Yorktown Community Schools July 15, 2025 Board Meeting

001ready to go. All right, I'm going to go ahead and call the meeting to order. We'll call this meeting to order of the Yorktown Community School Board of Trustees. And we'll start with the pledge of allegiance, please. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Thank you. You can be seated. Okay. Uh we do have a quorum tonight with three of our five members present and our other two members are in transit. So, uh Mrs. Gasaway and Mr. Kelly will be joining us shortly, but since we have a quorum, we will go ahead and proceed uh with the meeting. So, uh we'll start off with uh public comments. If anybody

002would like to address the board uh and make a comment, you can do so at the podium. Uh just have you sign your name and information when you get there. Please keep your comments to five minutes or less and not of a personal nature. Anybody wish to address the board tonight? All right, we'll move on and uh we will now open up uh a public hearing. Uh and this is a lease hearing for our roof project for uh Yorktown High School. And uh so kind of go through our agenda for this particular meeting. uh pursuant to Indiana code 20-47-3 before a school corporation can enter into a lease with a nonprofit building corporation which is what we'll be doing with this corporation must conduct a hearing regarding the execution of the proposed lease and whether

003the rental to be paid to the lesser building corporation under the proposed lease is a fair and reasonable rental for the proposed uh improvement. So um starting off we'll hear from uh Dr. Henshaw. He'll tell us about the proposed projects related to the lease. Dr. Henshaw. So again, this is a bond for replacement of the high school roof and uh estimated cost plus or minus 3.5 million and uh we're going to talk a little more about the details under reports, but we've been discussing this concept for several months, so I don't think it's a surprise to anybody. Okay, great. The by the way, the notice for this hearing was published as legally required. Correct. Right. All right. Okay, now we will open officially open the public hearing. Remember, if you'd like to speak, please sign

004out on the sheet which is located up at the podium. And as I mentioned earlier, we ask that you state your name and address, limit your comments to the proposed rent to be paid under the lease, and keep any comments to three minutes and avoid being repetitive if possible. All right. Anybody wish to speak about the proposed project? All right. Hearing none. Um Dr. Henshaw, do you want to uh summarize the resolution authorizing the execution of the amendment the lease? Yes. So the school building corporation has met a couple of times. In fact, they met at 5:30 today to approve their side of this. And so the first resolution is basically I think it's actually an amendment to an existing lease because there's already a lease in place. So this will just come under that

005existing lease where essentially we legally have transferred part of the the real estate of the school to the ownership of the building corporation so that then they can legally sell these bonds and it's all about the constitutional 2% debt limit. And uh they have agreed to that. And so the first resolution is you agreeing to that amendment to the existing lease between the school corporation and the building corporation. Okay. You want me to go on or is that No, I think that's close enough. It is listed as exhibit A board and the amendment to lease is the agreement whereby the corporation will levy the required property tax to pay the lease payments throughout the life of the bond issue. The lease payments will be paid to the building corporation and used to pay the bond

006holders to rep uh repay the proposed bond. So, um, board, if I could have a motion and a second to adopt, uh, that resolution authorizing the execution of the amendment to the lease. Make a motion to approve the resolution, the amendment to the lease. Second. Thank you. Have a motion from uh, Mr. Brooks and a second from Mrs. Gillespie. Um, any other questions, board? If not, all those in favor by saying I. I. I. I. Any opposed? Okay. Motion carries 40. Let the record also reflect that Mrs. Gasaway has has joined us as well. Thank you. Sorry, I smell like all good. You're good. All right. Um, next resolution is a resolution assigning bids and contracts to the building corporation. Uh, at the bond closing, uh, the building corporation will own facilities where some of

007the renovation work will be completed. Building corporation will also be the issuer of the bonds. Uh as a result, certain contracts may need to be with a building corporation uh because they'll hold the money to pay the contractors. School corporation will receive the bids andor contracts and awards to the bids and or contracts under state law, but then retains the right to assign those bids and/or contracts to the building corporation for the payment of those at the discretion of the board. So, if that makes sense, board, I just uh that should be um exhibit B. And uh could I have a motion and a second to adopt uh resolution B, please? Motion to approve exhibit B. Second. Thank you, Mr. Brooks, with the motion. And thank you, Mrs. Gasaway for the second. All those in

008favor, vote by saying I. I. Any opposed? Okay. Carries 4. And last but not least, this would be item C. Uh, this res resolution satisfies the Security Exchange Commission requirement that a school corporation enter into a continuing disclosure undertaking agreement if it issues bonds to a public in or rather to public investors. The agreement requires that the corporation agree to timely provide certain financial information and provide notice of certain material events if and when they occur. And so I need a motion and a second to adopt uh item C. Please. Motion to adopt item C. All right. Thank you, Mr. Brooks. Second. Thank you, Mrs. Gasaway for the second. Uh all those in favor, vote by saying I, please. I. Any opposed? Vote. Motion carries 4. All right, that's the end of the resolution. And

009with that, we will go ahead and adjourn the board hearing or excuse me, the bond hearing uh for the roof project. All right, that wasn't exactly according to script. I think it's probably close enough, Mr. Murphy. It was. Okay, thank you. All right. Uh let's move on to the consent agenda. That is item four. So that includes our minutes from the regular meeting on June the 17th, our personnel report, our claims report, uh the fund report. It also includes the approval for the Washington DC field trip for next year. And uh um before we we approve that, uh Dr. Inshaw, you don't want want to talk a little bit about our personnel situation. Now, uh, I would say as of should knock on wood and say as of right now, all of our certified positions

