001[Music] yeah [Music] I'll hand it off to Sean all rise and join us for the pledge okay to begin this evening we will turn it over to Colette Sturm chair of the Board of Education Thank You Colette good evening everyone and welcome to the new school building project presentation for Boards of Finance and selectmen we're gonna have a presentation on the proposal following which we will be opening up for Q&A for our boards of Finance and selectmen after it please know that everyone here we're gonna be opening the floor up for input and questions thank you all for attending and I want to do clarify for a moment why we're all here why we need a pre-k through five quite simply center school and huckleberry are aging facilities which will require extensive and costly repair
002to remain functional all building systems are at or past the end of their expected useful life the schools are not energy efficient and there are safety issues in terms of accessibility and emergency access since these schools were built eighty and fifty seven years ago respectively school use requirements have significantly changed with the changing dynamics of Education as a consequence our elementary schools face some significant space limitations using either inadequate spaces are those designed with a far different use in order to house our fifth whiskey near were using portables which again have far outlived their expected useful life it will take upwards of $700,000 to replace these portables should we maintain our present grade distribution but by moving 5th grade to a pre-k through five school we right sighs whiskey near for the three grades it's
003designed to educate and more importantly we put all of our elementary students together to provide for the coherence and continuity of instruction in a pre-k through five school with modern amenities modern safety features flexible learning areas all designed to enhance our children's elementary school experience while we avoid the inevitable deterioration of our older elementary schools so with that I would like to present Jeff Lozinski from Tecton who will be going in greater detail with our building proposal thank you Jeff [Applause] thank you I'm gonna give a brief presentation I'm not sure if we want to give some time to turn around okay thank you so again thank you my name is Jeff was in ski I'm principal at Tecton architects our team has been working on this project for the past year or so and
004this presentation really is a brief summary of the process that we went through more a focus on the the preferred option that was selected by the committee and then a summary of the the costs and what the design could possibly be so before I get started just some housekeeping if there are some questions there's a new email created and it's shown here so please you can obviously ask your questions tonight but also if you have any additional questions you can send them in to that email address so the goals of the project and I'm gonna go fairly quickly through it the process started in 2015 or a committee was formed to study the longevity of all of the schools in Brookfield the there was a component the existing conditions analysis of each school that we've
005completed studying all the different various systems site building for each school we came up with recommendations for capital improvements and upgrades for each school as it relates to the existing conditions we also held numerous input sessions with educators relative to the educational needs and the programming aspects of each school we reviewed and updated the demographic projections the enrollment projections developed a series of options studied with a committee that was dedicated for the last pass you're going over each of the pros and cons of each 12 in total I'm work over all all 12 and we also held a couple public forums one on the existing condition one on some of the proposed options and then several public committee meetings and then various different presentations to Ward boards and then the committee and the Board of
006Ed unanimously selected option C prime which I'll go over in a little bit more detail we've already heard about the aged average age of all four buildings sixty years old and the average age of the additions is 17 no building has ever been fully renovated or modernized since it was built so again summarizing the problem aging buildings they obviously require more maintenance an efficient educational environment very difficult to adapt and modify the existing layout to meet the current educational needs you heard 5th grade's at the middle school now there was some surveys completed where there was a strong guidance to bring it back to the elementary gable elementary kid grade levels with that you're still using the portables at whisk and air and then as you heard building systems or either add or pass room
007useful life and then with that is the high energy consumption at each building so part of the options that were studied we also looked at a variety in fact 60-plus Town on properties to see if there was any capacity for for a new school on any of those spaces all of them nearly all of them were inadequate because of various different sizes wetlands but also all dedicated open space as well so again I'm not going to go over all the options that we studied but we studied it from a student population and it's great structure perspective and this this graphic illustrates that we had ten and then the committee kind of focused it down for the second public forum to four and those that attended we relabeled those a b c and d and ultimately
008with the feedback that we heard from that public forum and the various different building committee meetings that we had we finalized on basically option c or c prime it's a minor adjustment to option c so in summary it's three schools in total phase one is a new pre pre-k to five at the huckleberry hill elementary school site the the keys to that building are we're gonna house an early childhood learning center so you'll see in the and the concept plans how that can be separated from the rest of the school and the creation of a 5th grade Academy which was important for that transition year then you would demo with the existing huckleberry Hill Elementary School and then repurpose Center elementary so that's phase one phase two after ten plus years after down the road
009whis Kinnear couldn't either look at a renovate as new or targeted renovations again we have capital improvements projected out ten ten years out that shows some needed repairs but phase two would come ten plus years out in addition same thing at the high school so why was it selected these are really encapsulating some long conversations about why what's important to each option and unanimously this bullet it was the most important piece and discussed at length the least disruption to the students it's inherently safe for not only during construction but at the completion as far as the location in the building and the opportunity to meet all of the current school safety infrastructure guidelines it obviously improves the learning environment solves and this is a big bullet and they should be bolder but it really resolves
010pre-k to 8 nearly 3/4 of the student population and one in one swing pre-k to five and then it writes sizes that whisk in their middle school brings it back to two six to eight halfs the construction time when compared to renovate as new looking at eighteen months or so more predictable costs you can control typically control costs better when it's a new building less surprises and then it preserves and improved improves the athletic fields and you'll see that in some of the concept plans that I'll run through real quick so this is what the building could look like okay this isn't what we're saying the design would be but for those that are familiar with the site it would be back past this the existing school back up on the hills the property goes
011for quite quite a ways up the hill and the keys to the concept or to the design or to this school the the soul to the school is that you would have a component for early childhood education pre-k through one with its own separate entrance its own separate drop-off so that it is is isolated successfully from the rest of the school you would have a shared core space which the components are the cafeteria is the gyms the media centers that you know it's leveraging that shared use of those common spaces between the pre-k through one and through to five greats to the five would could be located up kind of towards the the rear of the building as you know if you're familiar with the site it kind of steps up towards the back so
012it's about it's a two-story building as it steps that along the hillside protected outdoor space using utilizing courtyards for the various different grade levels was an important key feature and then obviously schools are are as Exhibit A here is the they're used by the community and to place the functions that you get utilized most by the community towards the front so they're easily separated from the rest of the building is a key key piece and then they also you know more detail to that is locker showers and the use of a potential of an emergency generator for as for a shelter for some of these events that seemingly happen more frequently so the keys to the concept this is the site plan on the right side Candlewood Lake Road just to give you orientation the
013existing school is located here in that light kind of beige color this is the proposed conceptual site plan now the orange block that you see on the left side is the new school pre-k to 5 the gray in the middle is the parking around 250 spaces adequate ratios to support that size school and then you'll see some new fields laid out towards the front portion of the site the keys concepts are as I mentioned earlier separate entry and drop-off the creation in the Early Learning Center shared spaces that 5th grade academy protective courtyards establishing neighborhoods and I think that's key and is particularly in this size school and this these grade levels so you can see and just diagrammatically how you could potentially separate post and traffic or or parents there's good distance between the
