001Okay, I'm going to call the meeting to order at 5:30. So, I need to um we need to adopt the agenda. I move to adopt the agenda as presented. I second. All in favor? I I motion carries five to zero. Don't forget to vote. Did you push the wrong one? Are we all good? Did you change? Yay. Yeah, he's I mean, he motioned. He's the one that motioned. [Music] I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Okay. So, are we we're going to do public comments first? Is that what we're doing? We don't have any public comments, but yeah, we would do it. Oh, so no public comments. So, we'll move on
002to um the um topic of the hour discussion 5.1 um discussion information on possible bond election. So, go ahead. So, what we have a couple different things we have for you. Um uh this is going to be a presentation from uh primarily members of the committee that'll kind of walk us through uh how we got to where we're at right now. Um, what I will tell you is each of you have a flash drive in in front of you. Uh, we are not going to go necessarily into the weeds. If there's a specific question when we get to one of the topics that you say, "Hey, what's what's this mean?" We can go in and show you. But on the on the uh flash drive is um uh uh the same presentation that's been expanded
003to include more detail. So, between now and the 14th, which is when we plan to May 14th when we plan to bring this is for a formal vote, if you need to look at something or you're curious about something, um this is yours to take a look at it and and see. And we'll explain a little bit why that's the case. And then at the very end, we have a a slide that uh uh speaks to next steps. Mr. Gil from uh Gus Rosenfeld's here, and he will kind of walk us through. I will have a a I won't call it a a sample resolution, but basically the resolution and the forms that you'll see um uh in May and he'll kind of walk through them and answer any questions you may have or explain
004what there are. And again, this is just based on on law. So, the intent tonight is to just say, okay, this is where we're at, how we got here, this is what we're looking at. This is a recommendation of the committee. Um, and then you'll have whatever it is, three weeks till the next board meeting, four weeks to sit down and and think about it, and then we'll bring it for uh a vote up or down, so to speak, when uh we get here on the 14th. So, we'll go ahead and call up the group to start the presentation, and we will go from there. Uh good evening, uh Madame President, members of the board, Dr. Wyman, and Miss Winger. Uh the bond committee was formed. So if I do the right slide, there we
005go. Um the bond committee was formed to explore the potential benefits of a capital bond um election for our district. Uh we prioritized a diverse community representation of different stakeholders, ensuring that a wide range of perspectives were considered. Our primary goal was to thoroughly understand the bond election process and its potential impact on our community and our district's future. We began by gaining a deep understanding of the district's budget, its constraints, and the limitations it presents. We learned how a capital bond election can provide critical funding for long-term investments that are often difficult to address with the regular operating budget. A key concern for the committee was the impact on the community's tax rate and ensured that the district could strategically structure a bond election to maintain the current tax rate, ensuring we can invest
006in our students without placing an undue burden on our residents. Most of the committee's time was spent identifying and prioritizing the district's most pressing needs. We focused on those areas that directly impact student learning and safety as that is paramount for our students. Good evening. I'm going to spend a few minutes talking about the history of our elections of bonds and overrides. And our first slide looks at the override and 2006 um was a um unification. I'm sorry that was prior to that. Yeah, 2006 unification. one uh M override uh passed in uh 2006 and then the following two have not passed and uh since 2012 there's not been um really any effort or desire to go out uh for another override. When it comes to bonds, it's been quite a bit more successful. Uh
007looking at 1960, $12,000 for a cafeteria edition, it's pretty incredible. And you can see through uh through the 80s you um those those uh bonds that have passed and the purpose of those um and what they went for in terms of of construction. we get into uh 2006, 15 and 16. Two of the three passed and uh obviously the large one was for the high school and then uh most recently in 16 was for CPAC district office and uh some additional uh with the uh buses and upgrade in technology in 15 um that bond election uh failed and you can see that the group re really regrouped and went back to the voters uh for that election. I did want to bring up real quickly, I know there's question, Mr. Ray, uh about the pool
008um and anything with a pool. From everything we've been able to research, there's that's never been on any agenda relative to a bond. Um, we we thought maybe the '06 uh piece might have been part of that, but that was really more uh as the unification I think you had a I think they had a three-part question, the override, the uni the unification and the and the bond with the idea if the unification passed and we became a high school district, they would use those dollars to offset what the state would provide to build this the school. But so there's never ever been um a pool in the in the works. We can talk when we move up into some of the projects we did look into that one. So if we we want we
