001just uh click on check can you guys see no it's very choppy no sounds like a robot [Music] nope i hear noise but that's it um uh if we plug this uh you guys can go okay can you guys hear us those who are online yes we can yes just gonna turn this i can see it it's gonna pair it back to the other one that one works you can still hear us yes yes yes okay okay this is a call to order a special meeting of the bridgeport board of education today's date is thursday july 9th 2022 and the time is 607 pm mr secretary what'd you call the roll yes and there's no video that's that's the workaround i can see you though okay all right um so sybil allen christine baptiste perez
002albert benahan president erica castillo michael macaron here joseph sakolovic president bobby brown president john weldon president and joseph lombard present okay all right we're going to stand for the pledge of allegiance pledge allegiance let the record reflect that christine baptist perez has entered the meeting student representative reports don't see any online and there's none present in the room public comment no one has signed up for public comment i'm going to dispense with the chairman's report and go on to committee reports and referrals ad hoc district-wide branding initiative do you have anything to report ms brown um nope only that we have our next meeting which will be on wednesday uh june 15th um and that will be i think we were six o'clock at central high school okay i wish there was public comment i
003don't know if there was a sign-up sheet available it's here it was there are you here for public comments give you a reference this is where you look for the patient specialists yes about to say something for privileged right i don't know what's going on okay we have three people who have signed up for public comment um i can't make out the first name but the last name is aguirre daniela is it daniela aguirre go to the podium please keep your comment limited to two minutes is there a microphone for mike snower if you try to you can remove your mask if you like mr chair is the video off yes the video is off it's the work around so we can get the mic to work okay sorry um was never the best at
004solving these types of problems and now that the thing has not been even worse i'm prepared for offices that are there and i would want to know what the word education you know is of pains we have a whole timeline like of the remaining stuff that happened and i've heard the voice for them because like my sister who was just shy and she may not say the entire thing because she's scared at the moment and is not 100 percent completely projected to discipline the other votes okay thank you can a microphone there's no microphones working in the building i understand is that correct we didn't hear anything okay so they're going to put a mobile mic at the podium tia coquest go ahead okay hi my name is tia conquest i'm a former 11th grader
005at central high school as the same thing as daniella my sister's in seventh grade um the bullying has been a non-step set thing since she's been in fourth grade we have took numerous actions of bringing it to administrators um recently this year my parents had a meeting with the principal um i wish more action was taken she said no action could be taken until they did investigating um i feel like just not enough action has been taken because we recently um went to park city magnet to do a group meeting to discuss the bullying to see if anyone would like to open up to us um and it still is happening this meeting happened on may 26th um and it's just still happening and as daniela said um we just want to see more action
006kind of being taken so the bullying could stop because it has affected my little sister in multiple different ways especially this year as her transitioning into going to 8th grade okay thank you thank you daniel aguero good evening everyone how are you i'm daniel aguero i'm daniela's dad and i i'm here to like i'm aware what's going on the situation like it's been many years and like if you look at it you know bullying is a very serious um um you know thing and um in the whole world the whole united states a lot of kids commit suicide because of that right regardless of what's going on their life there's um they might have problems at home they might be scared to open up um and you know it's a serious matter and like also
007as a parent i would like to see you know more action being taken and like you know if you see if you have a brown apple right the right apple needs to stay out to don't damage all the fruit um and i'm very concerned um more action should have been taken unfortunately i don't know what the issue is whether it's investigation or whatever but i hopefully you could take more um more serious on this matter thank you thank you thank you three for for coming here we have your telephone numbers and mr tastani i would expect you're going to take a look into this and follow up with these folks but it's frozen okay all right this concludes public comment uh again committee reports and referrals are were you were you finished ms brown um
008i was just saying that we're meeting on june 16th uh okay sorry june 15th um at central high school six o'clock p.m okay thank you ad hoc district-wide calendar committee mr lombard yes uh so we had our first meeting and i think it was fruitful we planned our our scheduled meetings until uh the end of the year when the next calendar will be decided upon and in the in um received opinion from legal counsel to help us with our guidelines which we're go there will be someone representing legal counsel at our next meeting and possibly even someone from cave as well to help with the discussions and that meeting is set for monday june 20th at 5 30 in central high school okay thank you contracts committee met on june 2nd and that meeting resulted
009in the five items that you see uh items 11 a through e so we'll take those up later in the meeting educational diversity equity and inclusion can we just back up for a minute to a calendar committee i got a question about about the report uh what lawyers coming is it going to be the city side or are we going to be built this first month yeah do you think that's a wise expenditure just to get his title out because i think he's just let him run his meeting he'll get into that expenditures committees are not able to give expenditures i i i asked for the attorney at his request i do i think it'll provide a lot of clarity and what is the ultimate goal of this expenditure so i can i can i
010can talk to you um so you were at the meeting just i know you know we discussed and it was to talk about having some guidelines so that we we have possible future requests um for uh considerations for secular or non-secular holiday considerations that we would we would know that we were within the parameters of the law so it's not just something made without considering those connecticut statutes so it's it's to have that information presented to the committee and anyone else who attends so we could we could uh be informed as we move forward well we just did that when we approved the muslim holiday without violating the law well so this is this is a discussion i think you need to have at the committee level he's joe has explained why uh bertrand moses
011is going to be at his committee meeting uh arrangements have also been made for the policy people at cabe to be there as well and i think you should let that meeting happen and see where it goes now i would just like um to see that build how much we spent on this okay when it comes we'll let you know if the standard is for a non-secular purpose this is the the council will be there to answer various questions and there were they're developing a more expansive opinion that talks about a lot of other things the questions in advance anyone could do that okay educational diversity equity and inclusion yes it will not be immediate but until next for the end of the year and i think probably a lot of that committee is going
012to be looking at any policies that are created making it harder for students okay facilities committee we'll be meeting on monday june 13th we will be discussing some issues related to hall and edison school and we will also receive the stewardship report from the facilities committee finance mrs follow okay yeah we kind of missed the referrals but i can think of as part of my finance reports as the referrals from the finance committee itself not just an individual referral um finance met on may 31st discuss upcoming fiscal cliff and esser funding in discussing the upcoming fiscal cliff we came to the conclusion that although elected officials and the people who are responsible for funding they don't seem to be taking it seriously we as a boy we need to take it i start making some
