001You sit now. Are you ready? We're good. Good evening. I'd like to call the June 23rd um meeting of the board of education to order. And I need a motion to enter close session for the reasons so stated on the agenda. Do I have a motion? So moved. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor? I. Okay, we will move into close session and be back out here shortly. Thank you. half as big any I can tell you my personal experience coast to coast good evening everyone I'd like to call this meeting to order and welcome everyone to our June 23rd 2025 meeting will start as we always do with the public charge and I will read that the Orange County Board of Education pledges to its citizens to conduct its business in a
002courteous and productive manner, showing respect for fellow board members, staff, and citizens. The board asks its citizens to conduct themselves with the same courtesy toward both school personnel and each other. A moment of silence will be observed before each meeting. In addition to the moment of silence, the board will recite the pledge of allegiance. The board asks that you check your cell phones and other electronic devices to be certain that they are either turned off or on vibrate to avoid interruption of this meeting. And we will now stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. And now we will observe our moment of silence for
003a few moments. Okay, thank you everyone. Uh, Miss Padilla is virtual tonight and Miss Hower is not here. So, um, Miss Padilla, if I forget to ask for your vote or for your comment, just please scream at me. Okay, we will now have our recognitions and we're going to start with uh, graduation 2025 and Mr. Smith, you're already there, so thank you. Thank you. And good evening, Madame Chair Purcell, Vice Chair Richmond, members of the board, uh, here and online tonight, Dr. Jones, and everyone here. Uh, to all our educators, especially in our many supporters and the members of the class of 2025. And thank you, Joel, for scrolling along. We're excited to congratulate and recognize the 586 graduates who have now joined the ranks of alumni in Orange County schools and are now embarking
004on the next chapter of their journey. Students with options to enroll in post-secary education, to enter the workforce, or to enlist in the military included 312 at Orange High, 255 at Cedar Ridge, and a record 19 graduates at Partnership Academy High School. And you all watched every single one of them. And that was a lot of smiling, a lot of handholding, and a lot of waving. Success stories abounded. Uh we were fortunate to hear from inspiring student speakers. We shared stories of graduates earning admission and scholarship offers at highly competitive schools in the past few months. Numerous students uh and families shared their future plans during the hashtag OCS senior spotlight campaign. We're really excited at the kind of positivity that has erupted as folks are celebrating our graduates. Uh and um these are just
005a few of the esteemed members of this class. So we we're excited to let you know that the photo albums and the student speeches have been augmented. We've posted the videos on YouTube and they're now on the page. So, if you visited orangecountyfirst.com/graduation and you're wondering if anything new is is around, tonight's your night. So, um we're excited that those videos are posted and we'll keep updating as much content as we can find and sharing. Once again, congratulations to our graduates. We look forward to sharing stories of their success as alumni in the future. And that's all I have on graduation. Thank you very much. And I would like to say that the graduations went without a hitch and they were perfect and I think everybody did a fantastic job. I know the the teachers
006that were helping were doing a great job and principles did a great job. Student speakers, as you said, did a great job. Um, it was it was pretty awesome to watch. So, thank you to all of those that were involved in all of this. Madam Chair, yes. Can can I just add I was looking at the photo albums today and thinking of my friends who had graduates and if you are a parent, check out the photo albums because there might be fantastic pictures online of your child. We don't make any guarantees, but we sure do we sure do work pretty hard to catch at least one photo of every member of the graduating classes. And it's a it's an exciting project for us because again it's why we're here. Um it would we would we
007would stay here all night to thank all the people but it would be totally worthwhile because the number of folks at the schools here in the district and throughout the community who make graduation happen and for all the right reasons is truly astounding. So um huge congratulations to everyone involved and and just so you know from everybody knows from the principal point of view this doesn't just start in May. It starts in January, December, January, as you start planning for all of this. So, it's it's not something that you just do at the last minute. It's a process and it's it takes time. So, congratulations um to all the schools. We're very proud of you. Okay. Our next um recognition is from Mr. Jason Johnson. Mr. Johnson, why don't you come on up here? Uh
008what can we say that hasn't already been said? Uh, and I could stop there. Mr. Johnson is uh he's always here at board meetings for somebody else. It's kind of nice that he's here on his own behalf tonight because he's almost always celebrating someone. Um, it's got to be thousands of people by now who have received a phone call from him or have heard him on the morning announcements literally telling them that he loves them. Uh, and now North Carolina is going to get a taste of that medicine. Right. We are very very excited that out of 2,500 public school principles, uh, this man whom his children lovingly, any students, do they call you the goat? All right. Um, he's wearing it proudly. And we're very proud to present Mr. Jason Johnson to you as
009our Orange County Schools, North Central Region, and North Carolina Principal of the Year. [Applause] just I was just joking about calling you to go earlier. Um well, let me just say first of all, thank you for having me here tonight. I truly appreciate it. It is an honor. Um, I couldn't do it without, you know, the school board support as well as just the entire Orange County community support, my student support, my staff support, my family support, and also Dr. Jones support. Dr. Jones played a key pivotal role in me winning this award. Up until the point I'm at the award ceremony, I see Kevin just pop out of nowhere. Then I realized Dr. Jones knew about it before I did. And and people keep asking me, they say, "Well, what were you thinking about
010when you was on the stage?" The first thing I thought about was Dr. Jones knew. That was actually the first thing I thought, but she is a phenomenal leader. She's a great mentor and I truly appreciate everything she's done for me. Like, she's built that confidence. So, I truly appreciate that. Thank you. With that said, I am looking forward to the next year. I'm extremely nervous about the next year. Uh, but I'm excited and I'm excited about having the opportunity to go out and advocate for school leaders, for public education in general. And you know, I expect while I'm not advocating, you're advocating, Dr. Jones is advocating, the team is advocating because, you know, right now public education is in a special spot. And to me, in my mind, it's very interesting that we have
011so many black and brown students. Now we're in an interesting spot. Think about that. You know, let that rest with you for a little while. So, it's gonna take all of us to be out there advocating. Um, one of the things I mentioned in my interview and I talked about after my interview as well, if I win, this is not the Jason Johnson show. This is the all of us show and we got to take it out there and we got to make sure we're advocating for our students. But with that said, thank you. And I would love to come in there and shake everybody hand because I see everybody that gets recognized. They get to go there and shake everybody hand. Thank you. Have your picture made with us too. Sorry. Yeah. Okay. Wait
012soon. Congratulations. [Applause] All right. Now, we get need to adopt our agenda. Do I have a motion to do so? So moved. Second. All in favor? I I Okay. Agenda is approved. And we have public comments. Mr. Richmond, do we have any tonight? We have one. Okay. Yep. We will now hear public comments. Speakers will be called in order in which they signed up. Each speaker will have three minutes. Yielding time to other speakers is not permitted. If a speaker has written materials they would like to share, please hand them to our board clerk, Franklin McHune, and he will distribute them to the board. The purpose of public comment is for the board to hear from members of the public, not to engage in back and forth discussions. Per our policy, board members will not
013respond to speakers during the public comment session. The board greatly values public feedback and welcomes all comments regardless of viewpoint. However, please be reminded that children are often present at these meetings and that our public comment policy prohibit prohibits profanity, vulgarity, and personal abuse of any person. We ask that all comments be civil, respectful, and free of personal attacks. Any speaker who violates our public comment period or otherwise exceeds the bounds of order and decor will be given a warning. Continued violations may result in the speaker being ruled out of order, at which point we will move on to the next speaker. Our only speaker for tonight is Lynn Carwell. Good evening, Chair Purcell, board members, Dr. Jones. As we end the school year, I'd like to express my gratitude. Thank you to our teachers
014and staff who work tirelessly to provide our students with the best possible education and school experience. I'm sure many of them will be working this summer preparing for next school year, but I hope they will also take some well-deserved time for rest and enjoyment. I also want to express my appreciation for the work done by our district leadership. Attending schoolboard meetings regularly and watching your clear and detailed presentations has enabled me to gain a deeper understanding of the vital work you do to help our students succeed. A special thank you to Dr. Jones and Miss Rhonda Wrath for your res resourcefulness in stretching our limited budgetary funds to meet our district needs as best possible at a time when many school districts are facing overwhelming financial challenges. I appreciate the work that you along with
