00115 2023 can I have a roll call please m m yes sir M here Mr chairman you have a quum thank you sir and for theed Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the for it stands one nation God indivisible liy and justice for all okay do we have any correspondents from the audience we do not present there was no correspondence today item number three daos Transportation contract and sent over a lot of information theps on this good evening everyone welcome I I prepared just a few um really prepared one last document that summarizes what I'm about to say and I'll just hit the highlights but our contract with our transportation provider that go expires this coming June 30th of 2024 and as uh board planning committee members know we
002have met with the president of of d d Deo I've been negotiating back and forth with Scott bant their Chief Financial Officer on what a new five-year contract would look like if we just negotiated as opposed to one have to bid they had provided an initial term sheet which was presented to the planning committee and then um there were some things that we wanted adjusted including looking if we can have Deo sh and pencil on the renewal uh increased percentages in the contract and they did do that for us so I did include in the package the actual term sheet but it's documented in the analysis and recommendations for bid wave memo so um the big highlights are this would be a five-year contract which we're allowed to do under state law um we asked
003if they would include in their offer um at our discretion an additional five years so the contract could go as long as 10 years but in accordance with state law they would have to have at least one electric bus so let's not we're not proposing a a 10-year contract now it's a 5year contract but with an option to extend up to 10 years if they make one electric tight bus operation for the end of the contract term the increases in this contract would be 6% in year one followed by 3 4% increases and then in the last year 3% that's very attractive and I'm give you some of the reasons why in just a few minutes uh as part of this uh proposal if we agree they will also replace the existing diesel buses 50%
004of the fleet will get brand new diesel buses which will be obviously not only you know more comfortable for the students but you know they'll have better efficiency and improved emissions but they would be diesel buses can I ask you a question quick sure on that one so new vehicles are Place practically 50% of the fleet in the first contract year so that you're saying what is that first contract year the 24 24 through June 30th of 2 so they're replace 50% of yeah so roughly 20 buses and now didn't we just do didn't they just do a rather large Flip Flip of they did yes they did I think it was about 13 Vehicles out of 35 out of yeah roughly 40 let's okay yeah so we have 40 and they just did 13
005and just being within the last two years so okay so the the fleet will be relatively new yep um also on the buses they would provide you know all the all the technology that we need GPS tracking which we already have video cameras inside the bus um they'll make sure that the bus has the ability with GPS that if we wanted add a parent app for bus tracking a software that we use would support that so we can roll that out and they'll make sure that the fleet is capable of doing that and also if the state um allows which they don't currently turn by turn driver navigation would be equipped in those buses so right now school buses cannot use GPS navigation but the state is looking at that so they've committed to doing
006that if it's allowed by the state and then the last item which they threw in which was not in the first term sheet proposal is they'll give us a one-time credit to be used for equipment upgrades or if we want to use it for bus service costs they put that out there because we did request um I believe Mr White brought up can we have extended stop arms on all our buses so rather than limited to that they said we'll give you a $220,000 credit to be used in that first year for you know whatever you think makes sense so that's at a high level that's the proposal few things that I wanted to address first of all um the renewal rates average if you take the 6% three fours and the 3% that's about
007a 4 and a half% increase if we just averaged it we are ending a contract that was a 1.6% average increase per year so we're coming off some very low contract rates what happened when we signed the contract in 2019 with dco um the minimum wage was $10 an hour three months after we signed that contract the governor signed legislation that increased the minimum wage over four years from $10 to 15 as you know and that we did not have to pay any addition but obviously D absor the cost as driver wages increased I'm not saying that the drivers were at $10 per hour they certainly had an increase driver wages over the term of our contract um like all bus companies they've been struggling with driver shortages and in order to compensate for that
008they had increased pay to their drivers and that did not affect our R over the last 5 years so I certainly expected that we were going to see a substantial increase in this contract proposal and you know although I think thato came in with some reasonable proposal at at first shot we were able to negotiate that down to this 4 and a half% increase per year so I I think it's just on Bas value based on the last five years of wage increases the proposal is very attractive beyond that though um and you'll see on the easiest place to see this this last page this grd which is an attachment I prepared so what this is is a um the results of a survey that the school business officials put together and you'll see in
009the middle and yellow I highlighted chessur rates if you start with the 20 24 24 column which is the third column that has a rates you could see that Dao's proposed rate of $377 so this is the daily rate for the large type one bus and this particular sheet is ranked from the highest cost to the lowest cost in 2425 so you could see that we're just below the middle of the pack at a $377 daily rate at the top or Greenwich Richfield Trumble all over $500 uh per bus per day um and then you know at the low ends we have a couple of small communities that are 318 and 325 down at the bottom what I what I showed you is the summary of what this this looks like so if you go
010to that all the way to the bottom section where it says average rate excluding Chesser in the 2425 column it's $45 see that chesh is at 377 so chesher is $28 lower per day and the important thing is at 180 days we're $ 5,65 lower per bus and times out 29 type Vehicles were $146,000 for the year lower than the average and then if you go across you'll see that to the extent that other contracts have rates are and I want to call it savings but you know it becomes more and more attractive because that those increases are lower than the increases that other towns other the districts are experiencing all right and then just above where I was pointing out if you look at the where it says chessur increase per year you see