014entries for separation for the grade levels these are smaller key plans showing conceptual floor plans again what the building could look like and you can see from right to left how the building you know on the first floor kind of Nestle's its site itself into the hillside this this piece is the portion that would be pushed against the hillside the second floor is a full floor and then the third floor kind of sets up in the back so at no portion is it prettier than a two-story so we're we want to be sensitive to the scale of the overall building there you can see in planwise there the separation there early childhood the shared core spaces in the blue and then the fifth grade academy some other pieces you can see again on the plan
015of the protected outdoor space as I mentioned previously and the key one of the other keys is the establishment of the neighborhood so at no one point point does a student in a grade level have to pass through another's neighborhood to get to a common core space and that's very important considering the age groups and the use of the combined use of these this building so a very simple diagrammatic layout I'm always thinking about the future whether or not it's expanding the building or modifying the building to to accommodate that bubble potential bubble class coming through or the ability to add to portions or ends of the building to accommodate either a change in program or unexpected population increase so we did think about that as well and then as I mentioned the transitions between
016the grade levels was a topic that was discussed at length and you can see these neighborhoods as they you can see they create these pods which are nice neighborhoods are homes for for those great levels to to live in so the numbers how do we get them this for those that have attended the previous presentations this is consistent format from those presentations so I'll run through it fairly quickly the projected enrollment for each grade levels here this column the column in the middle is the allowable square footage by the state so you take the number of students times the allowable square footage you get a bunch of numbers by grade level ends up being about 138 thousand square feet so the existing building for a frame of reference is about 68,000 so it's about double
017that size the cost so you then take the cut of the site improvements so we're modifying about 16 and a half acres there's about 250 spaces the new building you would take times and this is key here I won't go into the great detail at this point but the 415 the $450 per square foot is it's not you know the high end it's not low end it's it's right in the middle of the historical averages for new buildings of this the size this vintage there's this grade level which is important so it's not gonna be on the low end where you're gonna have to start rented modifying and on the maintenance becomes a nightmare in five or ten years it sits right in the middle where it gives you a good solid 30 plus year
018building so you take all those costs 66 million there you see the number and then there's all these other soft costs so I like to explain it you take the building you turn it upside down you shake it everything that comes out is really soft cost so it's all the furniture the computers the designers the civil engineers all of that stuff so it's the numbers that you see on the right side just to keep a frame of reference our turnkey are all all in costs the difference between the 78 and the 63 is this is the total project cost this is the cost the 63 is the cost to Brookfield after of the reimbursement by the state so all those numbers are kind of summarized down here the state reimbursement right now could change but
019right now it's at 22.5 for new buildings for Brookfield and then there's some ineligible costs related to their various different components of the building that we want it to project so you know what is what are what is a 21st century learning environment look like so obviously you've seen a lot of these in Connecticut and throughout New England as as communities renovate and build new outdoor space is you know taking every opportunity to to use not only the building but the site to educate students there's a lot with a lot of studies and findings relative to the introduction of natural daylight into the into the space collaboration that ways of teaching the methods of teaching require flexibility collaborative space social space so you can see these these kinds of techniques utilize in a lot of
020today's educational environments and then of course it doesn't always have to be you know flashy spaces it also relates to the furniture as well so do you have to keep that in mind is it provides the opportunity for student centered learning project-based learning and personalization so it really hits all the marks at times we were asked in many when we're comparing different options throughout this process comparing new to renovate is new and and it's an important comparison obviously when you're when you're talking about the order magnitude of projects like these and on the left side is a summary of Avenue and on the right side is renovate as new so the numbers the student population would remain the same the built total building area would remain the same parking would remain the same the renovated
021site area would be increased depending on because the new building you're going further back and then obviously you would have four new you would have a demolition of existing time frame something to keep in mind here it's about 16 to eighteen months four new 32-36 four renovate is new so it's three years potentially four renovate is new so so those came into play and I and I know is just a bullet about disruption to students but that's a pretty substantial one to consider the cost summary the biggest difference is that you would notice is that the reimbursement for new is twenty two point five renovate is new is thirty two point five okay so you're getting a little bit more back from the state and then all the other comparisons that we mentioned earlier about
022the pros and cons and why new versus renovators now we can get into the baton to into the QA at this point I'd like to turn it over to Marshall hi for those of you that I haven't met I'm Marcia Marion I'm your new finance director I spent 35 years working as a audit partner specializing in government's auditing consulting and and accounting I've done this a number of times and there's two phases as far as the finances goes one is the incremental cost what is the extra cost for you on this project and then the second is how does that fit into the project as a whole so tonight we're going to go through the incremental cost and then we're working on a 10-year projection for the boards so they can see well this is
023the incremental cost and and you know this is how it would fit in all together the incremental cost that there were four factors that we included in our calculations one obviously is paying sixty three million dollars that and the debt service on sixty three million dollars we came up with four different options on the debt service were tried to be conservative at every step that we have a 20-year option and a 30-year option either one would be fiscally responsible in that the life of the building apparently in Brookfield might be eighty year that none but it's certainly longer than 20 years or 30 years so we looked at both the 20 year option and a 30 year option you've never had a 20 30 year option before and that's because it's new for the state
024of Connecticut and then we looked at two different formats structures of the of the debt one is a level principle you take the 63 million you divide it by 20 and you add interest to it so that's going to have a high beginning balance and go lower as the interest goes down but the principal stays flat and the other option is a level debt payment that's like most of us have on our mortgages where in the beginning there's a lot of interest so there's a little principal and they level off it's the same payment every year it's a little bit lower but it stays flat for the for the life for both of these we got the estimates of the interest rates from our advisors are um from financial advisers that we use for these
025things hilltop advisors and they estimated when we go to do the interest it'll be about five percent we included six percent in here just because we we want to be conservative on every number that we give you the second one is there's some costs that you're going to save by not having the two schools that one as I understand it has electric heat it's very expensive but between the architect and looking at the the energy costs and that the school looking at operational costs it looked like there was going to be about the savings of at least four hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year that one of the things that they talked about that I didn't even think about was busing that you don't busing to two different schools but that is four hundred
026and fifty thousand that's what the the Board of Education would save but the town's not going to save 450,000 because your tax dollars still have to pay to heat that dot that building and to keep normal maintenance on it so we took their four hundred and fifty thousand dollars and the estimate for for maintenance of keeping the heat on and things were thirty thousand to be safe we said let's call it fifty thousand so we're estimating that you're going to save fifty thousand dollars a year on the operating costs the third thing that comes into play is right now you're doing a lot of capital work on those those buildings that and a lot still needs to be done every year going forward so we have a ten year capital plan that we again that