015the school board have done to keep us financially stable. I agreed with I agree with board of county commissioners chair Jamesa Bedford who in an email response to my request to fully fund the Orange County schools continuation budget said they you all have exhibited strong financial management skills. Thank you. Now looking ahead with anticipation to the upcoming school year I have a request for schoolboard members. I understand that your next meeting in July will be the annual board organizational meeting. I respectfully ask that you consider selecting Miss Wendy Padilla if she's willing to chair the community engagement committee. Miss Padilla is experienced in community building and would be beneficial in connecting which would be beneficial in connecting with all Orange County school families. She also has established relationships within the Latino community, a particularly vulnerable
016part of our community. Her bilingualism would be an asset in facilitating effective communication for conversations during community engagement meetings. I also request that the community engagement committee have an increased number of meetings this year. If we want community members to feel comfortable sharing ideas and concerns, it's essential that we establish connection and it takes time and consistency to build trust. additional meetings would help facilitate this. I appreciate your consideration. Thank you. Thank you. And we appreciate you're speaking to us tonight. Thank you. All right. Any That's the only one we have. Correct. Okay. All right. We need to um by mouth please uh approve our consent agenda. Do I have a motion to approve? So moved. Second. All in favor? I I Thank you, Miss Padilla. That is approved. Okay, we will move into our
017work session with our budget discussion with Miss Wrath. Good evening, Chair Purcell, Vice Chair Richmond, members of the board, superintendent, staff, and public. This evening, uh we are just going to discuss with you our fisc year 26 budget uh that we will have back before you for final approval at your first meeting in August. Right now we're going to discuss uh what we know at this point in time. Let me get to the right place. Okay. So we currently know that we are managing a shortfall in our local funding which has created a little pressure on our fiscal planning. At the same time, we also know that we do not have a state budget and we do not know what that is going to be at this point in time either. Um, we can't make
018firm projections right now um without all of that information, but we are preparing for a range of scenarios which include uh flat to reduced state funding. We do anticipate some decreases in state funding which we have been planning for as a result of our uh student enrollment declining. But we'll talk about that a little bit more um as we go through the rest of this presentation. But we do know um right now that the commissioners did approve to fund us um at a reduced number for what we asked for for our continuation budget. So we do know in our local budget right now that we do have a $25,000 shortfall. So when we take a look at our budget locally this year in comparison to how we were funded for fiscal year 25, the year
019that we are just closing out on Monday, June the 30th, um we do have an increase in our funding of 1.2 million. Uh even though we are still short um that $200,000, our per pupil funding did increase $211, but the number of students that we have enrolled did decrease 78. Here's a look um visually at our budget by object. An object is basically the service or commodity of an expenditure. And they're broken down into these five categories, which basically are your salaries, your benefits, your purchase services, your supplies and materials, and then what we transfer out to the charter schools. And as you can see in the bar graph, um our total budget for fiscal year 25 in comparison to 26, um we're pretty much in line. next year with where we were this year.
020Uh the main increases are going to be in your salaries and benefits, which we are still projecting um a 3% increase in our legislative salaries. We do know for certain that benefits are going to be increasing and we do know that we're continuing to see increases in all of our other areas uh such as utilities, purchased uh food, uh gasoline, and other supplies. And of course um unfortunately our charter school transfers is also continuing to show an increase. If you look at fiscal year 26 just by itself uh in the pi graph out here to your right you can see that in our local budget roughly 70% of that total budget funds salaries and benefits. um 100% of the local supplements that the board provides are funded locally. And so we uh do have a
021good percentage of salaries that are also funded locally. So balancing the budget is our goal and what we will do. So, um, we've been taking a critical look at, um, a lot of our spending and we are continuing to do that. We will continue to tighten our discretionary spending and to defer any nonent uh, essential expenses where we can. We're going to shift funds um, and other areas to critical programs. um utilize opportunities where if we can utilize state funds or federal funds and relieve some of the stress on the local budget, we will be looking to do that. We're going to continue to streamline processes and reduce redundancies. We will protect core services and programs and we will preserve staff capacity where at all possible. Here is a draft look at our total fiscal
022year 26 budget broken down by each of our funding sources. As you can see um our operating budget in total um increased roughly $800,000. That's primarily um in our local and state funding as a result of the increases that we are anticipating hopefully with uh salary increases for our staff. Um as you will see below that in our capital budget um that number is down in fiscal year 26. And keep in mind that the bond does not kick in until fiscal year 27. that we are projected to get 10.7 million in new funding in capital next year and that in conjunction with the carryover that we have we're estimating that we'll be at 33.8. Um our operations team has done a phenomenal job of working on getting those uh carryover balances in our capital spent
023and uh that is reflected here. So in total our beginning budget that we are looking to begin fiscal year 26 with is 145.2 million. Um I didn't address this but another decrease is if you recall in our federal budgets for this fiscal year we still had er carryover um that sunset in September of 2024. So, their federal budget, the beginning budget for last year was higher than it's anticipated being going forward. So, what's ahead? We're going to continue to review our departmental budgets and we're going to continue to scale back and consolidate where appropriate until we know um all of the implications with what's happening federally as well as where our state budget is going to land. We're going to continue to plan very conservatively and to be prepared. We are um going to put
024a budget before you in August and we will be providing budget amendments regularly as uh those budgets change. So if we do not have a state budget when this comes before you in August for final approval, at the time that we get a state budget, a budget amendment will be coming to um amend that budget. We're not anticipating any significant um impacts at this time that we have not already planned for, but just in case we're surprised, uh we continue to review our state teaching aotments annually with our principles and um we have a good process in place and we reviewed those this year and were prepared based upon the enrollment numbers that we were seeing and were able to plan accordingly. ly um student outcomes will always take a priority and we hope to
025have a final approved budget at the August 18th um board meeting. And that's all I have. Do you have any questions for me? Miss Mo. Um yes, thank you for going through all of that with us. Um, and um, one thing I'm wondering is the $2 million reduction in the federal funds because of ESSER. Um, have we already absorbed like all of the impacts of that or are there other things that are we're going to need to cut from the budget budget moving forward as a result of that? So, um if you recall, we were already planning um for the ESSER funding clift and we already planned and adjusted uh those initiatives that we're we're wanting to continue and they were um funded. Okay. So um based upon what we know right now, you know,
026we are still um there's a lot of unknowns at this point, but based upon the information that we have received, uh we don't anticipate uh any other cuts than we have already uh planned for. Okay. And no other indication on the federal level of what may happen. Unfortunately, I wish I could say that I had more information. Me, too. But we're just we're just dealing very well with what we do now. So we we will just continue to plan and just to be conservative. Yeah. Makes sense, Miss Do. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Wrath. I appreciate the presentation and the supporting documents. Um, and I just also had a question about the federal dollars because I know we've talked this year about, you know, about six million of our dollars is federal and we've been
027concerned about cuts um to federal programs. And so when I'm looking at the um like the federal planning aotment um document um I'm adding up those and those don't quite get me. I think they got me to like 3.4 million or something. What what would be in our federal grants part of the pie that wouldn't be in that federal like like the the word federal grants like how is help me with the language comparing like our federal grants versus our allotments because most of the allotments are labeled grants. So what's the how do you interchange those words and are there other things that aren't captured in that document that that round out those dollars? Uh yes. So you ask a very good question. Um we always there are carryover in federal and particularly in title
028one we um are allowed to carry over I think it's 13 or 15% and um typically we do do that to bridge the gap between the time that we receive the funding because of when the federal budgets are um approved which is normally October and you know our year starts in August when we have students back and we want to be able to able to fund all of those initiatives that are funded through title one. So we do hold back to carry over. So that is u what that difference is primarily. There's a few other small grants that we do have a little bit of a carryover in but it's primarily in title one. Okay. So so you could use federal a lotments, federal grants. You could use those phrases interchangeably. Okay. Great. Thank you.