011at the bot it says 6% 4% 4% 3% right above that those other companies excluding chesher the increases are 5.7% 6.2 7.8 7.9 now there's less bus companies as you get further out but the average increase is much higher than dco is proposing based on what other contracts are growing by so the point is that Deco put together a proposal that's very competitive below the average increases that other towns are experiencing for their bus contract increases but also the dollar amount that will be at the end of this contract in 2829 at 437 even with those increases still looks very attractive so the recommendation obviously that I'm putting forth is that we request the bid wer um the risk of going out to bid and doing better than this is is pretty low I don't
012think we'll do better and if we do better it won't be by much and there's some other peripheral information that I I do want to provide about dco but that's the kind of the financial analysis and I see Mr Mr White has a question thanks Andrew um yeah so 30 seconds or less because this is not a really really serious question but I am curious yeah um just looking down the list of the vendor names and I see Newington it says Town owned buses is that something that you've ever considered is it just a crazy idea um it's not a crazy idea the obstacle will be though the capital that we have to outlay to buy the the transition would be a total pain yeah okay maintenance hiring the staff and maintaining the drivers and
013it's not a business that we have expertise in yeah no no no I get it but just the Capital would be the probably biggest obstacle and just to for anyone who's listening at home your favorite line um we pay for the fuel so this is over this is completely separate from the fuel for the buses this is just correct an increase of for Staffing or for sof class or whatever it is for the management of the fleet to D these rates um these are for the most part in Connecticut all the districts buy their own fuel the reason for that is we don't pay tax right and if the bus company bought the fuel well we would pay the tax which we don't want to do we've gotten quotes in the past when we've gone
014out to bid for rates with fuel and without fuel included and obviously if the bus company is providing fuel they are going to hedge sure that you know the cost of fuel doesn't work against them so yes we do buy our own fuel but when you look at this analysis it's Apples to Apples and I will say one more thing um that since you bring that up Andrew one of the cost advantages that we have is that we own the bus depot property technically releasing it from the state right now we're in the process of getting it transferred to the town but that helps us without cost cost Deo does the snow plowing and any type of repairs related to the facility but us owning the property helps us without without bus RS so in
015terms of leasing it's like a dollar a dollar per year so it's insignificant got it um a couple of a couple of questions you mentioned about the difficulty finding drivers over the past few years are they still having difficulty less but relative to say 5 years ago they were in better shape than they were during the pandemic you know pre pandemic we were doing just fine you know during the pandemic and post pandemic dco definitely struggled with drivers we did not suffer like in many other communities where we had cancel bus runs constantly or double up students somebody just went on strike didn't they right around merid yeah that's whole another story and if you look at meriden's um rate increases the first year increase is astronomically high but then their increases year over over
016Year s and a half percent so they just signed with a new bus contract for student um um we fed pretty well we work very we have a very good working relationship at the yard level with dco with the drivers out you know we have a transportation manag and two office staff they work very closely with the dispatch manager and the drivers at thato and so it's not unusual you know for their dispatcher to do a bus run and for our transportation manager to dispatch buses we work very closely and that's how we've been able to get through they have um quite a few drivers in training right now which is a good sign there's about a 50% conversion rate though from from people in training to actually you know passing um so we're doing
017better than we were last year at this time and there is a commitment and that's part of the term sheet of you that they're committed to um making sure that we have adequate spare drivers and spare buses so just as the COO of the CH Public Schools do you feel that this is like you obviously have to deal with a lot of operational issues in this District I'm sure transportation is one of the largest ones all in all they're responsive and they are at the best like you wouldn't want to necessarily cost as side work on somebody else like you feel like we're getting I think we're getting excellent service and we have been for years we have a really strong relationship I think the yard level is the most important but even you know
018with with their senior staff I pick up the phone if I need to speak to Scott or Don devivo the president they're no problem getting through and and they're respons they're one of the biggest providers in Conneticut they're not a national company and like first student is one of the national companies that's been very competitive in Connecticut but I don't see any reason to change based on the the type of service that we've been receiving from dco pre pandemic post pandemic and currently but there's more yeah no I'm just GNA I agree with the end 100% finances aside the service matters so thank and the kids of school is really important yeah we don't have an operational school um so one second I just J down a couple things um so I don't I mean
019generally speaking I don't care I I don't care for bid waivers but I'm balanced this makes sense so I'll support it I do have one question though anyway which is the with regard to Electric school buses electrifying a fleet um first of all for TV Land you had mentioned the state is moving from a five to a 10year possible contract so we are allowed to our discretion we extend it just so people at home understand I believe the driving force behind that was electric school buses because the payback on an electric school bus is 10 years not five years so the school bus companies want someone locked in for 10 years basically if they're going to be doing electric school buses instead of the fiveyear payback on a diesel type thing with that said I'm
