001He popped up. I'd like to call to order the Facilities and Operations Subcommittee meeting March 9th, 2026. Please call the roll. Mr. Agyan. Here. Mr. Diaz. >> Here. Mr. Moniz. Here. Will you stand and salute the flag, please? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Pursuant to the Open Meeting Law, any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting, or may transmit the meeting through any medium. Attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or transmissions are being made, whether perceived or unperceived by those present, and are deemed acknowledged and permissible. Is there any citizen input time? There is none. No citizen input time. We'll go right to
002item number 3.01, update on the Brightly software. Uh Dr. Pearl. Brightly software demonstration. Uh that's the first item, yeah. I apologize. I was not anticipating um Josh is Well, you can kick it to them. I just sent it I just sent it to you as I just thought it would you as you can you can uh pass it to Mr. Pacheco or I am. Pass it on. Okay, that's what I anticipated, but everyone else was being so quiet that I thought maybe not. So, we're going to have a um Brightly software demonstration. Yeah, of course. I guess. So, just uh by way of uh background information, just so everybody's on the same page. So, this from my um research shows us that we started this process in January of 2024, Mhm. Yes. which is a
003long time ago. So, we're going to try to figure out like where we're at now, but also keeping in mind the fact that it's been a long time. Just want to put that out for everybody to know. We did something 2 years ago, and it's still in process. So, Mhm. um we'll have more questions [clears throat] afterwards. Uh This is Mr. Fortado, the director of maintenance, who's going to lead us through a little bit of a demonstration. Uh committee members, feel free to I would say ask some questions as we go, but main other questions are going to be afterwards related to He's going to show us what the system looks like a little bit. Anyone else at the table wants to weigh in, feel free. Um and uh take it away. All right. So,
004here's here's a what a typical day looks like. Um so, what I will do is I will see if I need to um pick If I want to see what our work orders look like or where we are as far as status, or what we have open. Um I'll take it through. I'll highlight each person individually. As follows. >> [snorts] >> And is Brightly just called Asset Essentials? That the Did they change from Brightly to Asset Essentials, or was Asset Essentials like a piece of Brightly? >> piece of Brightly. So, Asset Essentials >> Right. The equivalent of SchoolDude is now Asset Essentials? No, the equivalent of SchoolDude is Brightly, and inside Brightly was also and inside SchoolDude was also this Asset Essentials. And then this is What are the other pieces of that they call
005Brightly, or are they called They're all called Brightly. The only piece that's not Brightly, a SchoolDude portion, is inventory control. Which is still the old system. They This new system doesn't have that particular piece. So, we're still >> So, like use of schools is called Asset Essentials? >> No, it's called um use of schools is the rental portion that is called >> Yeah, we'll get to that after, but I just was trying to Yeah. It's two separate sections. Alex, they're saying the audio is not working. I'm going to call a 2-minute recess. Recess, so please continue. So, here you see a sign two. So, I I I'll highlight the um workers that I want to check on the status. Um so, I put a date range of December 1st, 2024 to present. Um so, here
006work order status when I hit in progress and I scroll down 114. So, what that means is everybody that is highlighted, so that's every tradesperson, there's only 114 work orders through the entire district that's open. Can you show us the date some of those were submitted? Just curious. The in progress? Well, no. This was uh when you put the December of 14th Yeah. Like if you did now if you change that to January 1st of uh or just put 2025 instead of 2024. So, this will tell us out of that 114 how many are in So, you want to do January 1, 2025. Uh well, I mean I'm sorry. I meant 2026. Because now it'll tell us what's current, right? That what you mean? I'm just trying to get That's what you're looking right? >>
007Yeah. Uh 2026. January. You just got to click on that. One Yes, click on the 1 and 26. No, I know, but that's not what I'm seeing here. There we go. I'm trying to not scroll up. So, you have 61. Yeah. All right. So, that's That's what's open from January 1st, 26 to now. So, now that's in progress. So, now what's going to have to happen is I'm going to have to back out of this and go back in and add it to the filters again. Cuz normally we wouldn't do it like that. So, obviously it's for the demonstration. And you can just do it all whatever you got to Cuz if we bounce around like that, it'll actually wipe it wipe the memory from it. Josh, is it possible if you go into that
008filter where it says crew instead of um clicking on every person, can you just filter for the people in your department? >> but you have to set it up. So, if you started off the day I'm assuming the all these people work under you for the most part. >> Right. That's That's what I'm going to pick, yeah. Yep. So, to the superintendent's point, I think it would be make sense to have like In the under crew, is there no setups for like for instance under you maintenance crew. And then another one would be uh We would have to grounds crew of like so We would have to set that up, yes. I'm just wondering if you click on the little filter if it would just show up in the drop down menu. That's all. If
009I do that though, it's going to wipe out everything. So, what do you what would you want to do? You want to do January 1st? >> I tried what the superintendent asked. But, go go back to where it says crew and see what is set up. Or do you know that there's nothing set up so it's going to be zero? >> Correct. Oh. Okay. That's all. So, would you choose January I can't remember where it was that Would you choose January No, I wasn't looking at the data where you had the word crew up there. It looked like as if it had a um an hourglass or something. >> we can categorize them. And we haven't set that up yet. Correct. So, as of January 1st, 26, to now, we have 411 completed work orders.
010So, you had what? outstanding or in progress and 411 completed from January to now. Is there reports that I can run for each department, each principal >> So, what so what I can So, I could run a report like this. I could even go down to um analysis. All right, so here So, [snorts] from the dates you gave me, it takes me 15 hours to respond and it's taken an average of um 5 days to complete. During that time During that during that time, correct. Yeah. That's going from the date that you just gave to when I first started, it was about 15 days. We're down to five. Just feel free to bounce around to anything that you think is uh worthy of us knowing. Um I mean, so with the names put in, uh
011let's just pick Durfee. And we're still under completed. So, from January to now, completed is 68 work orders on Durfee. Um So, if you wanted to see Doren, 14. And I can do the same thing with an in progress. Yeah. And then is there a way that you can see any reports that have been run previously? Like a a report um summary so that we can see and maybe other reports that have been run by >> anybody anybody in Brightly to say show me the the last 10 reports that an admin or principal or anybody ran. I would say no, um but I don't typically look for something like that, um because I'm the one that's usually doing the reports the reporting when it comes to my guys. >> Yeah, you're one of the guys.
012Yeah, so So, switch it. You got anything to add? I don't. No. I don't. >> Do you know what I'm asking though? Yeah. >> Yeah. Um before we started we were talking about uh trying to like look to to get through a um an item to see if we could like as an example. So, I was mentioning that we have a lot of cafeteria ones in a in a packet for the the ones you gave us today. Right. >> To try to take one of those and and figure out like to match them up. Josh wasn't sure cuz it doesn't fall on him or not, but like what if it Is there a way in here to show like >> orders should be here. Even the cafeteria? Everything Every work order has to go in
013the system or it's not a work order. Right. So, that's what I'm saying. Like Wes, can you show us the cafeteria? Um Would that go under cafeteria? Like how would that be coded? Is it just like >> could go under I'm not sure if it would go under um the director. If it would go under Bob, if it going to go into Jose. Can you type in the department maybe? Well, there's nothing in there. So, I'm assuming that's not So, that's not up to date. I I wonder um Josh, when you were looking at the completed ones, over on the left it has all different kinds of departments. >> right there. Oh. See how it says nutrition? Under what Mr. Cutting? Yeah. Yeah, what I'm also looking for um Jose. Actually, that would be under
014nutrition. Well, we should all go into the department. So, if you just show us the any uh work orders from nutrition. >> Uh Mr. Chair, [clears throat] also um if on page two, and there was um an individual that had um 545 work orders, and um I think it said that all 545 were overdue. Is that like a glitch in the system or something? Wait, is that just now? Wait, I did when we were on those three pages. It's on page two. Go back maybe one or two posts. It was the last thing where I where we're going through um where we're clicking on an individual. >> I can tell you that nobody has 500 work orders. That's too many. We just hit back and >> to go back to where? Right here? Yep. Look
015like this one, Mr. Dies? No, it was when we had the three pages up, one, two, and three. Page two. >> down. It has multiple pages. It was the last page where I It wasn't this. It was like the sub section down at the bottom. >> Can you hit back again to see? I don't It doesn't look like it's lighting up. Are we able to go back to where we just were when we were clicking on people's names? >> You Wait, when you said we were clicking on people's names, yeah, for sure. But, let's stick focus on the nutrition because I think that would show us a kind of a good example of what does it look like. So, we should I by department. What is in this right here? >> Yes, this it was
016this right here. That's where it was page two. If you go down to two. At the top is 555 work orders and 545 work >> Louis Torres? overdue, yes. So he doesn't have 555 work orders overdue. What happens is the system will repopulate, right? So if he has a um preventive maintenance thing, it'll just keep repopulating and multiplying it and multiplying it. So that's where you get that number. Is that the same thing with Robert Valenzuela and Groms? 137 is 100 I would say that that's actually more probably more accurate than your 555. Okay. So can you show us that range? And again Robert's work orders are going to be in with Louis. So what do you want for a date range? Current fiscal year to drop down. I don't know. The date range. It's
017current fiscal year. Can you put the right at the top? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Okay. So current fiscal year he has three. And that's completed. >> [snorts] >> And see here, this is what I'm talking about right here, right? So you just see how it just keeps repopulating. So that's PM work. >> Yes, so it just keeps duplicating. >> So what happens is if we say that we're going to cut grass at Doren on Monday and once we cut grass on Monday, it throws it back in as another PM. If it rains on Monday, Monday stays even though we're going to do it on Tuesday. It's not in the Tuesday schedule, so it's it's a little glitch in the system that doesn't allow us to eliminate the day and move to the next
018day. In the p.m. only. It only happens at p.m. >> p.m. report. I'm guessing that is separate report in this. And it talks about Monday's, Tuesday's we talked about having that as a Because because remember when at some point was it was asked of us to provide a cutting schedule. Right, so the principals knew when Right, except right, except the fact that it doesn't take into rain, it doesn't take into other events. So that that's why that schedule >> That's probably something maybe it like afterwards on a a separate sheet that is that something that says that, but Yeah, we think that explains that those high numbers. >> Yeah, and I think like in origin if you if you click on that drop down, you can probably select the non-p.m. And then you'll just be
019able to see what that total looks like. Yeah, over here. Yeah, over here, this one. Over here on the bottom origin. Over here. No, wait, right there. And hit non-p.m. Non-p.m. And then apply top. Yeah. It's not it's not going to change. It's going to go back to all. Well, cuz you had p.m., but Okay. It might be a glitch in the system, but I agree with you. You see [clears throat] how it has non-p.m. and p.m. together? Right, but if you hit origin and you hit non-p.m. and hit apply, it should be only showing us what that uh filter shows, correct? Right, I think he just tried that and then it I think it glitched out. Yeah. It's okay. Let's try to be Let before we open up for questions, nutrition. Like to try
020to find us something about uh by department. So you want to all right. All right, clear all I would guess. Oh. >> Under department I would type in nutrition. So all this is Is this your whole group or is this everybody? So anybody [snorts] who's added to this system, right? So Bob's in it. Um and all my guys are in it. Um So you don't have your just your particular group. >> No, and that's what to Tracy's point, that's what she was saying and Kevin would Right. But I mean it it's It's all there. >> It's all there. Nutrition, the only individual in there is Bob Cutting? He's a school and then I'm assuming Well, it wouldn't have individual employees. >> They won't come up like that. It goes by school and then those who
021put in items. So not every single like a part-time custodians not going to be in the system. Um not everybody is in the system. Cuz there'd be no reason for them to be in it. But a custodian would put something in here, right? Like custodians put in the tickets. >> seniors. Yeah. How many seniors Who's the equivalent of a senior in the nutrition? Jose? They're all online. So Jose is the only is the only um administrator. So I'm saying like he would be his name should be in here somewhere. It is. Yeah, that's what he's doing right now. Cuz maybe he maybe uh Maybe he had or shall we say another What's Jose's last name? Esposo. Esposo. That's it. You can't doesn't go along like that. It's not in alphabetical order. So how long has
022this system been up and running? Oh. Only a year and one. >> You're going to have to change it. Like obviously that cuz see the top is the current fiscal year. That was maybe has none in 3 months, but That's why let's let's just search it or from day one. Makes it easier. Just for the demonstration. So 12/1 like you're going from day one at 12/1 is that when >> That's when I started. Yeah. What when does it go live? Like when we had the meeting in January of of '04? What is the if you had to say what >> It took I want anywhere from 6 months to 9 months for them to prepare this prepare the document. And then from there they probably did a um We did the turnover, so the rollover
023from one system to the other. And then And that from that point on it was almost 6 to 8 months of back and forth. >> like he's using December 1st as 2024. Is that fair? Like that's 12 months of since we were first since we first purchased it. He's got in here 12/1. Should we change it to another month or I can't tell you off the top of my head. >> Let's just leave it at 12/1. That'll catch everything. Yep. It's going to catch it all from the old So what are you looking at here? >> this is a complete work order. This was um two steam tables. Yeah, but like can you just go back a second and change it real quick for me, but Did it just say two from the entire Like
024what is the Yeah, it seems to me that this things don't get assigned to um Mr. Raposa. That it looks like Bob Cutting had No, it's steam tables. Source is not Bob is not Closeout. Source is not closeout. >> acting assigned to to make No, source has to stay all. What is Bob Raposa like that? So is it Raposa? Yeah. I just uh Obviously, Jose doesn't get those or like there's got to be a way to look in here to say how many tickets did Jose put in or any employee? There has to be a way to figure that out. >> to put in? So you know, so that it initiated with him. Just trying to figure out where the if something's broken in our freezer at the door in school. Well, it depends on
025how it depends on how they put it in, right? So >> Like we should be telling them how to put it in. For example. I'm going to search myself. And this will give you an idea of when we put it in. I try to get everybody to be as descriptive as possible. I'm going to use one of them, guys. Well, let's not worry about that now. So, I'll speak for myself first. The question that I have is on how do we run reports on who initiated the claim. This is where they get assigned to. What I'm looking for after this meeting is something that says how many were assigned. Like, what is the process for who assigns a work order along with the directions on what is what have people been told how to enter