013proactive moves because some of the cuts that may have today or may not have to be made a long term in nature for planning purposes so these following referrals came out of finance facilities to look at the utilization of all our buildings make sure none make sure to be utilized to their fullest potential and for the best funding for savings there and for contracts we came up with the referral for um the contracts to look at rfps for our non-certified staff very very closely we've got some contracts where that we don't negotiate and they take thousands and thousands of hours per year not during the school year that we have to put substitutes in for so we need to find out where the savings see if we can survive savings they'll come and touch without
014touching the classrooms because the most important thing is going to be to preserve our 35 staff the high caliber education to our students and we got to look we got to look everywhere this upcoming fiscal cliff is real our elected officials aren't going to be responsible and fund us we need to be proactive in making sure we're ready governance committee uh has not met it would be meeting tonight or this past monday uh night normally but the calendar indicated that was going to be a regular meeting so it was not held the next meeting would be scheduled for uh on the other side of the summer personnel personality just quickly um do we want to try to have one governance to see if there's any more um movement toward finalizing the field trip policy prior
015to the start of the school year so that we can enter the school year with finalized policy if we can between now and september first maybe we'll get that if you if you got it ready to go we made some changes i'd like to just if we can meet again and okay again i it doesn't have to be finalized immediately when the school year starts but maybe before we get too far into september and possible trips began to begin to be planned all right we'll schedule something by the end of the month personnel committee met on um tuesday the 7th uh interviews were held for the position of principal at bearsley school and a referral was made to the superintendent uh a recommendation i don't know if you've made a decision on that yet be
016interviewing both candidates tomorrow morning and a final decision made um probably monday students and families our next meet is going to be on june 16 2022 in central high school at six o'clock okay teaching and learning field trips discuss the team flight project access brilliance and partnership i'm going to make a referral to my committee for the next week to look into the billion policy in the schools because in addition to public comment i've received three parent calls and text messages regarding bullying in either battalion school and the gravity of it is crossing other ramifications that i will discuss with the superintendent that is beyond bullying that is a concern in the district also our bullying policy hasn't been updated since 2011 and so we need to look at that and to see whether it's
017actually being implemented in each school especially for our younger students because italia and park city are elementary schools so we should be taking that into account our meetings how old our policy is and whether it's being an okay superintendent's report mr testani just a few items briefly we have some things to get to um first if we can just take a moment of to uh acknowledge unfortunately the passing of miss ivy phillips um long-time paraprofessional who suddenly passed away over the weekend at central uh from central high school you just take a moment of silence to recognize and just keep in mind thoughts are prayers of ivy's family thank you last week we held the annual math meet at sacred heart university and i'd just like to congratulate and acknowledge john winthrop school for repeating
018as math meet champions uh congratulations to the students and teachers at john wenthrop for another strong showing there was a um three-way tie for second and then it got broken by the rules of the competition in regards to um the question the last question and how it's answered it's it's pretty complicated but uh second place went to blackham school third place ended up being multicultural magnet and then a close sharing of that from park city magnet and the students at johnson school were received the most improved award from last year to this year in their um point accumulation so congratulations to all those schools i want to just again congratulate all the graduates from adult education last week we had almost uh 100 students participate that completed their either high school diploma or ged passing
019of their exams so congratulations to those folks saturday we had uh two amazing um events that were held uh our collaboration with don wilson and the efforts of mark carp and tim grasty and the flag football kickball and track meet over at harding high school we had over 400 students from across the district compete uh friendly competition healthy competition it was just a great day to see kids and their families actually came out to support them throughout the event so just great job by again tim grasty mark harp and don wilson for their hard work and dedication and we look forward to the continuation it's uh last week was the kickoff of peace week that we've been working with and it culminates this saturday at seaside park so come on down um as don said
020the other day at our coaches banquet with your sneakers and uh get ready to participate in some of the games if you if you're interested on saturday and um just a reminder tuesday june 14th this coming tuesday's graduation day we kick off at 9 00 a.m over at hartford healthcare uh amphitheater and it culminates at 5 30 p.m with the final graduation so look forward to everyone um i know if you can't make it for the entire day for as many ceremonies to support the graduates uh for the class of 2022. and that's all i have for tonight thank you okay any questions i have a question uh standing here it's just funny um i do not really send you an email apparently ask keep asking me that's about the only way i can ask
021you to fortification you never answer me back parents want to know what they can do about what program or what they how they can help them but lgbtq situations going up with this model ability because i got current day you know son the daughter would like to go a place they can listen to them understand they can feel more safe or have somebody that can communicate with them and no don't come on i know we got so sad work we got our people they they could but i don't think so they're more if they would not know what's going on with that child in that situation but lgbt or maybe a wrong maybe they are um you know they're um ready for the child when they ask questions well we don't have any specific uh
022personnel that's dedicated for that purpose but again social workers school counselors some schools have um organizations and clubs that are at the schools that may not be consistent throughout all the high schools or all the schools but there are some where someone takes the lead on that type of organization club but it's really just social work and school counselors there's no program specific but they are equipped to help connect students and families to resources in the community if necessary all right thank you and also you forgot to say about discovery oh sorry you're right there was two events on saturday um a multicultural event up at discovery magnet school parents and staff participated and mr bennett thank you for and mr skovic your attendance uh food and music and and just representation of cultures throughout
023the school everyone got to experience and mingle and i thought it was a great event and i know those are happening pre-cover to happen more frequently throughout the district it's good to see those types of events where we can celebrate all the many cultures that are melting pot here in bridgeport public school community thank you for watching good question this month this month is pride month is it not yes what do we i don't know but what are we doing in the schools to to maybe talk about or or uh have the students understand that this is an important time for them to you know get together and think about what pride month really means you know it's probably to be honest with you and it's varied by building um it is you know you
