can see them much more from the street level than you could the old ones. And so, I think we have a little bit of a a um you know, fear of that happening again. And so raising them up, I think even though they're kind of tucked behind the roof as it is, I just I'm concerned that those additional three to four feet with the new units that are usually bigger, it just might be more visible from the kind of the circle drive in the parking lot. I don't know if you you probably see the unit that's there
030right now above the uh above the kitchen area. That will be gone now, which will look better. And they're actually going to be well, it's going to be smaller. There's still going to be one there, but it'll be smaller. And then the others will be tucked further back behind the roof. That's kind of a long winded answer to your question. Oh, it it does. It explains it nicely. Thank you, Dave. Kate, I had some experience in an office uh that was built in Woodridge and they recommended lowering it just for that reason because there was other um problems with mold underneath a raised level. So, they recommended bringing it down. So, your points are, you know, well taken. Excellent. Any more questions? Good. Well, thank you, Mr. Wilkinson, you were very prepared for that uh
031Q&A session at Oh, thank you. All right. So, moving along uh is uh item seven, the uh technology, equipment, and subscription costs for 2025 2026. This can be found under item seven of the finance committee packet. And I gather we will also have a guest speaker. Yes, I'm not very prepared for that one. So, I'm gonna hand this one off to the IT department and uh Linda and Trent can talk to you a little bit about that. All right. Not that audits and auditoriums are not exciting, but we hope to bring a little uh excitement with some tech talk here from with Trent and I. Um, in my opinion, Trent um technology is always fun because it's so um widely used now and integrated in absolutely everything we do from a teacher to a student
032level. So, whenever we get to talk about this, it's um I hope it's appreciated because I think the staff and the students appreciate it. But each year our job is to really look at what the future holds as far as equipment, what devices we might need, what things are at end of life, um just the direction that we're going and to um approach that direction in a fiscally responsible way. Um so I have Trent here. Um I'm fortunate that he's really embraced uh his role and has supported um the process and getting quotes and working with teachers. So um um I started this but he's kind of taken it and really run with it. So I'm going to let him um continue to tell you a little bit more about our plans. Thank you. Thank
033you and thank you for having me back to talk about this. I appre appreciate it. Uh so um the the refresh that you have in front of you is we've been doing this for about 5 years now and it just was really to paint the picture on you know that we're putting reliable um devices into the hands of of students and teachers. Um before we started the kind of buying a grade level every year was kind of use Chromebooks for three years, shuffle them down, shuffle them around. Students were maybe not getting the highest quality devices that they could have been. So we kind of established this life cycle so that each student at each um in second fifth or second, sixth and nth grade is getting a a brand new device in their hands
034to use for the course of their time at that school building. The one change I would like to kind of highlight here on this on this cycle is the um is in kindergarten they've they're they've been currently using iPads for since co um they've had one to one iPads in their room and we are we are looking at making the change to touchscreen Chromebooks for for kindergarten students that would align with what first grade students are using as well. It kind of builds that continuity of using the same operating system across those two grade levels until they then go to second grade where they would get a non-touch Chromebook but still using the same operating system um as they were using in kindergarten and first grade. Those devices are about 5 years old um in
035in both those grade levels. Um the iPads no longer can will no longer be updating their operating system come the following year um just due to their age. Uh the first grade Chromebooks, we would like to kind of build some continuity in terms of our support tech at the building as well, Daniel, on on repairability. Uh we did talk about last year maybe extending those first grade Chromebooks a little bit longer. Uh but then if we're we cannot purchase those same Chromebooks anymore. So, we would kind of be in an issue of we'd have two two different devices, totally different supply parts for fixing screens, um fixing any any headphone jack breakage on the device. Um so, we'd like to kind of bring those in line with with with each other and have the one
036model across both those grade levels um in terms of support and providing uh great support and getting those devices back in circulation when they do break. And as an FYI, the teachers are on board with switching to the Chromebooks. So, that's exciting, too. And I will always say um when technology is going well, everybody's really quiet because it's working. And I think this cycle has supported that. Um we the feedback from teachers is great. The feedback from students is great, parents, all of that because things work and this this cycle supports that. So thank you. And then our junior and then and our junior high staff are on their refresh cycle for staff for staff laptops and computers this year. So um we'll be looking to move forward with refreshing their devices uh to get
037new devices in and their hands as theirs have kind of ran their course of the four years for that life cycle. Moving on um to device purchasing by location. We're kind of try to break out all the costs and kind of what's what's being replaced um and purchased at each at at each building. Um there kind of looking at the at the Chromebook purchases, there was a question on um the kind of the quantities we were purchasing um and kind of how that aligned with the current enrollment. Uh we usually like to take the kind of the current enrollment of the grade level. So, for example, we're purchasing for grade 2. You'd kind of take that grade 1 current enrollment, usually usually multiply that by about 10% to factor in um like full unit breakage.