026them. What is the expectation for entering Now, it's not from you. Like, obviously they have in it their own piece. That So, from the whole school department, what have the directions been for how to set up these things and put the work orders in will be my two of my questions. It's clear that there's not There's some things going on here that I know we're on right on the spot, so I don't want to get back and keep going back into it, but ultimately So, to give you an example though Sure. to your question See how it says FD in parentheses? Yeah. So, anything related to fire department I put FD. So, when I want to search, I can prompt it. So, then anything will come up, right? So I put those little um abbreviations
027or something so I can prompt the the search. Yeah. I would say, and I don't know the system Yeah. there's got to be a way to to have some sort of button down there that says a fire related. Mhm. You don't You shouldn't have to put it in there. Like, you forget to put it >> they initiate. So if Dorothy asks or or puts in a work order fire panel they put on that they'll put it in um to your question. So, you would come here work category. And they would have safety, right? So, safety problem fire protection. So, that's how it would get put in. Right. So, it should show up on that report based on those, not you having to put the parentheses. That's the way I see it. Mhm. >> [clears throat]
028>> You know what I'm Like if you forget to put the parentheses, you can still figure out anything related to fire safety. Should be part of uh the system. >> Right. But I think we just >> And it is. It and it is, but it it takes some time to to pull these reports. >> So that was some of my questions. Anybody else have questions for this demonstration before we ask questions related to Brightly in general. Um This demonstration, like if the Josh doing this. Are we are we going to be Stop. We're going to talk about that in a second. Are we ready to you want to run any uh uh other reports? And we good? I mean I mean just from the reports that I've seen just on its face value, but of
029course we're going to get the backup. It looks like this either this program is underutilized or It's not done yet. Or it's not done. But I'm hoping as we tackle this further >> my questions. Do we have any anything from custodial on anything to add to this that you do you want to show us anything that you guys do relative to the Brightly to show how it's helping you or For the custodian piece, is the um senior will if something's broken, they will apply a new work order, submit it in, and then it either goes to if it's an electrical issue, it'll go they click click on electrical, it goes to Josh Josh submits it to the right departments. If it's grounds, it'll go to Lou. And we've been telling them time and time again,
030be clear, concise, and accurate. If there's a broken window, give us the room it's near and the location of the building. Don't just say broken window. Can I ask a question? Ask a question. >> Of course. Um the guy's going to end up running around. So if you give him 232, they know that window's broken by 232. As much information as they can put in there, they need to put in there for the maintenance and grounds personnel. It sounds just by your response that you're frustrated a little bit with people not No, I'm I'm getting over That's >> No, no, what you were saying like you over and over I've asked them. So like I took from that that they're not following your direction or Is it wrong? >> are now because I had Josh
031reiterate it. We both got a hold of them and said, "Look, we need it this way so we can We're not spending a lot of lost time looking for stuff." And they're all >> So it's been corrected. Yes. >> Thank you, Mr. Dice. Thank you. Just quickly on that point. So in grounds, the only individual who would be submitting orders or um assigning orders would be the director? Yes. See, my concern with that and to um Mr. Claus' point, we we went through there and it was um the the data showed that most of the work orders were past due. So I just want to know as one member how we're following up on those orders. Well, they weren't past due. Remember we looked at it and it said it those are the PMs. So
032those hadn't been been attended to because some of them either are in the past or they're scheduled. So I thought that was for another I I No, they're correct. So I think your question is and we can get a report afterwards was for the grounds piece the director would put them in he puts in all of the updated pre- preventive maintenance. So that's all over the district. That's where you get that large number. What you're really I think trying to drill down is to say how many active non-PM work orders are we getting? And we can get a report on that to show it's 10 a day, it's 20 a day, there's X amount uh due. That's I think where I'm anticipating what your question is. Isn't related to the preventive maintenance. We're going to
033get a separate report on preventive maintenance. Can I ask Yeah, yes it does. Can I ask how um an individual is assigned like an account through who would be the assigner? The director? Would it be yourself? The director would be the only one that should be accessing this and distributing. No one else should be. Who So, each director would be doing that. Who who's the Who do we have Do we have like an admin list and who So, Josh has taken a role in because his the system is primarily going to go to the maintenance piece. It's designed for work orders and most of the work orders end up being maintenance. However, Jose has some access and is also sat with uh Brightly along with Josh and others because every time we do end up
034meeting with Brightly, most of the time we met with all the directors that are in F&O. It wasn't just one particular person. Okay. So, the template of uh I guess we could probably get a report at some point, not now. I think we're going to discuss it when we shut down. I'm not The um report [clears throat] of uh like an all chat for the who's in Brightly would just help us to understand who's in it. So, we should have more people that are able to assign a work order versus actually getting the work order because the senior wouldn't get Like how does a a senior know If I'm a principal and I say I got an issue in my school that I want to assign to the senior? Well, the principal can put it
035in the system itself. >> it to the senior? So, when it says on this sheet we're looking at it said assign to So, that would mean that all the seniors should be on that list. You get what I'm >> the seniors are the ones inputting the information. If a principal needs something done >> like uh I'm talking about within the school so that if I'm a principal and you're the custodian and I need you to do something that's within your purview. Mhm. I'm the principal. How do I put that ticket in so that we document that the principal asked you to uh I'm not sure that the principals are using it in that in that manner because the principals are either seeing the probably see the senior custodian in the middle building first thing in
036the morning. They're giving them whatever they need done right out of out of the gate. Thank you. That's my guess. Right, I understand, but there's certain things that I think that they should be keeping track of with a building. So, I think that's it probably is not being utilized like I'm envisioning it. Yep. I'm thinking more the principal says, "Hey, you know, can you take care of this?" And I'm not suggesting like we need toilet paper in the in the principal bathroom. That's not what I'm I'm talking about, but at some point the principal should be able to assign things like uh I don't they move furniture for instance. Like so >> You know, like >> they would get that event, so the principal would hand them you have I have a meeting and I
037need 14 chairs set up here. They would go put the 14 chairs set up here and then it would come up in the calendar. And then they would see the calendar. >> Where does that information live? >> school. It doesn't live in any software. The calendar? Or wherever, like in that example that Chico said. So, how do we know uh what is cap- captured in the software for that particular description of what we need? Or a teacher wants to move a desk from uh Dr. Curly's room to Mr. Diaz's room. How does that get confirmed in the >> Usually it just gets confirmed with the senior custodian. They'll make a call to them and say, "Hey, I I I have a desk to be moved." And then Because the maintenance has to move it. The
038custodian doesn't move it. >> Because the the custodians move it. Like yeah. It wouldn't be something they would be putting on SchoolDude. No. Because they're in their building and that communication happens with the principal or, you know, the teacher will tell the principal and and say, "Hey, I need this room moved and so the principal will communicate >> Yeah, I understand. I'm only looking at it as I think the purpose of the software's that we have here is to manage and also understand what's the the breath of how much work is being done and putting nothing from a custodian in it to me is not useful when we have a system that you know, there should be a limit like don't tell me that you need paper towels, but if they happen to be moved
039what if what if somebody came out and said that principal is making me move stuff 15 different times back and forth? What in the system is going to allow us to say, oh yeah, that's right. They moved that from here to there and there to there and there to there. I'm sure I'm not sure if a senior is getting that kind of response from a principal. I'm sure that They already know. >> Maria and John would know right out of the gate that this is happening over and over again and then that conversation would have to be had between the director and the principal. I don't believe it's happening, but if it is happening then I think we should look at it personally. I think we should look at making sure that there there is
040something put in. The special would be that so it's not like the example of a toilet paper or a paper towel, but I think custodians need to be involved in some of it and things get assigned to a senior to do. It should be documented what those seniors are doing. Any other questions on brightly Mr. Diaz? Thank you. So I know um and I just this is my first um turn around on facilities and operations so I did some research to understand this was first um brought up. I know this switchover happened from SchoolDude into the new system brightly. It was January of 24, February of 24 when it was discussed and brought before the committee. And um I know it was um there was a secondary meeting, I believe, in April, March, April of
0412025 in facilities. And um and I know and I did go through the backup and I know it took us a while to get program fully up and running. Um just quickly just going through that timeline if we can just quickly just for the public's education just um touch upon what were the issues why we couldn't like just start right from the get-go when we had the The amount of the amount of items in Brightly was just thousands of items to be moved over and and they and again, as I said, that rollover was not necessarily um easy. Some of it is the fact that when we did bring everything over all of the individuals who were involved in the work orders back then don't work for us anymore. So, somewhere along the line we
042had to figure out where that stuff was going to live and under who would it live. So, if we if we lost probably 25 to 30 over the years, 25 to 30 custodians senior custodians changing over, things like that. All of those items had to live somewhere. So, a lot of this stuff was back and forth with Brightly to try and figure out where this stuff was going to live. This wasn't 10 minutes, it wasn't 2 days, it was weeks um for them to figure out how they were going to land it on on this particular thing. And mind you, all of these softwares are not just designed for schools, so some of it's designed for other applications. So, it's not a it's not a perfect fit in the rollover. So, that was some of
043the issues. Some of the issues was internally how we wanted it to lay out. Going from this person to this person to this person wasn't Some of it wasn't a normal transaction that they normally would find in districts. We did things a little different. Not completely different, but we did do things a little different than others. Sometimes the size of the district matters also. We are a good size district with a lot of employees. So again, more data had to be inputted. Um and and back in the day the reorg was not as singular as it is here now. It was one person doing all of the work. Maybe two, possibly three. But not seven and to the magnitude of which we have to do it today. So those are all the things that contributed
044to the amount of time it took us. Sure. And I and I and I and I can understand that. Um and I guess and I know Mr. Cabral isn't here today, but the question I would ask is why didn't we go more through the company itself to fix some of these issues? I know we used more in-house. So we did. We used the company to do a lot of We didn't We didn't go outside of the company until we wanted to and I'm going to say make make the product more customized as opposed to general. It was so far that that we went with Brightly and then the Brightly um help was not as as um accessible. And that was again, as I said, you know, earlier. Um on on certain items, we took it
045upon ourselves to take this on in-house. The fact that we have a robust technology department we assumed that we would be better suited by doing some of this work in-house. Some of it worked out for us, some of it didn't. But the the intent was to allow us this customization that we didn't have available by flipping a switch with Brightly. Okay. Do you think there's more work that needs to be done to get this up and running and so >> Absolutely. Absolutely. Do you think Some of it has to be with us. Some of it has to be with us figuring out what's important and what's not. Okay, so so there are things that we've customized in here that have worked out very well. And then there are others that may not be as necessary
046as we thought they would be. Um the amount of people that are in the system is a lot. You know, the system is is is large, so there's a lot of working parts within the system and a lot of names and individual um duties that are that are part of the system. So when we first looked at this stuff, we were looking for something robust, very robust. That was not what School Dude was. School Dude was a little clunky. This is not as clunky, but it's still got its own drawbacks. Of course. Um And I and I agree with you looking um when you say we're looking for something more more robust. Can I ask for like a percentage of like where we're at in terms of like maybe like a cost estimate in getting
047this to 100%? I I couldn't tell you that because I I would have never I would have never been able to predict the amount of time it's taken so far to get where we are, but I'm not quite sure what that would what that would entail. And whether or not it would entail any any additional help from Brightly or whether or not it would be in-house. I I don't I don't have any way of knowing that. And I'm I'm sure that uh Mr. Cabral could obviously answer that question better than I can, but I I would say that that is um something I couldn't answer. You know, and whether or not it was something that he wanted to take on in-house as necessary. >> No, I I the candor. The reason I bring it up
048because when I was going through like the minutes from previous meetings um uh Mr. Rapozo who um I guess in the minutes stated he took a major role in the in the rollout. I stated that it was 90% done, but it looks like we're not Well, the rollout was the the rollout is completed. There's no doubt that the rollout's completed cuz the rollout only means bringing the documents into the new system. That was the rollout. As far as getting the the the system to function as we like it to function. >> That's not >> [clears throat] >> That's what he stated with that. >> He's just saying that right, he's just talking about the migration. And is there any plans on using this in the future for um inventory tracking like the faster way? >>
049does not is not doesn't have that capability. And we've been told by Brightly that they are not ready to roll out their particular version of that. Um but there is supposedly a version a version a version of this you know coming. Okay. Um roll out the principals. Is that it like bringing in the staff? >> is the migration. Okay. Um last question is um I understand like most of the directors are pretty well versed in this now. Yes. When did that um when did that take place? When did we get the training for the directors? It's a year ago now. A year ago. Okay. Yeah. And that was done so the the senior custodians were trained. The principals were individually visited and trained um in the in the process. But the custodians who did most
050of the input on the previous system um were trained um together in a group. Um might have been two separate times. Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Mr. Moniz. Yes. So, real quick, um when your inside departments can't handle the the work and you guys end up call you end up outsourcing it, is that all part of this program that you guys go through getting somebody down there to look at it, to evaluate everything, and then call you or I don't know how you guys So, what anytime work is done, people work order in, right? Right. So, for instance, Morton. They put just put a work order in, no hot water. Pump went down, pipe went down, we were able to handle it in house. If we weren't [clears throat] able to, Yeah.