010are filled with this approval of this report. We do probably have, uh, six or eight pair professional positions open. That's lower than normal for this time of the year. And our principles have a process to get those filled. And, uh, as of right now, all of our bus driver positions are filled. I can't speak to food service, but clerical and custodial are all filled. So, we're in very good shape. Um, there's still time for some of that to come apart before the school year starts, but we have we have started our school year fully staffed in our certified positions with licensed people for four or five years in a row. So, I commend our our principles for their work in doing that. And that's a that's a good thing to be able to say. I

011think I just saw that there are something like 1,600 open teaching positions in the state of Indiana. So, good place to be. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Henshaw. All right, board. Could I get a a motion to approve the consent agenda, please? I've got Ashley with a a motion and Jason with a second. Uh, any comments? Not all those in favor by saying I. I. Any opposed? Carries four to zero. Do you have internet yet? Yes. You have Wi-Fi? Yeah, we do. Yeah. Sorry. Okay, moving on to item five. We'll start with 5A and that is the 26 budget calendar. Dr. Henshaw, we give this to you every year. Um, there are comparable dates here and it will require one special board meeting that will we're scheduling for September 30th. Normally it would fall a week

012later than that, but that's fall break. And I assumed you didn't want a special board meeting that week. So, um, thank you. 6:00 p.m. September 30th and then budget adoption at our regular meeting on October 21st, 2025. Anything you want to say on that, Cara? So, just I the only thing I would say is maybe go ahead and put that September 30th on your calendar if it works for you. Did you say six? Six. It doesn't have to be six, but we need to know in advance because we have to advertise the time for that since it's a hearing. Six. And so this item is just approving your calendar. Correct. Yeah. It's just information. You don't need to vote on it unless you want to. Okay. We'll go ahead and put the 6 p.m. I'm

013adding it to my calendar. And I'm assuming um should we block out 30 minutes or an hour for that meeting? It it rarely takes more than 30 minutes. So, okay. An hour to be safe. Yeah. The 4 will be over by then, right? Band day. It's all it's all over with by then. Okay. So, no no official action needed in terms of approving that. Correct. Okay. Well, hopefully that'll work for Mr. Kennley's calendar, too. Ask him when he gets here. Um, okay. Item 5B is the roof. I just want to report as a matter of information again because we've discussed this several times and we don't have a formal agreement with Building Envelope Allies. that's who was suggested that we contact to coordinate this and their preference has been to try to do this through

014cooperative purchasing and uh Cara and I were aware of some guidance from the state board of accounts on that and so Mara was here last month. Mara Hoff was here last month and we asked her to do an evaluation of whether or not we could use cooperative purchasing for this project. In the interim, I also talked to Eric Long from Ice Miller, who's our bond council that we used. And on the same day, they both told me, "No, we're of the opinion that you cannot use cooperative purchasing for a roof purchase like this." And so the the right approach is to use a traditional bidding process. So I called Russ Mink from Building Envelope Allies the next day and said, "Okay, are you are you good to put together the bid specs for us and

015to go through the regular public bidding process?" And he said he was. And so I said, "Why don't you give me a proposal for your fee for doing that? It'll be a little more involved than buying it through cooperative purchasing." So that's in process. Now, what's the impact on that? I mean, I think certainly it has an impact on schedule and to a degree it's going to have an impact on budget or at least finalizing the budget. If you're buying through cooperative purchasing, you've got a dollar amount that you can point to and say that's our price. If you're bidding it, then you're going to wait to open the bids to determine what that is. So, going to move it forward that way unless there's some objection. And obviously, we're moving forward with the bond

016sale. So, we'll have the money to fund it. It'll just be a matter of getting it all organized to put it out to bid. Sure. And secure somebody to do the work. Okay. When do you think you'll have a proposal for Well, I would hope by the next board meeting. So, Okay. All right. Um, while we're on the I don't want I want to kind of save softball facility discussion for when Ryan gets here because he's he's been heavily involved in that as well, too. So before we move on to that, while we're still talking a little bit about the high school, different from the roof, but um you had mentioned to me earlier in the week that Brian had made a recommendation that maybe since we're in the the midst of of finishing up

017the the football turf installation, uh uh spending some money to to run fiber and and cable and such out to to the facility. So, do you want to talk a little bit about that? Well, specifically electrical supply and so there, as I understand it, there is already some wiring out there, but it's old. And so, he was of the opinion, I don't know if he consulted Brennan on that, cuz I know Brenley's been out there some, too. And he's had Reed Electric on site and of the opinion that we need to to add some additional lines supply. He specifically mentioned some uh ability to do better hosting graduation. Um and then yeah, there was discussion about running fiber into the press box and price tag of plus or minus 30,000 to do that. So, you

018know, it's one of those while you're here. Sure. Uh so I told him to go ahead and get pricing on that. Okay. And then I saw an email from you talking a little bit about um the cladding of the concession building and also the work on the press box. Speaking of that, so do we believe that that and I know that our turf folks have said the turf's going to be in in time for the the scrimmage, right? And that's their goal. No, we don't need any comments from the audience over here. I heard that chuckle, but um where's your gavvel, Mr. Simpson? Um the No, I I have been told by Sprint Turf late last week that they felt like it was very realistic that we would be able to host our scrimmage on

019August 15th on that field. Um again, that's weather dependent and uh I have no idea how many fields they've done, but it's gobs and gobs and gobs, way more than we've done. So, you know, if they feel like there's a very reasonable chance that that's going to happen, that seems reasonable to me. Um, I have also suggested to Mr. Heiden Reich that rather than have anxiety about it, the right approach is to have a plan so that if we don't make it, you know, we need to be telling the people that we're going to scrimmage against as well as Anderson, that's opening game, that if we have to move it, we have to move it. I mean, it's just the nature of of these kinds of projects and uh you know, it'll be an inconvenience,