020just trying to I'm trying to understand what you're thinking in terms of uh so you said we have about 40 buses next year they would replace 50 of them with diesel which I'm not really happy about but you said we did about yeah 50% sorry 50% 40 and we did 13 buses recently so that would be about 33 of the 40 buses that would be as would be you know three years old so be looking at locking for those 33 buses for another I'll just say seven years from from next year maybe maybe not I'm just trying to think I'm just trying to understand what you're thinking on that like the fleet to Electric I mean I'm assuming that we we'll start doing it and you do it gradually sure I don't I would think
021that if there's a really strong um and compelling reason that we should move quickly to Electric you know from a financial point of view I think dco would be on board they're they're pretty aggressive in the electric bus Market at this point point you know they've got you know a lot deployed but a lot in today's market means about 20 electric buses so it do they have 20 on the road or 20 in production at a facilties no I believe they have 20 on the road okay you know between a couple of different districts I think Middle handon have it I don't know it's been pretty slow I mean to get buses deployed and a lot of that you know has to do with the infrastructure if that's necessary yeah no and I completely understand
022that it's we're looking at a c if we go with a 10-year life for these diesel buses that's a certain amount of lockin that we have right there on the technology that I'd prefer to avoid I'm not saying don't do it but I know I'd prefer to avoid it and that's what I'm just wondering about does it is there a is there an economic case that that goes thinking of where a bus gets to like six years old and it could make sense for them to convert it rather than waiting for the full 10 years I don't know that I I think I don't want to mix up the whether we have diesel or electric with the with the term of the contract so I would think that for us to extend past five we're
023going to want to have a meaningful number of electric buses or at least a commitment to it to your point I think five years from now you're going to see them I think you can see the costs come down hopefully the battery life increasing and the economics of electric cost becoming better I mean from the presentation that we had with them back several months ago I feel like they're on The Cutting Edge and they are keeping up on this a whole legend bus thing as it comes forward you know just like he was talking about the different Grant programs that are available the federal funding and you know supply chain issues so they're watching that so I get a good feeling whereas some these other folks might not be that I think they know what
024we want as a community too yeah no I didn't know if it advanc if if there been any more discussions since then I guess you know I think we met um Kevin devivo at was that the presentation the he's the son he's he's he is their Alternative Energy okay bus specialist there was just a a h webinar I was on two weeks ago I think it was with Connecticut clean cities group and he was one of the presenters yeah yeah yeah I saw that um so they they want to do it I think it's just finding a path that makes sense for us to do it and most of the funding that's been approved for Grants they still to more of the economically disadvantaged communities so it hasn't reached us yet but I think you
025know Andrew's right I think they're a partner that will help lead us into to the electrification of the fleet so then so one other angle on this when we had that discussion with them the law as I understand it is zero emissions by 20 240 or low emissions effectively natural gas by but this is a 5year contract and we could just go to another bus company in 5 years if we chose to do so I just the more I think about it the more unrealistic I think it is to change bus providers it's not that it can't be done but that's a tough one to do this does I mean this certainly doesn't lock Us in past the point of yeah okay that it's going to interfere with what we do with electric and I
026okay I I'm pretty sure in a couple of years you know we're ready to to take on or start taking on a electric school bus or more than one EO is going to be willing to do that with us and would that change I don't think it would change the the pricing but you know we would have to work a deal on how the electric bus oh sure no I understand that yeah no it's just I see the lock in on 50% of our buses next year and it's the reality we have I think the technology is coming and going to be coming relatively quickly but the transition can be less than ideal from my perspective but that's okay I mean we need to have the buses so I just think we um kind of
027owe it to ourselves also for the sake of capitalism to look at what the other companies are offering because I get it the relationship is there um I do sense that when they presented to us that they are kind of at the Forefront and keeping up to speed and looking for other Alternatives but there's no comparative right now we've only been with them so I kind of want to see what first student has to offer where are they in their position of the next you know 10 years and so forth that's all so I'm just gonna say I I was chasing about 10 years ago I said something very similar and it was Paul cose who brought us and brought it to us and asked for a waiver on the bus contract it's not to
028say this would happen again but we got it burned it was an extra $200,000 a year I pushed it and the Town Council agreed to go along with it just do a comparative analysis of you know well to put it out to put it out to b b yeah so there could be more to it like what you're maybe you're saying something different but I literally just said no I mean I think on principle we should not wave bids that is how I still feel in general right but we got burned because it was 200,000 a year which is a couple of teachers per year it's actually in this in this memo that in it was 20091 when Tim White made the boo boo it doesn't say that back recordings you're the you're admitting that
029but that's not who I heard was responsible I heard it was um the deciding vote with Sheldon D so what Happ where is it in this it in I think it's on the second page where it says the bus price history yeah so if you look at the line 20091 where it shows 12% yep what happened is um Greg floron Paul C was with Deo they presented ultimately to the council a negotiated price the council voted against approving the bid waiver went out to bid and the first year increase was 12% and instead of I believe four was what was negotiated and Deo still won the bid yeah so that was the ironic part of it it was like you could have have four and you got 12 with the same bus provider but there's