009can go into a little bit more detail on that but we cannot find that there was ever a request formally. There may have been conversations but never anything on a on a bond election that spoke to building a pool that that I could find. Thank you for following up. It was important that we did that based on the comments from the board meeting. Yeah. So one more comment on this. When we look at that previous slide of from 1960 to 2016, that equates to about 86 million in bond referendum dollars. And considering that's over a 65 year period, that's actually pretty impressive for the facilities that we do have. and um uh really again what we have for our district. Um I'm going to come back in just a minute to talk about our process
010review, but first we want to thank some committee members. Good evening. My name is uh Teresa Wit. I joined this 33 person committee as both an employee of the JOME school district and a resident of the JOME school boundary area. I'm also the proud parent of twin daughters who attended JO Combmes schools beginning at Simon and fourth grade. They continued through the middle school and then they graduated from uh Combmes High School in 2015. My mo motivation for joining this committee was to give back to the community I call home and help ensure that future graduates are equipped with the tools they need to succeed in a safe and supportive environment. This committee was composed of employees, parents, and community members. While not every member was able to attend each meeting, we maintained a strong
011average attendance rate which allowed us to consistently engage in meaningful discussions and thoughtful decision-making. I appreciate your consideration in moving forward. I'm sorry, Peter. My slides. Um, in our January meeting, we received a presentation from Stiffel regarding the tax implications for our community. Their analysis demonstrated that due to the exciting growth in our area, as well as the district's financial responsibility and strategic debt payoff over these last couple years, we could pursue a capital bond election while maintaining the current tax rate for homeowners. This is a vital point to for and out of respect for our community. Building on Stiffold's findings, we examined three potential bond scenarios: 40 million, 60 million, and 80 million. In all three scenarios, Stif Stifl's analysis confirms that we can maintain the current tax rate. This would allow the district
012to make necessary repairs and modernize our facilities without adding a financial burden to our residents. The board then approved the procurement of High Ground, a political consulting firm, to conduct a community bond survey. This was done to get an idea on our community's views regarding a potential bond election and if it aligned with our committee. The survey results indicated that a high that high efficacy voters within our community support quality schools and are receptive to a bond measure. Specifically, when presented to the $80 million bond scenario, in the survey, we saw a positive shift in community sentiment. Though initially we had 58% support after further information and consideration in the survey, that number rose to 62% in favor. Notably, we observed a significant increase in support among voters aged 50 and older, which is a
013key demographic in our community. Peter just went into some detail on this slide when he was um talking about the three bond scenarios and the the tax implic uh implications. So, I won't spend uh time here except to say that uh this committee will come forward with a $80 million bond recommendation. What I do want to share is a little bit about our process. Um, we saw on that thank you slide a large number of stakeholders who were part of our our committee and we spent two or three meetings talking about what was needed and then we had a chance to uh vote on that as a committee and clearly the these were the top four priorities from that committee and later on we'll talk about this but I it's an important important point that
014the top priorities that the committee came up with really matched with the survey that the community u sample and those who participated in that uh that sample what their priorities were as well. So, um, school safety and security, that was clearly number one, and that's always number one in the minds of of parents and staff. They want to save school. And then it got down to um, uh, you know, some of the infrastructure, CTE upgrades, and instructional improvements. So, those were the top four. And I should, let me back up and say that as a committee, again, we spent two or three meetings looking at all the needs of our district. again from this cross-section of committee and members and stakeholders and um I believe it was 320 projects were actually brought to the table
015and then we they were paired down into categories and um and then we were able to consider each of those u and these were the top categories that uh that this bond committee came up with these are the next level priorities. So modern technology again infrastructure with electrical repairs, roof repairs and computer replacements to get a little bit more. I think we have Bob coming up next. Is that right? U to get a little bit more into the detail and then we'll get into those categories. So again, as as Dr. Milton said, the committee's recommendation is to go for 80 million. Um, and so uh uh why don't we go for the 80 million? If you go to the next slide, Dr. Milton. Uh a couple just a couple reminders. Um so we looked at
016a ton of of different projects, estimated costs for all those projects. And and we also had professionals review our estimated costs. We we factor inflation into those because if you're going to go out for a bond, there's probably going to be a series of sales. So, you may not do the second and third sale and we're we're trying to get final numbers to see whether we go out for three sales or or four sales, but you're going to be talking about 2030 2032. So, we we have some built-in inflation. When we talked to the professionals and had them look at the numbers, um they indicated yes, that that that they felt those were solid numbers. So, we have an idea of of what it means. Um, but Howard, even though we have that many projects,