024get into this part of the school year it becomes a wine down of end of the year activities graduations promotions and those exams so uh it's a difficult month to to really plan for and celebrate but i i'm sure there are things going on it varies by at what level at each school so that's just the honest answer okay there's no old business can i just add one component and you know as we um go and speak at the next teaching and learning um the policy can be revisited i think the policy i haven't looked at our policy in a while when it relates to bullying but it is in line with state law um and we do have to often and i think given the return to full in person from everyone this year
025um maybe put more of an effort at the beginning of next school year to educate students and families again what the parameters are of what bullying is um and the the ways to to report and um and how to handle that in a more system systemic way then because i think something could have gotten lost over the last couple years due to the pandemic you know that should be taken care of something related to the pandemic and then maybe something that legal counsel could have given to us because the assumption that government has changed in the last 11 years legally well there is a there is state statute around what is bullying i think the word as in some cases is used loosely there is a a repetitiveness that must exist before it's categorized as
026bullying but there's also i think sometimes because i've had conversations recently with some parents about how it's how it's handled in terms of consequences there needs to be a restorative and that's why we we spend a lot of time and emphasis on restorative practices not punitive um punishment that's going because that's not going to resolve the issue and the sel component is is obviously a large focus of today uh how we operate our schools and moving forward but i i don't know if if we do enough in communicating uh what has been done and what next steps are if if things don't um aren't resolved or they they fess their back up again but just i i think that's a an important component to all of this as well you know how it's reported movements
027are reported to and then what the follow-up is around that but it's a great topic to get get into and committee there's no old business to conduct new business first item is discussion and possible approval to enter into contract for student transportation services with reach with we transport llc i believe our cfo ms siegel is here to discuss that uh yes i am uh good evening i am going to place on the screen we have we don't see the screen oh you can't see it thank you arlene i would just highlight any changes to the contract yeah yes um so we transport was the only bidder to the rfp that was issued uh in march of 2022 the contract will be for a five-year period 2022-2027 uh the contract will incorporate the management and routing
028services that were added in 2000 2021 and 2021 22 and those services are now incorporated as part of the rate schedule rather than being incorporated with an additional fee the five-year period enables the district to secure the best possible pricing structure subject to economic factors that are affecting industries across the globe those factors include inflationary pressure rising rising cost of fuel labor shortages and the heightened cost of labor contracts supply chain shortages and shipping delays for new equipment and the availability of uh electric vehicles for lease or purchase in view of the supply chain issues we had to increase the age profile for the vehicles by three years for the school buses from 10 to 13 years and for the smaller bands from 8 to 11. however we did add a provision to reduce the
029age profile when and if the supply conditions improve and we do specify in the new contract that the provider agrees to make good faith efforts to reduce the profile of the bus fleet by up to a maximum of three years subject to availability of new vehicles we've also included in the new contract uh provision pertaining to progressive electrification of the fleet the electrification will be contingent upon the availability of vehicles the availability of grant funding and the adequacy of the required infrastructure to support those vehicles but we do require that the provider replace a minimum of 50 percent of the existing fleet with brand new vehicles during the five year period and in in the replacement vehicles they have to include a minimum of 15 brand new um hybrid vehicles and 50 brand new electric
030vehicles in terms of the rate schedule within the next one to three years we are projecting that hopefully inflation will ease fuel prices will stabilize and potentially decline and the supply chain will move more quickly and if that does materialize we included a clause for reconsideration of the rate schedule at a time when it is determined that cost savings could be derived due to the ratio of electric vehicles the gas vehicles and the associated shift from gasoline usage to charging stations and so we included a provision requiring that the provider and the board of education agree to meet to reconsider the rate schedule with the intent of achieving cost servings for both parties if at a point in the five-year period it is determined to be cost effective the rate schedule is higher than we
031anticipated as indicated we negotiated the best possible rate schedule under the conditions that i cited and in recognition of the global economic factors that apparently are continuing and so in the first year the increase in cost to the district is projected to be approximately 1.2 million dollars in the second year about 800 thousand in year three close to seven hundred thousand in year four approximately eight hundred thousand and in year five about eight hundred thousand and so over five years assuming there is uh assuming there's stability in in the usage the total increase would be approximately 4.3 million dollars and that equates to a total percentage growth of 21.97 with a compounded factor of 23.95 so in summary the rates are significantly higher than we had anticipated however we did have rather low rates in
032the prior contract and these are the best rates that we can achieve uh in the current environment considering the um economic factors that are impacting on the transportation industry are there any questions one question is baptist perez who determines what makes the call for emotional reconsideration on the prices is it us the district and do they have any recourse to say no it's not time to consider the price were you able to hear her miss siegel i i only heard it's a question about pricing but i could not hear the question i'm sorry she she wants to know who determines and at what intervals that the price schedule should be revisited am i understanding you correctly yes yeah okay well we at the district level in the finance office we would be monitoring the various
033economic factors that i noted and um we will be working uh closely with we transport to ensure that they are on track for the replacement of uh vehicles and the electrification of the fleet and at a point in time uh when it is believed that that cost savings are being realized due to the electrification of the fleet and or other factors we would approach we transport or we transport could certainly reach out to the district um and in accordance with the clause that will be signed by both parties uh we would then uh meet to negotiate hopefully a reduction in raid or some type of credit in the remaining years of the contract so it sounds like there isn't like some set point agreed to that the parties will come back together i.e at the
034end of each fiscal year or something like that it's left to your discretion uh as to when you think it might be advantageous to open that discussion well the clause that we wrote specifies that it would be based on the existing ratio of heb and ev vehicles to gas driven vehicles in the fleet at this point i'm not aware that we transport issues like utilizing any electric vehicles no they're not and so the goal would be to acquire electric vehicles in lieu of gas vehicles through the various funding programs grant programs that are available over the next few years the uh bipartisan infrastructure lore clean bus rebate program that we have been studying over the last week and and that just opened and will close in the middle of august is a 500 million dollar