027the architect helped us with Jeff that was just speaking helped us with a ten-year operating of what would need to be done to those buildings and those grounds to keep them in the condition for a school it's not really fair to take that number and subtract it out because you know the total number because you know that your budget is not going to allow for you to do a hundred percent of the cost so what we did is there most of them are safety issues for the two schools we took the capital costs that need to be done in the next ten years and we assumed with budget constraints you're really going to stretch them out over 15 years that and you're not going to pay cash for them you're gonna have to take dead
028out for them so that was what we're subtracting out that if you didn't do this school you would have to pay these debt costs so that was the third big big figure when we took all those that's how we got to the to the costs of the school per year several years there's actually a savings where where it would reduce your taxes up front before you start the project when you first take out the money that you get a Premium for taking out debt that that's a check that comes to us when we take out debt because people want to buy municipal bonds it's about three percent of what we take out so that would be a small blip in the front where there's a savings and at the end of the project if we
029project if we finance this project over 20 years this debt that we're taking out on the capital improvements would have taken longer than 20 years to be paid off because it's not even coming into play for the first 50 for every year for the first 15 years and then from there we calculated an incremental mill rate in the and the cost for the average home that just so you get an idea of how that worked that the first column and I've got the details here they'll be up online as well that the first the the first column is the year-end because I can barely see it here I'm sure you can't see it there the second column is this is just one of the four debt possibilities this is the 30-year debt what that would
030be the cost savings that 400,000 we talked about is in the next column the debt service on the capital needs of the two schools or in the next two columns and that brought us to a net cost and we took that with it with the incremental mill rate we're using the value of one mill as it is in this year's budget we're assuming that that it's going to increase by one percent per year the the grand list that is lower than what you've projected in the few in the past than the other buildings you talked about a one and a half percent projection again we wanted to stay conservative so then we have the cost the average home is three hundred and forty thousand dollars in value which we've multiplied by seventy percent to get
031the taxes the so the here are the four different categories that of the fort types of payments the the data for that and again it'll be on the website and I've got some handouts today if this stuff excites you but here's the the meat of it that there's the four different categories that if we were to take and finance this over 20 years using a flat principle the the highest year would be the first year of debt service that's that blue line and it would cost the average homeowner a little less than six hundred dollars a year in taxes that that is about fifty dollars a month for those of us that pay with the escrow and it would go down from there the other scenarios where we're paying it over a longer period of
032time or lesser if we're doing a flat principle so you can see there's two lines that go down below zero that's the 220-year debt the debt would be paid off for this before what you would be paying off in debt and on improvements that that are going to have to be done if if we don't do this and then the two lines that extend out the red and the purple line that's if we had 30-year debt so that to me seems to be a very important numbers what would that happen what would how would that affect the homeowner for their taxes the second set of numbers that we're working on now is the is a 10-year projection that we're where does it look like the town's going to be in ten years that the Board
033of Finance of the Board of Selectmen can't make a decision just based on this they have to look at the the full picture that's thank you Jeff and Marsha for the presentation so I'd like to take some time just to recap the compelling reasons educationally and otherwise that prompted both a strategic Facilities Committee and the Board of Education to unanimously choose this new school proposal above all other alternatives educationally this new school proposal will allow for the development of the early childhood learning center which will house our pre-k through 1st graders with this our youngest students are going to be in a smaller more welcoming environment this is the draw of a small school like center school and we can recreate that in this new school proposal in addition the pre-k and kindergarten classrooms will
034be larger with bathrooms located within each classroom not only is this a clear safety advantage but it's less disruption to a school routine for our beginning students who are just learning school routines every single grade in the school will have its own neighborhood with the classroom situated around a gathering hall this will promote a sense of community within each grade and improve teacher collaboration among those grades as Jeff had mentioned no student will have to go through another grades neighborhood to reach the shared learning spaces this will vastly decrease disruption throughout the day and improve the monitoring of students during those transition times the new school proposal will also allow for the creation of stem and makerspaces and provide the flexibility to accommodate for presentations that happened throughout the day not only this but we
035will have specific learning areas for our children with special needs technology will be integrated throughout the school and there'll be a positive connection to the environment via outdoor spaces ceiling height lighting and acoustics and finally the arts will intentionally be provided for with proper classrooms cific for studio music and performing arts all of these educational advantages would be difficult if not impossible to fit into a renovate as new option if they could be incorporated into the renovation it would increase the cost considerably another reason the new school option was chosen was the consideration of construction factors it will it's estimated that the new school proposal would take approximately 18 months to build with minimal disruption to our students that's compared to the up to 3 years with the renovators new project with the renovation our
036students will be educated on the same site as construction and will for at least some time be housed in temporary portables so if you look at that three-year construction for renovation we're talking about an entire generation of huckleberry students that will live in a significant or live learn in a significantly impacted learning environment another outstanding advantage with this new building per plan is the elimination of potential health and security risks that arise during construction ensuring both the proper learning environment and the health and safety of both our students and staff becomes considerably more complicating and potentially more costly when dealing with the renovation time and money are not nearly as controlled when you look at the potential obstacles that may arise during a renovation some of these costs could be renting additional portables or perhaps
037even renting a temporary school should we find hazardous materials or concealed conditions during the renovation the new school project is far far superior to all other alternatives in terms of modern safety amenities the effective flow of bus and car traffic parent pick-up and drop-off clear sight lines and the integration of 21st century school design safety principles can be implemented throughout the entire site in addition there's going to be a protected exterior play courtyard for our pre hey through first graders as well as a secured enclosed outdoor gathering space for the entire school looking ahead to future needs the new school proposal allows for minimally disruptive additions should our population of the school greatly increase or universal pre-k is instituted flexible teaching spaces are additionally located near the neighborhoods that can transform to extra classrooms to
038accommodate for those bubble classes that we always know arise keeping in mind that any new building addition is not just a learning environment but an extension into the community careful attention was paid to the school fields with they renovate as new option the 60-foot baseball field is eliminated and cannot be replaced in addition we may lose extra field space depending upon the final layout with the new school proposal all three fields the 60-foot Knight the 60 and 90-foot baseball fields and the soccer field are reestablished in new locations on the school site the monies for that is built into the project budget as an additional community benefit the new school is planned to be used as a shelter for the west side of town having just experienced the macro burst were all familiar with how
039crucial local shelters are with this new school proposal a generator and Locker and shower facilities are there to support the use of the school as a shelter community voting is also considered in the entry designs of the gymnasium in terms of security and parking so all of these areas the shelter and the then the voting are located up front near the parking lot and can be locked off from the rest of the school last but certainly not least a new school project will yield annual savings in terms of energy efficiency consolidation of staff reduction of redundancies and a reduction in an capital costs I want to emphasize as Jeff had touched on that this new school project is not considered a champagne taste budget whatsoever the building was priced at midpoint definitely below luxury but