020but it'll be a temporary inconvenience. Sure. Um, as far as the press box, they are actively working in there. I was in there yesterday and uh the inside is torn down basically to the frame and they feel like they're in good shape to get that done. uh the concession building. So the basically you will recall that we made arrangements through Frederick's to have that reclad as a part of the project. Crew Construction who's doing the press box asked if they could give us a quote for that. And so we agreed to do that. That quote came back early last week and it's about $13,000 cheaper than doing it through the project. So, we said, "Well, that seems like a good idea." I did have Paul and Stacy and Brian review that uh quote and felt

021like it was a good quote. We could move forward. Then you're in the position of if you're going to run that through uh regular processes of the school district, you have to have solicited three quotes because it's, you know, more than $50,000. So, the workaround for that is that you can also run that through the project. So, I've been working with Skillman even today to make sure that we're putting that in the queue to be paid from the project budget as we were going to do originally. Okay. Just to make sure that it's expeditious. And I asked that question to Jonathan from crew. You have any concerns about schedule? And he gave a good contractor's answer. I think we can do it. You know, there you never know. Um, we'll hedge a little bit. Um,

022Lee Company is supposed to be on site on the 23rd, starting on the 23rd of July. Um, that's not a super complex uh thing. I think the landings on the visitor side will be the most involved, but I don't have any concerns about that piece of it being done. So, if you walked out there right now and you said, "We're going to play football here." One month from now, you would say, "I don't believe it." But I mean that's all you can do is trust the people who are the experts and and it is a ton of moving parts. I mean if you followed that and I the scoreboard was already installed in the spring. So you're talking about four or five different contractors that are working out there to get that all put together.

023So goal posts are being replaced too. They are being replaced. Yeah. The the plan there is um the existing posts, we didn't know if they would survive being taken down. They did, but the plan is to move them over to the middle school and set them on the practice field at the middle school. So, I've been asked about that. I said we'll see what we can do. Not a guarantee whether they can survive the the tear down and the move. So far, they have. So, but the project will include new goalpost. we could probably just get a big group of Ball State students to carry those across the river and that's sort of what they do when you want to change anyway. So, uh and then do we know like an official official like the

024whole high school project is is done and and we're uh the substantial completion date on the schedule current is November of 25. Okay. So, and that is that's I'm going to say the end of the work in this sports performance center as well as probably the renovation of the old vacated weight room. That's probably the very last thing on the schedule. Okay. And the office is supposed to be done within a couple weeks. Can I request a block of wood for these meetings? Do you want this? Come on. I need to knock. So, yeah. that and and I I I would say it's essentially on schedule. They were doing flooring today. I think uh they're pouring the TZO. It was supposed to be today, but I think it's going to be Thursday. So Brennan's there.

025He hasn't he hasn't lost any hair or anything out of this. Nope. He doesn't have any to lose. So hasn't lost any more than he already had. So that's that's okay. That I caused him to lose. But yeah, the the the whole project, I mean, if you went back and looked at the original schedule was supposed to be done in July, so now, but there was so much wet weather in November, December that they they didn't get their footings poured to start steel erection for several weeks. Sure. And so that put that whole part of the project behind schedule. Well, there was a dumpster fire in there at some point in time, too. There was a literal dumpster fire. The day decides to take off and we're in the car driving. Electrical line hit. How

026how about the exterior what I'm going to call the the gateway going from the parking lot into the the football facility? Well, it's not going to be done in time for football, I don't think. But, um I I would guess I would have to go back and look at a schedule and see if that's even itemized on the schedule, but I would guess that that's probably one of the last things that will happen. Okay. Well, I know that wasn't officially on the agenda, but I just kind of wanted to wanted to get an update and I was I was kind waste some time for I was kind of kind of It was It was It was a filibuster. So, I mean that in a nice way. In a good way. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. Let's uh

027let's let's save softball for last. Let's do the the items 6 A and B. So 6A is the approval of our copier quote and I saw your your note that I think multiple people have looked at it and signed off on it and it's just it's it's a renewal. Was it a renewal or is a replacement? Well, it's both. It's our previous agreement was also with Van Odall and Ferrar. It was seven years ago. I didn't know it had been that long. We are 13 of our existing fleet was replaced in 2018 and went seven years. We replaced elementary, there was five in 2023. Um, so this gets us back to all new computers in all buildings. And typically that there actually I think has is a statute on this, but typically these are 60-month

028fiveyear leases. So, we've we've gotten some additional years out. Happy teachers this year. Motion to approve the copier proposal. Second. Uh motion for Mr. Kelly and a second from Mrs. Gillespie. Board. Do you have any any questions or comments on it? If not, here we go. All those in favor by saying I. I. Any opposed? Carries. 50 Z. And then uh do we want Ashley to read do the first reading on all these new policy updates as the newest board member and as a current No in she's a teacher. She's an instructor. So Ashley, are you are you not feeling that today? I could do it if you needed me to. I'm not going to make you do that. That would be my story reading voice for everyone. I will say, so I think everybody

029knows this, but the way this process works is there are a minimum of two NEOLA updates a year, and usually there's a third legislative updates, and it's already here, by the way. I just haven't had a chance to go through it yet. Um, and so they have suggested changes, recommended changes, but then there are several places in those policies that somebody has to go through and elect choices that they say you can choose this or you can choose this. And so it takes some time. Typically I go through that, compare it to the existing policy, try to keep it as similar to what we have in place unless there's some good reason to change it. And then I go through and flag those with anybody's name that ought to read it other than me. So

030principles get copies of that. Stacy gets a lot of them. Food service gets it. Cara gets a lot of them. And then they have an opportunity to kind of weigh in and say, "Oh, I agree or I disagree." Um, and then Angela keys all that in through the Neiola site, which is now part of Board Docs. And uh, then you get this version. So, this is the first reading of new and amended and rescended policies. And if there's anything in there that you want to talk about, we can talk about, but you'll see it again in August for a second reading of adoption. Okay? And the next stack, the May update, is about half the size of this. So, it's not quite, but it's probably more critical because it's got all the legislation in it.