017when you actually go to bond pamphlet language, you go back up high to category. So, we would say, um, we're going to do something with health and safety. We're going to do something with curricular. We're going to do something, you know, we're going to use those big topics. We're not going to get into ton of specifics. However, there's always that concern. So, how do I trust you? How do I trust what you're going to do? Um, note that there is some limitations. I give you an example that we're not going to do this in any way, shape, or form, but just to let you know, if you have uh bond pamphlet language um and you say nothing on in the pamphlet about building a new school, you cannot by law turn around two years later
018and say, "Hey, we decided to build a new school. We're just going to take all that money and build a new school." It's against the law. So, so the fact that you're at a high level, why would you be at at at such a high level? In in large part is because again, we're talking about potentially three or four bond sales. So we're talking about somewhere between the January of 26 to sometime in in 30 or 32 depending on how many sales and we don't know if infrastructure right now it appears that HVAC and roofing are really big as an example. Well, what happens if if a water cooler goes down at the high school? And so there may be other priorities that that that come up and so you have to stay high but
019also have the backup so that if people are wondering what we took a look at as an example, we can talk about the pool in in a few minutes. We want to show that we've looked at those things in the package will also be contingency and project management. And so what's a a legitimate contingency contingency to be available in the event of inflation? Um and that if that goes ahead and increases the um the cost of projects if we do the first sale in 26 and you don't get to 28, you may have inflationary impact that's even greater when we projected. So there's a contingency to help with us. When we do our community meetings and our facts, if you guys decide to vote yes to go out for an election, then we will talk
020about some of the ideas of what we're having. So when we say health and safety, we'll be able to say we're looking to do X, Y, and Z. It doesn't lock us into doing that because again, it just depends on a number of different factors that that come into play. You also need to understand that u as an example in 26 for you are up for election. So the new board that's constituted in 26 still is bound by the ballot lang the bond pamphlet language ballot language and the limitations but their priorities within those categories may shift and so therefore when we talk about projects this is an exercise of identifying everything so we go down into the weeds but now we got to pull ourselves back up and get up high and look at
021categories that we work on and then as we move forward if the bond if you were to call for the bond and if the bond were to pass um there may be some some modifications just based on any number of factors. So, we just want to let you know it's it's kind of we're going back and forth uh within this within this piece and and so if someone sees one particular thing um there's no guarantee that that's automatically going to get done. Um can you hear me? All right. Um so one one thing that I did um to get the list of items is I met with each one of the site administrators. Um I've done inspections at the sites um and then I developed rough scopes of work and identified needs from that. Then
022um I used what we call uh industry standards rough order of magnitude and you take a lot of con a lot of things in consideration in order to develop that scope and develop that rough estimate and it's broken down like Dr. Wyman said over 100 or over 320 items and then we grouped them together uh after we had the meetings with the committee grouped it into the categories and then we divided those up by the magnitude of each category uh to come up with the $80 million. Uh but a lot of contributing factors go into that. Uh when when the those particular projects are funded, what materials are used, uh what inflation is, uh materials availability, uh contractor availability at the time. So that's why it was important that we also had a contingency uh
023in the bond program as well. my previous experiences working with bonds and working with boards and uh community members, I've always said think about your own home as you consider uh what's needed and and what the goals are, what the priorities are. And so again at the top as we look at the the different buckets of projects that we have the first one is health and safety project. And again thinking of your own home you want to maintain your home. You want to make sure that it's uh up todate. It's um uh safe. Uh and in this case we look at these four areas of classroom safety, school safety, extracurricular and playground and school renovations. And as Bob just shared, he was able to go to each school and visit with their uh with their
024administration to talk about what was needed in each of those buildings. And so you can see anything from making sure we have security in in the classroom, uh school safety, whether it's fencing or an emergency response system. Uh playgrounds of course have certain guidelines that uh we have safety inspectors come out to make sure that our playgrounds are safe. Uh you'll see on this case under health and safety we even have a track resurfacing. I've been on that track and we are one misstep away from uh really of serious injury and school renovations in terms of um repair and replace uh ADA issues and facilities. Um, before you move on to the next thing, I have a question. Um, what is what are just because I don't know what they are. What are lock sets?