038Um if they if they fail, um if enrollment all of a sudden dramatically increases, we kind of have that buffer built in over the course of the life of those devices. And that kind of leads us to that um purchase quantity of about that of about those 400 devices. Um the current enrollments in grade 1, for example, is 121. Grade 5 is 128 and grade 8 is 115. So if you're looking to purchase that 10% that kind of puts us to 401. We're kind of that we've kind of quoted out that 400 to kind of allow for that uh flexibility not to run out of devices if for some reason kids decide to get really aggressive with their Chromebooks possibly. Um, I was just going to say because the worst thing is if we ask
039teachers and students to use them and there's not a replacement if one needs to be repaired or one's down or screen needs to be replaced. Um, we have been operating with this about 10% overage for I don't know 3 years probably. Three or four years. Yes. Yeah. And it's it makes um everybody's lives a little bit easier. And then with those extra devices, sometimes they sometimes they um we use them for uh state testing when we know we need to have maybe all there's three grades at the high school doing testing and maybe we we pull out every Chromebook off the shelf and we have 40 extra Chromebooks for that day of testing. So that way we don't have to send a student home. Um that because we don't have a device available for them,
040we kind of have enough extras to cover everyone and get everyone in whether they forget it, broken networking, just we hand out another device for that test so they can so they're able to take it with the rest of their classmates. There was also a question in regards to uh the cost of the Chromebooks from kind of what we had on on this on this um document last year versus this year. So, we are looking at increasing the specs of the Chromebooks we're purchasing. We've been we're kind of look looking at increasing the internals uh in terms of RAM and processor because things are becoming more intensive. Um as as the operating systems continue to evolve there's I don't know if you guys use Chrome on your computers but it eats up your memory like
041and you know like no other and runs pretty slow. So the Chromebooks are built on kind of that. So the more RAM we have uh the better they're going to perform for the students. So between kind of the increased internals as well as um it being a new model versus the model we purchased last year was kind of a they were one and two years like from their release with a new model this with a new model this year looking to purchase uh it does kind of increase that cost as well with the uh the Chroma purchases too. We do for all all these large purchases. We do get multiple quotes from from different resellers to kind of make sure we are getting um that kind of best price available to us. So it's not
042just one vendor um quote. Yep. Sounds sign on the data line. There's multiple uh quotes received. Kind of some going back and forth as well of those vendors kind of make sure we are getting the best price. And then as we move down the list, um the junior high has th those same uh Chromebooks as well as then the staff laptops and everything associated with that project. Um we are continuing to look to move forward with our um kind of the laptop is becoming the primary presentation device in the classrooms. We used to have laptops and desktops um in each room, but with hardware costs increasing and demands increasing for those devices, we're looking to consolidate that from uh two devices in a classroom to to to one device. And that's why maybe that laptop
043price seems more than it has been in years past. Uh because that device needs to be a little bit more powerful now because it is driving kind of everything they're doing in the classroom. And then the projectors for the junior high school. Uh we replaced about 10 projectors um as part of the of the phase one of renovation last year. So the rest of those projectors are to kind of standardize one model across all of the buildings. So we only have to maintain one projector have one have one uh lamp that we need to replace it with. Right now I think the junior high has about six or seven different projector models just just due to the projectors have never been kind of on a cycle. They've always been kind of like one breaks, replace
044it, grab one off a shelf, replace it. So hopefully getting all of them on one cycle keeps us with one lamp and then when those come up to be replaced that we replace them kind of all at one time and kind of stay on that cycle. Um which provides, you know, better support, you know, having making easier to have lamps on hand, those those sort of things. So that's kind of the everything for our for our support tech there, Andrew. One model, one one lamp, very easy to support. And then the elementary school um is just following um the same purchasing. But then those uh the difference there is then those uh kindergarten and first grade Chromebooks. Those are more expensive due to them being a convertible device with the touchcreen. That does definitely add
045to the cost of cost of the device and that 260 uh is an estimate. I think there's I think in the um staffing report with the estimated enrollment uh kindergarten and first grade are expected to be lower. So we will looking at we'll look to adjust that quantity based upon what we kind of determine those final enrollment projections to be and kind of then add that 10% on top of it. So that 260 will most likely come down. Um we just kind of use that same 130 number just to estimate that those costs. The one caveat I will note is that these uh costs are pre-tariff costs. Um, I know it's the T-word, uh, but so right now I and and you know, building our relationships with our with with with vendors we we work