030no stipulation that we have to go out to bid we can well if we the either you go to bid yeah or you have to have a bid w we approved right not to go to bid those are our choices but you can't get like a term sheet from that you out to have to be I put I put it forth because ultimately you as a planning committee have to decide if you want to move it to the board you know my recommendation is if we go out to bid I doubt we're going to do better better and if we do not by much that's why the recommendation is what it it is and you know just to to that point it's to me saving you know a few dollars or 20 whatever it is
031you're G to get somebody else in here who doesn't know the town doesn't know the roots doesn't know the you know there's a level of service that comes with using something that you know if the level of service wasn't there and we this we were just being complacent and we were just not wanting to do it because it was just easier to not go out to bed but I can't imagine that it's not a lot of work to go out to bed so there's got to be a pretty strong feeling on your part this is the best of of District financially and operationally and I've done we've done out to bit yeah it's work but that's not the reason I would recommend that we go to Big W before you um I I do want
032to present one more piece which is related which I think is is important for us and that is that Deco is making a you know they made a commitment to the town they just bought the building at 1187 High on Avenue they Clos on it they own it which is on the corner of rout 10 and sandbank Road treasure glass yeah yes so they're going to have in that building they're going to have offices um and they also intend to use that as for bus maintenance right now when we have our buses maintained we drive them to Durham and back and that's fuels on us where's their headquarters in dur in Durham yeah well that's where their maintenance okay so if we don't have to drive the buses there savings is around $10,000 per year
033however there's there's a little bit more to it the that property AB buts the bus dep property so the thought is by having them in that building they're going to use the second floor of the building if they could clear the trees on our property they can dispatch from that building they wouldn't need that office trailer that they have which is four years old so they would be willing to sell that to us and we could potentially take it and move it to Highland and use it as a portable classroom this is just an side I'm not sure all of that will take place however however it does um you know present another possibility for us that would be attractive yeah you know certainly the ability to just have the buses maintained next door is
034helpful and it saves us a little bit of money I don't want a nitpick so these comparatives are all type ones it doesn't look like it yeah they are these are all the type ones and is that the largest size that is the largest size what I did um what's the capacity for type one 70 it could go as high as as 81 I was a 77 and then what I did on the third page of this analysis if you want to go back to the memo just through this and I know there's a lot of numbers on this but if you look at the at the top section where all the way on the right it shows 14, 52,000 so what that what this analysis is showing you is um the five years of
035the contract we have type one type two and vans you could see the cost per bus so if you just look at at that to the left of that 14 million 52 240 you could see what the cost is per year what the increase is per year so a 6% 4% 4% 4% 3% you come up with 14 million if we go out to bid the the second lower portion of the analysis basically says if instead of getting the six three fours and a three if we go out to bid and see a 6% increase per year yeah then instead of 14 million our contract cost is $4.6 million so I think that what I'm saying here is I think if we went out to bid that's more likely what we'll see so the swing
036um is about 600,000 over the five years of the contract does this what about field trips does this cost impact because I know there's separate rates for field trip requests here um that isn't include these are our base runs right so there there are and it's it's actually included in their term sheet what the cost would be so where do we allocate those monies if it's not I just didn't include it in the analysis because the field trip costable are comparable to where they are currently they they did increase on the same percent even like the sports runs yeah but the field trip total cost per year is couple hundred, you know our the big cost of the contract is in the daily runs of the type one type two as Advance I'm just thinking
037Some bu is coming soon where that line item would stand is it all encompassing the transportation it is okay it is now what if they have to add buses like for increased students what was that if they to add buses add to the fleet then this is the which they probably will right if enrollment continues to grow I mean there be a major shift in the next in this five years be major shift in transportation networks in town I'm sure these would be our rates if they have to add a bus it's you know 30077 would be the type one rate for next year similarly with which I don't think is going to happen if we reduce a run we don't pay for bus runs that we don't have how many kids do we like
038now holds with our runs especially the bigger KS I'm thinking of B in the routes so how many typically on average how on a bus yeah you said the capacity is about 70 yeah so we're not maxing out capacity well it depends on like the Elementary bus runs are typically we're in the 60s on average and we have some that we don't have any additional room on the buses it depends on the route you know we try and and optimize and be as efficient as possible as you get to high school yeah it's the per seit I'm thinking of the bigger kids will need obviously either two per se or the little ones you can squeeze in three per seat that's why I'm trying to figure out they get older they stop taking the bus
039some yeah yeah yeah I mean we don't but to your point of adding if the enrollment increases what's our projection based on the capacity now within the daily runs that's all we may if our enrollment increases when if we could add some more kids without creating a logistical problem where we're getting complaints about know three to a seat we we'll deal with that but I mean you know we've we've managed with recent years to reduce the number of runs it's going to start going the other way as enrollment increases part of the way we've reduced the runs is you know we have Consolidated bus stops um we have op we have asked parents if their kids not coming onto the bus opt out and if you need the kid you know the student assigned to