051we would have to make the proper calls. Okay. Now, is that are these people on the list at all, whoever you call to come in? No, so with something like that, we'll use Morton again. I would just tell the plumber, just put down what you did, right? So, if he So, Morton, the VFD was an issue, right? And the fan wall. So, we replaced the module, we reset the the VFD. Right. Worked fine. If that if that didn't Right, that's the play out that way and we had to call a contractor, I would have the plumber just put tried troubleshooting, put what he did up to that point. Yeah. Once the contractor is completed, then we would close it cuz then we know it's closed. Okay. So, if something gets put in with the elevators,
052what I'll do, is I will actually personally go in and actually put the date that I spoke with them, completed. Now, this is the company you're talking about. >> No, that's me that's me closing it out. Okay. That's me closing it out because if a So, if a custodian puts a work order in for an elevator, which they do, I have to be able [clears throat] to close it out, right? We don't want things open. Correct. So, but I won't close it out until But you're not making a work order for the elevator company. >> No. No. No. No. No. No. So so >> do we look at it? So if we looked at Brightly, which is our main now work order system. And I said, "Show me all of the work orders for the
053elevator company." Right. >> What By what you're explaining is you don't have that. >> No. No. What I'm saying is the custodian will put the work order in. >> No, I'm saying for that If I said search by, you know, elevator. So there's elevator. There's an elevator section. And then if I put into the description elevator for a particular school, it will show up. Yes. >> Of the issue. Not necessarily the actual referral to an outside place. No. So what I do in the description is I'll put spoke to Buckley at such and such time or Yeah, I understand. If you you put it in the you put it in the notes rather than an actual like That way we know how much goes to outside, how much stay inside, what you guys are paying.
054>> Right. And obviously Well, obviously And obviously you know you guys know elevators always go outside. >> Of course. Yeah, so I'm That might be a bad example because of that reason. Right. I I think the point is if we're go using outside vendors, in order for us to be able to like see as a management oversight, Right. >> we should see how much work's getting done by outside vendors Right. and how they're attached to which is what I was asking about the nutrition. >> Right. So the guy in the nutrition, which we'll get to at some point, >> [cough] >> uh came and he had to uh fix a freezer that was frozen over, blah blah blah. So that person, that company Marshall or whatever the other one is, there's nothing in there that
055says Marshall. It'll be under Somebody wrote that Marshall came to fix it. It's not under a list of Marshall fixing the nutrition. So we can't like cross-reference our bills to work orders potentially. Our staff is capable or we're not capable. That's what we're trying to cuz then the other debate that the other issue on the item here is whether who can fix the items or not. Right. >> So and I think in nutrition you guys don't even get called, right? Cuz the as a whole like he your guys would go to >> So, so a lot of many times the custodians and the nutrition side they collaborate and like one that sticks in my mind is cust. All right, so the custodian gave me a call told me there was an issue in the cafeteria
056and uh yeah, we fixed the issue. And how do how does that get put in? So, Billy would put the work order in. And then you type in you did it and whatever the issue would be whether it's electrical, plumbing Yeah, it'll make more sense to when we go over the bills to know that I think it's going to make a little bit more sense. Any other questions to the board? Mr. Chair Mr. Diaz Thank you. If I can just follow up and just my last line is um on the overtime uh Madam Superintendent, can you um just inform the subcommittee what the protocols were or they're I don't know if they recently changed but what they were are now if um an employee is um given overtime or requests overtime. Sure. Um so, when
057um this particular project um and another came to light, [snorts] um I I met with the um those departmental leads in the you know, members of senior staff to just review that if we're starting a project like this Beforehand or after I mean or afterwards? >> This was after. >> After, okay. that um what we do with other departments is we fill out um a person fills out a request. It's like a proposal. We call it the white stipend form um because it's white paper and um it's stipend approval. So, they outline a project. It could be you know, curriculum writing project. It could be um some kind of professional development project. It could be um you know, a tech project for something in FNO where it would they would you know, put together a
058proposal that would say, um, "Looking for approval on this project for this purpose. Um, anticipated, you know, these two people are each going to work 25 hours, and it's going to come to this price based on the hourly rate that we pay out, and then so we approve up to 5,000, 6,000, whatever it is, and then all of the timesheets come off, you know, are subtracted from that total, and then as it gets closer, someone in finance might reach out to the project manager to say, um, "Hey, you're you only have about $500 left in that approval." They might come back. >> And they could come back, and then we have to review what the original project was, why it wasn't done, and so on and so on. So that's the expectation. If, um, and
059I I appreciate that the administration, um, took the sign and and implemented those protocols. If I can and can add, if, um, like, just for example, I'm going through one of the timesheets from, um, 2 7 2020 2025. It's, um, signed by the individual receiving the overtime. Um, that supervisor's signature, was that that individual's direct supervisor or like department head or Um, 2 7? I think it's the same individual that signed off on all of like It looks like the same Actually, maybe not. The signatures do look a little different. So I'm not sure if there's different if there was different individuals signing off on them or if it was all the same. No, okay. Okay. So I'm looking at one from 2 7, and it looks I don't I think Is this Is this
060Chico's? Is your signature? Yeah, that's Mr. Chico's signature. Okay. Um is there a plan if we're to to can continue like improving the the protocols to have it be that direct supervisor or someone in that department or would it be okay or do you think it's okay in certain instances that directors for supervise from other departments can cross? Yeah, so I my understanding is that this this project kicked off and included Mr. Pacheco and then our um CIO and I think potentially the person here who actually did the work. So it kicked off in that way um with a request like hey, we have this kind of work to do. Is this something the tech department could do? Yes. And I would you know, I recommend this person to do it. And then because this
061money was coming out of F&O and not technology, Mr. Pacheco was the person who signed off on the timesheets because it was coming out of his budget. >> Okay. Okay. Yeah. And um this individual was this like a work from home situation or was he did he come in to Um I think that I would say that if it was done after hours and when I as I look at there are definitely weekends this person was not coming into the building to do it. No. Right. So like the start time end times was it 15:20? Is that just military Yeah. >> time? Okay. Thank you. IOU. So I just had a few follow-ups. So it um it seems like the answer to the question was that we had limited internal control before. Yes. And we're
062trying to upgrade those which I would appreciate that we're finally upgrading but it doesn't it doesn't um I can speak for myself. It doesn't sit well with me personally that has been here since January of 2024 when we were told this was going to work seamlessly and we weren't going to pay any more money and all that stuff. It doesn't sit well with me as one member that we did start it. We whatever happened with the Right Way or School Dude in the conversion, why we were allowed why it was allowed to go outside and spend $40,000 in overtime for something that we were never told as a committee that was going to be needed. And we said it we were told in the meeting it was going to be seamless. It doesn't sit well
063with me that we spent that kind of money on that. To Mr. Diaz's point about the sign-offs, the I believe we should always have multiple levels of sign-off, which is what the process has been since the last overtime issue in both of our departments that Mrs. Ponce was the superintendent have two people sign off. When I looked at these, I said, "Well, Mr. Pacheco signed off, which I understand, but then no one else above him, or in addition to him, signed off." Mhm. And the protocol was that a supervisor would sign off like the like assistant custodian, and then Mr. Pacheco would sign off. Mhm. We didn't have that in this case to the tune of $40,000. That to me begs the questions of how uh when I looked at a couple of these on
064a Saturday, this gentleman worked overtime for 17 hours or 14 hours in one day. And he was working from home, even though we have a no work from home policy. We do not have a work from home policy in the district. So, if I'm looking at policy procedure, one, we shouldn't pay somebody that much overtime to do something that we weren't told was needed. Two, the sign-offs and work from home isn't in policy. And at the end of the day, when I look through this, the the I I it begs the question of what do these people do all day that they couldn't do some of this work during the time? Like some of this is what Right Way did the single sign-on, things like that. In Mr. um Cabral's department, there's people that do
065that work, working with vendors all the time. But, in this case we spent $40,000 in overtime for a situation that was already a year out and then we still haven't implemented it. So, I definitely have a problem with how that went. Um we need to tighten it up. I don't know if everyone is aware of the policy and protocol from the FNO department after the situations we had in the past with overtime, but that should be through the whole system. That's an internal control that was put in place uh to do that. So, I'm not happy personally with how this whole thing rolled out because I'm not sure I'm not seeing at all anything major that we spent probably over $100,000 on this new system that the old system couldn't do. I'm I'm I'm just
066not seeing it and I appreciate you know, Mr. Stottle working on this here. I wasn't impressed by what we're using it for for the tune of over $100,000 of this system. At the time I had it mentioned why are we why don't we look at it like IncidentIQ which is another department that uh technology uses. So, we didn't even uh consider that, but we're doing this piece. So, I know we're into it way too far now to abandon it and say let's do something else, but I for one wasn't convinced. Um some of the stuff that when we first did the conversion that we said it was in Mr. Reposa said it was 90% worked out. From my understanding is that some of it just didn't carry in properly to their own system. So, he
067spent hours and hours of overtime working on lines of an Excel sheet because it didn't seamlessly go in. That to me is not our fault. That's rightly in SchoolDude's problem. So, if it came in and those things didn't line up like they said before the committee and subcommittee was sold on it, we shouldn't have paid them. We shouldn't have had to pay somebody outside. In addition to that, I asked for and I haven't been able to really track it down, but Mr. Cabral gives overtime to this uh gentleman as well. So, now we have an employee that probably made more money in overtime than his entire salary. And that's not a good look. That's not a good system. Um so, I definitely have some issues with the financial piece of it. Uh Mr. Jose Raposo
068said from nutrition, he was part of it a big part of this. My question is is is any of his pay What what is his pay come from out of the nutrition account? 100%? Yes. So, if he's doing work for non-nutrition, is that a is that legit? Well, there's quite a bit of of the work that was nutrition, and he also did in some of these items there is NutriAssist NutriKids that is part of So, some of this overtime, not all of it, but some of this overtime was attributed to a nutrition account. Um and the nutrition piece. And nutrition paid for Darren's We haven't seen that report, but some of Darren's overtime was paid out of out of nutrition? >> Just that Just the stuff that was part of nutrition. >> Yeah. I'd like
069to get a report on Mr. Raposo's uh where his money came from. Because it It came out of It came out of nutrition. There was no ifs, ands, or buts about it. His entire salary came out of nutrition. And it's okay that he was doing work on F&O stuff. Is that If If you If you would like that correction made, I can make that correction. I'm just Well, I'm just saying it is. I'm just curious. The lines are blurred. The lines are blurred, but that's, you know, I mean, it's There are times when >> what happened? Well, the lines are blurred because there was times when he was working on on Nutra on NutriKids. There was times when he was working on this particular piece of brightly. Mhm. So, I would say when we're doing
070some of the rentals, there is a portion that it should be charged to nutrition if it's going to be an event that nutrition is handling. Not always, but I think that some of that piece is blurred. Yeah. So, I can't I can't pinpoint exactly how many hours. I could eat. You know, if I tried, how many hours, but um there were some hours that a salary person was working on this. Yes. And all I'm asking is that we look into it to say that there's [snorts] hours that he was obviously working on it not like when he we were told which is in the minutes that he was going to go and train all the principals. I'm not so sure that should be a a nutrition piece. Because his title is nutrition supervisor, not So
071I'm not sure that that and that's been said in the public meeting, so I'm not so sure that his whole salary shouldn't have been paid for it, but that's just a a question. The other piece of this uh before we end this is the um use of schools and the uh not use of schools, but the piece of it that deals with stuff, where is that stand with it? Because of the same thing, I'm going back to June and January of 2024 where we were told So it was up and running this morning. So it's running and it's up and running full. There's no uh I haven't been told that there were issues with it by the person who does most of that work. So uh maybe the custodians, Mr. Claus. So if a custodian
072wanted to figure out where um anything about a use of schools, where where do they find that in Brightly? It's under SchoolDude, I think. It's under Yeah, it's under SchoolDude. So they'll go in into SchoolDude and then go into calendar and be Well, I usually takes care of all the event management and then she'll stick it in there and say, "You have There's an event going on on Saturday." So they custodian will go into the calendar, bring it up, and they'll say "Basketball from So they're still using SchoolDude in a pretty tremendous fashion. Like we're not We're not doing anything. The piece of it is Brightly. They call it SchoolDude, but it's still it's it's >> It's the event manager. It's Brightly. It's a Brightly product. >> underneath the the calendar of SchoolDude. Yeah. You
073can understand why I'm confused. Well, it's just that they're calling it SchoolDude because Because that's what they have it now. Yeah, right. You know. >> still SchoolDude doesn't exist anymore anywhere except for this one piece that we do have to have, which is that inventory, and it's still owned by Brightly. But they haven't developed their particular piece to get rid of the SchoolDude name completely. But I'm talking [snorts] about event manager. Exactly, it's event manager Brightly. Nothing to do with SchoolDude. It is not SchoolDude. >> it as SchoolDude for so many years. It's just habit-forming to say, "Oh, I got to go into SchoolDude." So you go to brightly.com/events, something like whatever the I believe they have It's not They're not going to SchoolDude. No. They're not going to look So SchoolDude is pretty much
