001thank you Miss McMillan please begin recording the time is now 5:33 good evening and welcome everyone to the March 19 2025 operations budget and fiscal Affairs committee meeting I am Zakia gos MCC 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 McMillan please call the role miss going mcant present Miss Brown present Mr Briggs present Dr Moss Mr Jackson we have three present thank you Miss McMillan with the Quorum present the operations budget and fiscal Affairs committee meeting will come to order if there are no objections the committee shall adopt the March 19 2025 meeting agenda there being no OB objections the March 19th 2025 meeting
002agenda is adopted moving on to 1.4 if there are no Corrections the committee shall approve the February 19th 2025 meeting minutes as distributed there being no Corrections the February 19th 2025 meeting minutes are approved um next we would move on to public comment but there are no registered public comment speakers so we will move to our Chief Financial Officer updates we have one item for discussion each member will have two rounds per item during the discussion and each round will be 2 and 1/2 minutes if third round is required a vote will be taken so the chair recognizes Miss Smith director of budget and Management Services for the budget update thank you so much some to share my screen guys see yes can see you can see it okay okay all right good evening my
003name is Shan Smith and I am the director of budget and Management Services for Prince georgees County Public Schools um and this evening I'm going to give a a brief update on where we are in the budget development process um and and what the next steps will be so now that we finalized the Board of Education requested budget for FY 26 we've transmitted it to the county and we are currently in the process of developing the requested budget book we can now shift our Focus to school operating resources um so the school budget planning is being finalized as we speak um this includes the minimum school funding calculations school-based locked allocations and centrally managed locked allocations all which determine the funding allocated to each school um just so you know when it comes to school-based
004Staffing there are three categories of resources we have our unlocked locked and locked plus positions so unlocked positions are those positions that can be purchased using allocated SBB funds schools can determine the composition and mix as needed then there's locked positions and those are the positions and resources that are funded and staff by central office those positions typically have special requirements or restricted funding like for example School a receive special education staff those are teachers Paras secretaries based on Staffing policies and procedures of the special education department and then our locked plus positions are positions and resources that are funded and staffed by the central office and these schools can supplement existing allocations um using their SBB dollars so for example a central office provides all schools with 05 library media Specialists position to let's
005just say in this case Elementary School a that school a May then decide to purchase an additional point5 library media specialist position to make it a full 1.0 FTE so this slide is going to break down um what our school-based budgeting is going to look like and this is new this is different than how has been in Prior years to some extent um so as you know youve hear you hear it all the time eligible eligible enrollment determines how much funding is allocated to each individual School Foundation is the base funding provided for each eligible student for our principles during this year's SBB they will see their revenue based on the characteristics of their students for each blueprint program that's new this represents the total School allocation next principes will see their school-based locked funding
006allocated to their schools so direct school-based resources reflected detailed budgets at the school cost and level including the non-public schools which serve our students with disabilities and then there are centrally managed lot funding allocated to our schools centrally managed school-based resources are in direct support of schools but the budget is managed centrally on behalf of schools this would include our nurse our School nurses and psychologists academic interventions summer school textbooks academic coaches Safety and Security Personnel Building Maintenance and custodial staff Transportation just to name a few the total School Revenue less the school-based and centrally managed locked funding will provide each school with their net allocation the schools in turn will use this allocated funding that net funding to build out their school budget and they get to determine which positions and discretionary resources are
007needed to best support the students populated at their schools PGCPS is required to report on the allocation and execution of these School level resources monthly demonstrating compliance with statute 5234 of the blueprint legislation in aggregate direct and centrally managed school-based resources make up approximately 86% of the unrestricted operating budget now this slide may look familiar you've probably seen it multip multiple times before it's just a reminder that the minimum school funding statute requires PGCPS to distribute the prescribed percentage of the per pable amounts for each applicable program multiplied by the eligible School enrollment to each school or at least to each school's call center so I just want to make sure that you guys are tracking these are the different programs and we have very clear instructions of how much of that per pupil amount
008needs to get allocated to our schools and then the final phas of the budget development process is a Reconciliation or approved cycle there's a lot that has to be done during this cycle we finalize Staffing and SBB we will receive the final state aid funding that will indicate final Revenue totals as well as the final state and local share of blueprint funding and we receive the County's approved budget everything will need to be reconciled and finalized in time to present to the board the approved FY 26 balanced budget in June transmit it to the county and ultimately certify it with the state so there is a lot that has to get done between now and the end of June before the fiscal year starts um and myself our Chief Financial Officer and the entire budget
009office we are working feverishly to try to make sure that you know we are tracking everything that needs to be done um that we are working dently to get this budget book out um in a timely fashion to get SBB kicked off and get our principl starting on their budgets in a timely fashion um while at the same time really monitoring what's going on at the state level county level and the federal level and how that may have an impact to our budget understanding that a lot of adjustments may have to be made last minute depending on where we finally land in final Revenue dollars so with that being said that really concludes my update um so if you have any questions please feel free board members do we have any questions Vice chair Brown
010uh thank you so much Sher go M can you go back Miss Smith to I think it's slide four is it this one yes that's what I wanted to and can you explain you I don't know if you explain PE um her pupil yeah can you can you say what that acronym is just for obviously um people who will be watching this and maybe people will be watching this later absolutely so PPA is our per pupil amount so for every program there is a prescribed per people amount that is indicated in the actual blueprint legislation we don't set it it is set on for us for every Lea we all have the same per pupil amounts 75% of that per pupil amount which is a is a set amount of funding that will be provided
011for every eligible student you know so for student a foundation that amount we call the per people amount um and you multiply that by the total number of students and you have to do it for each school um so you have your foundation amount compensatory education amount English Learners amount special education and so on and so forth but PPA is per people amount thank you and then I'm I'm looking at um the prek public providers versus the 100% of the PPA prek private providers can you kind of also explain the difference between the two yes so they're both publicly funded but our private providers we are just a pass through entity it it is paid directly to those private providers um whereas our prek public providers those are our schools that provide prek um so