025Um, and door magnets for the safety door magnets are on the side of the of the door, the narrow side, there would be a magnet. And so the door is still able to be open and closed, but in a case of an emergency, you can just rip that magnet off and it's then locked. So you're keeping the outside door locked at all times. But when the magnets's there, you can come in and out. But if again, if there were an all call or or you know lockown or something like that, you take the safety off and then the uh upgraded lock sets. What the best practice at all. Gotcha. Exactly. And then um updated lock sets. Uh the best practice and Bob can correct me if I'm wrong on this, but just making sure that
026you're he's he's getting antsy in his chair. He didn't answer yet. Um true that that is part of it but a lot of it is uh when you go into electronic lockdown system essentially all the perimeter locks are dogged down electronically and if you go into a lockdown situation they lock automatically. So uh also uh they're also tied into the fire alarm system. So if there are any hallways that have fire doors that are open, they're held open by magnets and when it when it activates it automatically closed to where it separates you have the very separation. So it just keeps you in the burning building. Yeah. No. Oh, okay. It separates the going from. As far as the lock sets go, um almost all of these buildings were built um with schools facilities board
027money and the SLE system that we have was the cheapest version of SLEG and these sites are almost 17 years old and the hardware is falling apart and that's causing a security issue and it's hard to get parts for it as well. So that all needs to be redone and also that will also give this district an advantage to go ahead and rekey the school completely and have a new key uh control system in place. Okay. Thank you. Then we think again go back to your own home and now we're looking at some of the facility upgrades and of course HVAC. That's that's something that eventually you do replace um interior renovations. Uh we're looking at you know some sound systems um upgrades to the CPAC and just basic you know painting and renovations at
028sites plumbing electrical also just updates as Bob just said you know things get older and we're looking at you know 17y old buildings uh there's going to be that wear and tear and certainly roofing again think about your own home um and weatherization uh that's just sort of maintaining and and doing that upkeep. That third bucket of projects, uh, student education support. So, this would be an area where curriculum adoption could follow that cycle. Um, again, campus upgrades and renovations in some specific areas such as the library and CTE labs. um modern technology and that's will always be continuous improvement and continuous changes and you know the thing we often forget about is is furniture. Uh there's always a need for replacing desks and other classroom equipment. The next bucket is transportation and you can
029see that are on the stats that's replacing 84 buses. Um currently the district has 13 buses over 150,000 miles and nine with a 100,000 um special ed transportation. There's uh certainly modifications that are done in vehicles to meet the students needs. Uh our white fleet which is additional passenger vans and and just the routine maintenance vehicles that we have. Sports and land improvements uh that were that the committee identified, field lighting, renovations uh at the high school stadium. You know from your own uh your own yards that landscape and irrigation improvements are a constant uh constant event in the in the life cycle of a home and other sports facilities, potential projects, renovation to our existing facilities. This other one uh by statute you can do debt refinancing. You're aware that we've done I think
030in the neighborhood of um 15 million in escos um and that comes out of M. So we had a debate early on in the conversation that talks about do you go out for an M override and a bond or just a bond and and the issue of going out for an M override is uh you wouldn't be able to maintain the tax rate like we could with a bond. It would be a tax increase. So then we wanted to take a look and say is there a different way to to get what we want to get with uh out uh making sure that or by making sure that we still take care of our community and so we have a a debt that's associated with the ESCO work and that work got a lot done
031in our schools uh and we pay for it on M. If we were to go ahead and refinance the debt using the bond what that does is essentially free up a million dollars in our M budget. Therefore, we would need to go out. It's not going to be the same as we went for 10% override because a million dollars isn't 10%. But it gives us a little bit more capacity within our M budget to go ahead and and take care of things like raises for for staff. Uh and so we we think this is a very positive way to uh refinance the debt we have with the ESCO uh and free up capacity that would help us uh with our employees. Um, and so it's just I've done it in another district I've been in
032and it's it's a good way to spread the debt but take it out of uh out of the secondary tax rate versus the M budget. And then we've talked at both project management contingency. The one thing I would say about project management, uh, that will be to some degree on a case-byase basis. So if we're buying a bunch of buses, um, we don't need a project manager to help us buy a bunch of buses. If we know what buses we're looking for and we go through the the proper procurement, there's no need for project management for that. If we are doing a larger project that requires construction, then you're going to go ahead and need a project manager. So, even within the project management, uh we don't know what that final dollar amount will be.