074The only person that's using SchoolDude The only person that's using SchoolDude for anything is inventory. And the inventory piece through our distribution department is using the version of And it's not called SchoolDude. When did you start using it? Or they've been using it >> on since for a Yeah, for a long time. Since it was Since it's in its inception. It's been used. Could we get a Not today, but presentation in the future on the inventory management? Cuz I know that was brought up in the um Yeah, so inventory management is under That's the only thing that's still under SchoolDude. It's Yeah. >> working like SchoolDude, so that's not a brightly.com. It's brightly.com. That's a Right. SchoolDude, right. Um If you can email our supplies Sure. >> We can add it to another meeting, or
075if you have somebody that can maybe do a um work with the tech department to do a media visual of what it looks like. >> Sure. Any other last questions on this piece? I wish Mr. Dyson. I'm just going to add that overtime like this, especially for one person, should be pre-approved and signed just like a stipend would be. That way we see it and we know what's coming. Just so we have control of how much and why I I don't think though that I don't know actually but I don't think that the committee sees like if if Mr. Raposo um put together a proposal for $5,000 worth of curriculum work. I don't know that that form >> But the other departments >> by the all putting in Well, it's like but if they But
076I don't think that it goes to the superintendent. So, okay. If you What you're saying is I think correct in that it should go to somebody but it goes to the superintendent to say, okay, the budget for facilities not for general overtime is 100,000 and he's making a proposal for 40,000. It's up to her to figure out yes or no or whatever. That's the piece I think that didn't happen. All right. And I think the superintendent is saying that's what she's correcting now to say it's going to happen in the future that if you think I'm going to spend 20, 30 grand, it has to go before them to say, okay, what is it for? At that point she might have said, why don't you go see Scott and see if they can do it
077in house. We can't do it after hours because we don't have a policy. You know, those questions that we raised today hopefully not going to happen again in the future based on the internal controls. And I would be I just want to be clear that if there was something where Mr. Pacheco needed someone to come in on a Saturday to do something that had to be corrected before kids came back to school on Monday. I wouldn't necessarily see a stipend for or something like that There's an emergency. We understand. And then you can have anything happen. He can call it and say let's take care of this right now because Right, I'm not looking at that. But what we're looking at something that's going into long-term which it looks like it just kept growing and
078growing and growing. That's something where we need a little more. I could be wrong but I almost imagine this as something Mr. Pacheco might have brought to say, um I'm going to need someone to do this and he very likely might have estimated not under knowing what the work was going to be like. I need, you know, approval to do up to $5,000. And then might come back and said, it didn't cut it. I'm going to need this. And it because my understanding is that's how this project rolled out. It seemed like it was going to be a a relatively like small fix that just kept getting bigger. Yeah. I would just like to add as well like the part that you said Madam Superintendent about Mr. Cabral being part of the original. I'd like
079to tease that out a little bit as well because I would be concerned that seeing what I saw in the overtime and the like I said the spreadsheets and the single sign-ons is a big one cuz I know that happens with all the other instructional ones. I want to be able to see what his involvement was in that because he has people in his department that do that stuff all day. Right. >> So, in essence we paid somebody to do something that we should be paying people to do during the day. Would be it just begs that question. So, Right. And I'm not trying to say that >> trying to like say that this isn't about like oh and and Mr. Cabral knew. I think my understanding and it could be more than this but
080definitely at the beginning it was a hey there's this need and the tech you know, the CIO was involved. Whether he was involved as the project went along, I I can't say. >> Yeah, I'm just saying tease it out to try to see because it also comes into a system where I think of he should know whether it's one of his employees is working this much overtime. So, he's not giving them overtime and I haven't been able to cross-reference it but if as he's doing this he's also doing an overtime for his department that's his real job. It just I I I ask those questions for the future just to kind of get an update. Yeah. Mr. Chair. Last question. Yeah, last last question is uh last comment is and I think it's been kind
081of a habit [clears throat] but I I think in general we we have these companies I think you mentioned before there's in in my opinion as well there's some things in here that we spent money on that the company probably could have corrected on its own. And I don't think we do a good job at holding these companies accountable. So I don't know if it's something that either we can try and hard bargain against some of our get a refund on some of the money we spent out for something that should have been corrected by this company or >> say that I I can speak from experience on the technology subcommittee where most of the software conversions and all these things and it's very complicated in educational software. As since I've been on that technical
082subcommittee for the least the last 4 years that I've been here never once have we heard that a company didn't fix or we didn't fix working with them internally during a regular work day that they haven't fixed it. And there's much more complicated problems than this particular one. Like for instance IncidentIQ is the one that the technology department uses. I would say I don't know because I haven't asked for the information when we did a conversion from whatever they were using to IncidentIQ guarantee we didn't spend $40,000 trying to get the whole system up and running to convert. >> So the issue is that it's not asking for the help basically. Within this specific particular >> I don't know specifically on this one I think it was probably they sold a bill of goods if
083I had to say they said oh it's everything's going to work seamlessly because we're going from your software to your software. They probably sold a bill of goods to whoever and then at that point once you realize oh it's all right now it's a mess we're going to fix it. That's just my own editorial on it but I can say with 100% confident that the technology and curriculum folks that deal with this type of stuff This one >> deals with it during the school day and we don't pay overtime like this. So Thank you. All right. So we're going to move on. Thank you very much. Thank you for your presentation. Should we have a motion on the table or not? No, we don't think we need to, no. Uh some of the questions that
084we asked if you can get them at some point to um and next month when we meet we'll either figure out whether to put it on the agenda or if we have the answers. Uh number two is a traffic review uh update. So uh some of these are going to go a little quicker than um than the first item just so you know, so we can move this meeting along. Mr. Chico. So the um the packet from January 28th internal um we met with engineering traffic um and um PD at the site came up with a plan um to institute a um a small change in the pattern by not allowing people during certain times to come down Progress Street below um which cleared things up. It also allowed for a little bit of a
085traffic change to have the traffic circulating through the property. Um we noticed a considerable difference um in the in the morning arrival. However, we also have had the um the ability to have SROs around on some of these days. So to create you know, a um a habit-changing pattern um and the hope is that that we don't constantly have to have um officers there. There's also some traffic uh signs um that are going to go up, some no parking signs um between certain hours on Progress Street to stop parents from bottlenecking that um and that that the enforcement will be there to tag cars who um who are parked illegally. Uh part of most of our traffic issues are concerning bad parking habits and also some tight neighborhoods and take out the the weather issues.
086On a normal day, some of these some of these places are very difficult to maneuver. Um the neighborhoods that we're talking about a lot more parents showing up a lot earlier. Durfee High School 1:00 [snorts] for 2:55 dismissal getting there parking places jockeying for positions so so to speak. So in these other schools, same thing is happening. Um so with the the cooperation of the other depart- the city departments it's made a difference at Letourneau. Sometimes being able to create a one-way um as we did in Westall, another particular traffic altering um change that changed provided more safety. So it cleared the neighborhood up of cars coming up both ways on on the um on Maple Street. It also changing the traffic pattern on June Street and not allowing cars to bottleneck on June Street.
087So creating those one-ways, School Street was really never an issue because it's not wide enough for two cars to get up and down anyway. But those other streets were and it's made a significant difference in arrival and uh dismissal. Again, two different things. Arrival is much easier to handle than dismissal. Dismissal is everybody at the same time. Arrival is kind of a gradual thing. And there are parents who who take advantage of dropping students off just a little early to get out of um that major traffic area. So we do have um some works in progress. We are working with Durfee um we're getting um the traffic studies from the contractor to take a look at what the plan was originally. Um some of it is is currently what we're using. Um but we're waiting
088for the final document um to work on helping Durfee create a a better flow. Uh and and there are a bunch of ideas coming out, so whether or not we move our Saugus Transportation portion of the transportation to the opposite side of the building, uh to the north entrance instead of that entrance. Um, some of the um our our door-to-door bussing, our our special needs education bussing in front of the building, um maybe we're looking at that. That was never intended for that. However, the proximity to the classrooms um make it an ideal spot to do some of that work. So, that is another piece uh that's in progress of uh traffic. Um, the uh changing of lights, so timing of of lights has been a big factor at Durfee. We changed the lights 20
089seconds and it made a world of a difference to empty out Elsbury Street. So, you got four lanes of traffic on Elsbury Street. 20 seconds was made a world of difference on uh allowing the Elsbury Street to dump out because President Avenue didn't dump didn't have the backup that that President Avenue that dump Elsbury Street did. So, again, one more piece of of a small adjustment that really didn't affect an awful lot of people, um but made a world of difference in emptying those those two roads. I understand that the the business, you know, a Dunkin Donuts right across the street from Durfee is a problem because traffic is in and out of there frequently and it ties it gives us a little congestion at one of our main entrances, which is Hood Street into
090Durfee property. So, all of those items have been attacked slowly, but they are they are working. Um, and um Sylvia, we do have a proposal um that'll come down to you. We started a major project on Sylvia when we did Henry Lord um on the access road. and there's a possibility of adding an access road um, to Durfee uh, to um, Sil- Sylvia, I'm sorry, from the rotary. >> That parking lot still open? That little section. Yes. Yes. So, the the the rotary in the PK kindergarten area. So, that rotary is kind of a dead end. There's no way to move cars from there, but there is and there is a possibility of an access road that would lead out to Meridian, and then we could make one entrance in and one entrance out. It
091would make a world of difference there. That one requires a bit of money. It's an investment across in the waterway. It's a capital improvement piece. Um, but it's it's um, the it's it's a process because there's a crossing a waterway requires a little more work and a little more due diligence on the core engineers. Um, a notice of intent to to cross a waterway is is um, a lot of work, but we'll be working um, with project will be coming down uh, very shortly to this committee, um, so that we can get that process moving. It It took us almost a year and a half to do Henry Lord uh, with the how close we were to the wetlands. So, So, you mentioned about the Durfee having the plans that were in the original. So,
092the original, which which only work when you have the original design in mind, right? So, again, the bus the front parking lot was never meant for bus buses. It was meant for visitor parking. It serves well for what we're doing because it it's a shortest route for some of those students to get on those buses and a safe spot for them to get on the buses. I totally get it. So, one of the things that we mentioned at our prior one was and this came up at the city traffic department about doing a traffic study for all schools. Can't say I I think that's we have to do that and we should do that before we spend money on any of those other projects. Almost as a and if we can't do them all at
093once because it could get costly. We need a proposal to say we're going to do a traffic study. We're going to put out an RFP however that process works. So, I'd like to make a motion that we refer this item to the full committee with a RFP or whatever you feel the superintendent feels to do traffic studies for all schools. >> Second motion. Motion's been made and made and seconded. Roll call please. Mr. Dragon. Yes. Mr. Diaz. Yes. Mr. Moniz. Yes. So, I think that we will get a lot of information from that. I do want to say from being around and having and listening and talking to Mr. Pacheco about some traffic we I I nibble around the edges of making progress on certain ones. I mentioned to him at the Tansey school I
094got a call from a parent said it was much better when they did a different traffic pattern. That's a work in progress. I get it. But, there is some positive things happening with the schools. I think Letourneau was better after the city traffic department. My one question on that one was that is there a playground that they say that you can't get around the school anymore? Was that something built where you normally could go around? So, it was never used. That that was never used as an entrance or exit on the building. Number one because of its proximity to the playground and it's a real tight corner to make. So, you could get a It's just not made for that. We would have to just steal a little bit more land from the from the
095pre-K K area. That small playground on the property. >> know. I've never seen it. I just I heard It's never been used. You know, but that might be another way to >> [snorts] >> have a access out and sometimes the fire department says they want to be able to get around the schools. I don't know if that's an issue but just thought >> They can't get around because the back side is is accessible. [clears throat] >> They just have to come from the >> They just got to get it from the other side. So, if we can just check that out but I appreciate that. Mr. Chair. Yep. I apologize. On this issue? Yes. Um specifically >> [clears throat] >> I'm just going to speak on the two that are here today on um West
096Fall just quickly. Um I don't know if we've been receiving complaints. I know I have from Several. I've brought to my office. So, I'm sorry to interrupt, but That's No complaints whatsoever on Westdale. The neighborhood president and who um believe he lives in around that area. He said he's got some complaints down there, but I I But My my main issue right now is with Letourneau. >> Excuse me if I interrupt. So, I believe that that was true that was brought up by I think you referred him back to the superintendent if I could remember correctly. I I don't I don't I never got contact information or anything like that. So, basically I think it's a good practice that somebody's in the neighborhood. Just so anybody's watching, you can call us all you want. At