029Thank you for asking the question, Mr. Ashton. Thank you as always for uh giving us all the details and insights and staff for helping especially when we're getting underfunded. Um some of the questions that I've I've been getting on this and I just want to say it out loud, I guess, and confirm it. Um I'm always asked about charters and the impact on us. It looks like it's about 6.6 million that's coming out of our money. And I just want to highlight we use that beyond the means of the student. Those are for our supporting programs. And that's a lot of reasons people come to our high schools because of the programs we're able to support. But 6.6 million is quite a bit. I mean, it's more than the federal funding we get. Um, also
030the other one that I normally highlight is one of the benefits we give to our teachers is allowing students to come into our district. And I think we've estimated about a hundredish. Mhm. It's about 115. So that's about 500,000 approximately in benefits we give that we don't sign a check for, but allowing teachers to have their their children in our schools. So I just wanted to highlight that is another great benefit we have. Um so the question I had was uh what is our fund balance at? So um great question. We are closing out the fiscal year right now. So, uh we won't have a final audited fund balance until we actually close our books. Um our fund balance at the end of last year when we look at where we rolled in and closed
031out the afterchool pro uh fund as well as with our um local operating fund. It was around uh I think it was around four to 4.2 million. I'm going off of memory. I'm sorry. I apologize. That's okay. But um that is what our fund balance is until we close. And that's at the time once we close our books and everything is finalized that we will get a pro um a final number for our fund balance. We are projecting that uh we will put uh funds back into fund balance this year. And I know our target for the county is 5.5 of ex of our expendure budget. Um that is the agreement and yes is 5.5 of our expenses will be in fund balance which is not enough to cover our payroll um for one month.
032Uh just our local payroll it is um 5.5% of our expenses is not enough. All right. Thank you so much. Miss Padilla, do you have any questions? No. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation, Mr. Richmond. All right. Thank you so much, Miss Wrath. We greatly appreciate your hard work on this. Okay. Uh, summer capital projects update with Mr. Davis. Good evening. Uh this evening we will go over uh specifically our capital improvement projects this summer, but I also as the leader of our operations department want to highlight some of the many things uh that happened behind the scenes through our operations department um during our summer work. Uh I want to coin the phrase this summer that we're going to finish strong. Uh we finished very strong this year in terms of our efficiency
033um and our attention to details. Um some of the things that finance just articulated was to the hard work of our operations teams making sure we plan accordingly and assess the situations based on the priority needs of our students and staff. And so while we will be discussing the capital projects, I do want to highlight some of the things that all of our operations department are doing to make students and staff uh safe and inviting here at Orange County Public Schools. Again, we want to coin the phrase, and I say this all the time, it's not a broken record. It is, and makes valid sense, that we are the transaction that makes the transformational possible. and operations, we deal with the transaction, the service level uh that make sure our students are well equipped for
034the future. Uh in keeping in that theme of our strategic plan, excellent in efficiency as well as empowering the culture, uh we've started in the springtime assessing and prioritizing what our summer initiative and our summer projects will be. Uh we've incorporated uh stakeholders from uh classroom um facility needs uh cafeteria needs some of the things that we'll talk about shortly. Uh we brought in the stakeholder, the end user, the principles, the staff uh to make sure that what we were replacing or rejuvenating uh fit fit the need of the district and then also most importantly as the dollars are few uh we budgeted and planned accordingly over the next 10 years. And so uh of course uh in our capital our summertime uh is the only true time that we have uh the time to
035get in while students and staff are not in. Unfortunately uh given the complexities of our construction and capital improvement projects these days uh it is not enough time. However, we have been working well with administration to uh bring forth the uh information to them in a timely fashion so we can adjust the academic calendars and schedules uh with the muchneeded improvements in our capital facilities. Uh we've coined uh some of the projects in uh subsectors. So we have our building envelope which would be roofs um some of our athletic facilities tennis track playgrounds uh and some of our indoor air quality needs up fit of HBAC and control needs um before we get into those specific projects some of the things um that our operation and for those who may be listening or don't know
036operations includes transportation uh child nutrition uh safety and security environmental health and services um maintenance and capital instruction and we've met with the team and they've done a great job of planning and what some of the summer things that we would do and our transportation department I want to highlight uh with our bus and fleet management under the leadership of JR Albert we're going to perform preventive full inspections of all of our required buses we're going to look at updating our routes um so that we are efficient in our scheduling we're currently right now I visited we had six enrol roles and our CDL training. Um, so we're trying to get uh Operation 10, two new bus drivers for next year to deal uh with our bus driver shortage. Uh, as well as we've uh
037installed some uh turnbyturn technologies uh to make sure our rights are more efficient to make sure ensure uh that we get students uh on time to school. And our child nutrition department, you've heard from our director Sarah Pittz uh on our summer feeding program. Uh we are constantly looking at updating our equipment and our maintenance needs. Uh we're planning and procurement um for the foods resources that we'll need for next year. Constantly looking at updating our staff to meet the growing demand here in the district as well as looking at our inventory first in first out to make sure we're efficient and buying the produce that we need for nutritious meals. in our maintenance and facilities directed by Hank McKe. Uh we're constantly doing our deep cleaning and so we work with administration during our
038summer programs to make sure we do our deep cleaning. Uh we do our preventative maintenance. So you will see filters being changed as well as looking to make sure our playgrounds are being uh reconstructed as well as uh make sure they're foundational safe for those who are not getting new playgrounds. This year uh we've installed a new work order system. So hopefully we will see the benefits of that. Uh ensuring there's not too many backlogs as well as you will see later while it's a capital improvement. We've worked with our maintenance department for a new cafeteria and uh furniture and classroom furniture refresh. And then safety security you've heard about our awesome camera and uh access control that we are redoing. We will finish that this summer under Andrew P as our director. Uh we
039are constantly revamping our emergency drills and planning for the summer uh as well as our visitor management system uh which is quite impressive. Uh Vice Chair Richmond, you'll be amazed as the detail of a camera system um will save time and you know in law enforcement time is critical and so we are excited about the board approving uh that large pes purchase. Uh but we are definitely seeing the benefits of that. and then capital uh construction under Patrick Florence. We'll hear later of the work that we're doing in our bond management and then in a minute you'll see some of the capital improvement plans we have ongoing this summer. And so here are some of the uh projects that are aligned in our 10-year capital plan as well as our ongoing uh renovations and renewals.