040the bus again we'll just add them within 24 hours so it's always a work in progress because ferally you have to provide transportation for everybody so every bus stop has to be serviced unless the parents all opt out and in line with what we just discussed at the policy meeting with regards to uh in or increasing the M you know half a mile to a mile now and so forth Just for the walking distance for the kindergarten who request is transport you know at that point who can re bu transportation and so I'm just I think what I'm hearing is is that if enrollment becomes gross to a certain point if we add buses we pay an additional fee based on that additional bus run just like if we cut back on so it's like
041we get we we pay for what we use right so it's like the fuel and the runs so if there's an increase in runs we're GNA pay an extra whatever if there's a decrease then we're going to pay a decrease same with fuel so what is one bus in the year $70,000 377 180 yeah and that's just the contract price plus you the fuel and I no problem saying it's probably it's the way the municipal bidding works is is that when we put out this bid every person bidding on this cond is GNA know exactly what we've paid for the past five years to Dao oh yeah so it's and I think it's inherent issue with bidding no problem saying on the record um for municipal government because they always know what money we're spending
042as it is going into it and so it's easy for another bus company to come in here and offer us a little bit lower of a price and we don't know what kind of service we're going to get so I mean the starting point the reality is we provide a copy of the current contract in our you know invitation to bid because they're going to any provider is going to ask for it anyway AB and I know it's the last time we went out to FID which was you know two cycles ago now you could see everybody's starting point was what was the expiring price on the contract and that's where they either increased or decreased and actually Deco in the first year of the big contract dropped 3% and that's how they won the
043bid so they actually lowered our price 3% I just based on this analysis and based on the relationship I I don't think we're going to do better I don't think it's worth the risk to go out to bid but I have no way of guaranteeing that that's my recommendation I know I mean one of the things that one of the things that always goes through my mind is just from being on the council for a while and one of the things that I think the PBC is allowed to do is not just an RFP but they do qualifications an RFQ something along those lines because the service matters too it's not necessarily the best price and I based on me getting burned and passed that 12% is you just everything that you're saying but I
044I mean I'm comfortable supporting if it doesn't it doesn't go forward we're stuck for five years then is not going to be in that seat in five years you already I still care thanks all right I will make a motion and let's see what happens uh I make I move that the planning committee recommends the chesher Board of Education request the chesher Town Council waves the bidding requirements and approves entering into a new agreement with dco in accordance with a proposal to October 12 2023 to provide transportation services to the treasure public schools in the period from July 1st 2024 to June 30th 20 29 annual escalation at 6% 4% 4% 4% and 3% in the final year do I have a second motion at second by 10 discussion I would support this with um
045the caveat that we at least entertain information seeking for some of the other vendors and then what um in what Manner do you suggest um I'd like to see what's first student um what their plan is for the upcoming legislation changes what their Fleet looks like same presentation that that will provided to us have to see what they are planning to do and follow that change the the um if you watch that webinar the other there was Kevin Deo from D presented and also I forget the gentleman's name from first student um and I I may have a copy of the presentation you know and I'll I'll pull that and I'll share it I I think that you know first student dco they're probably on an equal playing field in terms of being in the
046electric bus market and and wanting to you know be an active player in that the difference I is is that Deco is is regional first student is a national company but deos does have its own company that purchases and sells Vehicles so they're not a small player just Regional so in terms of that um first student I think so you said requested presentation yeah if they want to come I can't I can't make a comparison I you know again going by based on the relationship that had with them for years and their presentation the daco presentation yeah no I mean I think something like that could make sense to ask first student to come in why just first student no I not just I'm just saying maybe the top three that you feel are the
047most competitive within this day I don't know that that I I guess what we have have to do if we're going to do that I think we have to go that yeah I mean I don't know how you'd ask you can't Window Shop PRI yeah I don't I don't I mean if we're going to do that yeah I think we'd have the decision the reason I'm bringing this now and the reason that we've been working on this is because if if a bid waer isn't approved or that isn't the desire I have to get the invitation to bid out by January you know the goal being that you know we have to know by March if there's going to be a new bus provider they have to have time to do all the swap out
048we can take a vote now and see where it goes and then if it passes I'll go to the full board then we could discuss it tomorrow night the other the other thing that's going through my mind is in relation to the time constraints um getting getting those companies in here to do that presentation they may very well but I definitely I mean we can't be in you know we obviously can't be in a situation where we don't want the buses like set up next September so there is a small window that makes that does make me not nervous but just concerned let's see I'm just more or less thinking within this we approved this for years at least within the 5e span that we go and Shop others not not within the time constraints
049here yeah I just don't want again Vin's not going to be to se I will feel more comfortable when the contract starts coming up again that we've done some of our homework you know ahead of time I see we're doing that now I me to me yeah I agree because at the same time I don't like the idea of staying on autopilot and not going out to it um yeah you just you know whoever your contractor is or your consultant I think it's important to keep on their toes um that just my comment before is just this isn't like our auditor nobody notices that it can happen sort of quietly as some phone calls this is much bigger yeah I'm not knowledgeable of any other well I do professionally with germ services and we transport