012one is and there there's different there's different rules in associations with whether it's a public provider or a private provider even though they're both publicly funded um but we have to make sure that for our public providers that we are allocating funding in accordance the 75 at minimum is 75% it could be more um whereas 100% of our private provider funding for prek goes to the private provider it's a we're just a straight pass through entity thank you I just have well I shouldn't say just a few questions about the timeline for this I know you said it's coming up but I saw in maybe two slides before this it says marchapril and then the slide immediately before this one or after this one it says that we'll finalize Staffing so what is the time
013when principes will get these numbers and their budgets to work on and then you know so that they have time to actually start hiring the staff that they are picking yes so SBB will kick off the end of this month the end of March they will they do they do something we call clinics where we'll walk them through the tool there's a tool that they use to formulate their budgets um so when I say they'll see it's it's in the we call it Apex it's in the Apex tool they will kind of get a tutorial training on how to utilize the tool what changes were made since last year especially for our new principles that's going to happen at the starting the very end of this month April 7th is the go live date from
014where um all the changes to the tool should be complete it should be tested and ready uh for our participants to actually go in and actually formulate their budget that's April 7th so that's early April that they'll do their school but in the meantime there's also Staffing changes as happen there Staffing changes that are happening now right in fiscal year 25 that we have to take into consideration um in FY 26 so there are snapshots and reconciliations that have to constantly happen whether it's on the central office side or whether it's some school-based side um just to make sure that our FY 26 budget is reflecting the most realistic picture um so that would be in a around the April time frame where we can finalize Staffing that includes school-based budgeting um May and early
015June is the budget offices opportunity to start really working on reconciliation um because we also have to think about funding is based on eligible enrollment but we still have to make sure that we have enough to cover our students whether they re whether we received funding or not for it so there has to also be a Reconciliation between eligible enrollment and projected enrollment and where adjustments need to be made so that's in a that's in May thank you so much I see um board Vice chair Briggs hands raised thank you chair go mcant uh and apologies I have to be off camera um for personal reasons but Miss Smith I really quickly wanted to ask because we're um the board and myself have been receiving emails from various Charter Schools about the per people funding
016and how under the new blueprint formula um certain Charter Schools would actually be slated to get less than a typical school can you just speak more to that yes so we are still in the process of and I understand that they're frustrated but we're still in the process of trying to sort through all of that um I believe there is a meeting tomorrow um but we are working feverously to try to figure out out what that's going to look like for our Charters um there are certain nuances to Charter Schools um versus our non-ch schools so I don't know if their what their per pupil amount is going to be overall um for FY 26 whether it's going to be higher lower it just really depends on the characteristic of their students it depends on
017blueprint legislation and there has been a um there's been a judgment on what that looks like and we have to bring in ogc just to make sure that we understand what that means for us and for the charter schools so there's a lot that still has to happen in the next couple of I would say days um in order to provide the charters with what they're asking for okay and then just as a board member if you can just kind of clarify I know you kind of get the inner workings of it but like who are these um different um parties that are involved with like kind of shaping this this plan I know you mentioned that ogc was one yes and there's a Charter office the prince Jes County Public Schools Charter office um
018as well as the CFO the budget office um and then of course the operators I see okay okay and um and and I want to clarify because I know you're probably tracking through the government relations team what's happening in Annapolis with um some of the updates to the to the blueprint law um if those changes do you know get voted on and come about are you all I mean I know that um uh that Chief how is tracking some of these things so is that in the projected budget as far as like for Charters as well spe um anticipated Cuts potentially potentially yeah okay okay um it would impact all our schools every school okay thank you yes sir um um we're moving to our second round now if there are no objections and Miss
019McMillan can you just start the time over again because I want to give director Smith an opportunity to expand on that if there was anything else other than just the yes and also talk about how with those things kind of being in limbo they are our deadlines our internal deadlines for schools to get that information are going to be impacted when it comes to our Charter Schools or if they are yes so our thought we're still trying to flush all this out because the impacts to what's going on um with the general assembly as well as with the federal government it really could have major impacts to our our budget our revenue and so as a result you know we're still trying to figure you know we have to hit this timeline just can't wait
020on decisions to final decisions to be made so there may have to be adjustments on the back end and we are going to we're trying our hardest to figure out what that could be and what that could look like um now with our projections and you but because it's all in limbo we just don't have the concrete answers um and we don't know how much because it could be a portion you know there's a lot sitting at the general assembly and we don't know how much of that is going to be an impact specifically to PGCPS some of it you know may impact the county which then could also impact us um but it would not just be our Charters it would be all schools potentially um but we will have um reconcil during the
021reconciliation phase there may have to be some adjustments made um but our goal is always to try to have as little impact as possible to our schools and our Scholars um understanding that you know as much as we possibly can um and for the last little bit of time just for clarity sake the goal is to get all of the charter school um legislation and all that work done so that our Charters can get their budget projections and all that at the same time as our other schools yes they're a part of the SBB process to some extent yes so they're on the exact same timeline thank you so much director Smith Vice shair Briggs yeah thank you um and appreciate the round too so um director Smith I I did want to just kind
022of like uh kind of hone in a bit more on the charter piece because I love to get clarity around how this process works I'll be quite honest with you I'm normally a person who's will do my own research and kind of understand these things but there's a thousand things at this point that board members have to know so I'm not going to so I'm really going to rely on you to hopefully kind of clarify um but you know charter schools have stated that there's like administrative cost that they are um that PGCPS has control over the percent that they would have to cover versus the district can you clarify is that the case when you all are thinking about this kind of um you know budget and whether there are significant Cuts in of
023course the reconciliation process and figuring out what the new budget would look like where does that fit in as far as like the 2% versus I think the 5% for the charters yes so typically there's a 2% admin fee um that's imposed on Charter Schools um however just when we do a there's certain services that PGCPS provides to Charters um you know because their their employees are our employees you know what I mean those are our students our employees so there are certain costs that you know or services that we provide to Charters that are mandatory that they can't opt out of however because of blueprint and how blueprint legislation kind of lays certain things out I mean there is a ruling um but it's not fully clear Charter School The Operators are concerned that