040yes above bare-bones because at that point building quality and longevity is affected all involved with this new school proposal firmly believe that this is the best option for our students and for our community so thank you at this time we'd like to entertain questions from our boards of Finance and selectman having kind of lived and breathed this for the last month and a half with everybody I don't have any questions at this time so why don't we start with Dan divorce sets and rundown having not lived and breathed this and had no prior information I unfortunately have no questions at this time either I honestly think it was a little bit improper to present tax numbers and individual specifics without having the Board of Finance on board selectmen to have the opportunity to challenge those
041a head of time so I don't have any questions at this time but the project of this magnitude does it hamstring us from doing other improvements and that we've been told are required for instance police radios we were told in the last budget cycle I may be the one before that hey these radios are coming up and they're required we push them out a year does this impact or would it impact those types of projects yes and no it impacts from a timing perspective and we have to look at the overall growth in our Grand list plus new development which brings in new revenue which allows us to do things like the police radios and possibly explain this ban the police station but I think we believe that overall when you see the final financials
042that we are not going to hamstring the town for the next 15 years I don't think we should do that we have we have going to have to get the police radios within probably the next five to six years and we don't have a choice on that one that's a safety issue we have to do it so the answer to that is I don't think so and once you see all the financials the entire buckboards the all the financials you'll be comfortable that we can do the things we need to do in a reasonable amount of time and at a reasonable cost and I do want to make it clear as to what tonight is and what tonight is not and was never meant to be tonight was a presentation of the project and estimates
043okay tonight is not for the board of Luckman or the Board of Finance to make a decision so I want that to be a hundred percent 102 percent clear my decisions are made tonight by either one of these boards what we have liked to have the information that was presented and everything behind it beforehand of course but with discussion with with Steve and Colette changes were being made right before this and it wasn't feasible to distribute accurate information before the meeting but because this is strictly informational and for us on the boards and new folks here tonight thank you for coming to get information as preliminary questions about it you know we will have future meetings on this I promise you and decisions will be made starting with the Board of Selectmen and if it
044gets to the Board of Finance then decisions and discussion will be made at that time and yeah I understand the disappointment not having the information but given the circumstance and given what this meeting was a understand why we don't have it questions I was also part of the process and the strategic steering committee so I've been fairly well informed over the past year so I actually don't have any questions at this point okay this is based on the estimate um what determines the 18 and a quarter percent soft cost that you guys included the 18 and a quarter is based on historical averages in one of the previous presentations I gave a sample breakdown of that we can certainly provide that to you with a list of all the different categories okay and then for
045flat principle versus flat payment that's the same fixed interest rate on those but it's a it's a it's a fixed there's no because it seems like with the flat principle it is a variable payment that the interest rates do change a little bit based on the market that right now the market that which is we double-checked on because it doesn't seem to make sense to logical sense that the longer the bonds go out the lower the interest rates to us it seemed to make sense that would be higher risk to have a fixed rate that long but that's not what the market is doing right now so they they do go down a little in the later years okay all right III like Dan to this is a big project I think we need to
046go forward with this as a town but we need to understand it better and and I think if we're going to take this seriously we should be prepared for each meeting and not come into these meetings without having the documents and to look at and to be I'll ask questions I think for the next one we need to be prepared and have this so we can make you better use of this time and better use for the people in the audience because we're just getting the presentations now it would have been nice to have these and hand them out to the audience so they could have taken their own notes in these papers and made sense of this I think if we're going to take this serious let's take it serious not being prepared that
047could be black and white that the information that black and white could be handed to us we could have had this prepared you don't go to a meeting unprepared without having the presentation and I'll reiterate with Dan I mean I understand what what Shawn's saying but this project means so much to this town and it's so important to this town it needs to be done for this town we need to come to these meetings and be prepared I would strongly disagree with you that we're not prepared we're trying to save the town money we made copies to this for each of the board members so that they have it and it's available you have it right now it's available on the town website and anybody can look at it and we'll print some copies up
048and have my office as somebody doesn't have a printer and you can come stop by my office or John barriles office and pick up a copy did the Board of Selectmen have anything or should have move on to hi sue Slater I was also on the steering committee so I'm very familiar with the building and all the thought that went into it the meetings that we had had the the reports that we had gotten back from the citizens here I would have to say thank you to everyone who did put this report together and I appreciate all the work that did I know tonight's intention was to hear what it was see where we are at this point say basically if we can afford this and I think that was the intention of tonight here's
049your numbers now the Board of Finance has to you know look at it and you know see if they agree with it what I really want to hear tonight are just everyone's questions Harry shaker I did have two questions one have you considered or is it going to be a consideration for solar on the roof not as part of this project but possibly down the road and my second question is is it a thought to include the pay facilities building for the high school and a new parking parking lot now I know that it would be in addition to the scope of what the work was going to be but those are two issues here at the high school that seem like it's just never gonna get done especially the facilities building it's a dangerous
050situation back there and it's also a real neat now if it's gonna be a different project fine I just didn't know if there was any possibility of incorporating in it Thank You Harry I'll turn the solar question over to Jeff in a second we put on the capital I'll plan that project in the back of the school for facility storage concession bathrooms etc but that was pushed out into the future in this past years capital planning so we do have that in the plans we're tightening up and going through for the 10 year capital plan for the next meeting for the consideration of the 14th I think you meet again as far as solar we will be looking at all sustainable strategies whether it be photovoltaic or geothermal variety different systems so that's typically looked
051at for every project that we do so the answer is yes my reason for bringing up the facilities is this is kind of like the gymnasium floor for the first 12 years we were going to try to do it the next year and it's something that I thought could possibly be incorporated it would be a minimal cost compared to the size of this and it's something that is absolutely necessary there's there's absolutely no facilities and our back feels with thousands of people using that and on a monthly basis so it's just just a thought thank you so with a question with the solar if we were to incorporate that are there additional rebates or benefits from the state that we would get by using anything I'm Derrick bride with consulting engineering services yes there would
052be other rebates that you could go after with the state and other utility incentives out there the problem with that is we would have to look at them along with the state sometimes they will take that money off the top of your reimbursement that you get so we work closely with the state if we were to be working on the project with you we would work closely with the state along with the utilities in the committee's to make sure you get the biggest bang for your buck on any of those projects I guess I do have a question and I also a request both with regards to the 10-year plan that's being worked on and to be presented I guess I would ask if considerations are being made in that 10 year plan for uses
053it in refurbishing costs for center school that'll be included in their details on some of the cost savings that you mentioned in terms of consolidation in terms of energy all that will be laid out in in detail people have asked you know the plan currently is to demo Huckleberry and repurpose center school we don't have a final decision on how we're going to reverse the center school but it's near and dear to a lot of people in town and I think we should do that community center sports activities there's a bunch of various things and trying to pick a number without knowing what you're going to use the building for it's very difficult but we do have the numbers in there to maintain the building as is not let it get any worse than it