050but I don't know them as well contextually yeah yeah and you can see some of the rates not that if we were not to bid they would give us the same rates as other um other districts but you could see the names of the providers on that analysis and I don't know that you could draw can draw a comparison you know first student is you know higher in some places and lower in other places than our current rates and I know that they won Meridan um our first year would that though this increase is 377 their first year in Meridan is 451 for a type one again that has to do with their cost structure currently and as I said that they had a really large increase in that first year because Meridan had their
051back to wall there was a strike the current provider did not want to go forward so the only way to know definitively is to go to bid so I think I I would be I'm on board with that 100% if say you mentioned before as the next contract comes up for Renewal I'm thinking like in the next two years that's what I mean yeah not years we sign the contract and not do our initial so does it have to be a 5e to get these to get those CHS yeah and I haven't asked you know to do a one or twoe extension I just because of these changes I just feel like they're going to start being a bit more competitive I know I don't say saying the Chang you know the changes was going
052with electric and so forth oh okay but they might start being a bit more competitive with each other yeah the thing is is that I I mean my when I was talking about it before it's the 10year lock in is what was in my mind but in the next two years I don't see much changing I mean if we got one electric bus the next two years I'd be thrilled I I don't think they because there's I mean the supply chain issues for the electric buses are there as far as I know like based on the limited reading I do they've got they've got big problems in the industry uh just getting buses out the door and so I if we I'm comfortable doing the fiveyear as your recommending them um but definitely also Jeff's
053team in the next two years for you retire just yet before you retire I've got a threeyear contract iise to get some get some of them in get some of in the door to do some presentations for us please you know what do that yeah that's all that's so but okay so we still have we have a motion on the table that's second so now we have to do this again so we vote to move it to the F board or not all right so now any more discussion no okay all right so motion on the table move that the planning committee recommends the treasure Board of Education request the treasure Town Council waves the requirements that provs entering into new agreement with that and Accord to the proposed proposal dated October 12th 2023 to
054provide transportation services to the CH public schools with period from July 1 124 June 30th 29 with annual escalations of 3% all those in favor okay passes One Step F I just needed him to say publicly that he's gonna do this before well I mean tomorrow night so this will go tomorrow night to the full board unfortunately two years guys going to be like I forgot to do it fire me okay first of all on the there is no way two years is going to go by without asking us he's here for four more years I know unfortunately I'll be watching um okay so thank you to my friends here in the planning committee um let's go on to item number four Elementary classroom expansion it a enrollment update okay so the next two documents
055I want to walk you through and these next two items are going to be pretty quick because I actually don't have a proposal from anazi but I'm going to look at this sheet first this is um enrollment one it's there your last going down this top section and I highlighted Highland in blue this shows the projected number of students class sizes for this year and the bottom section shows actual as of October 30th of 2023 so if we just focus on Highland for a minute you could see that we have 46 classroom teachers 878 students and we projected an average class size of 19.1 that's what we built our budget on if you look at right below that the actual number of classroom teachers is the same 46 we have eight students more than was
056projected so we're at 886 as of October 30th and the average class size is 19.3 so Highland is running a little ahead of the nesda projection that was provided last year you don't necessarily have to pull it out but the second document I provided is the slam report that showed what Highlands of R was going to be slammed the next for this year had us at 858 Highlands actually at 886 so we're 28 students above slams projection and if you add 28 more students for next year's projection P will be at about 914 it could be even more than that because I think we all know what the amount of residential construction that's in construction but not yet available that number is going to grow and I'm not necessarily talking about the apartment unit but
057just some of the multi the force family or excuse me the four bedroom you know Colonials like right road that was not even part of any of this that's 24 housing units what is that the corner of we Academy that one consider no there no we Academy was considered but the one on the old Kurt's property on um Wallingford Road oh that was that and that is there's only two lots left all the lots are sold they're like and they big houses are there more land that people all suddenly purchase to um there's other developments that are in Pre review right now yeah I just the percent margin of error is about 20 based on their yeah I I remember explicitly like so back this slam document came out what three years ago it was
058two do you have another one of those I don't have that districtwide projections so I remember when this came out it you got met with a lot of like yeah right this is never GNA Happ and now we're higher that's what I mean I just do you not have this I gave it to oh she's me it's fine I know we had enough so so have not sorry for those watching home sorry about this it's Andrew's last time so I I don't think Highlands enrollment is going in anywhere but up we know over this past summer we made some modifications inside of Highland where we put our learning support tutors into the basically into the hallways we buillt cubicles as nicely as we could we have three learning support tutors in what is a storage
059closet we made some room there's some storage in that closet but the three learning supports stors learn supp support tutors of very small spaces we really don't have anywhere else to go with Highland I think we need to be prepared because we need to live in that building um for two more years I think we do need to go down the road of adding the Portables what I did and is um as I mentioned a few minutes ago as we were talking about about dco if that triple wide becomes available will it fit on the Highland Property I'm just looking at Andrew because you okay yeah I'm just I'm just wondering why I have some C so I reached out to um anazi you know I spoke to Michael Sasso and Lisa Yates and presented