040And so the major projects that you are aware of is we are wrapping up. Effin cheeks is doing a great job being on schedule. Uh this was a comprehensive renovation started about a year and a half ago. Uh it is making strides. We renovated many of the classrooms to bring them up to 21st century learning. And uh of course you'll hear more about uh K5 Elementary School, but that is one of our major capital improvement projects that we will be moving forward. It is slated to open uh in 29 uh school year uh 2030. Seems so far away but yet so close. And then we'll be in contain in conjunction uh looking our student reassignment master plan. Uh later on tonight we'll talk about utilization rates and how we want to make sure we again
041are efficient in our right sizing of the district. So you hear more about that. Um exciting news. Orange High is getting a refresh and uh rejuvenation to their band and and restroom facilities as well as uh student and and uh employee parking as well as we are uh re uh doing the tennis courts. Uh unfortunately during the warranty period uh we found some engineering faulties. Um however good news that we're still under contract and we will be able to make sure that those are safe inviting tennis facilities for our young scholars. Uh some other things that we mentioned just want to highlight in those categories, life safety, again the district-wide cameras, uh district-wide safety film that has been uh well approved throughout the district pathways as well as partnership are getting new security vestibules. Uh
042in our life safety replacement categories, we are replacing the roof at New Hope Elementary. Uh two new playgrounds at Pathways and Grady Brown. Uh we also are doing furniture refreshes at Orange Middle, Orange High, Hillsboro Elementary, and Cedar Ridge High School. In our indoor air quality, we have uh two uh major HBAC projects. The uh New Hope uh HBAC replacement of eight air handlers as well as some district-wide controls. So, a lot is going on in the district. a lot of uh behind the scenes work but again as I stated we are the transaction uh that makes the transformational possible with that we have any questions that you may have thank you so much questions Miss Molly yeah this is great thank you so much for the update um so that bottom line of things
043the life safety life cycle replacements HVAC um are all of those also So going to finish up this summer? No. And so uh as I stated earlier, we are phasing the HVAC, uh project, um where we have limited disruption, um but we can't shut down all of the zones of the school at one time. Um and so uh it is a phase approach uh that will have limited disruption, but that should finish up uh closer to the end of the calendar year. Okay. Yeah. But, uh, the air handlers, uh, that we are replacing, um, have a 20-year warranty. Um, and so, you know, even though it is a may be some small headaches, uh, in the long run, it's a beneficial to the district and to the school. That's great. That's great. And I also
044saw you didn't um mention it, but one of the things on the consent tonight was the duck work cleaning for Orange Middle and Cedar Ridge, which I would I mean I am always shocked with operations at how expensive things are to do in this kind of a setting, but um I'm sure that'll make a big difference for indoor air quality at both of those schools as well. So that's great. Thank you, Miss Dol. Um thank you, Mr. Davis. I was just going to say I had the opportunity to be at Orange High School this week and was excited to see the band renovation um for the the removing the tiered floors underway as well as um other projects underway and the great new track. So, it's exciting to see this work happen. So, thank you,
045Mr. Uh just wanted to echo what everybody's saying. It's wonderful, Mr. was to get these updates and also you know when we look at the Wolfford report that reflects that we are maintaining our buildings and ensuring the highest quality for our teachers and students especially air quality as mentioned and seeing that getting our yearly report uh seeing the duck work doing all the right things to ensure these are very safe buildings um really excited to hear about the new work order system I know there's been challenges in the past and people thing. It's It was a very very old system. The new badge and camera system, I've heard a lot of positive feedback, especially at the schools on just being able to get in and out of the building and the consistencies. Um I had
046a couple of questions that I apologize if you're you're maybe not prepared for it, but um originally when we got the discussion about the band room, they also talked about the chorus room being renovated as well. is are both being done or just the band room? I I don't have perspective on both having to be done, but they were both being looked at. So, I was just curious if they were both being done. I will respond via email to get you the exact details. Uh I I want to say yes. Um but I can't put a visual of how adjacent the brand and core room are, but I can definitely provide that feedback. It it's okay. I I know the ban was the priority given the concerns. So, I appreciate us staying on focus on
047that, but it was just curiosity. The other one I had a curiosity about is we had gotten a a solar charging grant and I I'm curious if we have any any I didn't see it on the list and I know, you know, it's kind of a a newer thing for us, but I was just curious if we had any insight on that. Yes. Um, and not to put Mr. Patrick Florence on the spot, but we did talk about that last week. Uh come up and give him some details. I know we're in the planning stages, but he can give more details. Yeah, we had a really unique opportunity where um both transportation and what we were doing and they got a grant for five electric buses. They've been working handinand as have we with U
048Thomas built buses or rather uh Thomas Carolina. I actually went to to ASU with uh with one of the owners. But at any rate, the the challenge we had is that the type of charger was left open. There was infrastructure money. And so these solar panels, which we have a um a building permit, because I walked that through, is ready to be installed, and that will dovetail with the charger. We hope to have that in the next 30 to 45 days. Oh wow. Can you can you remind us where they'll be installed at? Uh yes, the uh the plateau, the elevated area uh above orange middle uh that kind of open uh field is within proximity to a transformer that reduced the cost. uh unused space, no trees, perfect southern orientation, and potentially we could
049actually, depending on how the the 10-year plan plays out, energize the uh the new auditorium at Orange Middle East standing by itself. It will have that capacity, but yeah, it is imminent. Fantastic. I know the only other question I get and I'm sure others get is uh charging stations for teachers. One thing at a time, I know, but that's fantastic. Thank you for the update. Well, the cliche is charge for charge. We're not there yet. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Davis. Miss Padilla, thank you. I just wanted to compliment Mr. Davis and his staff and say that I'm delighted to hear about the work order. That was one of the things that people kept asking about. So, thank you. Thank you. Any other questions? Make a quick comment. Yes, sir. Yeah. Kudos to you
050and your team. I know how hard you guys work and uh everyone does a wonderful job. I did get a chance. I have seen the film. The film looks great um from the outside. So, that's very valuable. I think it'll be very energy efficient as well. And the camera system is going to be excellent, too. I've seen that, too. And it's going to I think it's going to work well for all emergency uh responders. So, That's that's all good stuff. So, thank you. I'd just like to add that I'm very impressed with everything that you all are doing and I know it's I know what summertime is like. It's busy busy busy. Um I'm very excited about the cameras. I have heard nothing but great things about that and I think that is big plus
051for this district and each one of our schools. So, thank you. No, thank you. For everything that you are doing. Thank you. All right. Any other comments? All right. Thank you, sir. I think you're going to stay up here. I don't know why you're trying to sneak away. I apologize. I apologize because we got to talk about the bond project. All right. Um, good evening again. Uh we uh are here to discuss the bond update. Uh board knows but many may not know in our finance and capital improvement uh we talked about uh now that we've selected the car uh building the car and components of building that car. And so uh in a minute Mr. uh Steve Hess who's been one of our influential consultants in helping us forge all of this data and
052and and information together will give a summary of of what we discuss uh and then we'll take some questions uh from board members. Uh we this is on um action and the action um after uh Mr. Hess and I give this presentation is that we uh determine the appropriate project delivery method for the K5 elementary school. uh as well as we would like for you uh to point us in the right direction on an appropriate uh utilization rate. Um Mr. Hesk will talk more about the importance of that utilization rate. Um it is not a number that has to be set in stone. Um but it does give us guidance as we continue this work uh for making sure the K5 elementary school uh is the best in the state. I can assure you that.