024when we say at minimum 75% needs to be allocated allocated to the school their concern is that there will be a 25% withhold to Charter Schools um and so that's what they're pressing on and that's their biggest concern however they're not understanding that there are centrally managed costs that directly support the charter school there are some things that they can opt out of to say well we don't we don't want your you know your academic you know we don't want your textbooks we don't want your you know that would then increase their allocation um but overall the 2% admin Fe does it really cover everything that the school system is providing to the charters and I think that was what was visited um in the past that it may increase to 5% but at this
025point with blueprint I don't even know if admin fee is relative is relevant it's relevant thank you and okay so got it in the N so I think it was like historically it was like 99% for Charters versus now you're saying uh no no less than 75% of course so okay I would love to maybe just have an offline conversation because I just want to make sure I can be supportive with whatever it is you all are doing and just understand it so then when Charters reach out to us as board members we can you know um um intelligently communicate what's going on so that it's you know it's helping you all out too I think in the process absolutely thank you thank you so much director Smith moving on to well I should ask
026does anyone else have any more questions before we move on I know board member Brown you didn't get a second round great we are going to now move on to item 4.0 our chief operating officer updates so the chair recognizes Dr Colman chief operations officer officer for the transportation action plan Hub stops update thank you and good afternoon board committee chairs MCC members of the board and Community stakeholders uh as the as the board and the public is likely aware our school district has committed to engaging in an ongoing multi-year improvement process around our transportation system this process began last school year with the completion of a thirdparty audit by an independent Transportation firm called formative the audit produced 12 recommendations five of which we began implementing across the school district this school year with
027the goal of improving overall transportation service as we continue to refine the implementation of the first five prioritized recommendations we are simultaneously planning areas of continued Improvement going into year two tonight we want to talk about two areas of improvement that will be implemented in school year 2526 I should say beginning in school year 25 526 specifically the establishment of Hub stops to support uh some specialty programs and revisiting the parent app used to communicate the Bus location and status for parents I would like to introduce uh the director of transportation and Central Garage Mr keba Baldwin Who provided information on these two topics uh director Baldwin thank you Dr Coleman and good evening for chair B mck and board members I would like to share my screen for the presentation and is everybody able
028to see that great I a for it so this presentation is meant to give an overview of our plans to address two topics that have impact our operation daily um as Dr Coan has mentioned so we've been able to share critical updates on the progress of our transportation action plan while we're seeing operational Improvement we still face challenges that contribute to our late Rivals we shared these concerns early in the school year in August um today we're still battling some of these challenges so we're sharing another operational Improvement to help offset Staffing challenges that we Face daily we turn our attention to our specialy programs many of our youngest Scholars including those in our emerging programs at DOR Kennedy philis Williams Overlook my Angelou are experiencing long commute times some boarding uh as early as
0297 or 7:00 for 9:30 school start time the long traval times not only impact the student well-being and Readiness to learn but also create our operational inefficiencies um drivers to these trips are often underutilized due to the ride time of their trips we say underutilized as most drivers have three trips in the morning three trips in the afternoon these drivers basically have one trip in the morning morning and potentially two to three trips in the afternoon our goal is to have most if not all of our drivers to be fully utilized across all three tiers to address this we are proposing the establishment of Hub stops with the prince Joseph County Parks and wreck department utilizing their facilities by centralizing some of our pickup locations we can optimize our bus stops improve driver utilization um
030enhance accessibility for our parents as well this shift will increase efficiency reduce student ride times and maximize our transportation resources so the benefits of this collaboration with Prince Jo Prince geores County Parks and Recreation um deal with efficiency Equity safety and collaboration the implementation plan components related to this uh project include site selection making sure the parks and R locations are at a convenience um are conveniently located for our parents the logistics coordination determining what routes uh what facilities uh some of the parameters for parents um to drop students off and pick students up at those locations um a third factor is our parent communication very important to inform families what the plan is and how best communication will be done um to them by transportation and through our schools and finally a pilot evaluation
031this would be a pilot project um with the expectation that we could U make it scalable and apply it to other specialty programs RS we're going to shift to our parent app uh within the parent app we want to recognize our challenges and we hear you so we're actively searching for a new parent app that better meets the needs of our families and reflects the reality of our operations we understand the frustration with inconsistent updates and inaccurate we understand the frustration with the inaccurate updates the inaccurate Bus locations especially as our team navigates Staffing challenges and works to cover all of our vacant trips in those moments our app may not work we may not always provide real time accuracy leading to confusion for our parents we found out that the user requirements to fully
032access and utilize the app have been difficult for our families so because of this we're taking a proactive approach um to engage with our it team um conducting a parent survey and Gathering direct input on what family need and would want an apparent app this feedback would guide our search and ensure that the next system is more reliable more accessible and more user friendly we will be sharing a timeline with you outlining these steps as now we are still in the beginning stages of our research some of our deliverables that we're looking to share uh will be a report to them um as we get the feedback from our parents we want to uh be able to share out what our families are saying and and and their desires we want to implement a um
033again uh we want to be able to implement a prototype to be able to test this appropriately uh we want to be able to uh make sure that we have a adequate training and communication plan set we want to increase um in terms of our short-term outcomes we want to be able to increase our parent satisfaction with the app we want to show improve accuracy with the timeliness of the bus tracking features of the app some of our long-term outcomes here are just enhance our Communications reduce Transportation related complaints and confusion this concludes our my presentation and now I would open it up for any questions that you may have thank you so much so we had these divided up into two separate so thank you for bringing it to us um all together in
034one presentation for that board members if there are no objections I think we can just automatically say we'll have three rounds and then if we need more we'll come back for a fourth one and then we'll start with board member Brown okay thank you so much uh chair goes MCC and thank you so much um to Mr bwin and I mean you guys thank you for listening because that means a lot to us as PGCPS parents um I as you all know the history of me I've been a PGCPS parent since 2014 and this app stop finder has not been um as successful as we would have liked it to be um and so to hear that you all are taking steps to get something that is uh more reliable uh more accurate I am
