001Good evening. The time is now 4:38. Welcome to the April 30th, excuse me, 5:38. The April 30th, 2025 operations, budget, and fiscal affairs committee meeting. I am Zakyia Goins McCann, committee chair and district 8 board member. Thank you all for joining us today. For those unable to observe now, the meeting is being recorded and can be accessed on the PGCPS YouTube channel for later viewing. Miss Adelide, please call the role. Miss present. Mr. Brown present. Mr. Briggs present. Dr. Moss present. Jay Jackson, we have four present. With a quorum present, the operations, budget, and fiscal affairs committee meeting will come to order. If there are no objections, the committee shall adopt the April 30th, 2025 meeting agenda. There being no objections, the April 30th, 2025 meeting agenda is adopted. If there are no corrections, the
002committee shall approve the February 19th, 2025 meeting minutes as distributed. There being no corrections, the February 19th, 2025 meeting minutes are approved. There are no registered public comment speakers for today. Um, so with that, we are going to move on to our chief operating officer update. The chair recognizes Dr. Coleman, Chief Operations Officer. Thank you so much, board member Goins, uh, board subcommittee chair, Goins McCants, uh, and also board members, uh, we certainly appreciate the opportunity to come back before you and the public this evening. Uh, as was discussed at the last OBAFA meeting, uh, this was an opportunity for our director of capital programs, Miss uh, Shayla Jackson, uh, to re uh, renew the conversation about the educational facilities master plan uh, that outlines our priorities that ultimately are reflected in our capital improvement
003plan. Uh so at this time we're going to renew that conversation with Director Jackson and we are certainly open for questions uh after we um dive into the second part of the presentation. So at this time I'll turn it over to uh Director Jackson. Good evening. I apologize. I I thought we were going to do the budget first um since I'm not fully available until about 5:50. My apologies. Yes, we can switch to the budget first. Thank you so much. I really want to see the baby though. I want to see the baby. Thank you so much for that reminder. Um, so at this point we will switch to our chief financial officer update. The chair recognizes Miss How, chief financial officer for the budget update. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. Um, I appreciate the
004opportunity for us to kind of get a quick check in on where we are in the budgeting process. Um, we are still new deep into budget formulation, primarily on the school side at this point. Um, we are also in the process of working through the remainder of our reconciliation cycle. To facilitate our update today, I'm going to briefly share my screen that capture the a quick snapshot of where we are right now and some of the um uh challenges that we will face as we get through the remainder of this cycle. So, just bear with me for one moment as I share my screen here. [Music] number. There we go. All right. So on the left hand side captures um some of the key focus areas that we focus on focus areas that we are
005really looking at during the reconciliation cycle. Um so in one of our last updates that we provided we talked about that our school budgeting process really kicks off March April time frame. And so all of our schools now have received their allocations and they're working through the process of building out their budgets um for the coming school year. For our traditional schools, their budgets consist of um a few different categories. It includes their um what we refer to as lock staffing and those are positions that are managed centrally on behalf of schools. Some of those positions reside at the school cost center. Some of those positions reside in a central office call center. Um, so it could be a school-based uh centrally managed lock position such as a custodian or uh security uh position or
006it could be centrally managed that's also school-based like a school nurse. Um, but it's managed all within one call center at a central office location. So that's one part of their budget. The other part of their budget is what we refer to as their student-based budgeting allocation. And that is where the principal has the discretion to build out the rest of their budget based off of the needs and the programming in their school building. And so during that process, they're based off of the allocation that they've received, they're able to kind of go through and determine staffing and other non-personnel staffing um requirements for the budget for the coming year. Um and so they're working through that process now. That process involves a detailed review um by the instructional directors, by the associate superintendent, um
007by different um partners in this review process. it's finance, human resources, folks from academics. Um, ultimately kind of get through their entire review and then once that uh submission has been approved, then it goes on with the remaining of the budget process to ultimately get combined with the rest of the budget, which a lot of that we've worked on during the proposed cycle as well as the requested cycle for central office. So, there's a lot of activity that's happening with the schools right now. our our budget team on the school side is 100% focused on supporting the principles in that effort and so they're booked and busy working on that. Now um the next component that we work on during this time frame is really around updating a lot of our assumptions and this is
008across the board in all of our uh budgeting cost centers mainly at the central office level around vendors. So when we worked on our proposed cycle in the fall, um oftentimes there's now been some movement around what estimates are going to look like for that same work for 2026. So it's like a revalidation of what was submitted in the budget in the fall to make sure now it's aligning with what we're expecting those costs to be for for the next year and making sure that we take into consideration any adjustments that might be required. The other piece of that which we don't typically have to deal with during the reconciliation is we've got impacts coming out of decisions being made in Washington. And so we are receiving um word from our vendors that prior quotes
009estimates are going to be changing or increasing because the impact of tariffs. So that now is taking a second look for us to go back to determine what does that mean for our budget? are we gonna, you know, where we're going to have to potentially cut or rep prioritize what we're going to be able to get done with the dollars that we have set aside in the budget considering the higher price point. Um so that's having an impact on some of our different areas that are experiencing um the result from tariffs um coming through. Um the other um update that we typically work on during this time of year is relating to our grants. So we talked a lot about our unrestricted side of our budget that we work on during the proposed cycle. During
010this time of year is when many of our grant applications are being worked on. So while we had some initial placeholders in the budget when we started the formulation process in the fall on the restricted side, those placeholders are typically based on the level of award that we received for the current year and we assume the same level of award for the next year with the exception of our blueprint grants which are a bit more defined and prescriptive. And so we know what those amounts are going to be. But for some of our other entitlement grants, our other formula based grants, we don't really know um in the fall what that's going to look like. But this is the time of year where they begin working on those applications and they now can then begin
011to further refine those grant application uh those budget assumptions for those restricted programs. The change or challenge with this year is that there's still a lot of uncertainty around what those funding levels will be for some of our federal grants. So, we've made some assumptions that some of those grant fund levels will be reduced, but we just don't know. Um, and so we're going to continue to work off of the best information we have available now. But we know that there's going to be continued changes relating to keep in mind that on the restricted program side, if there's going to be an impact on the funding allocation that we'll receive, that means our revenue will go down um and the expenses will go down or up. If it goes up or down, they'll be adjusted
012accordingly. So either way, the changes on the restricted side will be um on the revenue and expenses will be funding. The challenge is if there is going to be a reduction in our restricted funding from the at the federal level, what impact will that potentially have on our unrestricted budget and how are we going to be able to support our students that way in which they will need to continue to be supported as we get into fiscal year 2026. Um we are also still in active negotiations with several of our labor partners. Um, we're hoping that most of those will be close to resolution by the time we get to the end of the fiscal year and we'll be able to incorporate with certainty what those negotiated items will be in our 2026 budget. Um,
013absent of having any uh settled agreements, we will continue to work with assumptions around what we think those changes will be. Um, so we'll continue to work through that process. The general assembly has not closed and we know the impact of some of those decisions coming out of the process. Um and so um we are still um all of us are wait anxiously waiting for the updated state aid document which usually would now reflect those changes coming out of the general assembly. Um but we at least know um on the revenue side what those key changes are. So we have a good idea what ex what to expect for that. But it still comes down to that state document from NSDE to make sure it reflects and aligns with what we anticipate. Um and then