033There's a couple different ways to go at it. You could do a firm with project management. Uh they tend to be a little bit pricier. Um but the other ability would be to say can we have an individual that we could put on employment temporarily two three four five years and pay them a specific amount for them to cover the project management. What the final decision will be for that will depend on any number of factors once we get to that that point. We're looking at all options and figuring out what's best for our community, what's best for our district and and we will move that forward at that point in time. I like that um the esco we still the things that they have done. Are we still saving money at the things that
034they have done? Yes, we get a M andV maintenance and verification report annually from Very on the savings. Um where the savings will help us is a couple different places. Um uh if you didn't I got one in my mail. I live down the street. Um SRP is coming out with a rate hike in November. And so we will get that rate hike here at the district also. But due to the savings, we would hope that our overall costs would stay where they're at because the savings will offset the the the rate hike. Um but yeah, so we're still seeing the benefits of um of uh of the escos that we put in and the savings that we're getting both relative to solar as well as within the lighting and the water flow um across
035the district. I like the fact that um so with the M that that money goes away after seven years, right? Yes. Yeah. So, I like the fact that we can if we're doing a bond, then we can pay that off and then still have the savings that we were wanting with them, which I I like. Um, but that way it still frees up stuff for M, right? And it's and that free up freed up M is ongoing. I mean, it's it's in the budget, so it's an ongoing. So, it's not like it's a one time, oh, we made a million dollars year one and now year two, we got to give it back. It's an ongoing commitment into the budget. Uh obviously impacted by any number of factors whether we have kid growth or kid
036decline that will impact that true million dollars, but it is an ongoing factor that's into the budget. The M is a little um I was on the board when we did not pass the M. Yeah. And I got to sit through a ton of of things that we had to cut. Yeah. And that was that was really hard, right? And so yeah, and again, we don't want that and we want to make sure we work with our communities so that that they're not I think that's the first time I cried. Yeah. On the board. Only the first time. There's a couple points I'd like to point out is um one as far as the debt refinance and the ESCO some of these projects that are proposed for your consideration within the the bond the replacement
037of or upgrades of electrical plumbing and also the HVAC that hasn't been addressed through the current ESCOS. What that'll do is that will eventually once those get put in place will also save you eminent money as well. Right? So that's one point as far as project management uh company or person by having somebody on staff or having a company do that. What they can do is they can evaluate your projects and put them into packages to where you can get economy of scale and be able to essentially get more bang out of the buck as far as being able to package those projects together. So would somebody um my other question is the school facilities board? I mean we could still do grants and ask for the school facilities and whatever money let's say they
038say, "Well, we're only going to give you the cheap stuff, right?" Okay. Well, can they give you the money for that cheap stuff? we kick in the rest and get what we really need. I mean, is that an option? Yes. Okay. So, we can still close. Okay. So, um that person probably needs to be able to write those grants or be able to work with the school facilities board. Correct. Okay. Um this summary outlines the proposed projects we aim to fund through the capital bond. Uh this is a comprehensive plan designed to address critical needs across all of the school sites and provide essential district-wide support. The total proposed investment of 80 million could potentially encompass 332 individual projects across the district. A key component which I know was previously stated um is the strategic
039refinancing of our existing ESCO debt. Uh, this proactive financial management could potentially save the district's significant M funds over the long term, which would allow us to maximize the impact of the bond for our facilities, our staff, and most importantly, our students. These savings would allow the district to address current and future salary challenges without the district having to seek an M override, which we've seen is not always successful. In total, this bond proposal uh represents a strategic investment in the future of our district and community. It addresses critical needs at every school site, modernizes our facilities to create enhanced learning environments, and ultimately demonstrates our unwavering commitment to the success of each and every student in our district. The process began in December when analyzed tax rate implications presented an opportunity to better our
040schools without causing undue financial change to the community. The next month, a bond committee was established that was made up of numerous different stakeholders as presented earlier within the communities of Col's district. This committee recognized the need of these projects for our schools so that our students could benefit to gauge the sentiment of the larger community. The survey by uh high ground was conducted this February that showed the alignment between the sentiments of the committee as well as the sample of high efficacy voters within our district. Today we're here presenting the committee's recommendation and looking forward to the next steps to continue building up Jolome's unified school district for our community. This is a tenative schedule of the road map that we would follow. Um but Mr. Gil, our legal counsel is here and can