046with. Um, still having I still we still have prices secured uh before tariff increases for the for the time being. So, I'm just keep working uh using our relationships with our resellers and vendors to kind of hopefully hold those prices until it's time to execute a PO um to kind of lock those purchases in. So, so far so good. Um but that it could be subject to change if time runs out possibly um or they decide to slap them on at any at any point. Um unfortunately that's just the day and age we have right now with with that. And then the one district purchase this year just to um highlight highlight that is our firewall renewals. It is just it is a cyber security necessity. Um it's an annual renewal that we'll just kind
047of need to keep purchasing to keep our district safe. Um it is just a large expense. So, I just wanted to make sure to highlight that um on this document just so that cyber security is expensive, but it does keep us safe and running um on a day-to-day basis. So, we kind of total up by school um for each of each of those locations to kind of reach that 373 um,000. So, that's factored into that the gross total at the end of the at the end of this document. But then next is the - program. Um this is the last of the uh funding cycle for for this for these five years of -ate. Um we've our budget for category 2 which funds the hardware purchases of access points, switches, anything like physical um is
048about $250,000 and we've used about $248,000 of that which means we've been reimbured by the federal government half of that. So, my quick math, I'm going to just use a 250 number is about $125,000 received back from the federal government to help support um upgrading our our network. So, for this remaining year, um we are purchasing some batteries, which you know is thrilling. Um but it helps our equipment shut equipment shut down safely in in event of a power outage. Uh the high school um we're installing wireless access points this year. Uh we we completed the junior high last summer for access points and kind of in conjunction with that phase one of the renovation and the elementary school will be taking place uh the following summer to kind of complete our three-year phase in
049of upgraded access points. And then the last category 2 purchase is for some reabling at the high school. We need to add some access point coverage in some locations that haven't had it before. Increase some coverage because of students maybe using a different space than they have. as well as uh some internal building cabling that kind of connects our equipment in in the building is kind of running end of its useful age. Also like two of the three connections are down. So if we lose that last one, that whole wing of the building goes down. So it's replacing that uh backbone in the building to keep us uh running reliably. We are at a 50% discount rate from from USA which which runs the - program. So the the total cost of those three projects
050is about 900 or $90,000. But then with that um 50% reimbursement rate, we would get reimbursed approximately $45,000 of that back from the federal government after we've completed the projects and submitted for for reimbursement. There was a question on um kind of tying the -ate funding back into the like purchasing by locations. Uh so to kind of maybe keep it simple, we kind of kept all the rate purchases um within the - p purchasing table and then that table kind of goes into that gross total at at the end which we which I will get to in a second. Um firewall renewals are -ate eligible but only to a certain percentage because doesn't fund cyber security. It funds basic connection basic networking. So, we decided to use the -ate money for other projects because we
051would only receive about 20% of those firewall renewals back. They're only about 20% eligible via the -ate program. So, we use that money elsewhere this year to kind of get more bang for our buck for say and then and then and then use next year to kind of fund that 20% for the firewall renewals in following years. On the next page, we have our annual software renewal costs. Uh these are um about the the same renewals as last year uh just with in with unfortunately some some some increases in percentage. We work with each vendor really trying to negotiate costs and push back on costs because vendors are wanting to hit you know slap us with 10% 15% increases. So it's really a lot of back and forth and push back uh to try to
052keep these costs as reasonable and as a and as cost effective as possible. Uh the one addition here is the is our student web filtering and classroom management tool that we use that is up for a three-year renewal. Uh so that cost of $24,500 is for a three-year uh renewal that that's spread out out across three years paid uh once upfront for the three years. So, between the device and hardware purchases, the -ate purchases, and estimated subscription costs, that brings the gross total of this of everything to about $796 uh,000. There was a question in regards to um kind of breaking out federal, state, and local reimbursements uh from those from those totals. So, the only uh funding we're expecting to receive for the FY26 budget is through the -ate program. Uh so in that
053underneath that gross total that -ate program reimbursements that is factoring out that federal co that those federal reimbursements to kind of leave with that net total of that $751,000. Uh if the finance committee is comfortable with what we have laid out here um we will move forward with um ordering and procuring the items that are noted here. Um, if there's something that you all would like to consider further or would like more information on, please let us know and we can get back to you on that. I had one question regarding First, I love how this keeps evolving even better every year. Um, and that being that we're kind of have this cadence of all the replacement. Are there opportunities that we can partner with other districts, get districts to get even greater volume discounts