035kudos to you all and I truly appreciate the work that you're putting in um I did um have a couple of questions so I'm going to ask my first question um have you all contacted other districts even Nationwide to see what apps they use that have been somewhat successful um because when I saw the word prototype I kind of got nervous because I'm like are we going to reinvent the wheel if a wheel already Works um and so that I think that was one of the questions that I had um and of course um what what the budget looks like around that because um I'm sure there may be an increase or there may be a decrease so can you can you talk about that think please yes ma'am I can that's a a great
036great feedback great questions that you have and very relative so number one uh that was one task that we did not want to do we did not want to reinvent the world and so it it also ties in with our routing system so just being able to have parents track the bus is just one simple outcome um that that we have a lot of um inner working parts to to be able to produce that product to you and that deals with substitution of our buses um it deals with the number of staff that we have daily um for operations and so we want to be able to give you a system to find a system that ties in to what we have to do every day to cover a run and and I will we
037we C categorize it into three areas uh if the driver is not here then my team has the opportunity to either uh double of run that means we're going to drop off some students and go back out and get them we can combine two runs together so they're G they may have an extended ride time because they're picking up two can you restart the timer and then uh director Baldwin can have uh my two and a half minutes to finish answering the question and the third one is splitting a trip and and this is where what we using the current APP um is not productive because once our team has to split a trip and that means they're going to divide the stops among multiple buses we lose that capability of tracking a bus and
038and because of of of our staffing challenges that has been an option that we've had to do and so we want to be able to find the next app that accommodates that that can accommodate what our reality is in trying to cover the runs and so and director if I could add to the question or the response uh yes board member Brown we are researching actively uh the different parent app and routing systems that are available uh and have been in communication with a number of systems that are large like ours uh and can handle the complexities uh that a Prince George's County Public Schools uh presents from a transportation perspective thank you both so much Vice chair Briggs great thank you so much uh chair go mcant um so Mr Balwin I wanted to
039I want one I want to Echo the um the um appreciation for you know looking into the the stop finder app and replacing it I think it's necessary and I think it just will be helpful for you all I mean it doesn't you know if we get over 50% of the call saying that they don't it doesn't work then it you know that's a sign that we probably should change it so that's um appreciate that you all are looking into that I actually released a survey and this is probably the most response that I've gotten over the last two and a half years that I've been a board member it was 71 people who responded to the survey about transportation and a significant amount I want to say it was definitely over 60% were saying
040that they were you know having kind of consistently laate issues with buses or the stop finder app was a big issue um and so I guess as we're moving into solving this problem and I think this is going to be really you know good for you all is like what are the the users right the people who are most impacted by these these things just to kind of solve those problems so you can get on to the other really important work um hearing their voices and hearing what it is that they're experiencing so that they so that you know what the next thing is that we would be really helpful to kind of solve those problems um the other thing I was going to say was that I think you are already have this in
041your line of sight but um you know with the new Administration with the you know Federal agency shutting down or closing and then there are people who are being called into the office um and so I've just hearing from a lot of families saying they don't have the flexibility that they had at one point they're having to step down from ptas they're having to you know get out earlier they don't have the kind of flexibility to see if their child if the bus arrives on time or not um so there are a lot of things there too and and what I'm hearing is that so many are like I'm probably going to be like fighting for a before care after care slot for my child because you know these are things so I just don't
042want a wave of like unexpected things to come you all's way um when I think this is like enough Runway to kind of just be anticipating that and I'm sure that's already you know on your radar but just wanted to mention that and see if you had anything you wanted to share about that well that's a good that's a good point uh we've been talking about about that and that's one of the reasons why uh the collaboration with the Maryland parks of recreation and their facilities with our Hub stops uh we are looking to provide or the opportunity to help provide safe havens so if parents have to drop students off a little earlier U to provide a safe ping space for them to wait as well as to be picked up and as we've
043been talking with the pars and Recreation Department uh it has been um an exciting conversation because they have received that very well uh we are looking forward to partnering with them and providing a service for our families and it just you know we started this conversation before the new Administration took place and it just seems to fit right now and and so we want to make sure that uh we we we we're able to set up a quality system uh for our families because now it's more important more than um anytime now so I appreciate you bringing that question up and and it is on our our um our sites thank you I have um well several questions but on the well this one I guess applies to both of them so you all have
044here for us and thank you so much for being responsive to um our parents and community members about the frustrations with this app and transportation in general I see like short-term outcomes and long-term outcomes and then outputs and deliverables but those don't seem to be tied to each other so how soon would be we be looking at having a new app and then how soon would be would we be looking at implementing these new Hub stops right so great question so right now we are um we've been in the beginning stages right now we're in the research and we are um kind of confirming those steps so as I've shared those outputs um and those expectations that's on a general overview we're going to streamline that more as the research comes in and we're able
045to get Define a more definite path we will come back to you with the timeline all of this right now tely is due to start the beginning of the 25 26 school year there are a lot of things that must uh be completed prior to that uh we want to be able to notify families of this plan prior to ending the 2425 school year so folks have an idea of what to expect coming into the new year and we want to be able to provide some opportunities to um talk with our schools ptas and bring them on board early enough that it's not um something brand new on day one and director while we have a moment we did uh follow up on board member Brown's question around the budget so if we have just
046a moment can you just touch that right so right now the um the cost of our routing system GPS systems um is taken in kind with our bus camera system so there's a minimum amount of funding needed to cover the routing uh and our GPS systems that we currently use was that the end of the state because I know our time is about to run out for that particular part of the BR round but was that the end of the statement or did you have more to add that was the end of the statement I'm sorry no problem board members do we have any more questions board member Brown yes thank you so much um the other question that I did have I was thinking of a question from a constituent that I had in