041provide specific details to our timeline if you guys call for a public bond election. Thank you. I I just I think that um I think that we have better um an a better outcome for bonds as we do M's only because our community can see what the money was spent on. I mean know a little bit harder and so I think that they get a little bit more skeptical but I think that that's why we've had so much um success. Yeah. Um with the other bonds that we've passed. Madame President, members of the I'm sorry, Madam President, members of the board. Jim Gil with Gust Rosenfeld. Uh good to be here tonight. Uh thanks for having me. Um I should look hopefully somewhat familiar. I was before this board a few years ago. Uh the
042ESCOS have been mentioned quite a bit. I assisted the district uh with those financings and I'm happy to be back tonight as election counsel and if the voters if you approve to call the election and if the voters approve it in November, I would then be your bond counsel and assist you with with issuing the three or four series of bonds over what the statute allows up to 10 years. Um so ju just a few comments. Uh the presentation uh by the citizens committee was excellent. It's one of the best I've seen. It's really what we encourage folks to do to provide all the background and why they're before you tonight. Um requesting uh that you call a bond election in this case in an amount up to $80 million. Lots of detail there. Superintendent
043was dead on with um all that detail is great. It's what you need to make a decision, but ultimately on the ballot and in the voter information pamphlet, uh we will not have all that detail. Districts have tried that before in an effort to be fully transparent. They've had three pages of projects and they've been held to that which is very difficult because again you have up to 10 years to issue these bonds. Circumstances change. So just keep that in mind. Um I believe you have in front of you or at least in your packets a very rough draft of the election resolution uh that you would be considering in uh in midMay. It's uh at your May board meeting. It's our first attempt. Um lots of blanks in there because we didn't know the
044bond amount. We don't know the But we'll fill all those in. I'll just very briefly kind of run you through what the resolution does. It effectively has the board calling the election, the bond election. Um the amount I've heard tonight is $80 million be any amount, whatever amount you decide. Um you delegate to district administration superintendent and the CFO the authority to work with man county on conducting the election. Uh, I have lots of experience working with York County. Uh, they're a good partner in elections. Um, we know all the deadlines. Some of the deadlines were just put up on the screen, but there are lots of other deadlines for publications, for notices. Uh, my parallegal and I work closely with the county on getting all that done, working closely with district administration so we
045don't miss any deadlines. Um, and everything kind of stays in order. Uh this year we're working with uh at least three or four different uh districts in uh in Panal County on either bond or over elections. So we've had recent conversations with the county. Um one of the things the resolution does in section two, it uh orders theformational pamphlet. Uh the voter, we sometimes call it a VIP voter information pamphlet, sometimes just the pamphlet. It is really the primary source of election information for the public. Um, it's drafted by my firm. It's re reviewed by your bond underwriter, Steifel, um, as well as district administration. So, lots of eyes will be on that. It's important that we get everything right there. But, it's really designed to be kind of a script, if you will, for
046this board and members of the administration to speak to the public about the election. Um, if district staff or administration feels like or the board for that matter feels like it's important to supplement the voter information pamphlet, keep in mind that pamphlet's going to go to all the voters in the district who have registered electors. Every household with a registered elector will get that voter information pamphlet. Pamphlet will also include the ballot in there. But if there's additional information, quite often I'm I'm asked to review outside information, supplement the pamphlet, we can do that. You can put other things on your website. I'm not necessarily encouraging it, but if you decide to do it, just run it through me. Everything we do as a as a board, as a district, is factual and neutral as
047it relates to the election. We're not advocating for the election. We're not using district resources to do that. You're probably familiar with the statute 15511. That's pretty clear that no one, neither the board nor staff or administration, can use district resources to attempt to influence the outcome of of your election or any election. I'm harping on that quite a bit because it's important. As a matter of fact, there's a bill this session before the legislature that would allow any member of the public to make a complaint about a violation of that nature and then collect a bounty, if you will. Uh the fine is $5,000. So, uh, if the law made it through, it would, uh, that 5,000 would go to the public. So, um, we don't know where that is yet, but it's, uh,