014finally, our budget still is um going through the review process by the county council. Um and so we expect that budget to be transmitted back to us um by the end of this uh by the end of May. Say the end of this month, but it's April 30th. So by the end of May, we expect to receive that back. Um, and then that's when we begin what we refer to as really the true reconciliation between what the board uh the requested budget that the board transmitted to the county and reconciling that back to the approved budget that we get back from the county um end of May, beginning of June. Um so that is what we'll be focusing on over the next two months. And on the right hand side just really sort of highlights
015some of the impacts that we will continue to have to deal with over these next two months and into fiscal year 2026. Um so I stated before there's still a lot of uncertainty around what's going to happen on the federal side. Um as we find out information we will have to adjust to that accordingly. But it's a very real possibility that we'll get through um the reconciliation cycle and still don't have definitive answers on the federal side. we'll have to finalize the budget. Um but then once we get into 2026, we may have to course correct depending on some of those outcomes and final decisions. Um we you may have recall there was a lot of um concern around uh the um resention of being reimbursed for some of our COVID relief grants for which
016we received um an extended liquidation period. Um based off of where we are right now, we have been engaged with MSCE, which is going through an appeals process to um request reimbursement for those items um that were well within the approved uh reimbursement period. Um we haven't received a word yet and you know, we're certainly looking forward to what the outcome of that may be. Um for the district, it's about $25 million. Um and so depending on the outcome of the appeal um and the timing of that, those expenditures that we've already committed or we've already incurred for which we have not received reimbursement, um may potentially come out of our 25 budget or potentially have an impact on our 26 budget. Um so that's a huge unknown um uncertainty as well. Um, and then
017we just have the ongoing impact of the cost of doing business being a little bit higher than what we expected or could be substantially higher than what we expected. We talked about the impact of tariffs. This is going to continue to play out over the course of the coming year. We've dealt with situations like this before where there's been impacts of inflation or supply chain issues that can impact prices. Um but there's been just a lot of you know variability that's occurred over the last few months that will continue to play out as we're sure as we get into 2026. And then finally uh use of fund balance. There's been a lot of discussion around this as well for all eleas across the state and a lot of focus on well we can use a
018fund balance to kind of get through um any budget shortfalls that we may experience. Um and we continue to remind everyone that when you look at our fund balance as of the end of last year, you know, almost 12 months ago, a lot has changed since then. Um so we had fund balance of around 374 million and out of that amount about 90 million or so um was related to purchase orders that have already been liquidated. So that's no longer sitting in fund balance. And then for 2025, we and for 2026, we already have planned use of fund balance for both of those budget years. So if all goes as planned, as executed to use that fund balance as anticipated, um we will likely be in a state where our fund balance will be in
019critical position by the end of fiscal year 2026. Um uh we may you may recall a year ago we were going through um uh or dealing with the impact of our budget being reduced or funding being reduced from the county for energy and telecommunications revenue um of around 65 70 million that was um being redirected to support other aspects relating to our blueprint funding requirement. Um and with that has required the district to go through a process to reset and realign our budget um along with all the other challenges that we're dealing with for 2026 as well. Um so the use of fund balance is is not a long-term solution by any means. It will you know we'll be in a position to navigate through the remaining uh you know 2025 and into 2026. Um,
020but we're still heavily focused on what savings can we accomplish. Um, we've been in a hiring freeze for 2025. Um, we'll see what continues to happen in 2026 because we can't get to a point where our fund balance is at zero. We have to have some rainy day fund for unexpected issues such as what we're dealing with now getting reimbured for our CO relief grant. So, so we're continuing to look through that. We're looking to see where we're going to land by the end of this year and but continue to run a very very tight ship where there's an opportunity to save dollars to not necessarily repurpose that for something else but let it fall to the fund balance because we know we're using it heavily um for these next two years and it's not
021something that can be sustained on going forward basis. So that is our brief update on where we are right now. a lot of work to be done over the next couple months. Um, and we will be back in front of the board um in the last uh meeting in June um for the budget to be presented for approval. Thank you so much, Chief Pal. As my colleagues um start to raise their hand with their questions, I did have one of my own. So, there was a request that we put in. And I want to make sure I'm using the exact wording. A request for the actual budget that was submitted to council and then a copy of the guidance that was provided to principles to create their student based budgets including the amount that was
022allocated to each school. So I am aware that the request came this is on April 26. So that was maybe a shorter amount of time than you all are used to. But could you explain why you all weren't able to produce documents that have already been shared with other people and ostensibly have already been distributed? Sure. Um so the first part of the request relating to budget that was transmitted um that information is already available on board docs. Um your team should already have access to that. So it outlines the budget that was transmitted over. Um so that information has already been provided. We can reshare that again. Um as far as the information that was shared with the principles around the allocation or the guidance we provided to them, um we can certainly share
023that document. It's a lot of information that I guess I'm not exactly sure what you were looking for, but we can certainly share that document. um that really gets into the mechanics of how to update their budgets in the tool. Um and not so much around the allocation methodology. Um we can share that document but it's really a working document for the principles to build out their budget. Um so in terms of guidance that's what they received. the allocations for the schools. That's a whole different conversation because the information is fed into a separate budget application that they have. And so, um, there's not an easy way to be able to have the team stop what they're doing, download that information from the, uh, it's called the Apex tool that used to build their budget
024to then provide that information in a way that is understandable to those who are not familiar with the Apex tool that capture that information. So, that is really the heavy lift associated with that request. um to provide that information for over 200 schools is not an easy task to be able to do. We've got a pretty thin team. It's just myself and the budget director and we've got a budget supervisor um and they are primarily the school's team and so they are booked and busy as I said it earlier um really supporting the principles and the IDs and the meeting with the associates as well um during this time right now. So, it was either have them stop what they're doing and have all the principles stop what they're doing to provide that request um
025or continue to have them focus on supporting their principles, working on their budgets. And so, um we did have this conversation internally around the best way to be able to share that information so there's context and understanding of what's being presented because to present the data without understanding what you're looking at is not extremely useful. Um and so that's where it was my understanding that it was going to be shared and presented in a different format um when we were actually going to have a separate uh meeting with board members to kind of talk through that information request. That is extremely helpful context. Um, but regarding the portion about it already being shared with documents, especially since it would be it was in writing, considering the fact that our board staff is also a very
026small staff, it would have been helpful even if just we had that reminder so that the people responsible for making sure things are on board docs knew that that was already provided because I know I've gotten several questions from constituents about the difference between the budget that we passed as council, I mean as board members, and the budget that actually got submitted to council. And so I'm not sure that I was aware that we had that on uh board docs. So we will definitely double check and thank you for explaining those differences. Can you just clarify because maybe I misunderstood the request then when you said there's a difference between what the board approved versus what was transmitted because it should be one and the same or or they referring to the proposed budget which