054is but keep it in shape heat it do the regular maintenance we need to do and then we're gonna have to look at at some point what we want to do with that building and that's gonna be another whole conversation with the entire community in my opinion but I think you know there we have groups that come into Town Hall almost weekly asking for places to me and we have to turn them down because all of the town's facilities are completely booked and we really could use places for maybe Girl Scouts or Boy Scouts or you know various clubs to me so there are a lot of things I think we could do is Center school and we have to think about that very carefully because I do not want to sit in my personal
055opinion is I don't want to see that building go idle right we need to come up with a plan for it but I think coming up with that plan for it is beyond this or this groups purview collect could you or Jeff go into detail on how we came up with the size of the building was it based on enrollment projections what projections was is it the size of the town the size of the plot itself and how far were you looking in terms of those projections thank you Thank You Chuck this on can you hear okay so the numbers in the column that say projected enrollment starting with pre-kindergarten at 39 so what what the state requires is a projection at least out eight years and you take the highest enrollment in those eight
056years for that grade level so what that column represents from pre-k all the way to grade five is the projected enrollment um the enrollment projections were updated by Maloney McBroom over the summer and we utilize the highest projection in that eight-year period and that and then so you take those projections those students and the state square footage in that column the 116 is a square foot standard that the state allows per that grade level and it changes per grade level you multiply those numbers together and that gets you your your maximum allowed building area so that that's how you size the building and and so that gives you an overall mass of an overall size of a building and then the state has standards for pre-kindergarten kindergarten in various different classrooms and that's how you
057have to meet all the various different standards it was updated it was updated and interestingly tomorrow night at our Board of Ed meeting we're going to be getting the updated enrollment data for this October we get it every October just as a little preview for everyone last year we had a total enrollment of 26 36 and this year this October it's 26:48 so if you're looking at the projected enrollment for a pre-k through 5 school this year it would be at 1068 I have a question regarding to what Dan said on the cost savings how are we gonna guarantee capture of these savings I mean it's a number on a piece of paper now but how do we go forward and guarantee that we're gonna save a hundred thousand six hundred thousand dollars in one
058year on these estimates how do we capture that because we always say we gain savings we gain savings and gain savings but how do we mandate a capture of that savings and make these true numbers because right now it's a number and a piece of paper right we're estimating what savings in particular are you talking about and then I can address them so that's more Martius okay do something at home or say we're gonna save twenty dollars a month on our electric bill but it always seems to creep away from us how do we capture it I can talk I can talk to the savings on the growth of the savings and we've put a factor in there for cost-of-living adjustments we use the same factor in there that we have on our temporary or
059on our 10-year capital a 10-year projection in progress as far as the specific savings on what they are probably Colet or John can talk more about that on what makes up those savings there would be the savings would start in the year that you closed the two schools so I would say that that would be the easiest way to capture what the savings are to say here's what it was and in this budget let's say it's the year ending 2021 budget and then here's what it is in the year 2022 budget and then make sure that it's a at least that amount and you can see where those savings occur I would say that would be the best way to capture it but to really capture it in the bank correct that you could you
060could itemized it there and and show that it's that it's less I agree as far as the savings associated with the school itself Tecton Associates is very comfortable estimating the amount of energy savings that they will do it's conservatively estimated at 250,000 again though we backed off thirty thousand fifty thousand again to be conservative for maintaining center school the other two hundred thousand dollars is the consolidation of staff which would be determined based on the final layout and the busing savings and then just the the reduction of redundancies which we can further delineate for you as well dan so just to elaborate a little more on the energy savings so we were tasked with the calculating existing energy usage on your existing buildings along with the proposed new building given the energy inefficiencies of the
061both the elementary schools in calculating out the efficiencies of the new school we came up with around a 200 or 250 thousand dollar savings annually with the new new building so one of the things that surprised me in the presentation perhaps it was in some of the previous presentations I didn't go to all of them was the inclusion of the lockers and the showers in the generator which aren't necessarily educational items but more town needed items and I was wondering when that got added and if there we know what the cost of those particular pieces are to the project in isolation so I can talk briefly about the cost of generator the code requires us to have emergency standby systems and all our facilities so in order to have an ease of maintenance we generally
062put a generator within every building over the past decade or so we've been finding the cost of generators reducing drastically over the years so to upsize that generator to accommodate the extra square footage of the gymnasium some locker areas some extra heat and potentially the a warming kitchen or something like that you're only talking a couple hundred thousand dollars extra for that extra cost so it's something we've been putting in almost every school that we work on um it's kind of almost common practice now in the industry but it's it's a smart use of your money similar response to the locker facilities where you know we're not talking a full shower facility suite we're talking a few showers adjacent to existing changing rooms or locker rooms for that grade level so there's the capacity or
063inability to have that function in this school so when you say for that grade level are there gonna be multiple locker rooms or is there one locker room I'm in favor of that so yeah at this grade level you don't historically see you know shower facilities but to expand the changing slash locker areas to house two to three shower facilities is a minor incremental cost to the overall scheme okay yeah now we will take questions that will answer to the best of our ability if we can't anyone on the panel will obviously defer out to the experts there is a sign-up sheet next to treasurer John Lucas over there if everyone could then I will write their name and address down on that sheet but also announce it and we would like to keep each
064speaker to five minutes and the timer will start going as soon as you announce who you are while we're signing up you know I would like to thank everyone that is here and that is tuning in for being here and tuning in as the chair of the Board of Finance I'm excited about this project I'm excited at the possibility that the Board of Selectmen will pass it to the Board of Finance and we will have an opportunity to consider it and possibly bring it before everyone in town so thank you everybody and I hope everyone does have a chance to speak and I hope everyone does get out what they want to get out because this is a great time for everyone to give input and ask questions and get answers all right so why
065don't I start I'm Bob Beldon 7 red barn Lane and for truth in advertising I'm on the board of education so I've very familiar this and I'm not going to use anywhere close to my five five minutes I actually didn't hear something like that I think is important in the presentation I was wondering if somebody could talk to the board's and to the public about the schedule you know what is the time that when are we thinking we're gonna go to referendum how much time do these two boards have to deliberate on all of this and then once it's approved by the town what's the what you know what's the broad schedule after that so that's just one thing if we could spend a couple minutes on that okay so the schedule just to go
066over real quick the bow box and the bottom there is basically where we are right now fall 2018 a couple of lines that you need to be aware of if there's a referendum sometime in spring we targeted on the top March but at this is a preliminary schedule there's a deadline to submit the grant application and you didn't do need to have referendum support and for that showing financial support for the project that's June 30th 2019 so you submit it to the state there's seven or eight items that you need to submit you sit and wait until basically December I think it's 15th now middle of December where they come out with a priority list as all the projects that submitted grants they give you a list show you your ranking you're on the list
067and you're gonna get reimbursement or a modification thereto then that goes through committee and comes out typically the other side in the spring of state funding approval in the spring of 2020 and you really need that our recommendations you really need that commitment which is from the legislation saying that they they approve the total bond in total the project and then you can either start or go out to to bid depending on how you want to sequence the design and pre-construction phase but let's just say you're halfway through design at that point when you get that letter you put it out to bid in the fall of 2020 and you start building it you best-case scenario would open for the fall of 2022 it's a buying frame from a floor Kimberly Drive just a question