035program in a 5 billion dollar program over 5 years and bridgeport is a priority district we transport can pursue the opportunity through a partnership with a bus contractor the bus contractor would be eligible to to apply and we are encouraging them to do so and we will meet with them next week to further explore this this opportunity um the school district can also apply and act as a fiduciary for the receipt of the uh rebates and the transfer of the funds to the to the bus company so we're we are exploring uh which option uh would be would be best and so um with with the bipartisan infrastructure law clean bus rebate program that is a certainty meaning it's it's rolling out it's not a certainty that any district that applies will receive funding because
036it's done in a through a random selection generator but but priority districts such as bridgeport are given preference therefore we we have a strong expectation that over the next five years um we transport other transportation companies in connecticut and throughout the country will be electrifying through by taking advantage of these grant programs i have a question go ahead district can use the fact that it's servicing this district for preference for a federal grant did you hear that no i'm sorry i couldn't hear it okay we transportation an independent business will use the fact that it's servicing this bridge for this district to qualify for a federal brand uh yes but the the rules are the rules of the program are that if they apply for the grant to service our district they must utilize the
037buses in our district for at least five years but at the end of the five years in theory we transport wouldn't have to bid to service bridgeport anymore could service another district and have a whole fleet of electric buses right well at the end of the five-year period we would be going out to bid for for a new contract and but historically we've only had one person or one company bid right but when in a new rfp uh it can't cannot be known today how many bidders there would be we would we would hope there would be more than one bidder at that time and there's no reason to expect that we transport would not uh remain in business and and want to continue to bid to service the district i think the answer to
038your question is yes they could decide not to bid on our contract anymore after the five years but they have the benefit of the federal grant have the benefit of the fleet to go bid on other districts right for their securing those contracts yes and we transport isn't just in bridgeport they they service other properties in long island and they could redeploy that fleet after five years anywhere they wanted to is that correct mr siegel i believe it is based on our current reading of the regulations on the other hand they would have the infrastructure in their bridgeport facility to be charging them so it's not like they could just pick the buses up and move them you'd have to move all the charging stations that are physically installed in the building so it's not
039i don't i don't see where it would be advantageous for them to do that it would be costly for them but there is the possibility if they had charging stations that's also an advantage and other districts of the federal program as well is there any consideration to the district purchasing uh well we should not be practicing and then renting it over to we transportation to guarantee that it's our fleet of electric buses well under under the option of a district applying the district does not purchase the buses the bus company purchases the buses and applies to the district for the rebate by submitting the purchase orders the district then submits the purchase order with a payment request form to the government and the government then sends the rebate to the district for transfer to the
040bus company so through through either option the bus company owns the buses mike just turn back around quick question miss sorry thank you hi miss siegel i'm mike mccarron i just have a quick question uh in your opinion is the uh insurance that's being provided by we transport sufficient enough to protect um the district you know as far as our students are concerned in case of issues uh the contract was reviewed by the city attorney and one of the elements that the city attorney checks very carefully is is insurance and so the section on the insurance requirements meets the limits that are required and was deemed to be sufficient uh by the city attorney okay thank you joe mr scalabic thank you yeah a couple questions um before you go i'm just going to note
041that mr lombard has left the meeting okay um yeah a couple questions um we're talking about a five-year contract we would discuss them before that the state was in the midst of changing the statute to allow five-year contracts has that taken place yet state council or state city council city council yes city council has that taken place yet it has not been uh formally voted on yet from my understanding though so we've got a possibility that this contract could only be three years if it's voted down believe me this question came up in the contracts committee what what's your the segal east city council well i'm anticipating that the city council will approve the five-year limitation uh increased from three years uh as of this evening i do not have confirmation that it has been
042presented and approved but we do anticipate that it will be presented and approved in the month of june and do we have uh alternative contracts ready to go should it be voted down i mean some sort of savings clause within the contract uh we've been informed by the city attorney's office that we can proceed with the five-year agreement what was my next question i lost my next question you can come back to me okay anyone else we're back to you okay oh man okay yeah is there we mentioned about reopening um negotiations for price uh savings for electric vehicles that either could either us or we transport could bring a price degree negotiation to the table yes so for instance if um say they get there hopefully electrified would one of their rationales for not
043wanting to decrease the contract be able to be we had to spend all this money to build out our fleet and they want to amortize that against the gas savings i think to ms sigel's point the money flows through us we're the pass through to them to receive the funding for their buses and is that the oh is that the only way to reopen say gas prices we don't electrify our gas prices drop down back down to 220 about 220 a gallon can we renegotiate at that point as well yes that was our understanding that we would be able to approach them at that point i have a question uh you mentioned on that charter stations at the school are or something regarding a charging station where were they housed but there will be a
044sacrament being physically housed there there's not going to be any charging station for buses at the schools or any location no i know there's been some discussion about having some charging stations for personal vehicles at the schools um but the city has not given any timeline to when that could occur anything else okay in that event i'll entertain a motion to approve entering into the contract for student transportation services with retransport llc as presented by the cfo i will make the motion their second second second by mr benehand any further discussion if we knew when city council was going to meet regarding the three years or if it's going to be five years um i just think leaving that component up in the air is uncertain it can batter i guess i can just imagine
045hypotheticals will work out against us it it sounded to me like the city attorney's office gave us the blessing to do this uh even if the city council doesn't approve it we've done that before when we get an exemption from the three year to enter into a five year and that's acceptable do you have that in writing ms siegel um i i don't believe we have um have it in writing but again our understanding is that the city legal office is in favor of you know of approving five-year contracts and it is our expectation that the city council uh will approve the the five-year provision so um so it's my understanding that this is kind of an issue because it's already taken a while since they submitted their proposal and price fuel prices are changing