027will be different from the requested budget. Yes. So, we have the proposed budget that is publicly available to all of our constituents online and people have not seen what was actually submitted to council publicly and the wording was for the budget that we submitted to council so that we could have it on board docs so that people could see it. So, let me clarify then. So, thank you for that. I think what constituents might be looking for is an updated budget book and that is not available yet. So if they wanted to see the budget in total and the budget by the functional categories by which we are required to transmit over that is what was included in the board action summary that was posted on board docs for the February meeting where that approval
028was actually made. if they're looking for an updated budget book, that is not available either. And that is also the same challenge with a heavy lift and not being able to produce that quickly. So, if that's what they're looking for, that is not available either. Gotcha. And I apologize. Um, Miss Adelaide, you didn't put a timer on on me, so I didn't see it. I just wanted to put it so people were questioning specifically what was sent to council versus what we had which is what the request was but I don't want to take up too much time because I want to make sure that my colleagues have the opportunity to answer ask their questions or have their c questions be answered as well board member Brown thank you so much uh chairs mccands chief
029how thank you so much for your presentation the question that I had was about the support for the principles. Can you kind of explain what that looks like? If I'm a new principal in a school and you guys come, what does that support look like when it comes to receiving a budget and trying to understand exactly how to allocate these funds with my school? That's a great question. Um, it starts the year before we get into budget formulation for new principles. And for those folks who are currently an assistant principal becoming a principal, we actually hold a training over the summer before kind of walk them through a mock process of what that will look like. Um so that's kind of the first step for this year. Um we also um were invited to principal
030meetings that are held on a periodic basis to really talk about what's changing. So for those who've been around for a while, they're used to building out their budgets and whipping through it pretty quickly. It is going to look different because of blueprint. And so the portal that they're used to seeing, the apex tool that I referred to earlier is not um going to look the same or was not going to look the same for 2026. And so we initially did a highlevel presentation about how that's going to be changing just before the API tool was available. So we met with the principles and from the walk through how it's going to be different, how the requirements for this year will be different. Um and then once the budgets were released, um my team began
031meeting with the principles one-on-one individually. We also held a detailed hands-on meeting with the um IDs as well as the associate superintendents who work obviously oversee the principles to walk them through the methodology and the process in detail and again what they were seeing in Apex and how it was different for this year versus previous years because the funding methodology is different. And again, it's tied to blueprint, not our previous SB or student based budgeting methodology that was utilized. And so really spending that time and going through that process, but my team, I mentioned the budget supervisor, and we also have a fiscal um uh uh uh person who works very closely with the principles as well as the other budget analysts in reviewing and going through their budgets. So they're meeting with them individually,
032having one meetings, responding to inquiries, emails as they do come up. Thank you, Dr. Moss. Yeah, thank you all so much for being here. Um, one, I I am curious. Uh, perhaps we need to think differently about our accounting software. Um, but I would imag school to deal with each year. um when I was a school principal, I knew what my overall allocated amount would be. And so that is concerning that we can't get there um at a quicker rate. I don't know if that's technology or what it is, but um I think it would be helpful for us to see that particularly with some of these issues that are happening across charter so we can actually explain to people that our investment in charters um is actually in many cases more significant than the
033investment we're making in our district schools. Um, if I'm wrong in that assumption, I hope someone will correct me, but I believe the data might reveal that um, we might be making a a steeper investment, uh, if you will. But if I'm wrong, I stand corrected, but I think that data will be helpful. Miss How, I Chief How, I do have a question for you though about the fund balance. And if you don't know the answer now, just just tell me you don't. How much of our fund balance are we um utilizing? How much did we use this year like as a percentage if you can can recall? And then how much are we projected to you use in FY26 in future years? And then I believe there's a law governing how much we should
034have in our fund balance. Um you know or a suggested amount, right? Um I know some states have an amount that if you fall below that, you are in jeopardy of u state intervention. Can you can you address those two things for me? Sorry, I was trying to get to the mute button. For 2025, um, our plan use of fund balance um is $120 million. Um, how much of that we've we're spending so far right now. It's usually an assessment that you can't make until you reach end of the fiscal year because we're still spending. Yeah. Can I can I cut you for a second? I wanted to know the percentage of our overall fund balance are we exerting, not just not just that dollar amount. If you don't have it, I I certainly understand.
035I didn't prepare you for this, so I I don't But yeah, if if that's what I was wanting to know. Well, I guess generally speaking, the majority of our fund balance that we that's the majority of our fund balance as of the end of last fiscal year has been assigned for use in either 25 or 26. I don't have the exact percentage. I can certainly get that for you. Um, our overall policy is to really be in line with your GFOA recommended fund balance, which is to have at least two months of your operating budget sitting in fund balance. As of the end of last June, we were at one and a half months, and I just explained to you how we're using the majority of that for 25 and 26. So, we've been well
036below where we needed to be. This year, it actually increased from 2023. Um, but I'm extremely concerned about where we need to head on a going forward basis with the continued because it's not a sustainable funding source. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. Vice Chair Briggs. Thank you so much, Committee Chair Goins McCie how for the presentation. Um, I just had a well I guess a technical question and then I wanted to just get a bit better understanding if you could clarify for myself and for those that are watching about the vendor contracts. I wanted to start there. I was curious with the vendor contracts how um if you're in this process of kind of relooking at those if you're looking at the um feasibility for any of those contractors um partners to continue
037to offer the services or products that they've likely been slated to offer. And then also is there any renegotiating of you know price values in any of those contracts? Yeah. So each division is sort of going through them a particular area particularly where either they've been uh reached where they've been communicated with by their vendors or where they've been proactively reaching out to their vendors because they know their contract for that service or that good is going to be well not really service but for a good will be impacted by tariffs likely. Um we're seeing that on you know across the board in in certain areas. Um, and so each division chief is working to sort of assess whether or not based off of their current budget, knowing that there's going to be an impact
038on so maybe it's if it's going to go up, let's just say by 25%. So then what are we going to be able to get for the budget that we have? um or is it need to be a does it need to be a consideration around possibly reducing cutting something else to absorb that increase to support the higher contracted uh service for goods that we're looking to procure. So it really is sort of looking at do we cut our existing budget somewhere else to fund the higher need over here or do we stick with the budget that we have for this vendor but know we're not going to be able to fully get what we were initially asking for. So, it's really assessing where we have the opportunity to maybe um adjust our plans, possibly
039renegotiate, but if the cost is higher for the vendor, right, they may or may not be willing to lower on that. Can I I will I think you can go over the time, so I want to make sure I get my question in and then feel free to continue if um the chair will allow you to, but I did want to just clarify around the operations piece. you talked about, you know, schools hiring for nurses and for um maintenance staff, I think, or you mentioned that. I wasn't sure if that was operations parts of the budget and then you talked about the SBB piece of it. Um, so just if you could just clarify that. And then the last thing I was going to say really quickly was just with the vendor contracts, is there