097the end of the day, we are going to refer back to the superintendent or Mr. Pacheco so they can address uh so I would just say as part of like the next step, go back to him and say please let Mr. Pacheco and superintendent know so he they can hear the Sometimes they call us like as if we can just snap our fingers and do it. We have to refer. Right. Um Secondly, on Letourneau and the and um the individual that reached out, I told him to go speak to the principal, but I'm still going to bring up um this issue because it's um cuz it could be [clears throat] >> [snorts] >> a problem. I don't know. Um ADA compliance at the schools. Is there is there like a You need to have some
098sort of I don't I really don't know the answer. Do you need to have the handicap dark spots? Mhm. You need parking or >> Yes. Yeah. So, there are quite a few at every building. I received a complaint and I think I don't I don't know like I haven't been there to check it myself. There's um there's only one spot >> At Letourneau? Letourneau, yes. One spot and the spot depending on the day cuz I understand they have the cones like that for them for everyone to go around and it's block the the parking spot getting blocked by the cone. I I don't >> Okay, we can take a look at it, for sure. Um And secondly, and I don't know if you're you're receiving this um or whoever received this for the traffic complaints,
099um this the plan has been followed been followed since the since the um changes were since we had all had that meeting. Is there any many >> I haven't heard anything to the contrary. >> I'll deal with that then. Thank you. Okay, thank you. We're going to move on. Um just looking at the time, we spent a lot of time on the first one. So, I'd like to uh have a motion to table 3.05, the capital plan, and 3.06, nutrition. And with that one have the uh at the next meeting have the nutrition department administration present. Second. Motion been made and seconded. Roll call, please. That was 3.5 and 3.6. >> Yep. 05 and 06. Mr. Igan? >> Yes. Mr. Dias? >> Yes. Mr. Morris? Yes. We're going to meet in 1 month, so we'll
100deal with that then. Uh 3.04, I had asked this to be on about the school resource officer. Not sure if anyone has anything additional to add. One of my questions was around, which can be taken off between now and the next meeting, uh the time of day, and how uh overtime is, uh how whether it's guaranteed not, like the start and end times of the schools and the So, my questions were really around the schedule, but I think we saw we see a package of something a little more than that. So, that's not time sensitive. Is that >> All right. So, this is a a draft um draft MOU with highlighted changes. So, the the um the cover just kind of offered commentary or a summary around the fact that this is a um this
101really is like the model SRO MOU for the state of Massachusetts. And then there are some um highlighted areas where it is uh specific to Fall River. One One the things that is, um, specific is around, um, the work week, like the work hours. It is a, um, a minimum 40-hour work week, but there are 2 hours of overtime built in every day. So, it's actually a 10-hour work day, for each school resource officer. That allows us to have school resource officers at those early start schools that are at 7:20 or 7:40, and it lengthens the day into the afternoon, so that for after hours, um, so they have they do roll call in the morning, then they're at schools like like 7:00, 7:30, and then they are, um, they are available till 4:30 in
102the afternoon for our, you know, later schools, 3:20, 3:50. Um, so, that's exactly, you know, what was my point. So, it sounds like it's an automatic 10-hour, which isn't in the old one. So, the 8-hour day? So, that's where that comes in, it's overtime. How does the overtime get approved? In the contract it says you need to approve it. Things like that, but ultimately, you know, what you're saying now is that all SROs work 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. if what you're telling me. Um, I think it's more of a 6:30 to 4:30, but yes. It's 6:30 roll call type of thing, and then, um, it's till 4:30. >> I think we should, uh, also put that on the agenda for the next meeting, and have somebody present from the, uh, sergeant or whoever. Yeah,
103so, the one thing I would say about that is that we already have, um, started discussions. So, one of the things that, um, on page 13 of this draft, um, is some of the our proposed language. So, instead of the standard work day being from 6:30 to 4:30, as it is right now, we've proposed that the work hours will be between 6:30 and 4:30, but that it may be a staggered start. So, so that we can do this internal, um, like audit of whether or not we need every single res- school resource officer to work a 10-hour day, or is there a way to stagger it such that some people, you know, are there from 6:30 and maybe it's maybe it's 6:30 to 3:30. Maybe it's 9 hours and then others come in 7:30 to
1044:30. So, that's what we are trying to work out right now. A preliminary ask of principals in terms of, you know, do we need them there that early? Do we need them there this late? The answer was yes. It's just a question of whether or not all of them need to do it. require all of the school resource officers to be working 10 hours a day to fulfill the needs across the district? And that's what we have to take a look at. >> So, this is This isn't a final draft. This is not a final. Okay. No. I think they should come before us to discuss. But that also here the subcommittee. I think the school resource officers are important. I'm not making any I'm not saying anything about these things, but they work an
1058-hour day. Under the MOA, MOU, whatever they call it. It's an 8-hour day. Somehow it's morphed into they just get 2 hours a day of overtime. And when I'm looking [clears throat] at the MOU and the policies, it doesn't allow for them to get 2 hours of overtime every day. So, when I When we budget, and I've asked Mr. Almeida this several times, we need the budget of what is it going to cost on July 1 for the eight SROs and the sergeant, whatever that rule Whatever that is. Exactly what they owe. Any overtime that's added should It needs to be approved by the superintendent. Because we had issues in the past where they just came to us and said, "Here's the bill for additional overtime." And it was like, "Where did that come from?"
106So, it sounds to me like as if the Our ask is that we got to take a look at it. But if I was being honest, we don't need them for 10 hours a day. Mhm. When we really get down to like between now and the next meeting, what do you do at this school from this time to this time? And it's also good to know if they If they do have them extra, so that what are we assigning them to do? Who's assigning them to do it? Uh so, I think it's valid to valid discussion to have. I just don't believe for a second that they're doing school resource officer work from for 10 hours a day, but they're getting paid since the start of the year for 10 hours a day. In addition
107to getting a stipend that the police chief just gave them outside of collective bargaining. So, now I just There's so many questions, so please have somebody show up at the next meeting. Um Mr. Guy I was I was I was just going to comment on that point. I was I was commenting quickly just so administration is aware of and the police department is aware of where I'm coming from is I like I'm still trying to understand how we got to that point of like do we even have like since we're the we're we're we're giving the money, we shouldn't we have a say in the salary? Wait. Wouldn't that Where would that even like start from? I don't know if you Of course it does. July 1 when they when they we pass a budget
108we and meaning school department superintendent Mr. Almeida. When we pass a budget, there's a number in for every single employee. So, we know Mr. Almeida knows and superintendent knows the six or eight or nine, whatever the number is, there's a set number each year. When they give us that number it's incumbent upon Mr. Almeida as the CFO to be asking what does that mean for that mean? So, if it's $80,000 per and it's times but it's really supposed to be each person cuz they all make different amounts. So, the real answer to that question is Mr. Almeida basically by via the superintendent when they say here's what the budget is, we shouldn't just throw a number out and say as long as we get enough money, nobody's going to ask any questions. That's not good
109oversight. So, I think that's where the problem came in when we found out that they just gave automatically just gave a raise. And how did we find that out? Like was there like a did the police chief call the administration say where we gave a 5% raise, you should probably put this in your budget or we should have that conversation. When did I guess you all find out. >> No, I didn't receive that phone call. I called and we did talk about it, kind of how that came about, mostly because I was you know, I heard you know, maybe it was you, maybe it was somebody else talking about it and I said like what what is this kind of thing? Because the way it was kind of put out there, I was like, this
110thing just happened and I don't think my understanding is like it didn't just happen. I think these are like it was negotiated, right? So, that is And yes, we paid the bill. And and and maybe what you're saying Mr. Aguiar is is true in that we did have the money budgeted and so we didn't um you know, we're not going to fall short in terms of that line item this year. So but moving forward, we know that we have to budget for more because of that increase. Right, no and For like for instance, if we go back and look at person A, let's say Kevin Aguiar was a an SRO last fiscal year or two fiscal [snorts] years ago, I made X amount of dollars. The next year I made whatever the 5% raise is,
111whatever. You just look at the there's only eight of them. You can see what their numbers were. So, we don't scrutinize those numbers, we just pay the bill. Is the way I see it. And quite the opposite from what I understand is it wasn't negotiated. It's the exact opposite of that. In police negotiations, from what I'm being told was negotiations, they tried to get the SROs to get that bump in pay. It was denied in the in negotiations. So, it's even worse than what what I'm [snorts] saying. In negotiations, it was denied, they said no. This this group, that group, that group is going to get the extra pay as detectives or whatever it is. The SROs was denied in in negotiations and when the new police chief came in, she unilaterally said, "I'm going
112to just give you that raise." That's how I think it went. So, please go back and try to verify or have whoever like I That's what I heard. If it's not true, so be it. But ultimately, I think we need to scrutinize that number. Like we were tight on our budget and we needed $100,000 for a couple of paraprofessionals. Yep. We shouldn't have $100,000 extra sitting in our SRO account where we know, okay, this is what it is. And we can't afford 2 hours of overtime every day for everybody. So, we would be back at like square one if we were doing a tight budget. But we just keep on Yeah, it's okay. Just add it another $100,000 here, another $100,000 there. So, Yeah, I mean, I think that likely there's um I'm thinking about
113like the MOU itself and how it's not it's not like other MOUs or contracts that we have uh with bargaining units that specifically identify salary ranges and things like that. So, our MOU doesn't have anything like that. So, there's nothing in here for us to go and say, "Well, no, you said it was only going to cost X amount um and we're not paying more than that." We don't have that kind of Yeah, it doesn't have to be in there, but it it's a job description of the CFO. Before you plug [snorts] a number in, you ask the city, "What is the number and where is it coming from?" Right. >> So, we get that scrutiny. So, I I would think it's on him to um you know, sort of ask that question uh at
114the at the time. Mr. Guy, This is ending my time, miss. And just to finalize point, I think it's disrespectful to both the school committee and the school department in general that we never received any notification that could affect our budget. I think that's fair to say. I agree with that. Yeah, I I I think we we got the idea. So, when we meet next month, we'll have somebody uh from there be able to come in and uh and talk about it. But we do appreciate the SROs. I want to have this looked at like they typically do would say, "Oh, they're against it." No, that's I'm just looking to do our job of fiscal oversight, not anything to do with the SROs. Yeah. Last question is I you know, Mr. Chico, we talked about
115the sergeant that I believe that we pay a sergeant or we're supposed to be paying a sergeant. Any word on that? I don't believe that the sergeant is in the numbers, but I'm again, I'm going on on historical memory here that we received eight SROs and the sergeant was overseeing that group. But I don't know for sure. >> problem. If you could just check with them. So, at at committee meeting, I think it was about a year and a half 2 years ago, it was determined that the sergeant actually is working full-time as SRO sergeant. Mhm. Not doing like other business. And logically, I said it made sense to say, "Why don't we fund the sergeant?" Because they're doing all their work with the schools. It was approved mid-year or mid right after the budget
116got done. So, that we should be paying for a sergeant in our numbers. So, for now >> cuz they are doing other work? >> Whatever I'm saying like it was whatever it was that was worked out that it said kind of "Why don't we let them at least reimburse somehow?" So, I'm in favor of letting paying the sergeant for what the percentage of their work is relative to the schools. Um So, thank you for that. Um the two-way radios 3.07. I think I put that on because we had had a um some [clears throat] additional two-way radios. It came before us, Mr. Chico. Yes. So, my question was at that meeting, it was um it was asked of me if we have other schools that are not that radios are not working or do we
117not have systems in place, namely at RPA, Yeah. where they don't have telephones working. Like some schools have telephones working and they don't have it or uh that was the nature of just putting this on was to get a a discussion on. So, so there are schools who use the radios much more than others. Uh there are schools that the radio goes out playgrounds when teachers are outside and and powers are outside. Um there are um class classrooms that have these for variety of reasons uh in those particular classrooms. Um but but it it varies from building to building. We buildings used to have four or five radios and today that number is probably 25 to 30. Uh and some of them have been upgraded. Some of them have been consolidated, so for whatever reason
118there are schools that the radios last longer than others. Um and others through whatever reason um the radios are seem to turn over much quicker. They're also a different system at Derby, so those radios are a little different than the rest of the district. Um so when we order radios at the high school, they are a a different model. Um but there is a different >> basic reason why we put this is to get a request out to you guys to say, oh, do we have other needs for either radios or safety on if the phones aren't working? That school should probably have more radios than those that don't. So something happens in my room and it's an emergency and I can go to the phone, that's one thing. But if you're at 290 and
119you don't have a phone in your room, you should have a radio. It's a So if you can just get a baseline on that. Um I'm going to revert back. Do you got a question on that? Um Mr. Vice? Yes, actually I placed in the request for information for this meeting and I don't think we got it yet. Just to look at the invoices for the radios. You should have them. No. No. Oh, the radios? I thought we had them with Mr. um What was it for? The Oh yeah, they're they're part of the backup. Yeah. >> Consider it out. So I wasn't We just I think we had received it at this meeting. >> want to know what is the ultimate question was it on cost or was it just related to looking at
120it or was it cost or uh Yeah, I just wanted to see um I think it was the back >> wasn't it? If I Let me interrupt. I think it was how often the radios or what they were purchased for and where they were going. Was that? Yeah, one was just cuz I saw the back up and just the the put the the the invoices to the back up and just to um And I I I I guess it kind of makes sense which ones were broken or not, but just to That that was the main reason. Okay, well we'll If we don't have the back up, we'll request it again for a different back up. We can request it again and put that on the agenda for next month if you think. Under review