046and they need to know that they have a contract to be able to lock in their diesel pricing um well if we were to agree to a three-year contract the price structure would be higher than understood the structure is is higher than than we would have excuse me what i'm saying is so i because it's an issue with respect to the fuel pricing i would suggest we and we approve entering into this agreement um and if the city council votes down a five-year uh the potential for five-year agreements at that point we can revisit it so well then then we would write into the the agreement that it's three years with an option to extend for you know one or two years um with with the approval of the legal office but uh we would
047have to hope at that point that we transport would still agree to the same to the same five-year rate schedule because they have to have certainty as well in order to plan over the next five years for maintenance and modernization of the fleet including electrification so i i don't think this is all right so i don't think it's going to be an issue quite frankly uh we're we're expecting that the um change will be presented to the city council and then it will be approved i would be surprised if it were not so that that's fine i is i just have one final i mean the the city attorney when he returned the contract to us it did not alter the five-year uh okay that's that's fine the one comment i want to say is
048you should always get something in writing especially from an attorney they're paid very well by the city and that's that should just be an expectation that we should have it in writing if it's good to go it should be written that it's good to go that's it okay all in favor aye any opposed any abstentions let the record reflect that mr skalovic and his baptist parents have abstained motion carries thank you miss siegel thank you next item is discussion and possible approval to issue solicitation for commodity and commercial food and paper slash cleaning supplies bids for the 22-23 school year and mr garrity food nutrition director is going to present this item hi good evening board members chairman weldon lieutenant pastani um food and nutrition is requesting discussion and possible approval for the solicitation of
049bids in the following categories which would be our main food supplies paper goods and cleaning supplies so this is an annual bid for these items and we're requesting discussion possible action and approval okay um are there any questions all got this material in your package an annual thing he's just going out to the marketplace okay is there a motion to approve issuing the solicitation as presented by the food nutrition director moved by mr benahan is there a second second second by mr macaron is there any further discussion one question uh when would you be anticipating coming back to us with the actual bids and a recommendation to issue the contract there's quite a bit of information that gets submitted no no a time frame when are you going to come back um most likely um
050august early august august okay so we'll pick up the discussion again at that point with whatever comes in okay all in favor any opposed any abstentions okay thank you mr gary discussion and possible approval to enter into memorandum of understanding with united illuminating company for various energy conservation projects mr garcia are you still here yes he is yes sir here okay so you have the floor good evening good evening um so um we've um we're putting in front of you mou um that we like to enter into with united illuminating uh the mou calls out a 45 rebate on any energy projects that we embark on the goal for this mou is to complete the lighting upgrades and the last 30 schools that have not had any lighting upgrades done um at this point in
051time we've already audited nine buildings um illuminating has um is willing to put a 500 000 a year for the next three years um we did a quick calculation today uh we think we can get six schools done um in the short term the first wave uh estimated savings plus or minus two hundred thousand dollars for that six that first six tranche of schools so there's a substantial amount of energy conservation and savings along with the carbon reduction that this program would uh help us throughout the district okay any questions for mr garcia entertain a motion to enter into the memorandum of understanding with night illuminating for the various energy conservation projects as presented by mr garcia moved by mr sokolovic second by mr bennehan any further discussion all in favor any opposed any abstentions
052okay thank you mr garcia thank you everyone okay discussion of possible approval to enter into joint contract with the city of bridgeport for retiree prescription insurance with optum rx inc uh we have ulysses rogers from our payroll and benefits office and also ms miles from the city side so mr mr rogers good evening board chairman weldon and superintendent tessani um we're here to present the approval of the rfp for the medicare prescription benefit manager which is optumrx rfp that was presented in last week's contracts uh committee meeting this rfp uh pretty uh pretty much was uh moving from our previous carry which is express scripts uh over to optim optumrx and in doing so we realized a savings of approximately on we realized a savings of approximately 7.1 million dollars which for the board of
053ed is about 2.1 million dollars over a three-year period okay any questions uh mrs carlewick yes it is total savings is seven point one the slaughter city side is the district side is two point so the overall savings is seven point one so the city is getting a five million dollar savings and what's the proportion of city employees versus retirement employees these are retirees retirees i mean i i think we've got more employees than the city yet is reaping more savings what's the ratio of retirees city to board of ed uh hold on one sec here here with me one second i think part of the impact could be the earlier retirement age when you start factoring in police and fire that is correct the bar the bargaining unit also determines the actual savings based
054upon time of retirement um the bargaining unit itself which is is also a factor in the actual cost overall cost savings to this uh rfp but let me pull that information here and if that's too convoluted we could compare apples to apples let's compare um premium payments us versus the city what's the proportion of the premium things that should remain consistency and here's 60 percent of the premiums we should be getting 60 percent of the savings the retention as far as um premiums are paying for this product so if we're paying like a hundred thousand in the city's paying fifty thousand savings ten thousand you should get definitely so you should get three it should be the question i understand okay hi good evening everyone i'm monty miles i'm from the city side um the
055savings is based on the enrollment and the usage of medications so when when they when they determine the pre the savings it's based on the fact that the city retirees which there are more enrolled in the plan because not all of your teachers are in this plan in a closed group it's only retirees over 65 on medicare okay and this these are non-representative employees correct we're not not uh a certified staff i mean i'm not not a certified staff what oh this would be it's a combination it's a combination of certified and not certified how are these numbers determine the proportionality is the sigelens looking at the premium payment on each i mean who came up with the numbers and how well based on utilization as well as rebates in subsidies it was mentioned that
056there are more city bridgeport the city of bridgeport retirees then actual board of education retirees utilizing the program and i think the question is pretty straightforward how many more what's the ratio what percentage of the total are city side versus 60 40. give me one second two so based on the may enrollment it was 926 board vet to 1205 city members enrolled in the plans uh 43 to 57 43 on our side 57 on the other so we should be realizing maybe sort of three million dollars that's if well but do these numbers fluctuate month to month you said the may enrollment right the numbers fluctuate and so does the premium so does the subsidies and rebates based on utilization by the members that are in the plan so so these savings are estimates they're