040like a database that you all go to if you're trying to look at, you know, at competitiveness of vendors, um, looking at price value to say, you know, maybe in this economic downturn period that we're in. This is a way that we can cut cost because I can imagine as a business that's going to be a really important piece not only this year but moving forward. Yeah, that's a great question and I and I'll be certainly to be happy to kind of take that back and and talk through that a little bit more with my purchasing director. I do know that we go through depending on the um item that we're looking to secure, we may have gone through a formal bidding process already or we may have access to cooperative agreements where we can
041kind of get a sense of is there an opportunity to possibly um re-evaluate the pricing on a particular item. um that's not always the case that we're already sort of locked into a particular contract or you know for a particular amount with a certain vendor. Um we do have access to other um uh cooperative agreements where there might be a little bit more flexibility with regards to that in terms of being able to kind of really pull together information by certain vendors and maybe to see if there's an opportunity to reevaluate pricing. I don't know if that functionality or that access of information is available within our existing procurement system. And then to answer your question around um the difference between I guess the the nurses custodial staff versus the SB allocation, it's all part
042of a school budget. So it's kind of like three buckets. You've got your SVB portion. You've got the portion that's managed um by central office. Some of those positions are sitting at the school and some of that are sitting in a central office cost center, but it still supports the school. So kind of those three different buckets all goes towards building the school's budget, but the principal is responsible for the SB portion of that budget. Does that make sense? Yeah, that make that makes complete sense. Thank you for me. Thank you all so much. It looks like we are moving into our second round. Dr. Moss. Yeah, thank you so much, Chief Hal, again for answering my fund balance question. That is concerning, and I'm going to connect this this conversation a good bit. Um,
043looks like we're have given that the cost of doing business is going up. Um, and you know, we also have this issue of being at about 1.5%, one one and a half months uh worth of our operating costs. Would you say that's the reason why we're having to I mean increase potentially like our administrative fee? Are all those things connected? Because if we didn't increase that um it would cause us to to not meet like our obligations long term. Would you say all of these things are connected systematically that like because it costs us to you know we're having to it cost us more to do business. We're having to charge others um more to do business. Are those things connected at all? No, they're not connected at all. The administrative fee that was developed
044was based off of the budget that we have now, which is not showing the impact potentially of tariffs going up or pricing goods and services going higher than what we already expected. It's based off of the budget that we currently have formulated, which doesn't consider those potential increases, but we're mindful of the fact that those increases could be a very real impact as we get into 2026. Yeah, I I hear you saying that, though. I can't help but to connect it in my mind. And I could be wrong, but I'm like, um, you know, if if that's money we otherwise wouldn't have to be able to be sustainable long term. So, so my I'm impacting in my head. So, if rather than charging a 6% instead of a 2%, if we charge a 2% that
045means we would lose money elsewhere or we would be taking a loss in some other place. I heard you use this term zero sum game. So, I'm just trying to connect that for the general public that that's not some arbitrary number. It does have like budget impacts. Um, I I just want to make that connection tighter in terms of what it means broadly if a lower fee did exist. So, the administrative fee that we're referring to um is around 6 millionish. I think I've shared that that number before. Um, so it's not tied, it's not going to have a significant impact on the fund balance. I wanted to kind of separate the two because they're not related. Um, that is $6 million, however, that if we were to adjust any way, shape, or form, you
046know, up or down, what have you, those are additional dollars that would come from uh the funding that's been set aside for our schools. And so when I say it's a zero sum game, all the schools receive funding in the same way and they build their budgets using the dollars that are received for those schools. Yeah. Okay. And so it's not proportional um in terms of dollar for dollar because each school is different. Their funding is different. So, in order to provide any type of support for any additional school that's outside of the funding that's generated by that school, it's going to come from somewhere else in order to provide that support. Yeah, I appreciate you clarifying. I just want to say I and I I go back to the fund balance because it's, you
047know, as I think about my own personal budget, I do want to have a cushion at some point and right now we're not even even able to contribute to that cushion and we're not where we need to be in that cushion to be able to sustain ourselves if Trump or somebody decides to take all of our Title One dollars. So, I just I see it as like my whole wallet and my whole account, not just just one. So, I appreciate that clarification. I do have one additional clarification. We've heard you say the $6 million figure. Is that six million per school? How does that six million? Is that 6 million across all of the schools? No, that's just an aggregate for the 10 charter schools. Yeah. Each one has their own portion of that. Um
048and again it's it's going to vary depending on the school because it's based off of um the number of stu it's like a prata share based off student count and so the student count is different for every single school. So but it's it's that's the aggregate number for um all 10 schools roughly. Got it. And just for clarity for those of us who are not full-time in finance by in aggraate you mean so across all 10 charter schools that sums up to 6 million not an average some people could have seven some people could have five that's all 10 charter schools making up that 6 million. That is correct. Thank you Vice Chair Briggs. Thank you so much. Um, committee chair goins mccantsz. Um, chief how I just wanted to put this out there as
049a kind of final note because I think that for me um one I really appreciate this conversation. I really appreciate the the the depth of discussion that we're having. Um, but I also have, I guess, a significant concern that I think we all have, and I'm sure you it probably is keeping you awake at night, which is that we have, you know, money that we uh we we we likely um are continuing to see as a deficit. Um, you already mentioned the um potential covering of 25 million from the federal government um because of the pausing of ESER funds and obviously that has to go through MSDE, but there are a lot of other things and then there's just a lot of unpredictables like you mentioned. And I guess I'm thinking like it would be
050nice and I know you do this in some way, but like to see a budget analysis. I know you all project out what's anticipated for the next fiscal year. Um but I guess I'd love to see some proactive umness in really looking across like as we're think I know there's this is only one year, right? And this is kind of a outlier at the moment, but really identifying like what can we expect um or what trends are occurring with the budget um based on this recent um these recent occurrences. And I think also maybe after all of the legislation is passed and and signed what's likely already been passed, but once it's signed or vetoed by the governor, we'll have more concretness and everything. I guess I'm just thinking like it'd be nice to see
051that. I'm sure you'd probably want that too. um so that we can really get serious and and I guess that will help us too as board members and as we're thinking from a policy lens really early in advance like the coordination between our policy efforts in Annapolis and ways that we can really speak again tangibly to like what are the needs that we have putting numbers to that figures to that um schools to that so that they really understand and it would just be nice to have some of that maybe over the summer so that we could have that ready to go by the time we start our advocacy with elected officials in September and October as they're building out their plans. Um because maybe even it could be something like, you know, they have
052some kind of um thinking of a clearing house of like resources for school districts to, you know, take advantage of additional funding opportunities or whatever may exist in this moment in time. So, I just I would love to think creatively, but I think that data and that information might help. Um I just wanted to put that out there to you, your team. Yeah. No, I definitely appreciate that we do have a five-year model that we update every six months. Hasn't been updated lasted in the fall. Um because I always want to have a a future look into what is our revenue going to look like and what is and how does that compare to our trended expenses especially as especially as we're going through negotiations because that is our largest impact on our budget. Um
053there is a lot of uncertainty that is unprecedented in terms of how do you determine what the impact is going to be to your budget because you just don't know which way this could potentially go. If it's worst case scenario, we're all in the same boat. Like none of us have enough money in our budget to absorb paying food and nutrition services for all of our students and be able to cover all the title one and um you know all of the other supports that come in in terms of you know some for some of our need students you know students with disabilities. I mean there's a lot that wow this could be catastrophic and you know not trying to speak doom and gloom but it's just a lot of uncertainty around which direction this