060them with this notion that you know if we took the portable that's at dadco and moved it to Highland would it fit as an option the thought being that we could buy that at a reasonable price it's certainly big enough square footage wise to enable us to make two classrooms out of it it does have bathrooms um they took an initial look you know at at the design because we we have the floor plan um so they're putting together a proposal that I'll bring back to the planning committee to take a look at and and planning committee will decide yep we want to go forward with this you know the timing of it is pretty good because we'll know whether or not there's going to be a bid wer approval at least at the board
061level um and if the bid waiver does go forward from the board to the council the council will hear it I think December 11th assuming I get on the agenda so we have some time to make to get this proposal in hand I was hoping to have it tonight but they did have to contact UM SLR to um get some survey information which they would include include as part of their proposal so that's why it's taking them a bit longer I talked it up early last week so more information to follow but I wanted to give you that update Highlands jam packed yeah think we need to do something we'll come back with the propos proposal from anazi when they have it well we talked about this last time just making certain that it's not
062going to be a permanent ex we have total is total enrollment in here anywhere yet do you have total enrollment as of this is that's just Elementary yeah I don't have middle and high school so if we if we were going to if we were going to buy some classrooms or lease them or whatever do we need to have are we pass the point of ordering them yeah for September of next year we we would want to try and get that order in you know by January go out to bid um or try and find others this this might be convenient yeah oh no no no I understand but it's not necessarily the only option are we still enrolling like heavy even now as far I mean students are coming in or exiting it's we're
063still I mean I mean I guess the good news here is is that we are below what was projected yes District elementary student body wide Yeah by but still D's lower which is good because dittle was the second concern Gonna Fill that one n's a bit higher and and Darcy we really don't need to worry about island is outrage the kindergarten enrollment is outrageous compared to every yeah it's just that school the reach of is just so large you know and it just happens to be inass all of the open former Open Spaces of town I mean there really isn't much opportunity to say well we could redistrict temporarily because all the schools and all the elementary schools you know are pretty close to capacity so what mean do those oh capacity I was looking
064at relative to I was looking at actuals relative to projected but actuals relative to capacity doesn't make it any better yeah it's when you have to increase the number of classroom teachers meaning you need another classroom that's where you that's where you know you're going to run out of space so yeah do Little's only got third grade in kindergarten where it's well I I mean this is not a surprise we knew that the enrollment was coming we knew that we had a potential of running out of space that's why we've been working on it as planning committee for a year so sorry if I missed this are we thinking about uh extra classrooms at D we we might no adding Portables yeah I think we'll get by I think okay so you only have Highland
065on your radar right now for next year at least so if we need to get if we need to get a building it's just a Highland got it because I didn't but that would be would that be next year would that be next school year or the following I think we should try and be ready for the fall no when we were talking whatever five or six months ago I mean I remember thinking this is a year from now we've go we've got to move now because you don't you don't buy this at Costco but so for the 20 for 2024 25 could we get that portable from d and that gonna be ready to move into those new offices yeah they closed in October man it's not our only option but if it is
066an option that would be an important one to look at not to get not to get too deep into but are there is zoning required for that because you said like bus maintenance that's why that's why because that sounds like an if still like this be no they well their initial proposal is to move just offices in way I understand it right they have oh okay in that building they bought it and they're going to be moving in that's the expectation and the maintenance would happen if approvals everything mostly office space is empty from what I understand in that building yeah but these Coast Mechanicals in there and Chester glass still there's the chch manager company there does all the Irrigation Supplies things um but planning Planning and Zoning you know would have to we'd
067have to go to Planning and Zoning on the Portables and that's why they need to engage SLR and that's only one classroom that's going to house how many classrooms fit too I think it yeah is it I think it's that last time I was in I just didn't feel I think this I think it's 1800 square feet oh wow that's a lot bigger than I it doesn't feel like it though no it looks like a little yeah because there was a one that was there that was replaced a couple years ago that's like a double wide maybe maybe that's it picturing like the old gray one yeah okay so we get two classrooms out of it yeah with bathrooms okay do you have a place for the bathrooms where You' be able to hook them
068up if pnz approved that's part of yeah I mean there's utilities there now because we have the two portables and Highland yeah oh okay okay okay got it and the the portals at Highland already have bathrooms in yes and you could collocated with those Portables yes okay just lose that ball field for the some of it some of it for a couple years we may have to move the playground equipment a bit all doable we do have 450,000 appropriated from the council and I do think that we could make this work you know within that budget so we don't need any additional fun again not nobody wants to do this I think we have to do it yeah we have to do it I mean it is what it is I mean what are you