057not necessarily hard numbers correct correct are there any other questions i think they're using numbers and we're perhaps interpreting this as these this is a hard number savings but it's they just said it fluctuates and based on the future enrollment they can't really give us a hard number this is an estimate they probably should have made that clearer in the beginning even just looking at estimates we're talking about two versus five 250 percent fluctuation in the dollar amount yeah we only got 45 fluctuations in employees i i think these numbers really need to be more closely looked at i mean if we're talking about utilization i think we need to look at the utilization to make sure we're getting our bank for the book yeah this is coming out of education knowledge guarded especially since
058not scanning any money from the city yes we also gotta ensure when the savings are reported to the city in the board they are broken out by city and board of ed so they are definitely going this the board is realizing its savings and so is the city as they as they are ongoing as they are ongoing monthly okay so i guess it the sentiment is for these numbers to be reported as they're ongoing is that something that can be done the border red receives the same reports that the city does okay so we just need somebody from the staff to report it to us that acceptable it's not something they currently give us but if you ask for it they'll provide it yeah you can make that a regular a regular thing for the
059finance committee review of uh retiree health benefits uh i'm still not comfortable with this spread i wouldn't personally even know at this point i i would like to have like numbers that actually went into this numbers that are telling us we're saving two in this 85 i would like to see the rationale in black and white i i don't think this should be held up i mean are we technically already in contract with yeah i think we're technically we've commenced is that correct that's what was during the meeting yeah she was already in this and this is why we're working on this this is supposed to be like an annual thing why is it being presented to us now people's failure to plan but the constitution is well can you guys explain what happens if
060this if we don't enter into the agreement what happens to the board of ed employees at that point retirees so you've already entered into this agreement is that correct that's correct this is a ratification of that agreement is that correct that is correct correct so i guess the underlying question is why are we doing this after the fact as opposed to in advance of the agreement being entered into the contract well we completed the rfp process the contract went to legal it went back and forth between the two companies we we have the contract and we but we needed to implement it to real start realizing the savings as of january first you're asking if this is a joint contract why our fee number came through the board of education contracting anyone did it no
061so basically co-signing on this contract the city is going to save five million dollars on a contract we got to sign off on and paid for it was never put before us to even go out to bid which should be the procedure on any joint contract between the city and board of education it doesn't change where we are though i'm not just just saying i'm just saying it expanded i'll what are the ramifications yeah what's the ramifications if if the board chooses not to approve this that's a board decision the city is moving forward with the contract we would we would lose coverage and have to find our own outside coverage define we we who we the board of education we we the board of ed which can drop which which can drive up the
062cost because we're not uh realizing uh being in a contract with the city so so i failed to warn us to be able to give us advance notice and then put us in this penny picture position i agree i feel like there this is this is feeling rushed all this information coming up now i you know it's rushed i don't like the fact that we're in the position of if we don't do this we're gonna have to go out to bid separately and that will result in a higher cost to the district this and it just needs to be dealt with separately at the staff level but this this is not appropriate this should this should have come to us last fall mr chair ms brown mr chair um once we decide what we're going
063to do i think that we need to go back to implementing you know documents being presented to us in a timely manner or something like this to happen i think it's unfair to the board to be put in a graduation yeah i think we're in a rock between a rock and a hard place we don't have a whole lot of choice at this point that's why i say this needs to be dealt with i think at the staff level because this is not acceptable how long is this contract for three years three year contract so all in favor i thought somebody made a motion here and that we followed it up with further discussion okay is there a motion to approve this i will make the motion is there a second understand if this fails
064and we drop off this contract we are going to drive up our own cost for this question it's not the way you came to talk with somebody else you were the superintendent to try to figure it out first of all why the last moment you know it's like a judgment you tie do it right now you know that's what we're talking about i know but why you have to be the last moment when you got you don't have no choice we have to make a vote but the last moment didn't work no i understand that a little more do you want to table this should here i think i think the alternate in the alternate in the alternate our folks will lose coverage they will just get dropped and they'll have nothing while we go
065out to bid for a separate policy that in likelihood is going to be much more and i don't like it any more than that than any of you but i'm also thinking of the retirees who are just going to be without coverage no i understand that you need to lay it down to this city that you cannot and cannot continue these types of conduct if something's supposed to come to us in the fall and then you come to us the middle of june that's completely unacceptable and we need to be prepared if they're missing to bring it we should have been prepared to bring it up and say you know we have an alternative you can go on on your own so it needs to be better communicated in advance from the city side stuff
066needs to be in writing stuff needs to be notified in advance and it's completely unfair but i hear what you're saying regarding the retirees the city and the board conducted this rfp together it wasn't the city did an rfp and didn't ask the board if they wanted to join it was conducted together but the city had time to consider it go back and forth yeah the board was out with us on every step that's why that's why i say i think this is a discussion to be had at the staff level because something went wrong at the staff level on our side not the city side where this was not um brought to our attention through the normal course of business i.e we just had mr garrity give a presentation he wants to go out
067to the market he brought it to us he said what he needs to do he told him to go out and do it and then in a couple of months he's gonna come back with the results and that didn't happen on the board of ed's side of this rfp nobody from our staff came to us whenever in the fall or the winter and said hey just so you know we want to go out jointly to bid with the city on this do you have an objection to it here's the proposed rfp yada yada yada and they did not come back to us once they had uh some sort of a recommendation and the contract was reviewed by city attorney and all that stuff they came back to us after all of that had been done