031So, did you have a question? There was one on here about like Yeah. prescription medications. And what about on field trips? I've heard that we've had parents that are handing out the medication on field trips. Is that something that we need to I think that there you want me to answer that? If you know, if you guys know, I don't when we have um like extreme medications, then we have sent nurses on the field trips um especially overnight. Uh but typically there will be a certified staff member, whether that's an administrator or a teacher that's responsible for the medications. Um but yeah, I think that was we could opt to allow kids to carry medications on them and we are not we were not in favor of that. On the DC and Chicago trip, I

032went room to room to the different places that needed it and handed it out to them. Okay. So that's what's supposed to happen. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. So nothing to do on this until um adoption. But this is your opportunity board if you want to dive into all those and review them. Um now's your chance and then we'll vote on them next month. Uh Dr. Henchel, I had a couple of other things just to maybe put on future agendas. Okay. U and andor just to maybe get us some information on so our strategic planning process we're going to embark on with our friends from administrator assistance I want to say is is set to kick off at the beginning of the school year. So is that going to be next month or is it

033going to be September? I think and Angela has assisted them. Have they reached out to schedule with each one of you? So I think mine's coming up. Mine's coming at 28. That's the first the first thing is going to happen later this month that each individual board member is going to have some time with administrator assistants probably Carlau and Rob and then they'll move on to the building level I'm assuming sometime in August that hasn't been scheduled yet. Okay. Could we maybe in uh put it on the agenda uh for August just for report on date? Yeah. Just so if there are I'm guessing there are going to be an additional meetings and work sessions and things like that that we need to start making calendar time for and I'd kind of rather know about

034what that's going to look like sooner rather than later. And I don't even have any kids. All these people do. So, well, I have kids, but I don't have to take them anywhere anymore, which is great. Uh the other uh piece and I don't maybe this this is next month, maybe it's September, but um I'd kind of like the board to have uh maybe we can do a presentation from staff to talk about the new A throughF uh requirements that are now live and real u effective. Is it for this year or do we get a do we get a year of reprieve before it starts? They're not official yet. So the first iteration has gone out and it's time for public comments. Um so I don't think that that is set to be approved

035until what is it uh September perhaps? I think September October and it would be effective for the following school year for the for the 67 school year. I think it's theoretically I think it's for this school year, but it's not official. And it's well, there are some components that can't go into effect until um the new diploma cohort is getting ready to graduate. Okay. So, there will be some temporary high school um specifically, sorry, I don't know all your stuff. Um specific high school items that won't be into effect yet. Okay. Do we know enough yet to to be able to make any determinations? The presentation was super vague. I mean, it's too big. It really is. Um, it looks a lot like they're going to attach value to the items on the GPS dashboard.

036Um so there's some components of attendance, there's some components of um assessment, how you perform on assessments, but then it breaks down some other like other ways to triangulate that information to determine your grade level besides just performance on a test. Okay. I think late fall. Yeah. Okay. Even second semester. I can double check. But to your point, if you want us to coordinate uh this is where we are right now discussion, we can do that. Okay. Well, ISBA also did a did a one or one hour or an hour and a half uh webinar about a week ago, but I couldn't attend. I may have sent that to the rest of you if any of you could attend, but if not, I think they recorded the session. So, I'll see if I can get

037a my hands on a link to it. and it was some ISBA folks and some superintendents and maybe even one or two people from the DOE that were on that that webinar. So, I I'll get a hold of the link and I'll send it to y'all if you want to want to look at it, too. But, yeah, that would be good. Anyway, yeah, it's it's going to be a little different. Okay, let's move on to item 5C, which is our softball facility discussion. So, um Dr. intro. You want to want to kind of you you've got several things there in your board packet that you can see and Dr. Sturgeon can pull them up for the audience any of it if we need to. Um so two a couple different approaches. One is some information

038that Ryan's gathered from the standpoint of a bot and some budget and concepts there. Um, in addition, the conversation that we started with Culie Contracting, they provided me with their budget numbers yesterday and so those are in there with their concept. And I also loaded in here kind of a summary of the uh the state of our easy ability to finance that we can discuss and uh go from there. So I'll leave it to the will of the board of how you want to proceed in the discussion. Well, I think one of them uh you know that is probably worthy of discussion is the is the bot model and and I sent you guys uh a document. Ryan has done way more I think research on this than than maybe any of us, but I

039sent you guys a a document from Barnes and Thornberg and I do think the bot model has a lot of merit to it. uh you know some of the highlighted positives are that the governmental body has the ability to negotiate the best and final offers with potential firms and we maintain control of selecting the preferred proposal. Um so I think you have would you agree you have a little bit more control over selecting it versus you open up a bid and the lowest bidder is is awarded the contract. Right. um through the RFP process, limitations may be imposed on who may be an acceptable respondent. Um there's a defect in the project, the developer is the one responsible for correcting the problem at its cost. That was theoretically the idea behind buying tennis, but didn't

040necessarily work out that way. Um, but the bot is a little odd in that in that technically the firm that you choose has to basically own the the facility for at least looks like a minimum of 30 days, right? Yes. before it's and it can either be I don't know if it's a leased back to the the school corporation for a period of time or or but after 30 days if corporation wants to say okay here's here's the money for the and I would guess that the developer would would certainly want it that way they're not going to want to sit on it for a long period of time and and you know it's the way I understand they're holding the land and therefore they're a private owner they don't have to go through the