054could actually go in. So it makes it very difficult to model because you just don't know. So I try to focus on what I do know. So I do know kind of based off of our projected revenue um model um and how we're projecting our expenses based off what I know today. That is really what our continued focus is going to be. Um and then you sort of layer into it. Hey, these are some of the impacts that could happen. But that sensitivity is really hard to measure because there's so much uncertainty about which direction it could go in. But I think certainly providing maybe that high level insight to board members earlier in the year so you kind of have the same look outlook at our long-term revenue and our expenditures might help you
055have the same lens that we have when we're thinking about all the things that we need to cover. Um, I think seeing that at a high level might be useful information as we get into the next budget cycle. Thank you so much, Chief Hal. I know we have a lot of questions about the budget and this is an extremely complex and difficult to navigate process. So, we are trying to navigate it and learn and also make sure that our constituents can navigate it as well. So, thank you so much for coming and presenting to us and hopefully next time we can continue this conversation. I do not see any more hands. So, I wanted to make sure I caught everyone on either their first or second round. Seeing no new hands, now we will move
056on to our chief operating officer updates. Um, so the chair recognizes Dr. Coleman, our chief operations officer for the facilities education facilities master plan update. Thank you so much again, board committee chair going uh board members and also members of the public. Uh so as stated, the educational facilities master plan or EFMP uh is a document that's required annually by the state of Maryland for all local education agencies. Uh this document lays the foundation for the subsequent capital improvement plan or CIP. Uh the EFMP focuses on key policies, community input, accomplishments, challenges, and proposed actions that guide the CIP. Uh so the director of the department of capital programs uh Shayla Jackson uh is prepared this evening to re-engage um uh with the committee and the public uh as part two of a presentation that
057really looks at the timeline the uh laying out of priorities around the EFMP and to really just have uh some earnest conversation and respond to questions. Uh so at this time I'm going to turn it over to Director Jackson. Good evening. I just want to thank everybody again for the flexibility in our our agenda approach today. Um Dr. Coleman reminded me that everybody does eat and breathe um educational facilities master planning. So, I'm going to try to simplify it, remind you of the timeline we talked about, and tell you um maybe spend a little bit more time on the prioritization words that we we throw around um so that everyone understands, especially in our public when we're talking about a data driven master plan, what the data is and how we quantify those things. Um
058we did talk very briefly about it, but I'm going to sit on that slide a little longer than before. But before I jump in, I just want to make one um distinction. So the EFMP itself, I think it's helpful to think of the master plan as like a prioritization document. Like these are the factors we look at and it kind of spits out um a list of which schools will be new or majorly renovated. It doesn't really get into like we might do a playground here or some of the other CIP investments. It's really our modernization program in in a priority order. And then the CIP I think gets confusing because it is also a spending plan for some some years. But what it really is, that's our budget request. The CIP is a budget
059request for each fiscal year. And as part of requesting a budget, because we do do so many large projects, it has a multi-year component where you also have to identify what you're spending the next five years. So the master plan is your priority driver. The CIP is your money. So with that little piece, let me share our presentation from last time. This was from March 19th. Are we good? Can you see? Yes, there we go. Okay. So I I want to revisit the timeline so everybody knows what's coming next around the master plan process. So, uh, in this slide, we had the yellow dots, which represented the master plan we're currently working under. We're going to call that the FY17 EFMP because that's when it was first approved by the board of education. It's the
060one we're marching down. It's the one the P3 projects, the major new schools. We're still in cycle one of that first 30 or so schools um, that are in priority order. And although we do submit it to the Department of Planning every year, we do make basically very minor amendments. We don't change priority order without really highlighting it, which we'll get into cuz we'll be doing that in June. Um, but we're mostly not we're not re-engaging in all that data again. We're just following the order. And because it also is such a highlevel exercise, it's also good to be responding to realities that are occurring. So, those are the kind of things that kind of come up. Like, you might have a 20-year plan, but when you have something like Brandy Wine, you know, just
061skyrocket in enrollment, that's when you come back and say, "Hey, we've got to look at these priorities and see if something should shift." So, if you're looking at the yellow dots, that's just a note that every June we have to amend our FY17 EFMP until we replace it with our new modernization plan, which we're going to start working on. Um, in May, we're going to start it with new master educational specifications. I'm going to get into that a little bit more on the next slide and remind you why that matters. And then in June, we're hoping that the board will be approving the award of the master plan update project. We keep calling it different things, so I hope that's not confusing anyone. We really haven't landed on a name, but it is a consultant
062um supported exercise. There will be a lot of involvement with community. There will be a visiting of all the schools, a scoring of all the schools that we'll talk about um on this next prioritization slide, but it's a really big effort. So, we award that in June and it's probably about an 18month period of time. So, if you follow the blue dots now, we have the EDS specs, we have the condition assessments that hopefully this summer are going in earnest throughout our system. um by January 2026, I'm hoping we begin to bring um data to the board or maybe to this committee just just in pieces. It might just be one type of data at first. It might be like this is where the facility conditions are coming in. These are the worst, these are
063the best. Just sort of a um evolving process. Uh so we can transparently be discussing that before you zero through in August and we're getting closer to the recommendations. what we did with the FY17 EFMP when it was rolled out where there were just series of communities engagements. We did a north, central, and south like inperson um like every few months. We did virtual meetings because it was a lot to communicate and it was a big deal because really if you weren't in cycle one, right, you you weren't getting a new school. So like it just that alone of course there was a lot of community involvement. It also includes some consolidation recommendations. So that community component is something that has to be handled very strategically. And then we talked about prioritization, but I do
064remember going fast. So just going to sit here for a little bit. One of we had three pillars for the FY17 EFMP. The first one was facility condition. I always say like this is the stuff that you see that you kind of you know intrinsically know, but um it's it's a whole assessment. So the way it turns into a number, a data point is they go through and they look at every system we have from the ceiling tiles to the lights, the HVAC system, the electrical system. I I mean the pipes for supply of domestic water as well. They're probably lead hazardous materials and and you quantify everything that needs to be replaced or repaired in a facility. So the the example I use is like in your house if your kitchen faucet goes bad,
065that should be a really small repair cost compared to the value of your home or replacing your home. What the facility condition index is is just that. So if you have a small percentage versus your total repair cost, you probably should repair it and not replace your whole house for your kitchen sink, right? But in our schools, we we're looking at repairs and renovation costs based on um condition concerns that are at 60 70 80% of the value of the school. And at that point, really kind of what's called for there is a wrecking ball in a new facility. So when we talk about how you turn condition into a data point, that's how it's a facility condition index based on the cost of repair versus the cost of replacement. because it also just doesn't
066make financial sense to just like you wouldn't put $300,000 in renovations in a house that was worth $300,000. Um that's the same idea here. Also, you don't want your kids in a school that has that many concession concerns. Educational adequacy. This also becomes a quantified number. There's a whole worksheet based on every component of a school from the parking lot to the athletic facilities to the size of the classrooms to the specialty spaces and it is what is based on the educational specifications. So when we talk about needing to update the master educational specifications, that's why if we haven't um our current our current prototype, we called them back then prototype edspecs were developed in 2014 prior to the um evaluation of the entire facility based on those prototype EDS specs. And that's how that