048just something to keep in mind. We're always careful there. Uh, the resolution has the various election notices, lots of detail there. Keep in mind, um, we have some language in the resolution about possibly possibly being a polling place election. We know with high degree of certainty this will be an allmale ballot election because it's an off-year election. It's the way the county will conduct it. House as all counties in Arizona do on off-year elections, but we like the flexibility in the resolution so we don't have to race back to you if for some reason your county said, "Oops, we decided we're going to have some polling places." So, we want to build in some flexibility. But again, we expect this to be an allmale ballot election. Uh we have to uh the statute tells us
049that this board has to set a deadline for the members of the public to submit pro or con statements up to 200 words. And so you're just following the statute and uh setting August 8th as the deadline. And that's and that corresponds with the county's uh election calendar. Also keep in mind that unlike your uh prior override elections, this board will not be asked to submit a pro statement. Uh there's a quirk in the statute in my opinion says that for override elections, the board shall submit a 200word pro statement. For bond elections, you're prohibited from doing so. doesn't mean you as as as uh elected officials or district administration or district staff uh are prohibited. They're free to do that. You're free to do that if you'd like. You're in fact you're free to
050do a pro statement and and sign your name as a as a member of the governing board. That's all fine as long as if you do so, you do so without using district resources on your own time, on your own email account, things of that nature. I'm not again not encouraging you to do it, but if you do it, it is legal. It just becomes sort of a perception issue, but we see it done quite a quite a bit. We see mayors and uh county supervisors submitting pro statements, occasionally con, but generally no. Um so just kind of keep keep that in mind. Uh we've got the uh we've got some kind of technical stuff about tax issues I'm not going to get into. It's just we're just trying to deal with stuff ahead of
051time if they present themselves. We've got the ballot and this is largely what the ballot will look like like as exhibit A. It just has the various the 10 bullet points pulled right from the statute. This is not an attempt in any way to customize it for this district. It's just drawn directly from uh the statute in terms of what you can do. We customize it a bit more in the pamphlet. In fact, there's a table in the pamphlet proposed capital expenditures and that's where we break it out a little bit more um by dollar amount. what what what you're proposing to the voters. So, you notice on the ballot itself, we only have $1 amount and if you go with 80 million, that'll be that that first number up there. We'll also have a
052not to exceed interest rate. We'll hear from uh Michael Valley at Stifl Nicholas how he proposes filling that in. We normally see 8 10 or 12% somewhere in that in that range for um the interest rate that cannot be exceeded even if you're issuing bonds in six or seven years. Um, so that's kind of the form of the ballot. Then we've got some election notices that we'll work through and fill in all the blanks assuming you want to go forward. Um, just a couple of other notes, things to consider. I know you've had some success with bond elections in the past and you've had some failures with overrides obviously. So that just puts you in good company with lots of other districts. Um, recently the history as you might might have heard from high ground
053and I work on 40 plus uh bond and override elections around the state every year. It's 95% of my work as an attorney. Uh we've had pretty good luck um on overrides, uh more than 50%. Bonds have been kind of stuck at 50% passage rate overall statewide over the past couple years. Uh it would have been better, but we've seen some pretty coordinated vote no campaigns uh around the valley. And there's a high degree of correlation when the vote no group is out on those districts failing. You might have heard Mesa Unified failed their bond election. Uh Queen Creek failed. Uh Gilbert failed. Daert failed. Lots of solid districts that have a strong history of passing bond elections. So they uh there's not a whole lot you can do when the vote no folks are
054out. What we have noticed though is the vote no signs are often are not in compliance with statute. They don't have the proper disclosures on their signs. So if you notice those signs, you can report them. uh if uh if they're not, you know, compliant with statute. So, um just kind of keep that in mind. And we've seen cases where the vote no groups put the signs on district property. So, um I know it's a little dicey to be removing political signs, but if it's on your district property, I think as property owners, you're allowed to do so. But just, um be cautious is all I'm saying. But just I just wanted to set kind of the table for what we've seen lately. Um, but you know, overall I think the track record for most
055districts has been pretty good. Quite frankly, I'm s I'm kind of surprised that you don't have a growing district like you don't have bonds already because most districts in your situation do. I know it's been a little bit harder in Panal County, but both CR L and CR Union are going out this year for bond elections and they have outstanding bonds as well. So with I know that was a lot lot of information. Do you have any questions about the resolution, the draft resolution, or just the election process in general? So, who will be making the actual pamphlet that goes out? Good question. So, so I'll draft it and uh in your account and then um Stifo and uh Dr. Wyman and Julie will review it on behalf of the district. Um and so it'll