053So with that, I will bring it to Mr. has to give you a summary. Thank you. Thank you, madame uh chair, vice chair Richmond, board members, Dr. Jones, and uh staff. Thank you all for having me. We're here to talk about Thank you very much. Thank you. Um I'm here tonight to talk about three different things. um the educational specifications that KI and Clark Nexon have developed project delivery methods and utilization rates. Okay. So um KI and Clark Nexon the team that worked on the feasibility study also has provided educational specifications to be used for our master planning exercise and the development of the K5 uh elementary school. Um they looked at DPI standards. They combined the feedback and information that that we gathered during our community engagement sessions earlier this year. And they also
054looked at uh the enrollment studies for OCS. And what they've done is the deliverable that will be provided uh in a larger format that you all be able to read with more detail basically compares the DPI standards with uh standards that KI and Clark Nexon recommend to make sure that the design specifications that the selected design team use for the K5 meet the engagement community engagement goals that we discussed earlier this year. And each uh the deliverable will have uh room data sheets that help guide the designer to make sure that they provide uh specifications to provide consistency across OCS schools not only for the new school but during renovations and um repairs to the existing schools. There'll be graphic representations of adjacencies and it'll also help uh the design team to have a loose
055set of standards but also have creativity to solve the problems for each school. So we just wanted to share and let you know that we are making sure that KEI and Clark Nexon provided this valuable information for the next step with the K5. So, we've talked about project delivery methods at some other meetings and I just wanted to do a review and summary of the project delivery methods used by state construction office for K through2 schools. And those three methods are design bid build which are used about 15% of the time across the state. Construction management risk which is used about 80% of the time and then design build which is used about 5% of the time. The most important thing in choosing a team and having a team is getting to choose the right
056team members for your team. making sure we have an opportunity to meet the people that we we'll be working with over one to three years. The design team is somebody that we'll be working with for about two and a half years. And the same with the construction team, they basically overlap. And it's important to be able to have the ability to meet your team and choose the most qualified team for your project. And I think each uh delivery method has a variability in team selection. With hard bid and with all three well with hard bid and construction management at risk, the owner chooses the designer through a qualified selection process and interview. With design build, the owner chooses one team. the contractor brings that team to the owner for the owner's review. So really at
057the end of the day, you're choosing you're you're choosing the contractor and the folks that they've brought. Um so there's a little bit less flexibility in having agency and choosing the entire team with design build in the way that uh North Carolina State Construction Office regulates it. There's option A and option B. Option A is the design the contractor brings the entire team. They choose the designers, the consultants and the subcontractors or they'll choose uh the design designers and then they'll open they'll bid the subcontractors. So there's even less control over the selection there. Each system is uh has its advantages. We believe that CM at Risk is the best system for Orange County and for K through2 systems in general. We've done a survey which I'll show you uh in a few slides where
058a lot of the participants also believe that CM at risk is the best method. Uh with the the difference is between the three uh with design with the design bid build there's little or no contractor input on the design process. The owner engages the con the designer throughout design. You can have a third-party cost estimator or constructability review performed but those are outside consultants that don't really have any skin in the game. with CM at risk. You choose your construction partner um during design and the construction partner helps with uh cost estimating throughout the design constructibility review and just with any team the larger the more voices you have at the table, the more input and more experience that you get which benefits your project. And then design build design build the contractor will bring
059that qualified team but we don't really have as much input through the process. There is an open book where we can the owner does sit at all the meetings for design build but at the end of the day the owner is more of a of an influencer less of a decision maker because the contractor is the decision maker. Uh, with owner review, I kind of touched upon that. Um, there's not much difference between hard bid and CM at risk. With owner review, the owner gets to review the design throughout the process. Conceptual, schematic, design, development. Uh with design build, the owner gets to review up to design development and then the contractor decides, you know, how to implement the plan. Cost um really with uh with hard bid or design bid build, we can work
060with an estimator and come up with an estimate, but we really don't know the cost until the envelopes are ripped open at a hard bid. And that's a fixed process uh a fixed uh cost and generally we need to go with the lowest qualified bidder. With CM at risk we have cost and design reviews going on concurrently throughout the design process. There's options for value engineering and exploration of ways to meet your targets. And there's also bid alternates. So, we can decide to have a car with shiny wheels, a car with chrome wheels, a car with aluminum wheels, and so on and so forth. Not to wear on the analogy too much, but um and then design build. Design build is is a hybrid and offers a little bit of the best of both worlds
061when it comes to cost. Uh board members that we talked to uh earlier were correct. There is a way to have an anticipated cost. So what happens is you we engage an architect and design team they provide the performance specs and then the design build contractors bid the project and that's they come up with I think it's called anticipatory cost budget from that point they design the project and they have to make sure that their GP GMP meets that budget but what happens is there's inherent uh risk built into that bid. So the design bid contractor increases their bid to cover some of the risk that they don't know. Um that money is shared with the owner and comes back to the owner. So in some ways CM at risk and design build have the
062same cost sharing and open book atmosphere that uh of of each other. So there's not much difference between CM at risk and design build when it comes to cost savings in open book. So thank you for bringing that point up to me. I wasn't aware of that and I reviewed that and I appreciate that. So uh we talked basically about the the budget certainty already. And here's a chart that you all have seen that compares the three different uh delivery methods. And this is a survey that we did. We had uh we went out to about 35 35 to yeah 35 architects and GC's across the state that do K through 12 uh design and construction. We had 19 respondents and one of the questions was which project delivery method do you recommend and do
063you prefer working with? You can see that 70% of them chose a CM at risk. We asked the highest return on investment. Which delivery method provides the highest ROI? 65% chose CM at risk. And one of the reasons that they cited was that you can adjust the scope to the budget during design because of that iterative feedback loop with the contractor and the design team. We also asked them to rank their preferred method. And um there was this was very interesting to me almost two almost a half well definitely over a third seven seven firms chose design build now note that all those were uh GC's so design build is definitely preferred by GC's but you can see that um you know we talked earlier only 5% of the contracts have been um delivered design
064build so there is definitely an interest by GC's to pursue the design build method and I think That's because they believe that they can control their own destiny with managing schedule and cost. Uh any questions with project delivery methods? I just have one miss brief question and thank you so much for explaining this in such um different layers and detail like you have here as well as in our committee meeting. Um that slide that you just had with the um survey results. Can you explain to me um what's the concept there with the flip in our blue and orange and one and two that about 233% versus seven perver uh preferred design bid build versus design build but kind of the flip for return on investment what's the rationale there so I can only interpret