068at the district staff level they came back when all of that had already happened and now they're saying if you don't approve this you know everybody's going to lose their coverage and we're going to have to go out to the market on our own and then and redo this and result will be a higher cost and again the most important part our retirees are going to be without coverage and to be placed in this position is completely inappropriate so this is not i'm not playing we're not playing on we're not blaming the city i mean there again this is a staff level discussion i don't know who's responsible for what and that's not for us to be getting into but this is where we are i just i and i will investigate further i just
069have a question i think i know the answer to was this the best response in terms of savings for both city and board of ed that was received from the rfp yes it is so regardless of what the the timing is this was the best savings that would have been realized that we're being but the board is being presented with right now that is correct okay thank you okay so i made the motion is there a second second by mr macaron i'm just thinking of the consequences for the people that i i don't i don't like this anymore than anyone else but what are we going to do as am i but i would like to see how these nuts still like to see how the numbers will arrive there okay and you'd like a
070further report before we remember we need payments to make sure we're getting our optimal statements did he put us on the live board slow that was mentioned i think that monthly report can be in his public information so and be be reviewed um maybe at the finance committee level if that's what not enough for nothing this is not the first time we've had a discussion on a joint rfp or joint venture in the city without without being screwed it was about two and a half three years back and i believe it was a workers comp split or something like that you know i can't recall exactly what it was but there was an issue before was that the health insurance we went to the state yeah where at that time city council totally throws us
071out not the city council i thought that's the city side totally frozen you know we didn't have like a board representative at the discussions that he wasn't really being followed and we had to come back again on an emergency basis if we don't do this that was it that was at least five or six years yeah it was five years ago we went to the connecticut partnership 2.0 no no it might have been something okay but uh this is the second time i've been involved in a vote the city acted and we just had no choice other than going along but they could keep doing this to us over and over and over again now this time we're looking i'm looking at that two verses i've got real concerns about that and now i'm under
072pressure to make a vote tyree's losing their savings because the city already acted and i don't know if this is beneficial to us as much as the city i would like to see i was 60 40. it would make more sense when you look at a number it doesn't make sense at the top this numbers just don't make sense to me and i don't know we could keep beating this sauce round and round and round has mr macaron left the meeting or did he just uh do you want to just wait a minute for him for a five-minute recess yes motion for a recess made by ms baptist perez seconded by mr kalavik all in favor this one's mine it wondrous you [Music] so [Music] do [Music] so [Music] mr rogers if you can hear
073me we're about to mute you and i'm not sure if you happen to be on a computer or if you're calling from a whatever the case is uh because mu is coming your way okay okay we're going to reconvene wait for everybody okay ready yes so i made the motion and i believe mr macaron seconded it for the sake of getting the discussion going is there anything else to be talked about with this or do we want to take a vote comment okay who's in charge of this situation is a bit go aside and bring it to the class or to the committee before this happened today would know that i would have to investigate further on who was aware who wasn't i don't want to speak yeah that's why i said that this some
074of this needs to be a discussion at the staff level because somebody didn't do what didn't do what they should have done anything else just confirm it's a three-year contract you said three years correct mr rogers you're still muted for rita if you're talking ulysses we can't hear you you're muted you did say three years he did yeah i heard that too yeah all right so all in favor aye any opposed what wait it was still muted i don't know if bobby got to vote ms brown you're mute okay all right let's start this again all in favor bye perez s i john weldon i reluctantly miss kalavik mr penahan so you're voting to not do this because i'm not understanding your vote because if we vote this no people will lose their coverage they
075will not have prescription coverage that's why my vote was reluctantly because i just don't want to see that happen you want to take a pass and think about it it's important that's the only reason mr macaron yes that happened ms brown i'm gonna abstain i'm staying we're back to miss baptiste perez as i said to you a few moments ago if we vote no then we will not be a part of this policy which means that our retirees will lose this coverage while we go out to bid for our own separate policy which likely will be a greater cost to us because it's a smaller group of people does everybody understand that so we have two people who have passed you want i don't think it's fair to our retirees to suffer the consequence of
076somebody it's internally in the board are in the staff of the district for the board of education are on the city side lose their benefits and to actually may end up having to pay more and so the date like three years from now is very important because i'm still going to be on this board so people come to my attention if it happens again it's going to be an issue so a very reluctant you sure you don't want to answer for me it's all about equal opportunity that's right reluctant yes okay mr bennett um you you do have the option of abstaining like ms brown did if you're not comfortable one way or the other oh miss baptiste perez did not have her mic adjacent to her but he didn't have to turn it on
077it should be um okay miss baptiste perez uh expressed her reluctance at uh voting yes but she did vote yes because she did not feel it was fair for retirees to my good yeah for retirees to lose their coverage mr benahan had a similar sentiment but he chose to abstain like you did so i'm going to read through the list and just clarify who voted finally what ms baptiste perez voted a reluctant yes i john weldon also voted a reluctant yes mr skolovic voted no mr bennehan abstained mr mccarron also voted a reluctant yes and ms brown abstained so it is passed with one two three yes one no and two abstentions now we have a similar discussion the possible approval full board to enter into a joint contract the city of bridgeport for retiree
078medicare advantage insurance with anthem blue cross and blue shield it's my understanding that it's a similar set of circumstances that the contract is already there and this is a ratification do you want to briefly describe what this is all about mr rogers you're still muted are you there who's going to present this item mr testani mr rogers does someone know how to get in touch with mr rogers to let him know um he may be muted from the host that's what it looks like on my end can the host unmute him could only mute them can i just clarify because for my own understanding i want to make sure that this is never repeated again at the staff level the issue we're addressing is the notification prior outside of that the issuance of the rfp
079the solicit the receiving of the proposals and then going with the best one would have all occurred in the same manner mr rossi can you hear me and the approval coming here would have been the same so it's just the notification so you know the rfp is out you're approving our we under a normal set of circumstances the board would approve entering into a joint solicitation with the city and they would go out they would get their proposals they would come back they would score them whatever approval process is going through on the city side they do and then our side goes through our process for approval okay i'll just you understand well i i think mr rogers will look like i said that yeah there's separate staff level discussions which probably should occur but