068to kind of reconcile from a previous presentation with regard to the scope and the cost the the option C which is I like that that's the best option I think it evolved with my thanks for everybody put their work into that but there is discussion of the the huckleberry and then also then we skinnier there was there was a discussion about upgrades to whiskey near but I think for what I understand you have here that's that's not part of this sixty submode that's ten years down the road or that was you really couldn't see that color on that presentation so just what's the what's the situation with whiskey near yeah and the second question is is there was discussion that there was a requirement for a second row second access wrote the huckleberry that would
069go across Errol Ella I think to Belden Hill and come out on Turkey Hill whatever that road is over there you did it was on the map he didn't discuss it I want to show if that if that's a requirement if the costs are associated with that in this sixty three million dollars if and with the town is that something possible you have to buy land we have access to that did I think that's sure so the answer to your first question about whiskey no you're absolutely correct we showed graphics similar to the detailed breakdown for each school assuming that the whiskey nur at some point in its life in the future ten plus years would be a renovate as new and those dollar costs were calculated the same way that I reviewed the the
070proposed pre-k to five this it that would be phase two that would be ten plus possibly fifteen maybe even twenty years out the systems in there and as you look at that capital improvement plan are a better vintage and better condition than some of the elementary schools and that's why this option was chosen so those numbers that I had presented were at the the original at the second public forum were really two to illustrate what a renovators new at whisking air would would be when that would do occur would be 10 plus 15 years down the road the second question you had is relative to is relative to to a secondary ingress egress and that is absolutely true as well regardless if you do this project or you keep huckleberry hill as is today it's
071our recommendation through our consultant team to provide a secondary access to the site it's not technically required it's it's a strong recommendation what you have going through the site and a very light filter as you can see kind of right through the middle of the site is a floodplain and you always want to have two ingress egress out on a site that has a floodplain so regardless if it's a new building or the existing we recommend that secondary ingress egress and the cost is built in to this project yes correct yes I wanted to reiterate though that the one area of work on whiskey near that is involved in this project is the destruction and removal of the portables because we want that to happen as absolutely soon as possible don't take Steve's time but
072in the town can a town talk about that Road is that is that something that's doable do we have to acquire properties is this I don't you know when you start you know doing that son okay yeah the town owns that property now that's an ABI site yes good evening Steven Harding 21 Brookfield meadows first I think this is an absolutely worthwhile investment for our town it's critical that we do this I went to these schools huckleberry over 20 years ago and to Collette's point what she was talking about some of the maintenance issues and safety issues that we have the schools we had the same exact issues over 20 years ago with these schools when I was in them and the last thing I'd want to see is my son going to the same
073as I talked over that I went to that's just not right so I think that the investment in this is absolutely critical and I really hope that the town was forward with it in regards to you know the deadlines as you know the state is very critical with with getting that December list out from das so as quick as you know once we have the numbers correctly and we feel comfortable moving forward the quicker we can get the timeline moving forward it's critical to getting on das his list with that said just one question Collette mentioned it in her comment and it was critical she kind of mentioned it as a tertiary issue but it's really important the field usage and the fact that we're gonna be putting back in the 60 foot diamond the
07490-foot diamond in the soccer field because without that we would be left with really only 160 foot baseball diamond only 190 foot baseball diamond and that's hard having just to in town let alone just one so my question is kind of off of that and I know it's more of a secondary issue but what is the plan currently for when we do renovate and we're putting on the new school or in regards how is that going to impact the fields do we have an idea of what that's going to do yes so there'll be a temporary loss of the existing portion of the existing fields and so just a comment on the ball fields we're already working with our high school athletic director thank you Steve who's working with other athletic directors for use of
075the field as well as with Parks and Rec and we're working for temporary use during the 18 months of construction before the new fields will be re-established how we would set that up working with other communities working with other districts recently when New Milford what we say recently with their new school it's almost 20 years old now but when New Milford was going through renovations with their track and so forth they use the Brookfield track so this is something we in kind do with other districts in parks and recs do with other towns Winfield's go through renovations and things like that so we're already working on those plans again we're looking down the road about three years four years before we put a shovel in the ground anyway so it's not going to impact anybody
076immediately we've got a lot of planning to do still thank you enduring the conceptual design a site plan design we did work with Park and Rec to modify the layout of fields to accommodate their their needs with the different various different sizes of the ball fields Greg Dombrowski 28 Green Mill Drive I have a question regarding the energy savings in the calculation that you gave us did you assume heating oil as your fuel source we assumed the use of natural gas for the heating sources so we've been in contact with some of the utilities there's natural gas within the vicinity of the project and hopefully during the design phase we could work with them to bring it up to the facility perfect thank you I raised Stefan 11 old Woods Road a couple of comments
077just I would suggest I understand the frustrations of some of the board members but I think this is a huge project and take your time meet as many times as you need to this is a start it's got to start somewhere in terms of the three options that I you know that we have in front of us I think most of us agree on this but doing nothing is not an option so I don't see that as a real option renovating it as new for 53 million dollars versus building is new for 63 million dollars as a poor option so I think that leaves us the new bill that hopefully we'll all see it that way now getting this right is obviously really important to do the first time we go to referendum I just
078wanted to point out someone was talking about the 10-year wait on whiskey near but there would be an immediate impact because fifth grade wouldn't be there anymore which was good which would be why you could get rid of the portables that would change that we give opportunities right away and whisking here to make some programmatic changes because there would be a lot more space there with no 5th graders so that should be considered when we're talking about this project I think one of the things missing I shouldn't say missing that hasn't happened yet that is really important is succeeding to understand and get a better vision of what the educational experience would be like in the building for me part of them the most exciting piece of the presentation tonight was seeing those pictures of
079what the building may actually look like for the students when they're in there and I wonder if a professional educator dr. Burrell perhaps you or someone you thought would be good to do that could walk us through this is what a day would look like in this building for students I think that's a really important piece for the community to understand and to fully appreciate the project and then I just wanted to mention one more thing that you've heard me talk about many times and that's universal pre-k built into this plan I saw a pre-k of about 39 students I think it's a hundred plus short in my opinion universal pre-k to be clear what I'm talking about as I'm talking about allowing families that live in Brookfield a right to send their child as
080part of the public educational system to pre-k the reason I'm advocating for this is because number one this is coming this is being discussed nationally lots of states are considering implementation of pre-k programs the benefits have been massively studied and shown to prove the better educational experience for students who have the opportunity for pre-k it would be groundbreaking to be the first town in Connecticut to do something like this we're making a 65 million dollar investment let's do something special with it the annual cost budget costs for a few teachers and the extra space we would need I think when you when you consider the size of this project would be fairly minimal compared to the benefits this would be a true investment and something that would really put us on the map educationally and