041public bid process is selecting them it's the way I understand it but if a design build process gets I I just don't know again the whole idea is you get it for cheaper right so there's another avenue to do it but you know I think theoretically if you issue the the request for a bot anybody then can respond and say we want to submit on this project through this structure yeah theoretically is your public process is selecting the developer they individually are privately select you probably correct me if I'm wrong they're selecting the subs and therefore not subject to a public bid process process cliff notes probably cover probably but yeah theoretically they're owning it for a small period of time I'm sure there's a legal way to make sure we have abilities to take

042it back so sure which I don't think that would be really an issue but um the I the biggest downside I think to the design build method Ryan is there's um well this one um now so not probably not. It's the 37-day response periods if it's over five thou $5 million, which this certainly would not. So, I don't know. Um, if we did the bot method, to your point, you have to adopt the um you have to adopt the statute for the bond, which is uh we adopt the provision of the bond statute, which is IC5-23. Uh after you do that, then you can do anything from doing an RFI uh for potential companies all the way to an RFP. You can skip the RFI. You basically can can control all of that if you

043want to. Um, so the other aspect that you know that we do do you want to talk a little bit about the send some notes out about this but about the the financial kind of where we are financially and and you know I think I responded to all of you guys that my goal or maybe it was just to to you Ryan I can't remember that given the amount of of unencumbered funds that appears we we're going to have left after the high school project that um I don't know, I'd be in favor of potentially doing a bond for the majority of it rather than spending unencumbered cash that we have right now. I'm concerned about about burning more cash at this point in time. And and but if we did a bond, it is

044going to be uh it's going to be subject to a petition remmonstrance. Correct. Because we're at 40% uh right now. Is that right? We're are we intentionally kept our tax rate below 40 cents for 2025 with the anticipation that once we get into 2026 it will go up 40 cents. So any borrowing you do for anything at that point under the new statute is subject to petition remmonstrance at a minimum if we did it in 26. If you did it in 26 but if we did it in 25 it would not be anything. Um if you could get it arranged it it probably would not be. I mean, I had that conversation with Lindseay Simon Edetto today. The the other thing I want you to think about though is and I know it's a constant

045refrain, but because of the circuit breaker, every dollar you borrow, you're you're paying for some percentage 30 to 40% 30 to 40 cents of that dollar you're paying in the form of lower tax collection in your operations fund. So you got to you got to think through the offset of okay, is that really how you want to do it? Yeah. Um the other piece of this is timing um in terms of of the sooner we could potentially approve this, however we finance it and whatever method we use, um the more likely that we could potentially have it done by next spring. Um, which would be ideal if we can if we can pull it off. Um, so anyway, board, what do you guys think? There's a lot of information here and a lot to digest.

046U, as I said before, the consensus among everyone seems to be we want to do it. We know where where we want to build it. We know for the most part what we want it to look like. the Culie bid, if you guys have not had a chance to take a look at that, came in. Uh, and this is the group that that the Keley folks are the folks that that uh built the the Winchester uh facility that we went out and looked at. And so their bid all in with the exception of I don't know that included uh Batting cages, correct? But if you did everything, so this would be or Yeah. Correct. Correct. No parking is is they'd be if and if you turfed infield and outfield, you'd be at 1.7 using this

047figure 1.7. If you turf the infield but not the outfield, you're at 1.35. Um, and I also floated the concept, I think, in an email to you all that would we be would we would we get any savings if we carve some of the things out? And Ryan, I was thinking about your lighting. Um when we looked at one of the proposals a year maybe longer ago that the lighting bid we had was pretty high and when you sold us 120 for just the materials and I did talk to five 528 or wherever the other group is you know so the question would be for the contract that's why trying to get to the bid scenario is probably most important is like I try to pick apart some of that like well your lighting looks

048higher like well yeah that might be high something might be low. We feel comfortable with no numbering total. But to your point, I like compare. I think there's definitely some savings because I think Q is actually self-performing some of that, which is probably where you get some of the savings. But if you're trying to compare apples to apples, I think it's, you know, parking lot 528 was 350 to 400 for parking lot. So if you take the 17, you're 500,000 of savings, but it doesn't include batting cages. There's some netting some ancillary things that may add up to 100 grand. So I think there's clearly some substantial savings. It's not down to a million that we were hoping for, but I think they obviously would be competitive. I don't know. You you had the conversations

049with them, but I don't see like overhead generation. Okay. Yeah. So, my thought is like, all right, let's agree to the scope, the amount of money we want to spend or max them out and let the best team win. Um, I think we're generally aligned on the scope. I just don't want to shortfall, especially the parking. There's not enough parking there now. So, I don't know that you can cut that out. So, I do think there's some savings. It's a matter of like put it out to bid and see who wins. Whether that's the design build or bot structure. I agree with you. I don't think the bot is worth it if there's another avenue to get the savings. So, on on the parking side, you basically coordinated the expansion of the of the PBE.