080i just want to be clear in in in essence that's the way it would work because i think we would have arrived here just saying it it would i don't disagree okay i'm sure we would but there would be a lot less question and people would not feel like they were you know had a gun to their head gotcha okay mr rogers yes so you hear everything we were just saying about the uh anthem blue cross and blue shield you do this is a similar set of circumstances as the uh for the prescription plan but it we are already in a contract with uh uh anthem uh medicare uh advantage plan so if you decided to it's a renewal well we chose to renew because of the the savings that they presented to us it's
081not a new supplier it's the existence that's the provider of record we decided to stay with them because of these the savings that they presented to us correct okay anybody have any questions yeah i'll be sure yeah what's the what's the split city versus poe the split is the same it's 43 for the boe the city it's 57 percent the boe say the overall savings is three point approximately 3.7 million uh the boe savings is 1.7 million of that pre-point 3.7 what portion of the premiums does the voe pay in the city he just said that oh the total premium what's the total premium breakout uh let's see here the total the total premium is [Music] the monthly premium was no that's not right you want the wall hold on on one second here just
082to make sure i got the right one here all right hold on one second i don't have this here it's the annual premium i don't have that here hold on one sec um just for the b o e [Music] so one sec here in here have here all right you these numbers are not readily available telling me this decision it's not well thought out you made a decision that we're paying 60 of the premiums those that information if we're able to table the meeting we can provide that data to you i i i only got questions about these moments and i think i'll be in the same vote yeah basically if we would even though i disagree and i have since we're in the same boat it's going to be the same exact outfit we
083had we had we went we tried to get five different uh providers to go to bid three of them denied there was only aetna and anthem that went to bid for this particular rfp uh the savings for staying with anthem was the 3.7 million with aetna it only averaged out to uh 150 000. that's why we decided to stay because of the fees that they decided that they weren't going to incur over the next three year per period okay so the original question was what's the total premium and what's the percent that we contribute and what's our share of that i don't have that readily handy i would have had a monthly you had a monthly premium before we had hold on go back here we had a premium based upon a graduated scale based
084upon base based upon the the plan type there were nine different type of plant types that help determine the premium okay do you have a further question i want to see i want to see these numbers that the decision was made based upon and if there's anything wrong with the numbers i think we should go back to the city and make we could always re-allocate this share or if it's clear that we're overpaid maybe it's into some sort of legal action to rectify the process okay so is there a motion to um approve entering into this joint contract with city bridgeport for retiring medicare advantage insurance with anthem blue cross and blue shield i'll make the motion is there a second second by mr macaron roll call vote christine baptiste perez john weldon a reluctant
085yes sakalovic mr benahan macaron miss brown abstain it's back to ms baptiste perez i can't play around with people's benefits man no i get it this is again again you miss brown abstained if that's if you're really torn you always have that third choice this is a different because it's an extension of the existing provider that's if you if you're really conflicted it's that it's an option that's available abstain mr bennehan read this off for the record christine baptiste perez abstains john weldon votes are reluctant yes sakolovic no mr benahan abstains mr macaron reluctant yes and ms brown abstains this motion passes by a vote of two yes one no and three abstentions thank you mr rogers thank you good evening i think you can mute yourself now mr rogers or someone can okay last
086item on the agenda is district security protocols briefing we have lieutenant paul grech from the bridgeport police department he is the gentleman who is um in general oversight of district security if he comes to the podium i don't know if everyone here has met lieutenant grec now security matters do qualify for discussion and executive session lieutenant grec are you anticipating to be um talking about anything that uh should only be discussed in executive session yes okay in reliance on his whatever he plans to present i'm going to seek a motion to go into executive session okay is there a second second second by mr calaveras non-safety sensitive things to report on to community benefit there is a you're planning a uh an open house is that correct yes lieutenant greg and i have sat with
087chief garcia to try to do a collaborative kind of town hall um just trying to nail down a date for that to occur there was a request unfortunately it will not be permitted to do one in every city council district if they feel that it's important enough they'll make the attempt to show up the city's not not talking about chicago or los angeles and i assume city council folks can get to a central location to attend if they think that this is important i'm not thinking just a high level overview not not a detailed discussion of what happened i mean just to come out and take a session and say okay we heard it we can i don't know what he's going to talk about so let's hear what he has to say and then
088when we come out you know we can decide if there's some highlights we want to make fair enough okay present in the executive session would be members of the board the superintendent and police lieutenant can you hear us miss brown yes okay all right so we are reconvened the time is noted as being 9 40 p.m mr tastani have something to say yeah i'd just like to kind of uh just give a brief overview of the executive session i want to thank lieutenant greg for providing a report on some of the school security processes and procedures that we do have in place i think one of the highlights is to know that um the advocacy that is on you know and they ask for more school resource officers has to be emphasized that these are
089not police officers to be in our school buildings we haven't had police officers in our school buildings in 10 years they were taken out um it's just a an opportunity for us to secure support um so there's safe passage for children to and from school until what we have deemed uh several years ago ten years but not safe corridors i think it's important to also note that there's extensive training that's done and drills that are performed unannounced throughout the school year in preparation for any response to an emergency i think the biggest piece to all of this is the relationship and the collaboration professional collaboration between the district and the bridgeport police department through lieutenant correct and his efforts um i think it's critical to know that the information that is provided is usually time
090sensitive and critical in making sure that decisions are made sound decisions between children and staff that's like to summarize the discussion that was had okay and you are going to be holding a town hall we are in the process of trying to nail down a date for a town hall where we can discuss not only school safety but also ways that parents and families can assist in providing valuable information so we can work collaboratively and together to ensure the safety of all students and staff throughout this that'll be by the end of the month i'm working in conjunction if we can't get chief garcia a date where she is available we may have to then just just kind lieutenant correct myself but i'd also like to bring in some of our support staff folks who
091can add other layers to this because as we know in these um incidents that occur here in schools there are signals and there are things that everyone when they look back could have identified and if you do are aware of certain triggers what can you do as a mom as a dad as an uncle as a grandmother as a brother as a sister to help assist to prevent maybe an incident from occurring is there a motion to adjourn night