081it would require quite a bit of educational vision that I think we have here so I would really like to see it rather than be something that we're open to doing in the future let's make it part of the plan I think the opportunity is enormous I think the effect on a home values the fact that would become a desirable community for families to move to would be unspeakable that builds local economy that builds groundless that leads to a lot of more income to the town this would be a smart thing to do the other thing is that it shows that students who go to pre-k programs are less likely to need special services later on obviously they will always have the need for special servants ain't eliminated but would have some impact on our
082our students who may not need special services later no that's better for kids and that's a savings so pre-k pays for itself I think in a lot of ways and not to mention it's the right thing to do for kids just as a side note so I would really implore you to consider I'm gonna keep saying that's pretty much every chance I get to consider pre-k as part of the plan and not just part of an option for the plan so thank you Irene Korea 45 West whiskey near Road few questions here I you did mention and I looked earlier on the presentations you had on your website it is near a floodplain have you guys looked at any of this and done any soil testing borings only because I know from work if you
083don't have the right you know you have put engineering feel very expensive and I don't want that to take away from things above structure that the students need we haven't completed any kind of detailed geotechnical analysis we did look at some surface maps to understand what may be underneath the the subsurface there but we do understand and and we have highlighted those in our report as far as the the next steps in making sure that it's well planned as far as dealing with the floodplain area so okay my other question is I noticed there's one gymnasium six grades or plus pre-k seven grades they're six and a half grades um that's I don't know whiskey nur has two gyms we have two at huckleberry right now I know we use them for basketball on weekends
084and we would use the upper and lower gym I just you know the upper grades they all have gym twice a week we all agree we don't need less Jim we need more gym and running around so I just wonder if that's put into the program for to accommodate all the kids for gym twice a week with all those classes I absolutely understand your concern and many of the projects that we look at for whatever reason have double gyms in fact we're working on a couple right now that have that and it's a bit of a challenge when it comes to that remember the total maximum allowable square footage you basically can divide that up pretty much how you want so you have to it's a give-and-take as to the various different programs but I
085will say as far as the various different types of spaces for physical education is we have the gymnasium but we also have and I didn't get it to this level of detail multi-purpose from adjacent to or within contained within the early childhood center for gross motor skills development so it's a larger kind of multi-purpose room it provides a different scale and size atmosphere for those for those grade levels so we have started to think about it that would be one of the more one of the details that we would have to find to an SP as we develop the plans okay and then somebody other questions were answered but my other question was you mentioned there's a secure playground for K 2 to K 2 1 or K 2 2 and then you said there
086was a courtyard for the upper grades would they also have a playground structure to play on because I just have those graters and they still like to hang and stuff like I'm just yes I just want it to be in like here's a bunch of grass and you have nothing - I know me too and I understand yeah yeah you need lots of spaces for that um I spoke to the secure outdoor gathering areas basically courtyards that not only provides secure play space but natural daylight to the internal space of the building but we also anticipate play areas a per age appropriate player is off of each of the neighborhoods on the upper level Hill which is further back away from the entrance so it sets up hope from from a vigil and security and
087safety perspective as well okay and I know we said no ten years from now you would work on WMS and BHS would um we'll still be doing capital improvements on there as needed is yes fixing AC systems and flooring and that would all continue part of our charge was to provide not only these options but also a capital improvement plan for each of the schools and we've provided that detail now it's really diving into the details and figuring out where we recommend it where we think they should occur and in an ideal world and we understand that you know reality has to be inset into there as far as a budgeting process so that's where the fine tuning that we spoke to earlier is going to happen so the answer to your question is yes
088they are on this kept home improvement list no kangri thank you Howard last one 1610 wrote I've actually followed this project for the last several months and as board members know I've taken the opportunity to ask questions about it so I come with some background I've looked at some of the financial issues and but I wanted to say right off the bat you know Collett aside from Dan and your two kids you know I am your biggest fan and what you said at the end of the presentation in my opinion you should have been at the beginning of the presentation because what we really need to talk about is what are the educational imperatives that drive the decision making because it should really be about the education of kids and why this is an important
089project for the kids and why the educational program that we can provide with this particular project that we wouldn't be able to provide any other way that to me is the real critical decision criteria and I think you did a fabulous job of addressing that tonight so I want to thank you for that because you know that was in my my questions all along but I also think that you know I've been very conflicted about this in part because it is a huge dollar cost and to suggest that it doesn't impact other things in our potential future is really foolish the average increase in cost for this project on an annual basis is going to be somewhere north of four million dollars and to suggest that that doesn't impact other things is it's just not
090real in fact I mean the big reason why I still remain somewhat conflicted is that I mean we don't we don't fund the things we need to do now I mean you know we spend less today than we did ten years ago and maintaining our facilities and and and we have more facilities to maintain so that makes absolutely no sense as far as education being a priority in this community it's not reflected in our budget our budget over the last ten years for education has been gone up only an average of less than 2.3 percent a year we're not even being pace with inflation if we were if we were keeping pace with inflation our education budget would have another million and a half dollars in it in the meantime our operating expenses in our
091town have gone up over four and a half percent a year so obviously our priorities need to shift if we're going to say this is that this is this is where we want to put our bucks and this is the most important thing in our community I think we should do this but I also think it's incumbent on every elected official to get out from behind the desk and go out into the community and tell them why we need to do this and I think that includes the Board of Ed Board of Finance Board of Selectmen because you can't just you know say I've done my duty by sitting here at the desk we need to go out to the community and tell them this is an important project that we need to do and
092then we need to fund the operations and the programs that we would put into this facility so thank you hello Daniel Pearson 590 Road I think that was a perfect segue to what my question and comment was regarding communicating this to you know the thousands of people in residence in Brookfield I mean we have dozens here but in order to pass it in a referendum that's where the rubber hits the road how are we gonna pass this once we once you all decide and we get the numbers right and and we go forward we all agree how vital and we need to make education a priority and we need to reflect that so in order to do that we need to make sure that we pass the referendum so it seems like on the timeline
093that we just assumed it's gonna go from the committee's and we'll go ahead and pass it and then it's gonna pass a referendum and then we're looking past that it means nothing if we can't pass it on a referendum we need vocal advocates we have plenty of champions here but we need a spokesperson who is going to communicate to the community to answer all of those questions because you can't expect them all to come here to a public forum and be as well-versed as we all are tonight so is there a plan is our spokesperson what are we doing because we cannot wait until we have the committee approve it to be thinking about this so thank you and your answer is yes yes there is we are not assuming that this will be easily
094passed the referendum we know once it has to first get approved by the Board of Selectmen then voted on by the Board of Finance to go to referendum and then our real work begins myself I will be the spokesperson at this point along with the superintendent and the NBC at hoc committee as well we are establishing an email address that everyone can ask questions it will be live as of the end of this presentation if people want to ask questions they can they will be answered then posted on to the website we're going to be going out into the community every single chance we can get all of the different facilities departments groups organizations and just put out the message as very much as we can and thank you and sign me up I'll be
095right there with you and it this is vital to our community I know we all know that but I just want to reiterate that for the boards for when you're deliberating and talking about the numbers this is a single most important investment we can make as a town for our children and our future so please please please do what we can to get this passed thank you thank you very much Ken Krasinski Pocono Road I had a quick question on the debt servicing because this is just part of the overall debt so let's say we add this project and we go up to we'll say eighty million dollars one hundred million dollars if we're not gonna renew debt that's paid off would that be additional savings instead of going up you know I'm saying is