050I mean, we just did that on our own, right? And we've we've actually expanded parking lots I think at least four times and I think three of those where we've just brought in a paving contractor and said do it. Yeah. And um that's happened at PBE twice. It's I know it's happened at YE once and I may be thinking of the other side of but you know I you could include it in the in the scope or you could get some quotes from a couple paving contractors and say triple this and in fact I asked Culie yesterday. I said why don't you give me pricing on tripling this because that's what's shown in the design tripling this parking lot and get me those numbers which I don't have. Okay. And I did also ask, okay,

051I went back through and said there's no batting cages in here and they said that's a $30,000 ad. Sounds I mean I think there's probably sound system I don't think is included. There's some netting we had originally like it protected against the tennis courts or something. I think was in the design. Well, I think I think that that's you know I said this last month, but I thought we ought to design what we want and get people to bid. You know, I mean I like that the numbers lower, but it's like what's it based on? like what what vision what specs is it based on? I mean, you look at I looked at like dugouts. I've got like 30,000. Skillman had 120,000. What dugouts do we want? Does it look cool? They I mean, you

052know what I'm saying? Like what is this base? What are they going to look like from a quality standpoint of everything? I mean, the turf, the fencing, masonry, concrete, the bleachers was a huge difference. And that's just my concern is like what have we agreed that we want? We want a softball field and I've heard well we don't want the best but we also I don't think want bare bones do yeah honestly I I don't know I don't know enough about about bleachers and I mean to me I I still think the dugout and the press box at least at at facilities I've seen Jason appears to be masonry I mean they all appear to be a masonry construction not really that you know Taj Mahalike you know I mean to me I Yeah. So,

053I mean, my hunch is when it's said and done and you start, you know, adding on some things and parking, I still think it's a two to$ two and a half million dollar project. I could be wrong, but I mean, I'm I'm happy that their number is is favorable, but I'm just concerned, you know, I don't know if you can really add batting cages on both sides with bullpens, but 30,000. That seems cheap. You got to add parking, right? You start getting up there. I think it's a tune to a half million project when it's said and done. I don't know. What do you think? The the Well, before I ask you that, um I did meet with Rachel Nixon last week. really talking about not just what some of the softball uh folks think

054but in addition to that uh from a foundation standpoint. So Rachel I think is the incoming president for the foundation and uh I don't want to speak for Scott small statement. Scott seems to think that there's a decent amount of of potential u sponsorship money uh for the facility and Rachel even mentioned things of you know donating tile not the installation of the tile but the actual tile itself that um so I don't know that it necessarily needs to supersede our approval of of what eventually of the project but I think it would be helpful for us to know too what is the foundation and the the softball community in general uh believe they can contribute to the project. Um I mean I think it's going to be certainly a lot different than the football

055project both in the scope and you know maybe the interest in that but I know she mentioned that that her and Brian might approach some of the seed companies and some different donors who were not really approached as part of the uh of the football project. So, it' be interesting to see what they believe from a foundation standpoint and just, you know, in general the softball boosters and the community believe, you know, what's a number or what are things within the scope of the project that they believe that they could fund as well too. That's good. Yeah, because I agree. I think we got a short window of like, all right, do we want to I think there's consensus is we took a pause on this until we the roof want to get the football

056project. We're back. This was a commitment we've made. I think there's a window to do it. We now have the range of cost. And so I think you and I disagree a little bit on like is do are we comfortable two million or two and a half? I think it's close enough that I I would be supportive. It's two and a half or below. You try to get the foundation to raise as much money as possible, but to me it doesn't move the me needle on the decision. If it's two or two and a half, this is the next project on the list. It's not going to get any cheaper. We we all agree we want to do it. let's make it happen and get it done next year. If the foundation can raise 200

057grand, that's less money we're out of pocket, but um and I the financing equation's a little different, but I do think we have some leftover cash and bonding capacity from the current one. Obviously, it's a moving needle for you. It's like I haven't impressed you like, well, what do you think? And it's like, well, I don't know legislatively what our revenue is going to go down. It's it's a challenge, right? But I think, you know, we can solve the problem and it's two to two and a half. I think we should do the project in my opinion. do it for next year. So Vicki, I could like she wanted to say something then like I was thinking over what you had sent just the remaining money from the the current projects and and rainy day

058does that eliminate like does that take rainy day to zero? Um, if you if you if you were going to use rainy day money for this, yes. And and we can go through that in some more detail here in a minute, but yeah, the short answer is yes, but there's there's more backstory that we probably need to put some different factors on the table. Can we pull up the numbers? Yeah. Was it remaining? Yeah. was 766. And if I may, Mr. President, please, what are you looking at? Um, budget. Um, what's it titled? Sorry. Under I think what I would say is July, unless somebody wants to correct me, financial PDF, the there's consensus among the board. Consensus means all five of you agree that softball is your next major capital project. I think everybody

059agrees on that. Um, and I I hope I've been clear all along the way that I felt like the district would have would easily have at least a million dollars to put toward that project at the point that the dust is kind of settled on some of these other project projects. And so we can evaluate okay what do people want what's this going to cost etc. So, as this discussion has ramped back up, so this this is a snapshot. Okay, I put a date on there for a reason because that that is the project, the balance from the bond and the uh and the um bond premium. every dollar that is connected with a larger high school project, subtracting from that the contracts that we signed and change orders and anything else that we've committed

060to. So that doesn't count anything else that has come up or will come up on that project after July the 8th. And so, you know, almost a million dollars. This is a significant amount of money, but and you could take some of that, some amount of that, and devote that toward something outside of that project, but there are going to be other unforeseen. There are going to be other change orders. We're doing really well on allowances, so part of that number could go up. Um, but you're going to want to do some cosmetic stuff when you're done. There are some things you're going to want to buy. There are some things Stacy's going to want to buy. and I'm going to want to tell her yes along the way. So that's, you know, threequarters of

061a million dollars. The rainy day fund, if you looked at your fund report, is in excess of three million, but you have made, well, I think you did it, maybe I did it, but there's around $2 million of commitments to get this football project done. And so once you pay for all that and I the the positive of this is the foundation raised almost $800,000 and in the psychology that's out there, hey the foundation raised a million dollar for this. Well, it's really about $745,000 and it's really in 10 annual payments. Yeah. So, they've cut us a check for $100,000, which we appreciate, but that's $100,000 toward a project that's going to cost us right at 2 million. So, we have to have $2 million to pay those bills as they come due here in