121back to 303 update motor vehicle transportation. I think was this the software or something? So it's two pieces. Got it. You want Okay. Councilor Yeah. Okay. I think that's all. So I wasn't exactly sure what it was that you would require, but Mr. Pacheco and I have been discussing getting a parent app, GPS and parent app for the buses. One of the main difficulties we have here in the city is the parents knowing when the bus is going to show up. Um traffic, delays at school, there's a numerous issues that can come into play. And then students are either returned, parents aren't there. Kids are waiting at the bus stops. Um So I did meet with Zoom meetings with four different companies. Um Ended up landing Mr. Pacheco and I met with the one that
122I feel would be the the greatest most advantageous based on the cost and the name of that company is Cal Amp. Cal Amp. Just testing. So that's just what the parent app looks like. Um this company in particular there is no upfront cost. Where the other So of the four companies, one company didn't offer a parent app. The other three companies did. Uh this was the cheaper of the three and this one works with the program that we are currently using in the department which is the Tyler Technologies. Any questions? Guys, specifically on this or in general or transportation? >> Transportation, these two items. The um looking at the the backup and how much we pay overall and I mentioned this at the last meeting if something that we can take on to um in
123terms of supporting student protection is I know we have the the buses the need the D9 buses like the the door-to-door transportation if we could potentially either I don't know if it has to be a formal policy or something we can add in our protocols that we um take in the the licenses that we make sure that the D9 licenses and that we make sure they're um fully insured and fully inspected. Correct me if I'm wrong, I believe these um transportation buses need to be inspected twice a month. So making sure that our students are getting in fully safe buses. That's very important and making sure that there is um insurance all the time. I haven't been convinced. I don't know if you've watched the previous meeting. Mhm. However, I presented some evidence where I'm
124not fully convinced that every single one of our um that we carry the insurance or verify the insurance for all of our, um, door-to-door transportation. So, this is making sure, [clears throat] um, we're on top of that. I don't know if so. Those things that I just mentioned, I don't know if something that we can So, you you're speaking about like the outside vendors that are major contractors, if I understood correctly. >> So, you are correct. There were some, um, certificates of liability where I thought I had updated ones and I didn't. Um, 7D licenses is not something Yeah. 7D licenses is not something that we ever, um, have kept um, for the individual drivers of those companies. That normally falls under, um, each individual company to make sure that their drivers are licensed. I
125did reach out to a couple of the other districts to see if they do that, um, and they said that they don't. But, um, I have since reached out to all the vendors that are transporting our students. I do have copies of all those licenses. I did also make sure that, um, everyone had updated photos, [snorts] that the fingerprinting was all completed. I do have copies of all these certificates of liability and if that's something you'd like to take a look at, I'm happy to make it available to you. I I don't know necessarily just for me to take a look at. Just making sure it's on file. It's something that's uniform, um, As far as the vehicles themselves, so they're inspected twice a year. It's in March and October on the they get, um,
126inspected. What I do is I try as much as I can to be out at the various schools for different reasons, um, and when I'm there, if I see that there is one of our 7D vendors, I do make sure that they have the correct pupil plate, um, that the sticker is the valid one, that the vehicle is inspected, that it looks, you know, to be in good working shape, driver, you know, sitting in a seat doing what he's supposed to be doing, um, those kind of visual inspections also. Right. Um, No, I I I really appreciate, um, that explanation. Um, Mr. Chair, I don't know if it's something um we should make a formal something that's more formal or just really just trust that we're we're continuing I would say we should trust that
127it's happening. I think it uh they took the, you know, comments to heart and I think we're doing that. I think we should do it. We shouldn't just allow somebody to say, "Oh, by the way, I have they're all quarreling and or, you know, so I think >> Well, the quarries we've always done it. Quarries and fingerprints we've >> But I think just tightening it up, I think, which is what you did. I think um that's an expectation at this point that you have a new contracts come in. They should say in it that you need to provide it before, uh you know, but it's busy in there, things happen, in my opinion, but I don't think we need to Well, I definitely tightened up the systems that we we're using. I got you. Thank
128you. Mr. Guy, uh Mr. Nemours. Yes. Um, what happens in case of, let's say the bus has it breaks down or there's an emergency, what do they do for backup as far as >> Are you again about the the smaller vendors? Yes. So, all of our vendors have at least more than one vehicle. We make sure that, you know, So, that's >> companies, but I think That's so that's set in stone if something does happen >> some sort of backup, absolutely. All right. I'm I'm new to this, so I'm just asking just in case something does go wrong uh as far as the parents get notified, everybody okay. Mr. Chair, one last item. Mr. Guy. Thank you. Um believe this has to do with transportation / traffic. Just asking something that we could um review
129in the future is the um this new position that um traffic supervisor position, I understand it's paid for through the city, but just more of just an update on how that's working, what their responsibilities are, and yeah, that's pretty much it. I I don't need it today. I'm not looking for it today, but just in the in the morning for tomorrow? Oh, the crossing guard knows the crossing job. So, she does work out of our office. Um, comes in pretty much every day. Uh she's been a great help to me where I've had issues where um crossing issues and parents complaining and things like that. I'll ask Laura, you know, you think you can put a crossing guard there, try it out for a couple of days. Um and we have added at least I
130think about at least two crossing guards that have been added directly because of that. Thank you. Can you just get a budget for that, Ms. Pacheco? Budget, sure. Thanks. Sure. The uh this particular piece that's before us, what is the cost of it and are other systems using it? Yes. So, I did also just want to mention that um I we did send it over to um Mr. Carroll's department to just take a look at it. I haven't heard back. I just wanted him to put eyes on it. Um but I can't give you the price. So, for this uh company we have approximately 70 vehicles that we contract with. It would be uh if we went for a 5-year contract, it would be 23,000, a little bit shy of 22,500 annually, or 30,000 uh
131200 if it was a 3-year contract. Yep. And other systems that are using this particular >> Other systems, um I mean, I don't want to mention names, but No, I wouldn't have mentioned any names. You wouldn't have mentioned names, okay. >> Like school systems, not like >> Yes. So, Edulog um would charge 20,000 annually just for the hardware. No, no, I'm saying other systems that are using it other meaning districts that are using this software. >> So, the reason that we are getting a good deal on this one is they are trying to move into our region, so they don't have um any currently now in the northeast, but they are a company out of Canada. One second. I did speak to a couple of company uh couple of school districts that they work for.
132Um the Houston County School District, the Atlanta, Georgia, uh another one in Atlanta, Georgia, and there was one other that I spoke with and they had no issues with them. And did the current bus vendors have GPS in there already? So they would provide the module. I'm saying what do they have now that they is this a contract issue? >> Nothing. Our vehicles >> Or we can't just go to a GPS in their vehicle right? >> is it is written into the contract that we can. >> can. We can. We just don't currently have it. Yes and they don't have it on their own. Like there's no uh video on this >> not sure that they don't have something. Um maybe maybe they're tracking by cell phones. I don't know. Yeah if we can just
133get something like to know what our current vendors are using for Okay. uh video or GPS stuff stuff and then make sure that it's going to work potentially seamless. Okay. If they do it get it when you look at a new company wants to come in I think we should do what we've done with X2 is that if we do take you on that we get that price forever. Mhm. uh so that they can't just do one contract and then hit hit us with an increase. So if we're going to be their trial run at a reasonable Mhm. example we should get that price forever. uh would be my feedback. Um Do I have Do I have a motion >> Motion to refer to the full committee. Motion to refer is made second by Mr.
134Moniz. Roll call please. Mr. Argen. Yes. Mr. Diaz. Yes. Mr. Moniz. Yes. One question on the budget that we see this is just a date right? So Yes. Are we up to are we where are we looking if we project it out doing everything the same to the year? Is it uh >> close but we should be there. Close meaning to the entire number that we approved? >> Yes. So there was no way if we didn't approve the 750,000 >> so I haven't touched all of that. So that was putting seven new buses on the road. Um we tightened some things. We moved some stops. We did a lot of managing and uh we only added four buses. So we only used 400 of the What I'd like to get is for the full committee
135a projection of where we're at if everything stayed the same. Yep. What does it look like for that budget? Um and the 1.9 million in McKinney-Vento um is that reimbursed or is that not reimbursed? When we get McKinney-Vento reimbursement from the commonwealth is that what it is? So, um those numbers came from the bookkeeping department and so >> [snorts] >> What else do we get reimbursed for with McKinney-Vento? It was split up separately, so I believe it was one Hold on. You don't have what I gave you then? You don't have that? I mean, I mean I think I lost it. That was in my in my in my order. Oh, she does. Yeah. She does. I got that. She does. I got it. All right, what are you looking for, Iris? No, no, no,
136it was another So, I have my numbers and I have the numbers that came over from But ultimately, McKinney-Vento transportation is reimbursed by the commonwealth Correct. at 100%. But there was a difference between McKinney-Vento and homeless that they had made. And I honestly couldn't explain to you what the difference was. >> it here, but I would assume that off offline you're going to get an answer to it, but the reason why I'm asking that is we look at the transportation that's funded by the city. Mhm. And we're doing oversight to try to help them save money. And they're not really participating in any discussions about how to save money. I'll talk to them about redistricting. Mhm. So, we've said all along, well, the city's the one that should be coming down on us to say,
137"Why are we not redistricting these kids?" But the city's nowhere to be found. The mayor's nowhere to be found on worrying about real issues. This is a real issue. So, when I look at that 1.9 if they get reimbursed for it like I just don't understand why they're not more actively involved in it. They pay the bill. So they should be more worried about it and where are we going to get so that's why I want the number to see where we're currently at because it's going to come budget time they're going to cry that they can't come up with the money as you know because they always do and then we're saying well what have you done all year to try to help and the answer to that is no nothing. So Mr. Diaz
138And just to add to that point as well I know this um committee during the budget season last year took a unanimous vote to refer a um I forgot what the petition called name is called but um unfunded mandate petition and I I know the city council referred it to corporation council and that's the last I've heard about it so I don't know if it's permanently shelved but if um the city's listening that's one way that my opinion that we should do that >> to uh get the city to respond to us within 48 hours to what Mr. uh made made and seconded it all in favor? I I oppose so voted so you got 48 hours to get us an answer on that. Um 3.08 is the uh two job descriptions. Um do we
139want to take those first before the storm or I know it's going a little late but if we can do it um in short order let's take the first one Mr. Pacheco. I want a second because I've been shuffling papers here like I've got my cards so >> Um, can we do painter and carpenter? Yes. And that will get referred? Yes, Mr. Chair. The first item is on the the physical of the new carpenter painter. Yeah, meaning it's a problem. I have more questions on the second. >> Yep. So, the first one, uh, I think, Mr. Pacheco, you mentioned there was a few minor things that you requested. Sure. So, um, they're highlighted. Um, pre-ca- prefab cabinetry. We wouldn't be building cabinets anyway. I just had cabinets, so I just for that clarification. I also
140added, uh, number 11, which was ceiling tiles and floor tiles, which I didn't have, which is a is a project that could be done by, uh, this particular person. And then number 12, as requested, we added, um, all the duties as assigned by the COO or designee. Personally, I think it makes sense, uh, to do with, uh, this joint position. I said it before, I think the rather than have the situation, and Mr. Pacheco, you used the a perfect example of the sheetrock and the painter, that the other person would have to do the sheetrock, and then he's going to leave, and then go somebody else has to come in and paint it, and then that's two work orders. It's not efficient, um, in my opinion, for maintenance, and, um, I think it's a smart
141thing to do, and it'll allow, uh, some flexibility. Uh, the last state, the last sentence, I believe, in the uh, that Mr. Pacheco mentioned about any and other duties or whatever, would be deemed from Mr. Fatone to be able to manage this person to say, "Okay, you're going to do whatever." I think it it I think it's good flexibility, um, to get more things done. Um, and we're not making cabinets, right? Like from scratch, so that's that expertise is not needed. Yeah. Uh, any questions? Um, um, uh, Mr. Morris spoke first. Okay. >> What is it? No, I was >> On the >> I'm going to go ahead and the carpenter slash painter >> slash painter. So, did you guys speak to the union about this already? Yes. And they agreed? They agreed. Okay, and
142they took a vote and everything also on this? They agreed. Yes. Okay. So, if we pass it forward into >> and the second shift was agreed on. The second shift position. Okay, I wasn't aware of that. Like I um It it's >> in the Was that in the first one? No, that's one of the change Well, it wasn't the it was It wasn't the original, I don't think. >> It wasn't the original because we were going with a first shift position, but the conversation between Mr. Fatone myself um and that I had with the um with the union was the fact that it's one of the bigger problems with painting is the fact that when students are in the building it's very difficult to paint in certain areas. Classrooms definitely lay out, but even hallways
143becomes very difficult because there's a lot of traffic. So, with a second shift a lot of that kind of work could be done um without any interference other than a custodian here and there. Yeah, yeah, just I didn't I wasn't aware of that personally. >> And now and obviously it's it carries a $2 differential. Um for shift differential Because it's a night because it's a function And carpenters and painters get paid the same. Yes. All right, well, they're at the same level. Same level. So, I I think we should entertain something along the lines of and I'm just hearing that now, but uh flex hours rather than automatic second shift. Uh >> [clears throat] >> because I think it's it's it's probably going to increase the candidate pool um having it be a flex hours