056be three the three different parties reviewing it and then ultimately submitting it to the county by their deadline. Um your county does not take full ownership of the pamphlet. Um meaning that um they don't they don't print the pamphlet. Um we'll work with we'll work with district administration on getting a printer lined up um so that u we'll meet the county's deadlines. Um the only thing I like um of course I love my I love CTE but I think that we need to make sure that we don't put the acronyms the CTE that sort of thing like put it all out. So people there's a lot of people in education that don't don't understand any of that. Yeah, that's So is that common? Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, we we we sometimes do
057get the um uh we we do get the first draft of the projects, if you will, from our from our school district clients. And I agree. Um there are acronyms. I mean, every profession has them, right? But we just don't understand. Our public doesn't understand them. Half the time I don't understand. That's the benefit of having multiple sets of eyes. We tend to be fairly critical, you know, when you know, it's more than just like the commas and typos. It's Yeah, we're we're we always look for those sorts of things. Yeah, good point though. Do you have any questions? Do you guys have any? I'm just the question person today. I see. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. So again, that's the presentation and the uh uh recommendation coming from the bond committee. Um uh a
058couple issues I'll just touch on uh briefly. uh you will not see conversation about a pool in and any of the recommended projects and and the reason for that and and what what Bob's done um with this uh flash drive is is when you the one page that had the categories and uh health and safety infrastructure that's kind of the basis and you can click on each of those when you go into the into the presentation he has on there and it'll take you down to deep dive to take a look at it but the cost of a pool would be in the neighborhood 12 to1 13 million. So you're talking on a$80 million bond. You know, you're talking roughly one6 of the money. And I and given all the needs we have, uh the
059feeling is that's significant. Um uh and relative to everything else we need, there's far more important things to do given that you're probably going to have the pool open from uh maybe May, maybe April. Um but then you're going to shut it down, unless you're going to heat it, which will drive the cost up even more. um uh you're going to go ahead and then shut it down to September. Uh right now, as you know, we decide to cancel the swimming program because we had three to five kids out um and the cost to maintain a pool in most cases. There's a few exceptions that the districts have pools, but in most cases, uh actually the town uh runs the pool or the county runs the pool just due to the cost. They may share
060something like when I was in Apache Junction, the land that the pool was built on was the school districts and they they gave it to the town, but the town actually ran the pool, not the district because it's it's cost prohibitive. So, I just tell you as we look at some of those projects and when you look into those, you'll see uh busing 100,000 miles. Well, I got a car with 100,000 miles, but if we're not going to sell put a sale out for five or six years, that 100,000 is going to be 100,000 miles in five or six years. you're back up to 150 200,000 miles. So, so we gave you that number, but but we're also trying to project into the future um with that. And uh before we get any other questions,
061if there are any, I do want to say when you see most of this detail uh and most of the ROM and most everything else, it's it's directly related to Bob Anderson. Uh Bob will be uh going in for uh last day tomorrow for some surgery and then he'll be retiring in June. And I would be very very remiss if if I didn't take a moment to to thank him for the amount of work that he has done, the depth of the work that he has done, the quality of the work that he has done. When you put this out to uh five contractors and five architects and they all come back and tell you that the numbers are spot-on and the numbers are reflective of inflation and the numbers are exactly what they would
062come up with, then you know you have somebody that's providing information that is is outstanding. And so as you look through this flash drive, I'm handing it to you, but Bob's the one that did all the work. So please understand that I don't want to take any credit for it. It's a tremendous amount of effort that he put in. Um and uh I just want to thank him publicly for that because he's done an amazing job with it. Thank you. Oh yeah, right. [Applause] Well, I think all of you guys, the committee, you guys did a great job. Um this is actually the first time it's ever been like presented to the board like this. So, you guys did a great job. Um, I don't I don't think I have any. You guys did a
063great job. I think I'm questioned out. Okay. Um, so I guess we can move on to 6.1 to future um requests for future agenda items. You guys have anything that you would like to request? Okay, then I'm going to make a motion to adjurnn at 621. Second. All in favor? I I motion carries five to zero. Sorry about that. I was giving you a chance.