062the next few weeks. Well, you just approved payment of some claims tonight for that project. So, there's roughly 1.4 million left that's not currently committed in the rainy day fund to anything. So that's, you know, a little more than two million that's in I'll say relatively discretion relatively discretionary cash that you could use for major capital improvements. So that doesn't that doesn't get you to a $3 million softball facility. So that's why I'm in the mode of okay, you know, is there a more affordable way to do this? What is absolutely essential? And to be honest now, Cara probably wouldn't be comfortable with this, but if you said, "We're going to spend 1.3 million tonight and and you legally you're not to the place where you can do that because of the size of the

063project." But if if we were going to do that, I would say I'm okay with that. It's a little bit of a stretch, but we can do it knowing that we're going to we're going to have to say no on some other things that we can wait on. Um, I would be comfortable with that. If it's two million, then we're starting to impair our ability to plan for some unforeseen. So, if if there's some big unforeseen, then I have to make sure I've got operations fund money to fund it or I've got to be able to go quickly get a geo bond to put in the new chiller or whatever it is that kind of isn't unforeseen. So, you can also look in the operations fund because certainly that in the olden days was the

064capital projects fund. And if you looked at it, if you looked at it in your fund report that's in your board packet, you're going to go, well, there's basically $2 million in there. Don't forget, it gets funded twice a year. So, the cash flow into that, it's based not entirely, but largely on property tax. There's a tax draw in June that dumped in there. You could go back to early May and see that the balance was below half a million. And so we have to cash flow everything in the operations fund on the basis of those tax draws. All the transportation, all the maintenance, all the utilities. And there are times in a year where operations fund balance will fall below what we would consider our prudent reserve. So, it's not to say that you're

065never going to be able to spend money out of operations for capital. You can. You just can't do giant projects from it. Could we contribute some to a or a softball project? Maybe. Um, but right now we're at the high water mark. So, I don't I don't anticipate that we will transfer any money from operations to rainy day this year because we'll spend down the current balance as we go through and we wait for our draw at the end of the year. So, okay, what does that mean then? Well, is there is there any other money available? Well, yeah. I mean, we you always have to have some creative option to try to figure out how to get where you need to be. We've been transferring money from our education fund into our rainy day

066fund. Um, and if you looked at that balance, you go, "Hey, there's some money in there." Well, at one point in time, the high water mark in the education fund that was about 12 million. It's currently about 5 million. And you go, "Well, that doesn't sound too bad until you realize that is it 1.2 2 1.3 million of it is curricular materials. So it used to be the textbook rental fund that the legislature just told us to park there. So you can't spend that on anything but computers and textbooks. So you're in the you're you're under 4 million. So you've effectively spent down around 8 million in your education fund in the course of the last five or six years. Where did it go? Well, it went into the middle school. It went into Pleasantville.

067Well, it didn't go to Pleasantville. Went into transportation and middle school and into this project. So, will we make a will we make another transfer from education into rainy day at the end of the year? Probably, possibly. We can backfill some of that. Remember though, those are instructional dollars. It's almost entirely funded from the state. If you read about politicians getting irritated about how schools spend their money, you know, that's that's a piece of that. That's bargainable money that we're going to bargain with teachers for teacher compensation. So that's in my mind. Then there's this question of how much debt capacity do you have? you could if you wanted to say, "Well, we're going to go ahead and take our our current uh debt that we're discussing tonight that we just approved the lease rental

068on, and the uh paperwork is written for capital improvements. And so, you could take that up to another another million and a half up to 5 million and use some of that money. But you also know you're going to reduce your collection in your operations fund when you do that because that debt is circuit breaker limited. So is it that's that's the one side of the ledger. Okay. Can Yorktown Community Schools come up with the money to fund a $3 million softball facility in short order? Yes. Then I want you to think about what else might you want to do after you do that. And so people have come and stood right there, at least at least three of them that I can think of, and advocated that we need to spend some money in

069our pool. It isn't going to be three million, I don't think. Um there's there's a movement out there that they want performing arts to be better funded and they want money in the auditorium. So, what I want you to think through is if we say, "Well, this is our our problem to solve right now. Let's solve it. We've got these resources to solve it." You're going to impair your ability to easily fix, you know, thing B, C, and D. And maybe that's okay. That's part of what the strategic planning process is is supposed to do, too. So part of it is you have to tell me, but I think I also have an obligation to respond with some facts and say you got to consider if you're going to put three million in softball, you

070may have to sit in this boardroom and say to people, I'm sorry, we're not going to do the pool right now or etc, etc. So that's why to me it's worth our effort, which is what you're doing, Ryan, and it's and it's what Brian Wagner's done for us on on the Culie side of things is to try to find a way to make sure that we're getting what we want the most affordable way possible. And I think the other thing that maybe I sense in here is we've spent some time and energy in trying to come up with some real pricing, some budget pricing, some concepts, but there's also this question of do we have specifications that tell us exactly what we're going to get? And you know, we can do that. you're going to

071invest in doing that. That's going to take a little bit of time and a little bit of money to do that effectively. Otherwise, through design build or through bot or whatever, you're kind of at the mercy of the firm that you're hiring to do it. In this case, you know, you're you're not you cannot hire Quly to do this work tonight because the size of the project, it has to go through bidding. And if it's going to be bid, it's going to have to have some some specifications that are signed off on by a design professional in my in my mind. Correct. So, how does that work of their design build? Because that's kind of was it Greenfield that did it that way. They basically solicited similar to the bot an RFP and then they