067master plan um the FY17 EFMP got approved. But looking back at those FY14 prototypes, we can't evaluate based on that because our standards have changed in some ways. So we are bringing back all of our academic teams to look at our elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools to decide, you know, what we now think um is an adequate educational space. So safety concerns for parking lot like I'm sure we'll still maintain that we need to separate bus traffic and parent drop off traffic and pedestrian traffic right that's just a good practice but I think we have evolved on what we think is secure as terms of like um secured facility entrances um in terms of sightelines and corridors uh how our bathrooms are configured we might have different um requirements we will have different
068requirements for prek classrooms for how many in an elementary school, how many classrooms should have a restroom inside the classroom. So, all of that will be on a score sheet. Um, I'm trying to think of anything else that I can think off the top of my head that would change in scoring how well a school outside of condition is performing as a school. Um, we would also look at things like what is our maximum capacity for a school like maybe it's an elementary school. uh if what we hear back from our academic and instructional partners is that an elementary school doesn't work under say 200 students and it can't be bigger than 500 students that gets modified in this score sheet. So when they're going through they're looking at oh these classroom sizes are too
069small. These kindergarteners don't have a bathroom. So each thing is kind of a demerit and it turns into a number and that number becomes your educational adequacy score which is then completely separate from your facility condition score. The next number that's more easily understood for quantification is your enrollment versus your state rated capacity. Um, last time this these three pillars were part of the FY17 EFMP. We did swing heavily towards resolving overenrollment. I always want to point out here that in part that's what the data kind of forces you to do because overenrollment drops all of these scores. So once you're overenrolled, your educational adequacy score drops because you're using your specialty spaces for comprehensive education spaces. So now you don't have those. You might not have a music room if you're using it as
070an English classroom. So your score will drop. The safety of your hallways drops. Your safety of your parking lot drops when it's overcrowded during drop off and pickup. your facility condition. If your HVAC system was old and having trouble working just based on its age, being at 145% capacity like High Point High School didn't help. So now it's struggling more and it also is um subject to more wear and tear. So that that's how um overutilization really not just impacts education, but is why you'll find like internationally it's it's prioritized in every master plan. But underenrollment is really um detrimental as well to educational experiences and outcomes. So we are looking forward to really addressing that in the new FY27 EFMP um and maintaining that as a pillar. We also will be adding pillars. We
071need to look at the blueprint requirements. Um with the high school edspec, we'll have to discuss what is our plan to meet CTE expansion. What is our plan for universal prek? Um and we we need a master plan that adds those spaces. And then just other things like I mentioned have changed. We now have a um climate change action plan. Um we have security requirements. We went and visited a high school recently in DC and because they knew when they designed the high school they were going to have metal detectors. They have a completely different configuration so that the school traffic um in the morning is designed to flow through it a different way than when you're retrofitting. that'll probably be become part of our um educational adequacy step. Um and we also then by
072the way on that same edspecs we don't just score off them. Every new school is then designed based on them. That's also part of how we make sure we're designing equitably because once we decide that that's what a school should have, a school should have that, right? And so last time we did these number slides just to articulate that the dollar amount we needed to do the FY17 EFMP was $570 million a year and today's dollars. Our average actual capital approved each year has been closer to 174 million and last year it was just $128 million. So there's definitely a funding gap there. Uh this was just another slide to see how that um how that decline has broken out since FY23, FY24, FY25 um and that between state and county. I I will note
073I feel like this slide is somewhat misleading um because the state number looks really high that that FY23 number some that is like $30 million in passing grants. They never quite skyrocketed up that that far. Um, and then I'm going to skip these slides just to note that we talked I mentioned last time that we were talking about prioritizing new schools and modernizations, but I just had wanted to highlight last time that another component of prioritization exists within the the budget plan itself, the CIP, because I'm just going to go ahead and tell you, okay, because if you look at this, I actually have your in the way. Okay, if you look at this FY23 breakout of our approved CIP, you can see that we had $33 million to do major repairs and 38 million
074to do system upgrades and 136 million to do the new schools that are in the FY17 EFMP. And once I can't get to the next slide there and then if you look in the FY25CIP because that total dollar amount was reduced, we had 107 million to continue the FY17 EFMP. If you look what that did to our major repairs budget, that $3.6 million, that's a different type of prioritization that happens every year, usually within the context of the CIP and not the EFMP because we don't put things like fire alarm replacements um in the EFMP, but it is something that is still an ongoing prioritization exercise. And so then this was just a note. Um I did update this slide because um when we bring the FY17 EFMP for its update in June, we will
075be talking about the Northern High School prioritization order. Um where there will be the recommendation to move High Point ahead of the new northern area high school. There will be a recommendation to address one of the southern elementary schools for consolidation that were actually um to be determined in the FY17 EFMP when approved, but just based on the acceleration of um disrepair, we we want to put that forward for consideration now with the current cycle one. Um there's a couple others that are still being determined. Um like we have some shortfalls on the cycle one projects and we just need resolutions there. And then with the FY27 EFMP, we've talked about um the EDSP spec creation will be starting within the next two weeks. Um that'll actually be approved by the board once they're done
076with those exercises. So you can see what we are saying is required in each school type. And then you know we'll we'll need to be solidifying what those pillars are to recommend a priority order within the FY27 EFMP in coordination with the board. and also in coordination with the board, we really want a robust community involvement approach. I think with that we can do questions. Thank you so much, Director Jackson. Um, Dr. Moss, I just want to say thank you to this team for all of your work. I know what you've been doing over the last few months with Suland High School, if nothing else. Um, but thank you all for your work and thinking about all the strategies that we can undertake to make sure we modernize our our schools and whatnot. I'm curious
077about uh one excited about the consolidation opportunities um that I see consolidation opportunities at at a southern campus as an opportunity to give kids a better facility. So, thank you all for putting that up there. I think the way in which we communicate around that um is is is is drastically important. Shayla, I'm going to ask you this because I have you here now. I don't have to call you and bother you tomorrow. Um I always know I have an open door with you, but I've got a school um that is trying to update some of the internal equipment. I don't think that fits in any of your work. Like they want to redo the This I know you're like this is not appropriate for here, but I got you. Um um Benjamin D. um
078wants to actually update some of their um equipment inside of the auditorium, the performing arts equipment. That doesn't fall in your shop, do you? You're about to teach me something. That that is such a great question because you remember we talked about that CIP prioritization and how we have less money for system upgrades and major repairs. That's where we would do that. We would usually do that because I think I'm not sure if it's like this stage equipment, but that that gets expensive and it has come over to the capital side. um a lot like I think stage and and that performing arts equipment can get above like $150,000 pretty quickly. And so yes, we we've definitely tried to do that in the past. I will say I think Elellanena Rosid Belt was the last
079one we tried and we we couldn't we couldn't fund it um with that current drop and that that's frustrating. And then because you mentioned Benjamin Floyd, I'm going to say one more piece with the FY17 EFMP. We didn't actually study special schools. They did elementary, middle, and high, but not anything like FEoy, not um like our French immersion schools, our immersion schools. Um and so that's something we have to fold into the FY27 EFMP. Yeah, it'll be No, super helpful. Super helpful. U I know my Floyd PTA parents will really appreciate me asking this question tonight. I'm in an email thread with them right now trying to figure it out and they're looking at like private funds and whatnot, but it's good to hear um and it's also good to have some perspective around how