054on any of this? I have not heard of any districts working together for purchasing like for purchasing like that. Um I do not know of any uh consortium that does kind of group purchasing. I know we use cons we use some consortiums to secure better pricing for us. Um but it's not like a but I've not heard of like a group purchasing effort in terms of purchasing Chromebooks or or laptops in that sense. Okay. But but it's definitely I can definitely reach out to you know some of our other districts and and or vendors if they even allow if they allow that kind of group purchasing effort. But yeah, it's definitely something it's definitely a good question. I mean love you guys have created a very predictable pattern here. you know, with that predictability over
055a 5year period, you know, working with a theoretically other districts to go, maybe they have some also equal schedules like this going, wait, if we kind of go start syncing together, get that greater volume discounts. But obviously, and we've done a great job with districts, other organizations, and partnering, maybe this could be another opportunity because these costs are only going up and the technology is definitely something we have to have in our with our students. So, great. Definitely. Thank you. This was awesome. again. Yeah. And then I just would like to highlight the last um two pages uh very briefly. So the 5-year hardware kind of hardware planning uh table is just to kind of lay out what's upcoming, what is on cycle to be repurchased, and really trying to balance out uh those costs
056over a 5-year period. So really trying to not have a like a a huge peak and then a low valley and trying to kind of maintain um the most like level budget we can kind of that's how this 5-year planning document kind of got was established is to really try to maintain that level budget. Um the one I think there there was a question here on what do like the X's represent within like within the table and everything. So it kind of differs. So on like in the description like if it lists out like high school technology lab or grades 2 69 Chromebooks, the X is just there to kind of let you know that that like we're just purchasing that for that for that particular uh like item description. And then in like the
057in the wireless access points row there is kind of it does break down by like by building for like high school and then ales. Um it just kind of it's just kind of dependent on what the description is for the item and if it's an X or um like what school it's for or similar. But so we we're trying to keep this really level um as best as possible and kind of slot those um slot that hardware into for replacement and where it fits uh to try to just you know keep uh good financial stability and not have huge peaks and valleys in in in our technology budget. Dave also likes that. Yes, that's true. That's correct. And then and the last document is just a um a report on like all the all the
058all the contracts we're expecting to exceed that $25,000 threshold for FY26. Uh there there was a question here about um you know what steps have been taken to get best pricing and you know like I stated before we procure for any of these large projects we're procuring quotes from multiple vendors and comparing those and then you know using those quotes to kind of work on you know negotiating the best price possible. Uh through the - program is a competitive bidding process. We we put out a a form. It's a form 470 that kind of lists out what we want and then companies will submit bids on that and then we evaluate those bids based upon you know pricing familiarity with the vendor uh if they meet our needs etc where pricing is the highest weighted
059factor in that in that decision. So that is a competitive bidding process. And then software renewals are mostly handled directly with uh the vendor sometimes to a reseller if need be. So, we work I I'm always communicating with other districts about about everything that's going on. So, usually there's a lot of conversation back and forth about what are you paying per student for this for this program or what are you paying for per student for this program of similar size school districts. Uh obviously comparing Indian Prairie to us, they'd be getting a lot lower cost per student. Um, but so we try to find those similar size districts and compare those and then make sure we're not make sure we're getting the best price for those subscriptions because that is directly with the vendor and
060it's the only one you can really buy buy those um subscriptions from. All right. Are there any further questions, concerns? No. Mr. Hley, I believe all of your uh questions were answered. They were excellently. All right. Well, thank you Trent. We appreciate all your diligence and uh keeping district costs in mind. That was an excellent presentation. Thank you all. Last call for tech questions cuz Trent's leaving. Oh, no more tech talk with Trent. No more tech talk. We can tech talk, but it won't be with Trent. Well, I think that'll be all for that topic for now. All right. So, uh next up, uh agenda topics for future meeting. Does anyone have anything to add? No. All right. Excellent. So, with no other agenda items, I will Uh I will entertain a motion to adjurnn.
061So move second. All right. So show that uh the meeting was adjourned at 7:17 uh p.m. by Miss Alman and Miss Foster.