065and and make some assumptions I think that um there's there's still a large contingency that believe um or or that provid build. So that's why there's 23%. There's 23% of the respondents are leaning back towards uh hard bid or design bid build. I'm not sure why the same group of participants said that there was less ROI on design bid build. It may be from my personal experience that it's it's much more um a contentious process. All three processes for the most part rely upon competitive low bids for for subcontractors. So 80 80 to 90% of your construction cost is still competitive low bid. So there is um a certain amount of cont subcontractors need to price plans and specs and do ask for change orders because if they price in all the anticipated scope they
066will lose the job. So they're by the design they have to price plans and specs and then ask for change orders. Um with CM at risk, the contractor builds a contingency and manages through the design. So there should be less uh chance for um uh change orders because they're not just pricing plans and specs. They're pricing the entire job. Okay. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Miss Molly, thank you. Um and my questions actually are about the previous section about the educational specifications. Okay. If that's okay. Um uh because a lot of this we discussed in the finance committee and that makes sense to me. Um so um and here's what's going on in my head and I think this is what the question is. So there's sort of the DPI minimum standards for spaces. Um and
067I have an interest in making sure that we build high quality wonderful beautiful schools for at the cheapest price possible. And so, you know, DPI has sort of a minimum size for a classroom. Well, if I know it wouldn't be this, but let's say OCS's standard was double that size. Well, that's double the square footage, double the price of the classroom, right? So, um uh I guess I'm interested how far off from sort of DPI minimums would the OCS are the are the recommended OCS standards? um because my hope is that we won't compromise on sort of too much on the quality of of the space, but also we'll I really want to make sure that our dollars go as far as they can um here. So, just curious, I guess, how much square footage
068is impacted versus like DPI minimums. It's a great question and what I will tell you is that we will definitely be doing a deep dive once we start design of the school and once we look at the master portfolio uh master planning of the portfolio to make sure that we're um being as efficient as possible. I think the difference between what the design team chose uh over DPI standards they were trying to implement some of the feedback from community engagement. So, I think there's some more spaces that are dedicated to CTE. There there may be some more spaces that are like flex classrooms that could be used in the future because we're designing a school in 2025 that's going to last for 50 years. So, we we the amount of change that's going to happen
069is exponential over the next 25 to 50 years. So, I think they're trying to design schools for flexibility. But to your concern, we will address cost efficiency, highest ROI uh during the conceptual and schematic design. Okay. So we won't be like sharing these standards and saying you know these are guidelines. These are guidelines. Okay. Okay. Um and then can I ask another question on this? Okay. Um and then so another question is you know something we have talked about I have definitely advocated for it in the I'm not sure the board is aligned on this, but um is setting an energy use efficiency target for um the in the RFP or whatever this bidding process is. So an energy use efficiency target is essentially if we um recognizing the climate emergency that we are in
070and that more efficient buildings also save us money and all of these things, right? That they can pay for themselves in the longer term, not in our short term. um that by that the way that school districts achieve this is by establishing an energy use efficiency target as part of the expectation for the project. And so I'm wondering whether I I see some other sort of in the space considerations. I see like low VOC and I see like other things about like um uh you know natural light and stuff. I'm not an expert in these things. I just have read a little bit about this like energy use um target being an essential part of making sure that you get as close as you can to like a a zero energy school. All those are
071excellent questions and right now this is just a framework. We will get into the details and uh the energy use index there's a number based on energy use standards that we will achieve uh and we will put in that RFQ uh that the designer must meet this number that the board has already you know discussed and we will put that in the RFP that part of their assessment will be to showcase how they've built other schools with this low energy use index because that is important to this district. So we definitely will have that as a part of the narrative to select uh both our uh designers and our construction manager is if that is the delivery method chosen today. Okay, that's awesome. Thank you so much for that. Yeah, I know a lot of
072times like it sounds like in the processes like that's sort of a later calculation. So the idea of knowing ahead of time what we're targeting which I mean we're happy to approve but I'm you all the purpose that number this educational standards is it provides you the breadcrumbs of how the building gets built and so uh these comments that you're giving us today we will take those and continue to use those uh in the narrative for uh the RFQ. Okay. Thank you. Yeah I've got that note already. Okay. Any other questions? Yeah. So um thank you for the presentation and thank you for looking back and clarifying uh some of the items. Um I I too am interested in the energy efficiency and also before recommendations like a geothermal. I definitely would like to know
073our results at Orange High School since we've had that in place and to see if that is really worth the tradeoff the experience in the classrooms you know etc. Just to confirm that also within that thinking about the environment, I I would like us to consider as well um water reclaiming systems for watering within the the building and sites. I know we've looked at the water costs that we have at a lot of our schools and they're very high especially with some of the double rates that we get from the town. Um, so any of those systems we can look at as well to help us in our overall cost and environmentally friendly. Um, the the other item or comment I had was really for the board. I would like for us to try to
074vote on this one and then move to the discussion of the um percentage because they're kind of two topics and just anything we have on this vote on it and then move to the next one since there's kind of two items here. Okay. I mean, if nobody has any Is that okay with everybody to do that? The delivery system first. And if that is the board's pleasure, I'll look to to legal. It is a resolution. Do they need to state that there's a resolution in the materials? You don't need to read the resolution. You sometimes do that for the symbolic impact, but you should be aware that the the resolution um notes that the board has compared and considered the advantages and disadvantages of the school construction methods and picked CMR at risk. So, uh
075your vote could be to approve that resolution. Right. I I was only pointing out the uh the second part of this discussion is really talking about um what capacity numbers we want to hit. And all I was saying was let's just separate them out instead of having to Totally agree. It could be a separate action item. Um just noting that the the vote would be to approve the resolution as as well drafted resolution, but um you should be aware that that's what you're brewing. Are there any other questions? Okay. Do I have a motion to approve the bond project delivery method and the resolution that we have been given tonight? So moved. Do I have a second? Second. Second. All in favor? I I I thank you Miss Padilla. Okay, it is approved. Thank you.
076And the final uh topic again Mr. Hes will come back again there's not an action for this. Uh we're just bringing it to your understanding. Uh again to provide us guidance u Mr. Hess will briefly go over what the utilization rate is again. Um but this is uh just for more discussion than action at this time. Thank you. So uh utilization rate is important because it helps us understand how to plan the size of the K5 uh ele the K5 school at Grally Hill Middle Gra site. Um, we've been talking uh since we last met and and one of the things that we're strongly leaning towards is looking at a 600 uh student school with the possibility that it could be designed for 600 but perhaps built for 450 and then expanded if necessary too.