080expensive it is and where it fits into to CIP at large. And board member Moss, just to just to add a little more perspective to that, that is an excellent question because it's one we're facing at many of our programs uh that have or schools that have auditoriums, whether they be our performing arts programs or our high schools quite frankly in general. Uh so we're looking at uh that decrease in funding uh that director Jackson talked about and trying to strategize how we can meet that priority need. Thank you so much board members. Do we have any additional questions? Vice Chair Briggs. Thank you. Thank you so much. Um uh committee chair goes against um and director Jackson. Thank you as well for the presentation. Um I thought it was really helpful. Um as usual,
081um I did just have some you answer one of my questions, but I want to just dig a little bit deeper into the question um around community feedback and to what extent that is going to have an impact on some of these um you know outcomes specifically around educational adequacy. And I asked this, you know, intentionally because this is something that we constantly hear or at least as a board member I've heard from community members is my child goes to the school and there's this back room or there's, you know, this area that, you know, has this leak or whatever else may be. So to what extent does that influence any of the um the planning the pillars that you mentioned? Yeah, that's a good question. Um I think last time by the time we
082rolled it out to the community we were pretty close um to zeroing in on the recommendation. Um I think this time there's an opportunity to uh discuss with the community just even the educational specifications like when they come to the board for approval there's an opportunity to see if we are looking at everything that the community sees with like our elementary schools, our middle schools and our high schools. Um because we will design based on that. So, it's a big deal and it would be easier early I think because kind of once we score it and we have those numbers like we don't we don't um I don't think there's as much opportunity for valuable feedback. I also think uh with the consolidation piece, some of where the community comes in at too is the
083execution thereof, right? Like just because two schools are near each other and we know that we need to consolidate them, they're both overenrolled, there's still an opportunity like how do we do that? Like which site will the new school be on between those two schools? There's so many places where the community can give feedback if we're strategic about it. So I don't have a definitive answer on they need to be involved right here or it's all a failure but I feel like earlier is better. Okay. And then I had two questions and um I think you can take the remainder of the time but um at what point does design happen in this process of the buildings and then to what extent are school leaders involved? I think we talked you might remember me asking
084that question before and then the other one was around developer performance. um what how if in this process are developers actually assessed? I'm assuming this is like a performance contract and as we're looking at revamping the EFMP on new information, is that included in the new information? Um and then also best practices nationally around kind of how other school districts are are navigating these things. Is any of that included in um this assessment? Okay, those are good questions. So for the master plan, we will just have a priority order of like renovating and replacing once it's approved like now like the FY17 EFMP is and you start to see us asking for the money and the CIP, we have like quite a few planning steps that are required still like we still have to do
085a feasibility study and a cost analysis and we have to submit that to the state. It goes to the board. It's a little while before we're bringing in um vendors to design, but once we finally are ready to um start design, there's a project planning committee that's formed so that there is a the principal usually has some um latitude to assign who they they think from the community and from their own team should be involved in looking at the design as it's processed. There's always community members, sometimes PTA members, sometimes neighborhood members who don't even have kids, but who really care about what's being built across the street from them. Um, so that happens a little later in the process. This, what was the next question? No, no, help me. Developer performance and then best
086practices nationally. Uh, developer performance. So, we we don't uh usually work with developers in the um traditional CIP funding. That's usually a OIPd P3 type term. term we tend to use general contractors or construction managers at risk over on my side. Um they usually come on board like during the 35% uh completion of the design phase. So still pretty far after the EFMP is approved and we have some funding. We do have a consultant who will do the master plan itself. That's a a group of people that includes architects, engineers. There's a builder who will help give cost estimates probably not not necessarily a whole builder, just a cost estimate person who's really familiar with construction and because they have to come up with those numbers on how much it costs to repair all of
087those pieces we talked about to kind of quantify that. But I do want to say um just in general, your past performance uh is really important to be able to do work with the system. Like it it's it's huge because it's such a predictor of failure. It's a predictor of cost. It's a predictor of schedule. And despite our reputation sometimes in the streets, we are very much interested in keeping schedule and keeping budget. So, those are very important indicators and there's nothing really more powerful than seeing how you've done on your last several projects on those very very factors for both our architects and our our contractors, right? Because if you're a designer and your errors and emission mean that school systems have to pick up the difference when it's time to build, we don't
088want to do business with you either. And the third thing is just to note that I will say our master planning process last time became a standard that other systems used to develop their master plan. So I've seen a few others that are copying ours. They've seen it in Minnesota. I've seen it in DC and like and you know it feels good. It feels good. So when Maryland Department of Planning got it, they said this is how educational facility planning should be. So now it's an opportunity to build on that, to expand on that. You know, um we've been able to do things other systems haven't done. So, I look forward to putting this together, right, so we can be a leader on this one as well. Thank you so much, Director Jackson. I see
089Dr. Moss has his hand raised for a second round. I'm just curious if the chair would um entertain a motion to give Shayla Jackson a raise. I don't think it's a proper motion, though. Um she just told y'all that uh her plan is But no, I don't know if you can talk about this at all, Shay. Well, I know you can. I don't know if it's fitting for you to or or Dr. Coleman. You know, there's this little and I for Dr. Coleman helped me de debunk this this myth a couple of weeks ago, but I would like to know, you know, we do have CIP challenges, but like how how has the P3 helped us to be able to invest in other places in some of these issues? the way it's written, there's this
090assumption out there that the folks the people who are doing maintenance on the P3 schools aren't doing a good job. And I know Dr. Coleman and team, y'all help me understand that like we can we have ways to go back and get money from them if they're not doing their job. So, can can you all make that connection between like if we didn't have this P3 right now, um our CIP challenges be would be far greater. We wouldn't even be able to make the the thing the investments that we're able to make. Now, Chief How might be able to say, I mean, Chief How's a numbers person, but can can y'all just make that case for me? I I just want the public to hear it. Um, cuz I try to explain it to people
091when I see him. Um, but I don't see enough people. So, if you all could kind of and make that connection. Very good. Definitely appreciate that question, Dr. Moss. I'll start off and then I'll shift it over to U. Director Jackson. Uh, and so part of what uh made the P3 an attractive option for uh Prince George's County Public Schools was the 30-year maintenance agreement. And so through that 30-year maintenance agreement, we not only have locked in to the purchase price of the construction of the school, but a maintenance agreement that the Honeywell, which is the current um uh company that handles the maintenance, are are paid already to come in and respond to maintenance challenges as we would as an internal maintenance program. They are held to a standard of time that they have
092to respond by, 24, 48 hours. Uh, and if they don't, then we can claw back funding from Honeywell for a lack of performance on the maintenance contract. So, what this helps us do on the CIP side, and I'll turn it over to Director Jackson. One, it gives us a standard of performance that they're held to or we can get money back. But two, we're we're overprescribed. We have too many facilities and not enough resources that Director Jackson just spoke to. And so what this does is this relieves the pressure on our maintenance program by these schools, these u uh eight schools that are already in place or and then the other uh schools that are going to be a part of phase two and allows our current maintenance team to focus on our remaining portfolio.