144versus a second shift um as long as you guys felt that was you'd still have the authority, but you know, sometimes you might not get the same level of interest if it's not Well, I think that and we had had this conversation about the fact that the summer obviously in the summer if a building's not being used um at night it would be ideal time because a lot of our buildings are used over the summer as well. But over the summer if we did have buildings that were being used night and day we may want to move that person to the day shift um just for maybe for a project or um in working in certain areas. So I mean I I really like the fact second shift just because I know how much work
145can be done in the second shift, but we wouldn't have a problem with a flex um schedule as long as that person knew that they would get there that they would lose their $2 an hour when they're working on the day shift. >> Yeah, I think it's when you're trying to hire the best person I think it makes sense to give some options. Um somebody might have uh something wrong in there you know they're doing something at 8:00 at night and they don't want to work till 10:00, but they would do an awesome job from 12:00 to 8:00. With things like that. So I think adding flex hours makes sense. Any thoughts? Uh another question. What happens now if they're falling behind on their vacation time? Are your carpenters going to step up and perform
146some of this work or not? No. I wouldn't we wouldn't do that cuz this person's not going to fill in for a carpenter on the first shift. So if the person's a second shift person then predominantly second shift and if we're flexing that shift is still going to carry um the stipend. So I would I would think that we don't do that in any other of the trades. If someone's out they're out in that work. If it's if it's um for instance Mr. Moses if it's a project that has to get done then we're going to figure out a way to get it done. You know what I mean? But it but I would think on a regular basis we wouldn't be substituting one for another on a regular basis. >> That figure out a
147way most likely means outside vendor. No, I mean we can do inside and we can have this person >> Right. The way I see it is if you had flex hours and you knew and Mr. Fatone knew that there was uh this gentleman was going to be in and we had a project that need two men for then person could go and you know we have flex hours to be for this week they're out we're going to come in during the day shift because we got these six projects going on. Where another one would be a flex hours to me would be hey come in at 12:00 today because somebody you know I I just think I open it up that flexibility is really going to give you the opportunity to um to meet >>
148So Mr. Fatatao is going to be working the second shift alone. What happens if they need something? What would it What do you mean Like if they have an issue uh in an area of the school on second shift who do they report to? So you you're referring to painting and carpentry now. So So we use We'll use painting right? So this wall here I know that I need this wall painted. Right. So I know the next day I know it's done. No no no I'm saying when there's a problem on the second shift are you coming in to address >> I always get the calls. They're on call [snorts] I just I just spoke I just spoke with Angel. >> That's what I wanted to Yeah. Couple nights ago at 10:30 at night. They're
149on call for 24/7 not that I mean he's going to come in and clean the paint brush for the guy. Correct. But ultimately if there was a problem we'd Yeah. So always answer. So I'd like to uh You want to make a motion? Um I'll make a motion to refer >> Sure with flex hours. Correct? With flex hours. I'll second. Second. Roll call. Mr. Aguiar? >> Yes. Mr. Dice? Yes. Mr. Morse? Yes. The next one refrigeration appliance repair service technician. Mr. Chair? Sure. Mr. Dice. >> we wait for You have a You want to present I don't. I don't. Um so two things with this one specifically um myself I'm not sure if anyone else did I ask for the We asked for the backup relative to the invoices. I just believe we received them
150today. They were emailed as well. Uh they were emailed they're emailed today. Um I don't I don't know about anyone else, but I haven't had time to go through them. I haven't had any time. I reviewed every one. Um >> You want to ask a question? Go ahead, sorry. So secondly, um just going off so just even if so going based off the um preliminary numbers, I believe we're up to this fiscal year 40,000. Yes. In terms of um refrigeration repair work and it actually want to like commend because it looks like if we're going to finish out the fiscal year, we're going to end up lower than we were the the year prior. That's just the luck. I mean, it's really not it's not a a planned thing. Things break. So, there's no way
151to predict that number. However, the purpose of this job would be to control that number. Um there's going to be a whole a whole host of things that this person depending on its skills their skill set that will be able to do instead of going outside the contractors. However, there is still going to be a time where it's going to be beyond our ability or in such a way that we won't be able to do it on our own and we will still need either one of those vendors um again. So, won't eliminate it, but it will it will curb curtail some of the service calls and things like that that are but heavy on the labor and light on the material. So, the reason I asked for the backup specifically was to look at
152when we're getting most of these invoices coming in um when we're putting out the work. Is it more towards the end of the year? Do we do we run to a situation at the end of fiscal year June? All this getting hot, these refrigerators are breaking down all over the place, or is it more the you can't really Hey, I'm going to I'm going to defer to Josh only because he's been doing it, you know, for a while, but I I can say that I again, I do believe that it's happenstance that it's not a a a situation where we can plan you know the preventive maintenance side of everything we can plan but the actual repair and age of a of a particular piece of equipment is going to determine what we have. And
153what we end up with. I make a motion to table to the next meeting. I have a question. Do you have any question on this here? No I have a question I got to look at it cuz there's two different companies who are trying to make one guy be able to be do to be able to do both different professions and everything else. No one with dealing with coffee equipment and kitchen equipment. Some of this stuff you have to be certified in and everything else where you void warranties and everything else. I'd like to look at the backup that was provided. I haven't had a chance to look at it. Okay. The some of the questions I had from looking at I did actually read them I was just joking but some of the things
154that I got the two companies have different formats. So not Marshall the other one actually writes up exactly what was happening. So like I I read one that said I went to the place and I turned the light I turned the switch on and it was off. I looked the switch was off I turned it on and it was working. Now we had that happen a couple years ago and I sort of was upset about it rightfully so that we're spending $400 to get somebody to come in and say they didn't turn the thing on. Uh there was a couple in that Is it advanced heat or something? Then the other one was more generic like it just said we're billing you for this this and this. So those were some of my questions on
155what it is I'm trying to figure out to Mr. Moniz and Mr. Dyson's point what is it that is in those bills that would no longer be needed if we hired this position. So that's sort of the question and I think when they as they're looking through it but I'm just throwing it out there I I think that's the real question and you might have to like weigh in on this at some point to say, "Yeah, I'm looking at the bills. We hired Marshall Electric to do the following. Uh They changed the condenser. They changed the thermostat in the thing cost us $500." Things that I, not being in the field, actually think this position could probably do. Or they told the worker, "Make sure you close the door because if you leave the door
156in your refrigerator open, it's going to ice up and then the condenser is going to not work and then, you know, those are the ones So, if you go through the back stuff and be like, "Okay, we can pick out a good number of these. It's not going to be exact, but what is the type of work that we would be not having to contract with?" And the flip side of that is, "What would the actual work that we would need an outside person to do?" I think it would be similar to what you mentioned earlier about the water heater or whatever that you diagnose it, you guys look at it. If they can do it in-house, yes. If not, this is the case. And then you know, elevators, you automatically have to go up.
157So, in the in the cafeteria, you actually could probably pick out the things that you know you're going to need every year to do generally at all the places. I think summarizing that is going to answer some of the questions of my colleagues and myself. But I think some of that, too, that that would be PM, too. There'd be some repairs that probably wouldn't be being done right now that we could be doing, right? So, that That's that piece, too. So. >> Yeah, I think if we get some information like that, I don't think it's urgent that we can wait 30 We can wait 30 days to at the next one of these meetings to have it, but I wanted you to know those are the questions. Um Please look at the ones that um
158which I'm sure you probably did is if the custodians call an outside vendor to look at our refrigerator and the refrigerator wasn't turned on. If that's what I'm just reading quote what the guy said. Yep. If that happens, somebody needs to talk to the custodians or whoever's actually making that call because that sounds ridiculous. Now, if that's not the case, I'll stand corrected. But, I can read the description from Advanced thing and it says, "I came to the place and said that it's not working. I turned it on and it's working." What I think you're referring to is that uh mourn. Uh there was about three or four times that >> Cuz I know that that happened at mourn, but the the issue was actually the circuit breaker. So So, today they >> I get
159it. My point is this. My point is just check it so that if that's the case, the person that's giving us a bill shouldn't have in the description, "I turned the thing on and it worked." It should say, "Upon further review, it was that we had a bad breaker and therefore it wasn't working because you can't necessarily just uh you shouldn't be able to write, "I turned it on." Which is why I was saying if we go back to cross-reference, I'd be curious to see what the on the ones that look like that, what do the work orders say? Uh but, those are the things. So, Mr. Dies made a motion to table seconded by Mr. Moniz. Roll call, please. Mr. Argen. Yes. Mr. Dies. Yes. Mr. Moniz. Yes. Lastly, um and thank you for
160your patience. We've got 309 update storm overview. Uh I asked the for this to be on um not in so much for a presentation. One of the things that hasn't sat well with me since the storm was the issue of the custodians not coming in during that storm. Uh it's still not sitting well with me uh as one member, I'm just speaking for myself, that we didn't have people come in and still waiting on the numbers, but I'm roughly it was almost on the Monday of the blizzard started. I might be off, but I don't have it in front of me. 95% of the people didn't go 90% of the people did not come to work on the Monday. Then the Tuesday, 85 or something, but it was tremendous. So, out of 100 people, 10
161came to work on Monday in the blizzard, 15 came in the next day. 20 came in the next day. So, it hasn't sat well with me trying to figure out how the heck is this happening. Um I know on the Wednesday we had a meeting, Dr. Curly and I, with the mayor on the agenda. I was getting calls saying that the people don't have to show up, they can get paid to stay home. What the heck's going on? I mentioned that it wasn't clear that it was an issue. She Dr. Curly checked it out. We talked about it after being it was part of the new contract thing about um you get an extra day's pay if government center is closed. I still can't find it in the contract. Talk to Mr. Pacheco. It's not
162in the contract. So, my direct question is and this can be to the custodians or anybody. Custodians folks here, but under what condition did people just not show up to work on starting on that Monday? When they had to show up to work all these other years. Like I just don't Like I'm trying to figure out. I mean, I think the difference was the travel ban and the fact that government center was closed. So, I think that just even that for all of our um >> [snorts] >> employees, our 12-month employees, that we generally if there was no power in the district, we'd say you're just going to come to work, we'll find something else for you to do kind of thing. That but if government center is closed, it changes the playing field. So,
163that's always been my understanding as an employee that if schools were closed, um 12-month employees still come in, but if government center closes, 12-month employees do not have to come in. But I I don't I can't find that in the contract. >> I I'm not I don't think it's there. So, I think that what we um I think the the language that is in the new contract is something like if people if um if schools are closed and people are required to come in, then they get um like a float vacation day. So, the inference there is that if we were closed, then, which we were, and it wasn't just us, it was the entire city, and people, many people were home bound because they, you know, they couldn't get off their streets, that there
164was not, then we weren't requiring people to come in, but we did have people who who were able to come in, and those people got a float vacation day. But, I think it's, um, I I already agree with you, there's no language that explicitly states that if the government center closes, people are not required to come in. That's true. And and in the past, from what I could see in old emails that I pulled up and the like, it was that if you were not going to come in on in the storm and you were a custodian, you have to take a vacation day or a personal day. So, was that true even if the city was closed? I would say it doesn't say that it's opposite. So, like you're an essential worker. Custodians are
165essential workers. And Not according to the state of the now. So, and and I'm just only going to interrupt for 1 second, Mr. Guyatt, only because you can't compare a 50-year storm to a regular storm. So, there's a lot that happened in this storm besides the driving ban, besides the state of emergency declared by the governor and then signed off with a document on the city side, that itself tells me that this is not an ordinary situation. So, I would say that there's people in this room who couldn't get out of their houses. Okay? And how would we then determine who could and who couldn't? By literally going and checking their streets? The fact of the matter is they shouldn't been out to begin with. Those that came in on the Monday, we were very
166fortunate that they came in, and the time that they came in was a factor because we didn't have, I think at the time we might have had 6 in of snow. You know, at 7:00, maybe maybe 8. But no one expected 41 in at the end of it. So, once they were in, they were stuck in and we transported each and every one of them home because they couldn't get home. They couldn't get very you know get their cars back to where they were. So, those particular people, the 11, I think it was, right? The 11 people who did come in were transported home and then if they wanted to come in the next day I had to get them in because they didn't have their vehicles and we did few of them that did
167come in. So, I think that that piece has to come into play somewhere in this whole thing that it was not like any other storm. Because custodians have always showed up in other storms. >> Yeah, what does the maintenance contract say? The same language? There was no language in it. No, I mean the maintenance side is the same. The maintenance side Grounds, you mean? Yeah, the grounds. >> Grounds. But they showed up. I understand. >> But they've always shown up. So, the grounds and custodians >> would always show up and the custodians have until this storm. Correct. So, my point is in this storm, if we use the logic of that it was a pi- driving ban, the state of emergency, the city was closed, nobody should have been working. That's my problem is that