096let's say you have a total of 100 million dollars in debt once you take this project over the years yes your projects gonna be declining but other debt have been paid off 2-0 completely well that I guess you really need to see the entire debt service package to see because to me I would think that if you don't take on new debt and you just focus on that project from the out years you're gonna actually save money on the debt service million dollars in debt right now 30 of it is old bonds it'll all be paid off in ten years and the high school those are high school the huckleberry will have come down a bit without having to service that 30 million dollars in debt assuming you're not gonna renew it with new debt
097you would actually pay less and debt service costs over the whole life that's correct if we if you don't if you retired that and don't bring on new debt obviously your debt load will go down every single year as to the amount owed the total amount owed right because this is a big initial hit and it is a big initial know the high school Highschool paid off I think the architects have said that the major work at whiskey near and at the high school are somewhere ten years down the road and beyond is that correct is that what we had right so we will have to do normal capital maintenance projects for the high school and for whiskey near including taking down the portables of whiskey Nair and our normal maintenance and things like that
098we have to be able to do all these things as well as do this project or we'll be in a lot of trouble and that's what the plan will show does that answer your question yeah can they also do one that has both the twenty and thirty meeting we had yeah we will have that up on the website this presentation will be up there probably tonight or first thing tomorrow morning and it shows the actual payments okay hello Marie Williams 14 Patricia lien first I'd like to thank the committee for all of your hard work I know it's really hard to please everybody and I know that it was a lot to look at the questions that I have have to do with the actual layout of the building like somebody who had spoken before
099me I am very concerned that there is only one gym space and a multi-purpose space is not adequate it's not the same thing as having a designated space for that program in addition I in the report when there's a breakdown of the classrooms it states that there's two art rooms and it states that there's not only two performance spaces for music but two music practice rooms but I don't see that reflected on the actual drawing can you show those so I can try again these are conceptual plans the program still needs to be validated for all that there is different components so whether there's two art rooms or one hour room or maker spaces or engineering spaces they'll still technically have to be fully vetted through an educational specification which will which will be part
100of the process but to answer your question relative to to the music program there's banded music here with the practice and storage so those are the two identified in the initial conceptual program and then there's a multi-purpose presentation space that is in the center of the building that allows first kind of like a black box theater so it allows for various different types of not only performing arts but Visual Arts presentations okay - just to kind of reiterate my point I mean going with the number of classrooms the gen ed classrooms that you have in there it would take it would be ten point two classes per day in each one of those rooms and that's just not possible for music you're saying from an for art yeah yeah it's not possible and to say
101that that multi-purpose room is going to be like the overflow it really decreases the instructional integrity of those programs number one I mean to have to gather all of those instruments and go into the other room or for an art you know for art claim drawing or paper drawing it's it's really imperative that each one of those classrooms should have its own designated space understand um what about outdoor space for Jim so outdoor space for Jim can be immediately adjacent to the gymnasium cafeteria space there's I can go to the floor plan I mean we haven't visually shown it on the site plan but let me just get to the site plan so I can speak to that about the outdoor space the building location sets up well for the opportunity for outdoor space so
102this area down here could be that's directly it immediately adjacent to the gymnasium cafeteria could be the outdoor space then the upper-level I'll call them upper-level two three four and five pods are more towards the back of the building here which each has an opportunity to come out at grade four outdoor play area too so there's access pretty much around the full perimeter now keep in mind the building kind of steps as we go so we just need to you know take a harder look at the topography so and my last question is just about that um contained courtyard sure are there windows looking into that yeah absolutely so it so it's an open-air courtyard and it provides the opportunity for outdoor gathering that we you could see we placed one at least conceptually next
103to the multi-purpose so that it you know they could open up in theory you could open up that wall and have outdoor presentations but it's in its open air and then surrounded all four walls will have glazing obviously you get natural daylight deeper into the buildings are those classrooms surrounding that outdoor space there's some circulation in some classrooms yeah yep just in every building I've ever worked in and has had I mean it's a wonderful idea but it ends up and I've never seen it utilized for two reasons number one when you teach in there you feel like you're in a fishbowl because everybody's staring at you and then all of the classroom teachers are not happy with you being there because they are having trouble with classroom management because they're all stares at distraction
104yeah big distraction yeah so I think he's conceptually in this plan the opportunity where the building steps provides different views so the so the classroom that will gain access to that daylight is at a different level so the eyesight there'll be at different levels so what so I think we can use some of the I think challenges of the site to benefit the building's use so those are some strategies obviously we we're well aware of of those concerns and the distractions and we just want to that's why you see some on some sides there's circulation on some side there's program space so we just need to be sensitive to exactly what you're you're speaking to do I have time for one more question I'm just wondering on the admin like what do you see administration
105being in this building so we're still looking at almost 1,200 students so we have to take a look at administration the plan as we talked about consolidating and looking at redundancies we would not necessarily in our initial plan right now look to eliminate an administrator of the three elementary elementary administrators we're talking about we may look at a reconfiguration of how they operate in the process by which they operate in the way you know we could have there's options we're still discussing we could have houses and house masters we could have a Dean of Students we could have traditional principal and assistant principals there's a number of ways we can structure that and we're still in initial discussions about that I mean there was one of the things that came up was there was gonna
106be a savings of two hundred thousand dollars by consolidating services and I was concerned I mean that's a lot of there's one seat because of two different buildings but it isn't necessarily savings in administration meaning the administrators who need to supervise the building provide supervision and evaluation for our staff work with parents be with students etc etc rich Saluda 32 crate Herron lean I had two questions one assuming the schedule that was indicated is followed when would a homeowner first see this impacted in terms of the budget would it be in the nineteen twenty budget twenty twenty-one budget when would it first appear the projections based on that would be in the the debt would be taken out in the 2022 year it's where the first payment would be seen okay so not until the
107project is completed correct according to the schedule okay and the second question somewhat follows the previous speaker is there a way you can detail specifically what the savings that you're talking about are itemized specifically you know heating utilities any labor and benefit costs because just to throw out numbers like well we think it's about four hundred thousand or 450 or it's nice to throw out a number like that but I'd be curious to see what specific savings we can speak from the energy efficiency standpoint we so we have your existing utility bills you can provide more detail at home no I'm not looking for you to tell me now just if there's a way you can put it on a website certainly itemizes savings would absolutely thanks in much similarly we can do that with
108staffing we've already done that and that would include health benefits and things like that where the savings would come from here at the end of the day so I'm on the website that's dedicated to this project as well as the Facebook page that's dedicated to this project so everybody can stay in the loop on that and we invite those questions we welcome those questions I'll turn it over to mr. Dunn saw a goggle going on questions comments inquiries if there are no more I would ask for a motion to close the Board of Selectmen meeting I would ask our motion can I get a second all in favor aye I move to adjourn the Board of Finance meeting all those in favor aye adjourned [Music]