093So Director Jackson, I'll turn it over to you to kind of wrap it up from the DCP side. Yeah. And I just want to look at like this is the FY17 EFMP cycle one and the green schools have been delivered. I think Oh man, I thought they showed you where it was P3. I think this is not That's okay. Some of them do, but some Go ahead. Some of them do. I just without the P3 like we would not be this far. This is 17 projects delivered, 16 more in 5 years because of how long our underinvestment period had gone. There was just no way the capital budget was significant enough to do as much as has been done with the P3. Like you especially see it in the ones that are coming. Look at
094all those blue schools with a P3 next to them. Um, I really like appreciate how many schools we were able to touch and it's just been unprecedented in our system since the 70s and I just, you know, anytime we can get school students into seats that are are worthy of them, it's it's definitely something to celebrate. So, and if I could just add just two more quick points, I know we're at time, but just two quick points. The P3 has also allowed us to accelerate the consolidation of buildings uh for children that have been in substandard conditions and been able to sell that consolidation to communities because they're going into brand new facilities. Right? It's one thing to consolidate from old to old. Uh that's a little harder sell for families to absorb. But when
095you are consolidating out of old inadequate facilities into new facilities like we've touched three different buildings, consolidating them into Colon Palm as one example that has a broader uh appeal to the community. Brandy Wine is another example where we're consolidating and touching multiple old buildings into a newer facility so we're able to touch more families and get them into newer facilities faster. And the last piece I would say is the P3 as a part of that maintenance contract also refreshes all of the major mechanical systems at year 20 between years 20 and 25. And so if you figure it's a 30-year maintenance agreement, the building will need a refresh at year 25 before we take over the maintenance of that facility. All the major systems are already paid for to be refreshed in addition to
096repainting the facilities every year. like there's just a level of standard that we get from the P3 U that allows those schools to be handled and then we can redirect resources through our CIP to our non uh uh blueprint schools. Bance, I'm so sorry. Is that what if we because FY17 has an update in June, we don't know where we're doing this at, but it's like an elementary consolidation. Will we do like we're doing in Brandy Wine? Like the idea would be to have some type of some type of organization where we're going into a new building and not necessarily putting kids into Oh. building. Is that the idea? 100% the idea. Yeah. Yeah. It it we don't want to unless it's an absolute necessity uh consolidate into older facilities. We want to move in
097out of consolidate into newer facilities so that we can close out these other these old uh old rooms. That is incredibly helpful. I know we are a bit over time for this uh question. I did have I guess kind of a clarification question. So, as we uh vice chair Briggs asked about community engagement and I know there are already set capital improvement, well, the CIP like hearings that are already how does those relate to the EMFP that happens yearly and then the big one that happens like how can we make sure constituents are aware like they're not the exact same thing but they're related. How can we make that simple or can you give us that in a simple? No, but that has been an ongoing issue for me. Like I've been trying to figure
098out like I I think I tried to sell a com combination of the EFMP and the CIP and I think there was traction in part because it's confusing. It's confusing to our constituents. Like they show up at the CIP and they're advocating for their school to be added and I'm like, "Yeah, you should have come in the spring." Like that's when we do the master plan. And it looks like we're hiding the ball. Um, at the EFMP, we don't talk money though. So, if you come and talk about your windows, we're like, "Yeah, we're not interested." Um, and and it it has been an ongoing like point of confusion. We're trying to figure out how to present them in ways that aren't these 300 400 page PDFs that are digestible. We're we we are hiring
099a planning supervisor very soon hopefully. But we're looking at different ways. I see some other systems are using like Instagram rules really to kind of get these out to the communities in ways that they can understand what's being voted on, what's being looked at with like a like a threeminut attention span and and that's something we really need to do because right now I get that what we're doing is just what the bureaucracy requires and what has always been done, but we're really looking to work on how we're communicating that. So yes, there's a public hearing before the EFMP is approved, even if it's just an update. And I think sometimes that might be disappointing to people because we are only talking about the two things we're updating. We're not really talking about the overall
100prioritization. Um, and then there's a public hearing before the CIP is approved and that becomes more about the budget. That's what we're currently doing, but there's definitely room to look at that. I think those are both required public hearings. Um, but I think there's room to do it in a more transparent way. So, we're definitely interested in working with you on that. don't have the full solution on on how to fix it today though. Absolutely. And we would be happy to work with you on that. But thank you so much for providing that bit of clarity. Board members, I do not see any more hands raised. I want to make sure I'm not overlooking anyone. And the last thing, Director Jackson, I know there's always like when we finish talking, there's like, oh, I forgot
101to say this. Is there anything else that you think would be pertinent based off of what you discussed today that either we or constituents should know? No, I'm I'm really glad Dr. Moss asked that question about the southern area consolidation because when I put that on the slide and it's in thanks in my mind, it's clearly like we're building a new school. Like, let's get this opportunity. So, I'm really grateful that that question came up so that we can make it clear that we're trying to do something great. We're not trying to shove people into uh old buildings that are inferior. So, we're actually just trying to accelerate improvement there. Um and I just hope that everyone knows so that in June we will be talking about these amendments with the master plan. So, there
102will be that um public hearing. We're going to try to have given um the board some options by then so people know what they're coming to talk about. So, I think it would be very helpful for me at least to make sure we're publicizing that correctly. So, um you you'll be hearing you'll be hearing from us um on how to do that. Well, always happy to hear from you all. Dr. Moss. Yeah, I don't have a question. I just want to say thank you to these people. Um both these offices and teams, these are trying times. Um Chief How, Chief Coleman, Dr. Coleman, these are trying times and the the grunt of the work is going to fall on you all. And that's not lost on me. And I know I ask weird, strange, unusual
103questions all the time. So, I apologize ahead of that. Um, but I do want to thank you all because budgets, buildings, um, you know, it's just as important as academics. And as a person who loves academics, I know that's a lot for me to say, um, but it is just as important. And I I just appreciate you all. Um, Chief How, I appreciate you. Uh, I would not have your job in this season. Um, so so thank you for continuing to do it. I promise you I wouldn't. I I I'm struggling with my own budget at home. So, thank you for taking on this one. Thank you very much. Thank you. Absolutely concur. Thank you all so much for helping us to make sure our constituents understand all these very complex topics and for doing
104the work you all do every day. Um, with that, the chair informs the public that the next virtual operations, budget, and fiscal affairs committee meeting will be on May 14th, 2025. Please continue to check the Prince George's County Board of Education website for meeting information and updates. To our viewers, thank you for watching. And there being no further business, the time is now 700 p.m. and the April 30th, 2025 operations, budget, and fiscal affairs committee meeting is adjourned.