168we had some people working and some not working. And I'm trying to tease out how did you get to the [snorts] how did we get to the point where they didn't work? So, if you take the blizzard, the first day, probably nobody should have been working because it was a blizzard. Then you take So, we got 90% of the people out. What happened between Monday and Tuesday to say, let's clarify here. I know you didn't show up, but it was a blizzard. But today you got to show up or you use a personal day. Like every like consistently at as the storm uh response was getting better, we I don't I'm asking, did we ever pivot and say like to the custodian director, did you ever tell the people they you were expected to be
169in on Tuesday? No, because again, we were all acting under the same premise that government center was closed and And and if closed is still a state of a state of emergency. But, I don't believe that we every time the government center has ever been closed, the custodians don't come to work. I just don't get I I I think that's a step. Now, I personally don't think that that's been the way it's been. Is that the way it's been for the whole How about you? You've been here how many years? No, we've always came in. I think this is Even when government center is closed? Yeah, we were required by We'd get a um a 12-month employee message saying that we'd be communicated by the uh supervisor uh or the director of custodians that would
170communicate us to us to come in, which would be in that case would be Joey and and Jimmy. And we were always told that we needed to work. If we decided not to stay home to stay home, we'd have to use a vacation day or a personal day. We could not use a sick day. So, do you So, this was new? I believe it. I I mean, so I have all like generally speaking, most of my time in Collar has been I think this was something they they asked for. They never asked for more. They never asked for this. What we negotiated was the fact that it was it was extremely it was it wasn't fair. It wasn't fairly Right, cuz they we were coming in and they were the This was the only groups
171that were coming in and still working for straight time. And so, they gave them the incentive of getting that vacation. Right. Okay. I just can't remember. I mean, as far as the 12-month employee, I don't remember them being days. I've always came in. Same with me and other custodians. Hurricanes or you any type of snows. And now, if you chose to stay home, it was taking away And I raise this not as a gotcha and it's not like it what happened it happened. But we got to figure out why like there's no language that says what we did. But there's past practices of what we did that we didn't do in this storm. Like it's on both sides I'm I'm feeling frustrated because what you're explaining as a person who's been here for 14 years
172is that you came to work as a custodian, and the 12-month thing with notice from the superintendents and everything. So you all came. Yeah. Now if it was >> all. Whoever decided to do that If we had people that had attendance, we would know who it was. Yeah, whoever decided to do that they had to take a vacation day. Right. Or a personal day. So that didn't happen in this one. So there's like the both sides are not meeting, and I'm trying to figure out what happened. So like on Monday nobody shows up, we clean the streets a little better. Tuesday, clean the streets a little better, we're getting there. When did the custodians when are the custodians told, "You need to be in here. Why are you staying home? How the hell are you
173staying home? Under what condition are you staying home?" Did you ever have that conversation with anybody? As the director of custodians? >> because government center was still closed until Friday. Friday was I I guess it's from the holiday using all vacation time since No, none. None. They got paid to stay home without using the vacation time. That's my point. I didn't get paid to stay home. Nobody I guess I'm frustrated because how did we get to the point where we made up this not made up because it was I I don't think it was made up on purpose, but we said the government center is closed, we can't open schools when we've had they they should have been here. So that's where I think we erred. It wasn't like the first day of the storm,
174yeah you can't show up, you can't get out, I get it. But after the next day you had a lot less people that were not but plowed out. As the week went on, but we still maintained our posture to say government center is closed, so you can all staff you can stay home. So when superintendent sent us a message after on the Wednesday when we met and I did brought this up, it was like she was surprised to even hear that this was an issue. She sent an email to to talk to me and then sent an email to everybody saying basically our schools haven't been touched yet by the custodians, which is true. It's not a lie. But then we would have known we weren't going to have school the whole week if that
175we if we hadn't touched the schools yet. >> We weren't having it school was not canceled because of the state of schools. School was canceled like it has been in the past because of the state of the city. So and that's always the case, right? Like our our folks do a bang-up job of getting things ready and if we were and if we just visit our school sites, we say yeah, we're ready. But maybe the streets aren't ready for buses and maybe the sidewalks aren't ready for walkers and and so on and so on and so we've canceled school in the past. This was a situation where like so you know Monday I was home. Tuesday I literally could not get here cuz I could not get off my own street and out of my
176own town to get here. Wednesday I could get off my you know get out of my driveway and therefore I I came down to Fall River. But I mean Wednesday when I drove around it was mostly drive I tried to visit all of the schools. Wow, I mean wow. I mean you could and it was even it was obvious as you drove by schools and saw all of the side streets nobody was moving and there weren't any cars I I encountered on the street half of them were getting stuck. So I would say that even like Wednesday we weren't in a I don't feel like we were in a position to require people to come in because I think that more than half of our folks probably wouldn't be able to get in and then
177and what? So I have to someone would use a sick day because they literally couldn't get off the street. That's that that does seem like a lot. Um and certainly by Friday when government center was open people were required to come back to work. Do I think we could work out some kind of language moving forward that states explicitly under what circumstances we're expecting people to come in or out. Um I I think it was a tough judgment call and we leaned into government center is closed. And so we are not going to require people to come in. We'll incentivize people coming in. The Incentivize. Very quickly, but to to your point, does that even have to be collective bargaining or can we even make that some sort of policy? >> [snorts] >> Like does
178that have to go through Could that be a policy that could I think it has to be bargained. Um but I I would defer. >> doesn't have to be bargained if it's the expectation that they come in. But they But we already know it's not in the contract, so they have to come in. There's no doubt in in in analyzing the contracts, emailing Bruce uh Ms. Pacheco and superintendent for the last week to try to figure it out. There's nothing in the contract that says they Everything is in the contract that says what what she just said. That you're supposed to come in. Right, but to superintendent's point, if um like most of these roads Wednesday, Thursday I I'm I'm I'm sure there's people throughout the district that couldn't come in and either I don't
179know if we should have made them take a sick day. I don't know if they should be paid to stay home either. I don't know if like they just don't get paid for the day or we I mean You yield? I yield. Mr. Morris. So who cleaned the the sidewalks then? When the custodians came in, so some of them did their own building. So when they did come in, Mr. Morris, on the Monday, all they did was cut down as much as they could and basically gave us some entrances Okay. to the building, right? So we could open doors and things like that. It didn't snow after Monday. It got cold. It was still a little bit windy, but it didn't snow anymore. So as as custodians trickled in in some of these buildings, they
180did pick up. There were also custodians who helped in other buildings. So the custodians who maybe in proximity they They of like the like Durfee strips of Borden. They're close by, they may have helped each other to get through this. And then when you had a full as close to a full compliment as you could on Friday, >> [snorts] >> you're talking about 8 hours. Three shifts at a place like Durfee with that many custodians, they took care of what they had to take care of. Everything was was done and ready for Monday. The intent was always ready for Monday. But the government center was open on Friday. That was the first time it opened. So up through Thursday it was Everybody was in 100% >> No, 28 28 output. The remainder was in. Yes,
181there was a major difference in in attendance um by that day. And I would say that it certainly to your point, I mean it certainly speaks to the fact that by Friday it was a no you have to be here. Now some people either elected not to come in Right, we can't control that. used a sick day, vacation day, whatever it is. [snorts] But yeah, there was marked improvement by the in the moment that we said no you have to be here, more people showed up. Could we have done that potentially on Thursday? Yes, and maybe we would have gotten more people to show up because maybe some people did stay home because why not? I'm getting paid to stay home. That's possible. And I still think that we had a number of people who
182would be who who would who would not be able to get in and might find themselves in a position where they were using a sick day or a vacation day simply because there was no route to work. And I think that was difficult for us to navigate. I was getting calls at 2:00, 3:00, even some at 4:00 from people saying, "Hey, they're just now plowing my street on Thursday." And that's just from all over the custodians, not just one or two. But I got several calls like that saying, "Hey, I'm sorry, but I'm they're just coming down my street now." True, I believe in Another thing, did anybody get hurt or anything while all the snow removal or anything? So, everything We didn't get any reports of anybody, um, on our staff or custodial, maintenance,
183um, grounds. No. All right, that's that's good. Right. >> You know. Cold. It's a lot of cold, obviously. >> Yeah, we all dealt with the cold. We all dealt with the snow. So, nobody got hurt. Things got done. Everybody opened back up. Like you said, you can't control if people come in and not come in, but at the end of the day, um, like I said, a little bit of confusion for sure. I'm not saying it's not. Uh. Just a uh You know, that's life. That's the way I look at it. It's It's almost Are you done? Yes, sorry. Mr. Davis. I yield. I just think it's it Well, I look at it as the situation where it's on on in other circumstances, it might be that government center is closed for a day, um,
184for, you know, a reason where, yeah, it's not completely safe for people to get in before noon. So, we're just going to close for the day. The fact that government center was closed for 4 days, I mean, I I don't think I'm speaking out of turn here when I say that like I reached out to the mayor by Wednesday like, "Can we please open tomorrow? We We want to get our people in." And, you know, and he said, "So, I don't think so." You know, I don't think. And Wednesday morning, it was crystal clear to me why we were closed on Wednesday. And then, when I went to go look at some places I hoped like if they're working through the night, are we going to be able to open on Thursday? No. Um, and
185I I mean, I'll it It's me at the end of the day, right? So, I did not feel comfortable requiring people to come in if government center was closed. That's all. I mean, and and the the amount of snow, just trucking it out and everything. Just trying to make things safe, which is understandable. Um, you know, it's just a little bit of confusion as far as um, government center center being closed and they're allowed to stay home. That's just not writing in. Right Kenny, you've never seen it anywhere or Nobody can produce it because it doesn't exist. >> exist. The language that exists just says if people are required to come in then [snorts] they get the float vacation day. Okay. So it implies that there is room to not require people to come in.
186Right. But the last time that was 15 inches of whatever happened on a weekend I believe. So we didn't have this issue. But theoretically if that was on a Monday and we closed on Tuesday people would have still had the same problem. That's the problem that I have. Isn't that let's just say oh it was a blizzard it was 40 inches it was unprecedented. No, it wasn't unprecedented because if we're not clear with our expectations of what people need to do which is what they've always done which I we we were not clear we were said government centers closed and we made that up because not made it up but we used that that doesn't exist. The if we got a a 14-in storm today and tomorrow morning it came that we expect our 12-month
187employees including custodians to come to work, they're staying home. They're staying home just like they did this time. Because they're going to think that this is what's the norm is to now >> didn't in that 16, right? So they didn't stay home. >> But I'm saying it was a weekend. No, but even though even though it was a weekend they did come in on Monday and got those buildings open. >> Correct. I'm saying like the storm that happened overnight This if we don't clarify here's the expectations. So we would have had expectations. Like we we we picked let them stay home and paid people. But like for instance the maintenance crew was expected to be in under the same everything is the same in the same ask me union. The ground keepers were meant to
188come in and they didn't. You know like it just doesn't seem logical that some people just came in and they I'm assuming they get the same extra day incentive and overtime or whatever, but it's expected that those folks came in. Even though the streets were the same, the streets like the same issues we we're talking about, those eight people or nine people whoever else came in had all those same issues. But our expectation was that they come in. But our expectation wasn't that the other 100 people come in. That is my problem. I'm not trying to be like a jerk to say come in in the middle of a blizzard. Probably nobody should have came in. Some of the custodians that came in the morning shouldn't have came in. They should have been told it's
189a blizzard, stay home. But then I was looking for where did somebody say now Tuesday you're expected to come in, Wednesday you can I'm just saying as it went on and we met on Wednesday with the mayor on the on Zoom and it was stated open, you got city hall's clean as a whistle. Why is it government center not open if under that time we were of the belief that we can't get our custodians in because you keep government center closed. Government center was clean as a whistle. They had no snow and it was like it didn't exist. No, I get it, but they could have had impeccable and then but it's the route to the >> I totally get it, but at the time it was the excuse of the custodians not coming in
190was that the government center was closed. We told the mayor right out in the meeting that you need to open government center so we do. So then all of a sudden government center is not open in the next morning. Then they did whatever and then all of a sudden it's open. Government center should have been open in my opinion, but I have to stress this that we should not have been telling people to stay home as custodians is a bad precedent to set. She just Miss Borges just proved the case that that's not what happened in any of these other storms including when they were open. So it doesn't sit well with me. We can't you know, it is what it is. Moving forward I think we need to clarify that you're expected to be
191here. Anything else? Anybody have any new business? You know, can we get a motion to adjourn? >> Motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn is made, seconded by Mr. Moniz. Roll call. Mr. Guyer? Yes. Mr. Guyer? Yes. Mr. Moniz? Thank you. Thank you all for your attention. We appreciate it. Thank you.