047District 5 who really was concerned about the training for the bus drivers in learning a new system or learning how to use the GPS system within um do you guys I didn't see it in the presentation and I'm I'm sure it's going to happen but um are you guys thinking about obviously doing a training for the bus drivers for this one is there going to be a new way because I I would hear that they had iPads on the bus but sometimes the iPads were um powered off and some some um bus drivers just didn't know how to use it properly um and so um did you guys consider possibly doing a more in-depth training once this is rolled out absolutely uh we if if we move forward the way we've been talking about and
048kind of strategizing it will have a comprehensive training plan U not only uh something that we do as a first time it will be a a continuous improvements cycle so we will instruct we will have a chance to Monitor and provide feedback on a continual basis um the technology is going to the technology is changing the scope of transportation and we are needing to elevate the knowledge level of our folks to um have capacity to operate in that manner and so we're going to have to take a little different approach uh with our with our transportation staff as far as training on the use of the tablets um a lot of it is just a air Comfort level right now if folks are not used to the technology then they're not going to use it
049and we have to be able to uh build capacity and and get basically get folks comfortable of using the technology in order to increase the knowledge base from that standpoint so yes ma'am there there will be a comprehensive plan for training thank you I have another question but I can wait for I think unless um board member Briggs has another question I think that means we will technically be on round three so you can ask your question perfect thank you so much so my last question is about the Hub stops um is there is it going to be additional costs to the families number one and will the kids be able to be inside of the facilities on let's say days that are may be cold or hot um what does Staffing look like to
050ensure that you know if kids are able to be inside they're going to be safe inside if they have to be staying outside you know are they going to be warm so I think that's always a concern for for parents as well absolutely great question so those are all components that we are currently talking with our partners about um we are making it known that we want to provide a safe haven so that means we want our kids to be inside and we want them to be supervised so we're working on um a cost structure that right now uh it would not be a cost but if parents wanted to extend time then that may be a cost to them um in terms of if if you want to think about the concept of before
051and after care programing uh from that standpoint but we are very early into that conversation but it is one of our talking points with the par and Recreation to Define to be able to share with our families yeah and I just want to draw a fine point on that um the the Staffing implications for Park and planning uh could could uh could be serious right uh where they need additional staff in order to support the number of children who may be available at the Hub stops and so we have to explore what that looks like um uh and what resources may need to come to bear from our perspective and from Park and planning in order to make that component work so that that is an excellent question because you know we have to figure
052that out yeah yeah we uh we've done some preliminary work based on um current students and their locations to the nearest recreation facilities and some of the route planning we've been able to right now just this is just rough housing it but reduce the ride time almost by 60 minutes so that's significant and if we can sustain that um in in terms of making that from taking it from a plan to an actual that will be um something very good for our system and the last thing that I if I could say I know we're out of time but um I don't want perfect to be the enemy of progress and so our children catch the bus outside right now like every day and so if we can uh let's say we aren't able to
053come up with the right arrangement from a a funding perspective with our partners at Park and planning to make it work that they can up staff and we can bring them inside if we can still have the students outside at a space where we know adults are are adjacent to them and cut significant time off of the routes then that may be what we call progress as opposed to the perfect scenario so everything is on the table and that's why this is a pilot yes excellent thank you so much um my one question for this round because I think I might have counted the rounds uh wrong but in that vein of it being a pilot is this a pilot specifically for these schools that are mentioned or is there some sort of I guess
054larger plan to see if Hub stops work and then expand it or is it just to see if Hub stops work for these buildings and whether or not we want to keep it going forward great great question so right now now the pilot is for these schools and we are looking to duplicate so if this is successful we would want to duplicate it for other specialty programs as well and director Balwin if you could just take a moment to talk about why we selected the specialty programs as a part of that third tier I think that would be helpful yes yes exactly so the schools that were selected are all on that third tier um all but one one is a 8:30 school so it kind of chimes in perfectly with the pilot the second
055part is these immersion programs have some of the largest boundaries in the district so you think about a philis E Williams they're going back they they've been at Robert Goddard and now they're going back to their location on Harry S Truman their boundaries extends all the way to Laurel and we have buses coming from Laurel to har as Truman and so being able to have an opportunity to have a hub stop in the Laurel area to reduce the number of stops is significant if we can do that and have those kids transported within an hour back to PE Williams so um if again these are some of our um and and these boundaries for these schools they have a lot of uh outline outlining areas where there's only one student and and then they may
056be at the tip of the boundary and so we're going all the way out for one student and come back so this is why that this Hub kind of works as a uh intermediary between us and parents and if we can find a a a common ground to get kids there in the safe area and be able to reduce that ride time that's significant we want we want to get them there so that we're ready to learn thank you all so much for these Updates this is really exciting and I think similar to what um Vice chair BR said I think we have a lot more questions and things that we might want to ask later just so that we are aware of what's happening and can properly relay that information um but I see
057that we have our next item on the agenda and we did uh slightly exceed our three rounds fine uh the chair recognizes Dr Coleman again this time for our Capital Improvement programs update on the educational facilities master plan thank you again board committee chair gos MC uh members of the board and members of the community uh the educational facilities master plan or EFM must be submitted annually to the state of Maryland and lays the foundation for the subsequent Capital Improvement plan or CIP tonight we have members of the Department of capital programs here to renew our Board of Education and Community engagement around the efmp to analyze discuss and set the the priorities that will be reflected in the document and that will ultimately guide the CIP joining us is director Shayla Jackson and fiscal
058supervisor Mr cardo Smith and I see that M our associate superintendent for supporting services Mr Jason Washington has joined us as well to discuss the timeline and prioritization process for the C for the efmp at this time I'm going to turn it over to director Jackson all right good evening let me share my screen here that work yes thanks all right so um thank you for the invitation to come today and begin our conversations around the next phases of our master plan development so I was asked to very briefly touch on the timeline and the prioritizations as a primer for a fuller conversation next month so I've provided the presentation that will be our starting point in that future meeting but for now going to limit myself to walking through just two of the slides