077So that provides a relief valve, additional capacity in case the utilization rate needs to change because of a sudden influx in students or or population growth. So just trying to keep that in the back of our mind. But the most important one of the another reason for the utilization rate is to help us with um the redistricting and school attendance study that will need to be done and the master plan of the other school buildings as we look to uh improve uh the existing stock of schools to make sure that they meet educational standards of the 21st century. All right. Utilization rate. So we uh looked at two different studies. One was the trends that uh we g that we gathered from uh Orange County schools staff uh which showed a trend from 2016 to
0782025 of a decline in enrollment of 8 and a quarter 8 and a quarter% for elementary, 8.44% 44% for middle school and uh less than 1% for um high school. The 2025 SAP FO Orange County student projections done by Carolina Demographics showed a slightly less um uh decrease in u population over the next 10 years. Now, our study was looking backward just to see where we were from 2016 to 2025. The uh Carolina Demographic study was a projection from 2024 through 2034. They showed they still showed negative population growth in the county. We uh did a study of uh utilization rates and I've talked to several counties, Meckllinburgg uh county, they were gracious enough to spend an hour with me on the phone since we last met and they don't they don't use utilization studies
079the way that we do. They actually use utilization rates on a per teacher a per teacher um a teacher per school. So when they look at a utilization rate they just count the number of teachers in a school as opposed to the percentage of students versus uh available seats. So slightly different but they've had uh an influx and they've been struggling with growth for several years. And one of the things that I've noticed in several rural counties across the country, they rural there's a national trend demographically of declining of a decline in uh birth rate and K through 12 enrollment because of the birth rate. And there is um however certain pockets like larger schools or larger cities do have population growth. So, rural schools are planning for higher utilization rates uh or and well,
080I'm sorry, lower schools have lower utilization rates because basically they have more building stock than students. Larger uh urban centers have higher utilization rates because they can't build uh quick enough to keep up with the population growth. So that's the largest the largest change or difference between the two different rates. What we found is that the mean utilization rate across four or five different examples was 93% for elementary, 88% for um middle school and about 90% for high school. OED recommends uh a utilization rate of 85 to 95%. uh Woolper um had a wider range which really covered themselves but I don't say so myself of between 80 and 100%. That's I don't know how many deviations that is but it's a lot. Um anyway so we believe that the ideal re utilization rate would
081be somewhere between 85 and 95%. And I want to reiterate as a construction planner, the higher the utilization rate means more money to spend on schools because the higher utilization rate will mean that we're going to build a smaller elementary school, perhaps 450, and use the rest of those funds to improve the other schools. That's that's the most important thing to me as far as you know providing a higher ROI for our students. So um that's all I have. I have the background for any uh any of the articles can be uh researched with the QR code. Um the utilization rate is important to help with our transportation study and our master planning as we move forward into our next phase of design. So any questions? Mr. Athetherton, you look like you have a question.
082Yes. Um so uh one thank you again for um reviewing this and giving us some time to think about it. the the question I have is um and I appreciate the the utilization spreadsheet to kind of look at the possibilities. The the question I have is I I am concerned about building a school smaller than any of our existing schools. That's just a concern I have. Uh but the second one I have is I I hope we're doing the due diligence. If we set a rate of 90% we're looking at all the possibilities which may include shifting schools which means hey is is there a better configuration of our populations of schools and how that would work out when we look at the final recommendation of where students are attending where they're going to be
083going to school. um versus just saying, "Okay, it's x%. We're going to flatten everything and say this is what it is." Because I know finances are going to get more challenging year-over-year. Maintenance and maintaining schools are going to get more expensive. So, I definitely want to make sure we're looking at all the possibilities and seeing what the best is for our community. Al along the same there's a there's a theme that about the it iterative nature and spiraling nature of design that we will dig deeper and deeper into details as uh things progress as design progresses and we will look into that more. One of the things we had a conversation with the OED team over at NC State and one of the questions they had was, "Have you confirmed the capacities of your schools?"
084And what they recommended is looking at each existing school and just double-checking the capacities and making sure that the capacities in the schools meet uh current educational standards. And what that'll do that'll help us understand what our actual utilization rate is. So we may the utilization rate the existing utilization rate of the schools as we've measured current enrollment versus the current capacity standard likely will shift somewhat and we will come back and report that to you. And that will um be an important data point before we lock in on the size of the new school and the size and renovations of the rest of the portfolio. Okay. And I def the only other thing I was going to say is the future design implementation really worked well at Cedar Ridge High School for the Jwing
085and us to be able to add that and also the other smaller gym that was added as well. So, I am a believer in us having the ability and capability to add on as needed and us not, you know, I want to make sure, you know, I'm not advocating for 600 at this point. I'm just saying that I do have concerns the smallest number of there, but also I know the design can work because we've seen it work at Cedar Ridge. So, thank you very much, Miss Molly. Yeah, I think that's interesting. I mean, the reason that our high school capacity is at this level right now is because we added that additional wing because it was like all busting at the seams before that. So, um you know, it's good that we had a
086plan in place where we could add those um that additional wing. Um uh I don't have any questions about this. I mean, I think that 85% to 95% capacity range makes sense. I think the idea of maybe we plan for a smaller school out near Gravaly Hill um with capacity to you know I think that could make sense given you know what we're looking at here. Um my only thought just looking at these numbers is I feel like our sort of master facilities plan has to have some sort of solution that addresses the really low utilization rate in the middle school. even if we hope that you know revitalizing different aspects of middle school in Orange County schools like draws more kids in or you know the the things that we aspire to like that
087is just um that's a pretty big difference. Um, and if we think that that's likely to continue, obviously we didn't go for the K8 option. That would have been like one way to address it, but I I think our master plan has to include something that addresses that um from an efficiency standpoint. Miss Joel, um just a a brief comment. I also like the idea of um the designing for 600 but potentially building for 450 because we haven't completely um tackled the question of you know new or fewer schools. Right now we're we're doing um a new school, but um if we keep seven elementary schools um you know that that will be one outcome and if over time we choose to reduce um like to six, we might need that larger capacity even if
088enrollment doesn't really change districtwide for elementary. So um I appreciate you mentioning that possibility. That's a very good point because there is possibility that two schools could become one and we would need that space. So just a thought. Any other questions, comments? Thank you all so much for this um and giving us an opportunity to think about it. I do like the recommendation of ORED between 85 and 95% uh for utilization, but we will think about it and and come back at another time with a vote on that. All right. Thank y'all. Thank y'all so much for your work and getting this off the ground. All right. Um, facility Reynolds is up next and that is Mr. Newman and maybe Dr. pack and maybe Mr. Davis. Mr. Davis is is the show tonight. Big night
089for him. It is. Uh good evening uh board members and thank you for allowing us to share this proposal with you tonight for facility uh rentals. Um our purpose tonight really is to uh share with you uh an a process really like you've heard earlier from Mr. Davis as well as others regarding the budget and things like that. The goal really is to facilitate uh everything we do in a simplified more efficient approach uh and put in line all of our facility use rentals with our community partners uh and to reduce some of our administrative burdens as you see. So, with that being said, getting ahead of myself. We'd like to uh revise the rental pricing structure. It's pretty complicated now. And as we have folks every day, we they call and they're confused as
090well, our renters on how do we go about this process. It's very complicated, very con uh convoluted. We want to redefine that all together. uh and and we've started really doing that with a program you've already heard a little bit about. The same one that has a lot to do with uh you know the work orders and it just simplifies the entire process. It creates an online booking uh calendar. Uh and of course in in the big picture of things, we want to increase our partnerships with our local folks. So why does all this matter? We've got to give our customers a simplified fee structure right now. Like I said, it's pretty complicated. Uh we want to have fewer rental uh categories and streamline that entire approval process while enhancing the efficiency overall. And at