069going to do you can't kids have different place to go so it's just unfortunate um all right so anything so that's a and b under item four okay um item number five update on energia and energy performance contract 2.0 so very quickly the council did approve entering into the contract with energia Sean Kimble he's required to sign the contract we provided it to energia we had our first um meeting with them virtually sent them a lot of information including access to all our you know energy costs over the last few years and so they've started their analysis so I I'll update the planning committee as we go forward who may be on that point dat okay and so we're talking about right now you're thinking from a school perspective primarily doitt for everything across that
070probably a bigger piece of it they're going to analyze I mean My Hope Is that they do analysis across all the school town buildings identify all the energy savings opportunities um and then we focus on the major items we want to do with do little you know which is we know we need a new roof we know we need new windows and we'd like to get that building air conditioned and we need electricity so yes well yeah I'm sorry you're right that's part of the roof yeah yeah you know that helps us with the Energy savings portion of it so they have all that information but you they just got the information last week so OB need to give them some time to put together their analysis and then they'll come back to us and'll
071come back to the plan that's it anything else yeah um so one thing I've been I realized two weeks ago at the energy commission meeting I didn't f appreciate this the board a year and a half ago voted in favor of serious consideration of Net Zero buildings for the new schools at the time I had for whatever reason in my mind I thought the lowest life cycle costs were synonymous with Net Zero I found out at the o or it sort of crystallized in my mind I did kind of know this before this but it crystallized my mind mind at the October 30th energy Commission meeting that those two things are different so we have these Net Zero buildings we're moving forward with but they're not necessarily the lowest life cycle cost so in the
072past since the energy commission meeting I me and me alone um I have gone to the school building committee meeting probably a week ago and then also the town council meeting last night Y and asked the council to go to the architect and ask for some due diligence on good numbers if if there was a supplemental appropriation for the schools if it could have a lower life cycle cost it's you know we're putting in a building 50 years it should be there for more than 50 years but I hope that the council will get the architect or whoever it is to do some real diligence in a timely fashion in the next couple weeks because my understanding is the school buildings could still pivot on the Energy System they could change did they act on
073it last night the council yes I couldn't hear it the tape was awful the tape was awful no they no they couldn't no they didn't act Tim made a comedy said he doesn't see something like that happening the reality is we just had an election and the council changed so I don't know how the new Council will feel about it I've reached out to I've reached out to a couple of them just to sort of voice this concern because there is this moment in time where there's no shovels in the ground I don't think no rfps have gone out to bit right so they could still pivot at this point but that that moment in time changes pretty quickly because they're going to have to go out RFP and start buying materials in not so
074distant future just for my own knowledge So when you say P you're talking about specifications and design IE mechanical systems heat pumps versus solar versus exactly geothermal exactly not just I don't think it's anything that has any impact on buildings or oh no I mean I don't you know if that was something the architect said made sense I just I'm just looking I'm just think in terms of the energy systems and the equipment that they have to put in there and seeing if it would are designs at that granular level yet no they're starting to work on that though and I think that's that's the concern you yeah you to the extent it affects how the interior of the building is designed not not the classroom spaces but you know Plum things above the ceiling
075those are the things that I think are critical path from a design point of view did you request to have it on agenda 28 no does look like not Bas what I saw I actually this only started cross the past week and have to do this on fly as other oh yeah yeah no I be happy to mention it yeah um I think I think the school building committee update pretty sure is on the agenda so come that I think ultimately the way this moves forward is I'm just thinking about it now if the board voted on something to request it of the council we certainly could do that um I kind of feel like they the way I see it happening if something's gonna happen is the new council is having a conversation with
076the town manager and saying hey can you make this happen the town manager is gonna be like yeah I get it got it the Jeff report has it Jo in the next J right okay okay so and then I guess I'm closing this is my last planning committee meeting and so I just want to say thank you to then for all the um agendas and items that you brought forward to this committee and to Tim s together for the past four years and Sam and Ann before you and Katherine before that um I think that we this was an exciting time and I think that we moved a lot of things forward um I know that when I came and I first had my meeting in this room I thought that I had to do
077meeting minutes which was interesting I actually did a vol timee job and I learned that VIN does that on behalf back to still abely um but you know it was it was interesting time we we inherited a a district that was in search of some sort of Direction and new school buildings and we we moved those forward and that all came out of planning committee which got moved to the full board which was a pretty big deal um and I know that you guys are going to continue to do that I think that tonight just talk talk about the trailers at the schools I mean it just shows that we've been proactive and we're just trying to make the best decisions for our town so it's been honor and a pleasure and I'm sorry I
078was a little scattered tonight I'm so sad you know so it's hard um but yeah it's I'm just fortunate I've been able to serve this role for the time so thanks to all of you guys thank you Andre yes thank you much think G missed your expertise which to follow with that please stay connected you know where to find me yes we do we know where your office is for sure but um I think your expertise have been really valuable from what I observed for the past couple years here and then hopefully support our next steps and Stage phase two somehow as well too so thank you for your service sirk you gra up that grand list Mr Project fun these projects all right anything else before we call for motion toj return all right
079motion toour thank you and thank you thank you everyone