059today um that will really set us up for that future conversation and we're going to skip past all of the actual numbers and goodies in here but starting with the timeline uh it's pretty simple I'm just going to draw your attention to a couple of highlights um we're currently slogging through what we'll call the olds or the fy17 efmp and we call it that because the study for it started in 2014 and it was finally adopted by the board as the fy17 efmp around 2016 so that means the data behind it is 11 years old and in the case of the facility conditions it's 15y old data and our space standards have changed our goals have expanded our building deterioration has definitely expedited just just by age alone so following the blue markers here you
060can see how we progress to the next efmp starting again with a master educational specification process so we can decide as a system um what what we believe makes a school building work programmatically and evaluate each facility in our inventory against these standards to prioritize um their their Improvement their renovation their replacement in a way that promotes equity in offering as well as in condition at about that same time you see that next Blue Line we're launching the condition assessment portion of the fy7 efmp development project um you know we're sending our an engineering team architectural team into the buildings to access the systems in real time to look at the roofs in real time and to help really give us that valuable facility condition update data by January 2026 if you follow the next
061blue marker no I guess I said yeah there is January 2026 you should start to see us presenting raw data to the board so it might be this is how the facility condition indexes look these are the worst schools by condition these are the worst schools though by educational adequacy or maybe it's utilization data we just start to talk and have those conversations where we're seeing where we have the worst overc capacity or where underc capacity is an issue maybe um in some of our other newer pillars we'll see about energy use in in that very like data specific Way by August 2026 though we should be starting to firm up into actual recommendations around priority issues around consolidations um around maybe at least to division into Cycles if not a firm priority order and
062that's when we really start to broadly present to our communities until June 2027 which is around when we should be adopting the brand new efmp that would guide PGCPS for the following decade but of course bureaucracy does not pause for advancement so the yellow markers are just to remind you that we still must submit an annual efmp while we're developing an efmp so in June 2025 we'll still vote on an amendment to that original fy17 efmp and we'll do it again in June 2026 and we do have some work to do in those amendments that I'm going to go ahead and preview now from the end of this presentation T like you didn't see these things you've seen most of them these are the numbers oh they look so delicious to me but we're just
063gonna keep going today okay um and this is kind of Stu we'll be talking about hold on I have to move you guys because you're in front of the words okay so in the immediate term as the um sorry in the immediate term for the fy17 efmp this is where it still has work to do we have to decide what how to address the shortfalls for example William Schmidt um New International High School there's a funding shortfall that we need to discuss in a prioritization conversation against the funding issues that we we didn't discuss but that you know of we likewise need a resolution for our Southern Elementary consolidation um if you can recall the conversation about those from maybe October and December there was quite a few that were in cycle one but they
064were paused um by a board vote in 2017 so we're really seeing now those facilities are just falling into disrepair um and we need to consider addressing them Beyond a repair or Beyond an operating budget shift but really with the Wrecking boss so so um when we look at that in the priorization conversation with the bull budget um next month you'll be able to see kind of looking back even just a few years ago getting an elementary school in there uh was a much easier lift than it is right now so we need to kind of discuss that holistically like what it means for our priority order we also have some new issues that the fy7 efmp needs to address before it's done and that's things like the Brandy Wine over enrollment issue that probably
065won't wait for the next master plan and then at the same time while we're finishing Cycle One um the FY 27 efmp will continue so we'll be discussing the Ed specs and maybe in this particular committee it's an opportunity to really kind of zero in on that budgetary side um because if our edecs are really like an unvetted or undisciplined wish list then we can't afford to build the related schools because we then hand those ad spects to every hired architect and we say Design This this is our standard we send them to this state to msde and we say hold it hold us to this with like 10% either way um so that becomes our way of standardizing and ensuring that there's equity and construction and as we talked about of course we judge
066and prioritize modernization against these aspects so there's definitely a a financial component to them um the other pillars also require support from this Committee in particular and our stakeholders at large and I'm definitely looking hard at that consolidation piece here um for the capital budget but also for the operating budget and also for the school-based budget implications and finally our Global Community involvement approach just so we can all together kind of educate on these really like data driven data informed decisions Advocate and of course speak with one voice and with that I suppose I am done with our preliminary conversation would you mind or are you pausing here or are you going to go back and explain the slides we skipped over well I was told that today was just a preliminary conversation to talk
067about the timeline but I would if there's time I can go through the numbers that would be I think that would be really helpful for our constituents but I want with I will do the shorter ver board members Vice chair Brown are you okay with yeah I can wait u i can yield my question till um she goes over the numbers that's fine okay so well since we're just doing prioritization really quickly just a reminder the fy17 efmp was founded on three foundational pillars facility condition educational adequacy utilization and we've talked about facility condition you know it's the part that you can see the educational adequacy is how the building actually works as a school we've talked about utilization over and under enrollment um and then when we've positioned oursel to discuss the FY 27
068efmp we've talked about adding pillars in um so that includes the blueprint requirements Universal prek has to be addressed in the master plan CTE expansion and then other system initiatives from sustainability to changes in security standards and protocols uh these is a familiar conversation in the sense that we talk about the fi7 efmp and all fmps can be a very no it's not cost neutral the word is like a cost blind exercise because you're looking at a portfolio of buildings and you're saying like what is the most responsible way um to modernize and what is the priority order of any responsible modernization and so ours actually would come to cost $570 million a year in current dollars um and that that again is just to modernize according to the fy17 efmp our actual average Capital
069approved from 2015 to 2025 is 174 million so we've always been short and then you know we have these uh current economic realities that have us closer to 128 Million last year and this is just another way to look at the numbers I can't see the total let me see if I can shift and this is really just to emphasize the fact that even though we never achieved the $570 million a year um just the current fiscal reality uh in that like nationally is that costs have gone up and available Capital funding has gone down and then this is just a different way to discuss prioritization because so we're talking about yes we have the efmp and that's what order do we build new schools new additions what order do we modernize or renovate but
070then the job of the CIP is to go request the money right um and then the CIP also has other work that it has to do so if you look at the FY 23 CIP and this is what was approved we requested 266 million and we receiv received 205 million that's like a it's a banner year it a great year um what that meant inside that CIP is that 66% of our approved funds went to new schools additions or modernizations as $136 million 38 million went to system upgrades and that year those were really big haac projects that's what we did at James Madison that's what we did at P huxen um large large scale projects still and then 33 million went to Major repairs this is anything from bathroom partitions new playgrounds Ada lifts