091the same time, we've got to make sure that we cover our custodial services, event staffing, utilization, and supplies. Uh we also got to support our and root uh support our routine maintenance to preserve our uh facilities. Right now currently this process is long and it takes 6 to8 probably documents if you will to get this process done for just one rental as well as about 68 hours of manpower. So we want to try to streamline that process and this is a proposal to do so. uh to utilize uh this new efficient platform we're going to use. It just really simplifies the rentals and creates a better partnership. Our intended outcomes really are to keep our facilities open to our community, making that easier while protecting the integrity and uh making sure the clean cleanliness of
092our school buildings. Uh prevent staff burnout and overline overloading. uh ensure a fair and fiscally responsible use of our school property as well. So our conclusions really is to ask for an opportunity to provide a fair and a sustainable approach to our community use making it simple simple simplified sorry and protect our public resources while allowing our some of our community partners. has been historic with us. An opportunity to continue to uh use our school uh facilities as you've heard a little bit about already. The master library that we have a lot of optional services you see in front of you. Uh custodial services, security work orders we're already looking at. And this whole system has streamlined everything. Uh it makes everything simple, easy, and sort of a one-stop shop, if you will. Uh certainly
093we've got special considerations we'd like to consider. Uh some of our long-standing partners, our school itself, school related groups, some 5013C nonprofit groups, and currently if you look see the current uh categories, you can see that's pretty confusing. Uh there's nonprofit benefiting the school, nonprofit youth, nonprofit fundraiser tournaments, other nonprofits like governmental type and then forprofit generating. Uh so we would like to simplify that and just have three categories simply nonprofit, school related, nonprofit and then forprofit. the actual changes in the rental rates. This is the a little chart for you for the nonprofits. And you see there we've really right now the way we have it set up because of all those C categories, there's a large variety of prices as you can see anywhere from auditorium $15 to $70. You can come down
094to something like uh you know a multi-purpose media room anywhere from 775 to 50 and it varies all the way down to fill lighting $1.50 50 cents per hour up to 40. So, we'd like to streamline all of that, raise the rates to a simplified, more amount that's in line with our district, uh, not only our district, but other local districts. And for private, the same thing. There's really only eight categories of prices that we look at trying to increase. Uh, and of course, some of those are staying the same. the green what you see in green is actually we want to actually go down not go up and so we're trying to make it something very good for uh our community partner as well as our own staffing needs one thing we haven't been
095doing that I discovered when I started looking into this is we don't have any any mechanism at all to recover any of our cost for custodial supplies uh and as we know toilet tissue is now a commodity so uh we put put a chart together for uh how that would look as well. Uh and this is currently what we're doing now. And if you look over that, you'll see it's not a significant amount difference, but the big part of this is simplifying the process al together. Any questions? Mr. Astra, thank you for putting this together. All right. Sure. Uh, since my time on the board, I think this is the most common thing that comes up and the policy's been edited, updated. So, I appreciate all the thought and experience y'all put on here. On
096the supply rates, is that per day per rental? Uh, because we do have rentals that are like a day and then we have rentals that are like two months. So, I was just curious because it doesn't specify what what the on the custodial survivor. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's It's per event. Per event. Okay. Okay. That makes So it's not quite as bad as it looks. It's per event. So one other question I had is the master library which looks like we have for our work order system and they they're just a front end. They don't manage this for us. They're just the software front end. It really just the platform. Okay. And we'll have the personnel in the back doing that. Correct. Um, does this change anything on us doing a verification of the 503C's
097to confirm they are? It has not. That process is the same. Okay. Thank you, Miss Do. Thank you. Um, thank you for the presentation, Mr. Newman. And um I appreciate and and like how much uh more simplified it is and also it seems like that would lend consistency um you know across groups which is which is important. Um I was just curious um I'm supportive of that we have a few like fields that we don't rent. That's fine with me. I get that. Um you know doing some of these things are expensive. I was curious about um what are some examples um like for example the baseball softball field. There are a couple that were available for nonprofit rental rates but not profit and I just um wondered why like what are what are examples
098of some nonprofit groups that need some of those fields or have used them in the past. So a lot of time yeah and the the thought process is that you know when it's forprofit uh we are concerned and worried that they will not take as good a care of it as we would. The nonprofits on the other hand who do that we're close with they're closer with and have a better tie with those and able to facilitate their needs a lot better. Uh and also in doing that they're out there for a typically a different reason altogether. They're not out there to generate profits. A good example of that would be a baseball camp that we just had recently. Okay. And that one is out there just to provide services for our youth. Not only
099high school or middle school but all of our youth. Great. Thank you, Miss Molly. Um, excited about the streamlined process. Excited about cutting down on the six to eight hours of manpower per rental required. That's wild. Um, uh, question the cost of the master library system. Um, how expensive is that? Does like are we wrapping into these rates like the kind of the cost of that service? Good question. So, timing is everything. we were actually uh many of the improvements that you see um we were uh phasing out of those uh original work order systems and so uh I don't have the numbers but I believe staff showed me that there was some savings and some synergies of using one product to serve many needs um and so I can get you the actual figures
100but there was some savings by going with master library uh not only the synergies of working with cross departments um but just user interface was a lot more of the capability that we need. Okay. So, you were by saving money, you're able to like work with it within your existing operations budget. Yes. Okay. Great. Yeah. Great. Um and then I'm curious if other districts have been using this service for their facility rentals and also what other districts when you're comparing the rates. I mean, um you know, for the most part, it's not increasing, but you know, for some of those nonprofits, like there was a pretty big range there. there was definitely like a low end of that range as well that we are no longer going to be offering to folks. So, um it
101you said it's in line with other districts. Where have we looked? So, we looked at uh eight different school uh systems, if you will, and we we we don't want to take an average because the average did not work out for us really because it just didn't seem the right for this community. So, what we did is we compared all eight of them. Meckllinburgg and Wake just sort of tossed away because we we're not going to be able to deal with that and charge those time numbers. Nor did we want to. We want our community folks to be able to use it. So we looked at these six other ones that are re like for example Alamance, Burlington, Durham County, closer proximity to us and we sort of chose numbers that's in line with them.
102Uh pretty close. Some of ours are less, some of ours are more. I think there's only one that's more and I think that's the football uh stadium. Thanks, Miss Padilla. Do you have any questions? No, just thank you very much. Um, go ahead. I do really appreciate these new rates. I like that a lot. It makes it very very simple and easy to understand how much things are going to cost. And these organizations are still required to obtain their own insurance too. Correct. That is correct. None of that process changed. And and we'll also still they've got to provide or we they have to be able to have custodial services as well as security services based on our criteria that has not changed. Thank you. I like the fact that it is all laid out
103very readable, very doable. Everybody should be able to see that and understand exactly what's expected. Thank you. It is really transparent the way it works now. Uh we've already started looking at and getting calls how much folks like it better and it's the ease of operation is so much better as well as really cost-saving because we were using multiple platforms and now as we continue to look at this we hope to use master library for most of our processes. cuz I know at least two or three of them as we venture forward. Well, I I appreciate your work on this and thank you. It is much improved. Thank you. All right, we need to um vote on this. Do I have a motion to approve this facility rentals proposal? So moved. Second. All in favor?
104I I I thank you very much. It is Thank you for your time. All right, we have come to the end of our meeting unless someone has something they need to add. Obviously not. Do I have a motion to adjurnn? Motion to adjurnn. Second. All in favor? I I We are adjourned. Have a great night and thank you all who joined us.