071parking lot repavement and then if you look at last year we requested 215 million and we received I'm going say 135 million here that does include a healthy schools Grant but 86% of that or 107 million went to new schools it was lower because it's a it's a lower total right but it's a big percentage of that capital budget and system upgrades was just 14 million or 11% and major repairs went from that kind of $33 Million number which was which was really high even in that year but down to just 3.6 million and that is not enough to address the emergencies that major repair is required to address this is also not enough to sustain um even in the bigger system upgrades category uh adequate roof replacement program or window and door replacement program
072just to really secure our buildings our envelopes um just straight water leaks um so it's it's another prioritization piece like we yes we have to do a master plan prioritization piece but we also need to think about how to gather together around the work to figure out what percentage though goes to our master plan and then how do we also maintain what we have and then this is where we talked about some of the work of both the fy7 efmp as we try to close out cycle one and as we try to develop the FY 27 the FMP I'm G try questions again thank you so much Jackson by Sher Brown yes thank you so much um to miss jacks and um your team and to um Mr Washington they both came to my coffee
073and conversations and my constituents keep emailing about how great you all did and they feel like they have a better understanding when it comes to Capital Improvement now um they saw the big picture and they saw the budget and understood a lot more um and so thank you so much for coming out on Saturday and explaining I wish more people fully un stood what capital Improvement and was about and the deficit that we're in um but I also want to point at that point out that there are board members right now who have been fighting in Annapolis today for um you know more money when it comes to the construction of our school so this is all a team effort and we really appreciate I'm going to try to get more constituents to fight for
074you all as well um so I just wanted to make sure that I pointed um pointed that out um I saw the three categories it was new school system upgrades and major repairs and it seemed as though um major repairs in my opinion just for my eyes and from what I know major repairs would need more money so I'm like who decides right how is it decided where it's like major repairs gets less money than system upgrades because I the system upgrades was kind of confusing for me but when I think about repairs I'm like well I would think we would need more money but I'm sure you guys think about the Budget prior and and things like that so I kind of wanted to get just a little bit of information on that that's
075a good question so okay the the first part is usually for the capital budget this is as it happens in the CIP process um we do we do put our requests together we prioritize and funding approval usually prioritizes the new schools right anything that's in construction is going to get the first bite of our approved dollars so it is appropriate for that to go to the new schools and modernizations like the years where I've seen us really falter on that all we're doing is pushing the bucket down into the operating budget into future major repairs because a lot of those buildings just needed to be replaced the system upgrades I I think I have roof repair roof Replacements in that category and that's a place where we need to um be spending like $37 million
076a year based on the size of our inventory so some years we are able to execute a roof replacement program and then you you'll hear crickets from us for oh one second director Jackson Miss McMillan can you just start the timer again thank you I my memory does not work that well you guys um it was about roofs so roofs are in system upgrades I think I put roofs in system upgrades but a lot of years we don't get funding for roof so you'll see like um we pause the idea is like at 200 buildings with our age a 10 years ago if we had been doing 10 a year we probably would have kept up but now to make up we need to do like 15 a year so I do have those in
077there I also have larger HVAC projects and the thought behind those was a good thought when I first started here we were doing a lot of Band-Aid projects we would just do a boiler here or um fan coil units in the classrooms and those were very unsatisfactory in the sense that like they didn't really improve Heating and Cooling you put in a new boiler and all the systems Downstream leak there were more steam leaks with the new boiler and it just created more problems so yes you should change the hpack and you should do it holistically and you should get the windows while you're there and if you can the roofs but the thing is by the time you've done all that you're going to touch about five systems you're also going to do fire
078alarms you're also going to do Sprinklers and then you probably had to move the students and then you should have made educational improvements to the classroom because you're not coming back because look at how much you improve facility condition and now it's a limited renovation and so it is very um it's expensive and it should be subject kind to that Master planning prioritization process so they're good they're good projects they're very much needed projects then just to finally get to your answer for major repairs those first two categories if they're doing their work and they're well funded they absolutely reduce the amount of need in major repairs I think it's just how far from a deficit that we're working we also mirror our Building Services Department those are a lot of Maintenance projects in major
079repairs so we should never be the only source of major repair funds we definitely want a healthier budget than $3.6 million I personally like to hold some of that that is our emergency money if Building Services doesn't have the money to fix something that is going very wrong very quickly that is always a great plot of money I afford it like like a dragon because it it has less restrictions because it is supposed to be major emergency repairs so I I definitely agree I would love to see more money there but I just wanted to note that we sometimes are hesitant to ask for it there because we know if we don't do the first two c categories it gets shafted and then it always doesn't usually doesn't get approved at higher levels either and
080I got four seconds but I wanted to say this my son sent me a text on the day that you all came to the coffee and conversation he says mom 3.5 million on an agback replacement question mark exclamation point and so yes it's a lot of money and so um but again thank you so much for for clarifying and I do definitely think that we need more money when it comes to repairs but hopefully we can get some more money when it comes to the modernization of these school so thank you can you tell us where we are in the CIP cycle like when this gets approved when you all put in the requests for the new um fiscal year where are we because there was a a slide that I I'm just G to
081go back to it really quickly because it would make me feel good like this is oafa I just updated you on CIP free of charge here we go the FY 26 is right here at the bottom it has all those Asters next to it because it's it's just preliminary recommendations which right now are about 3 34.3 million from this state um if you look at the numbers above it it does look like it's quite a bit lower but it's missing some of the grants um and like emergency growth money that will probably be added to it it'll probably hit around 45 million 94 million is the preliminary recommendation from The Office of Management and budget noting that it hasn't gone to the County Council or County Executive yet and so the that's about where the
082current total that 128 um that's where it is right now the next steps for it is to go before Council to be appropriated um and then we get access to it in July and then like basically the very next day we're presenting to you the CIP again so the CIP usually presents um in this is historically true we're going to try to edit this a bit this year but historically it has presented in August as first reader been second reader in September submitted to State and County in October the efmp then has been presented in the spring voted on second reader by June submitted to msde and Department of planning July 1st and then we just keep going and then the CIP again and then the efmp we're going to try to combine them some
083so that there's some fiscal conversations in the efmp um we'll see how it goes thank you so much director Jackson board members I believe that puts us now on second round we have any additional questions um yes um our Cindy and then we'll go to our second round Excuse Me Miss adelay hi hi thank you I do have one question for Miss Jackson did you say that the um documents are going to go to first and second reader at the board meetings I just noted what they have historically done I think CH our reader system right all right so I just wanted to correct that quickly we no longer have first and second reader so with the board meeting all the items are approved as a consent agenda so it's going to be approved with
084all other documents unless the board chooses to send it back for additional information thank you so much for that clarification Miss eday Board member Brown yes I just thank you so much um chair GES MC I wanted to ask you one more question you said Ed specs can you explain what Ed specs is with pleasure so the educational specifications are something we do specifically for every school that we build or construct but the master educational specifications and I should note that they're required by the state um for new construction and any project I think where we're improving like a certain program spaces but the point of Master educational specifications or prototype educational specifications is forist to come together and think like in general for elementary schools like noting that some will have a specialty program
085that will require additional spaces but what should our core spaces include do we do media libraries what kind of specialty art spaces do we believe should be standard what should the cafeteria include in high schools it might you know get a little deeper do we include an auditorium is that standard an auxiliary gym and we meet with the entirety of like our academic partners and some school-based staff and we kind of go through in a very like laborious but very detailed way not just like it's not just a list though it's like if it's barbering in cosmetology it's x amount of chairs it's Locker space it's the space for the teacher so we have a square footage number too and so when I said that the state will hold it to as like 10% either
086way when you go to build that classroom space you have to be 10% of the square footage as you said you needed you know a little smaller or a little bigger is okay but for the point of a master plan it's really helpful because you're going to go evaluate the buildings Beyond condition so when we talk about you know we know what a bad condition is but you can be in great condition and be a really poor School due to a poor educational adequacy score which means when we scored you against everything we said a school should have of your kind you you just kind of failed across the board your parking lot configuration wasn't safe your hallway configuration wasn't good you didn't have any maybe bathrooms in your prek classrooms things things like that
087that we are saying are cor to our program program delivery thank you so much uh director Jackson board member Brown was that the end of that question um the only thing I wanted to know we are this is our last for this round I don't see the timer um in this as we're going through this and we are talking with the communities we as board members we get a lot of questions about how this is different than our operating budget and how these decisions are how this is different from operating budget how these decisions are made what is our role and then what is your role I know this is a little bit of an aside from that but could you please clarify like where those budget recommendations numbers came from like when you're asking
088County Council this is how much we would like for our CIP where those numbers came from okay I'm going to start with the difference between the operating budget and the capital budget so actually I can't tell you for sure I know the operating budget is based on Revenue I don't know all the sources I saw that long laundry list of things but for Capital it's definitely almost all just Bond sales so we are very much debt fund financed and one of the places we talked about at the um coffee and conversations was a lot of community members wanted to know kind of like how we're tied to the operating budget or how we're tied sort of to the economic picture that they know is happening and so for me I think the best example has
089been um you know like in our personal finances when our income goes down the amount of debt we can be approved for goes down as well and that's what we're experiencing in the capital world so Prince georgees County has a trip a bond rating we're not willing to take on more debt to jeopardize that to me that's like we have 850 credit score we don't want to hear about debt exceeding our income levels and so when I hear a lot of things that are happening in just broadly economically that's how it's affecting the capital budget so when they're I'm saying those are the OMB recommendations from The Office of Management and budget that's what they're looking at they're looking at not so much our priorities they're just looking at how many bonds do I have
090to sell and what can we afford to sell with in those parameters and based on where they know the revenues are and then I think after that it goes to the stakeholders and they're looking more at the school's in their areas or you know whatever the stakeholders are interested in so that's the part that we're at now and then we'll go there will be the council hearings um with the public and and it'll be a part where they come in and do their feedback and we get to a final I honestly haven't seen too many shifts after the OM recommendation in my tenure though and just to back up the the primary operating budget uh dollars come from student enrollment so there's a formula that the state provides that the more students you have in
091your system based on a certain formula that turns into money to support the operating needs of that particular student or system and I will say you know to the point of your question of like how are how are projects generated within that budget is really driving off of the efmp and the priorities laid forth by DCP so so that we're given a number by om this is our Target number and then we then look at and and uh director Jackson just said any current construction projects like that we have they take priority how much is needed this next year then we move to the next priority issue there then we move down so that's how the allocation is because a lot of the construction projects there's a state match based upon a certain amount of
092local funds as well so that's kind of the staircase of priorities that come together and then that's what is presented to the board in August what what director Jackson was saying that that's that that the the CIP plan are plan to spend whatever that budgeted amount is from OMB and then that's what is presented uh to start that whole CIP process thank you so much I know we are technically over time with our rounds but were there any additional questions board members so I do not have a seeing none I do not have a additional question just a request could we get and by we I mean the board a copy of that presentation so that we can share it with other constituents as well like across the County or maybe we can have a
093conversation about creating one and putting it somewhere on the website or somewhere where people can have access to it yes that can be provided thank you um this is our last agenda item so um there being no further business the chair informs the public that the next virtual operations budget and fiscal affairs committee meeting will be on April 30th 2025 please continue to check the Prince George's County Board of Education website for meeting information and updates thank you all so much for coming and presenting this and um answering all of our sometimes very nitpicky questions we want to make sure that our constituents and everyone watching is informed as well as for us to be informed um so thank you all so much for that uh there be no further business the time is now
0946:5 7 p.m. and the March 19th 2025 operations budget and fiscals Affairs committee meeting is adjourned