072had a response for a design build for a specific scope. I mean, it wasn't true specifications like our design build is for X. Uh, and I think on that I agent maybe more on that project. But, um, somebody has to come up with the specs or or come up with the concept. Here's what we're going to build. And whether you bid it or whether you do the bot, you got to come up with it. And if I if I could design build, the person building it is designing it, right? So like there there's a requirement in the statute and I'm not an expert on design. It says even in design build it says the governmental entity must hire an architect or an engineer to prepare and issue a combined request for qualifications. Um so in

073a design build method yeah we an architect or engineers need to prepare an issue that the specs the thing that I see in in this project and so that could be an action we can all kind of promote we or project I guess is the word I'm using here our experiences onto based on this if we were to go into Brennan's trailer and look Yeah, the the mountains of specifications and drawings for that $16 million project, it's it's incredibly detailed. Well, that's Skilman's book of business. And that's why Skilman's saying it's a $3 million project because their delivery model is to say, get it all ironed out up front and then we're going to enforce it. There's also a method that says you hire somebody and and design build is kind of this way I

074think but it sounds like it's kind of this way. You hire somebody that you trust and then you trust them that it's going to come out. And so there's there's a little bit of faith in the oh yeah, okay, I I trust them. I would think that we would hire a design build team that would or a construction firm that would already have engineers on staff and or working very closely with them. That's what Schmidt when we used to use they had in house. Yeah, they did. They had in-house engineers. But you also pay them already. What was that? Was that just for the scope like we pay some for some site survey work? And so that's through context design which that's an engineer an engineering firm. Thanks for going through that because I was

075when we talked the other day I was trying to wrap my I think I was thinking the opposite direction like we've got two projects we committed up front. We had three million of cash left over from the current project. We've now committed two to football. So we have really left over one. In my mind I was taking the the total bond of five million less the roof to come with like I think we can afford two and a half million based upon just that simple equation. Um, I think I agree with you. It seems like it's two to two and a half. It seems like we can get it closer to two at the end of the day, but it depends on scope. Ryan, the other piece of that is that so we we got

076approval for a $15.5 million bond and we set a $20 million project. And so we we bonded for $15.5 million. Um, we we have already paid about a million in design costs. That's not even reflected in that. So now I'm going to start doing numbers from memory. So when I go off the rails, you can stop me, Cara. But it's well, I think your math here would align with my thought is like we have 1.3 left over. We have like one and a half. We bond proceeds. We are going to have spent and I didn't put this in here but I looked at it. We we will have spent roughly 16 to 16.5 million I think all in on this project. Does that number sound right to you? So the hard construction cost was 13.5

077million. And then when you get cost of issuance, you get construction management, you get architects fees, um, and then some of that was paid up front. It's it's 16 million plus. And so the savings was cash that we had in our rainy day fund and in our operations fund and in our education fund that we didn't transfer to rainy day. So, I'm not saying I'm not saying it wasn't a savings because we're saving over what we could have spent, but it wasn't like we the the bond amount was 15.5 million. We've already we've already committed to spending 16 million. So, there's really little left over from the bond. You can see what it is there. I just in my mind true those committed funds of 20 were not spending well. So, and we were banking

078on committing virtually all of our rainy day fund to that plus some additional transfers over there. We're not we're not going to have to do that because the project came in $3 million under budget. So then we've come back through and the board's commitment to football initially was a million and then it's one of those which we had this conversation the other day of well we really should bring the bleachers up to compliance. That's over and above. Well, we really want to make our press box look nice. That's over and above. And so all of a sudden you're at 2 million. That's a lot of your savings. We are frontloading that it's coming back at some point. Yeah. Theoretically over 10 years cost that softball's taken away. You replenish that over time. And and I

079don't we're not, as I said, we're not in we're not in dire fiscal condition as a district. I mean, we have this good problem that people before me and before all of you except for Tom, you know, there were decisions that accumulated cash that the district has been able to use, I think, responsibly to improve facilities. And you know, sometimes people go, "Oh, how how'd you make that look so easy?" Well, there was a we spent a lot of cash. We've spent a lot of cash on facilities as one-time expense. But, you know, I think you have to give some direction. And for if you're asking me, I think I I do think it'd be worthwhile to bring your softball people in and ask them, okay, what do you think is absolutely essential? What kind

080of material do you want? Um, and not that they get to be the final deciders because you're the board. They're not, but to get some input. Yeah. And then I I guess I feel like already, right? H I don't know that I don't know that our softball coaching staff has ever really How do we get the wish list? Do we want a softball or we want a batting case? So, in 2018, we had a long-term facilities planning committee, right? Schmidt Associates. There was a survey that was like if you had unlimited time. We had a specific conversation. We went through and prioritized wants, needs, wish list and that's how softball initially got on the list. Correct. We had a committee meeting specifically on softball and what are the things? That's how we came up like

081we really want to make sure batting cages happen. We want to make sure the nets are there so they protect. I don't think our softball staff was invited. Paul was included. I don't know about the softball staff specifically, but my thought is you still have a period of time where if you get the process started, if you look at the schedule right, is there is a design timeline of you've got two months where that stuff is vetted. So my thought is if we if the goal is we want to be ready is you got to work backwards from that, right? So looking at their schedule, they have to start construction by 101. So it's like all right, how do you get to that? Can we start a commitment to design at this meeting? Then by

082next meeting you're issuing the open bid which is that open 30 days generally. So you're really not getting the responses until 9:15. I was hoping that the softball folks and Stacy and Paul um could just join us at our work session if if they're able to attend. I think that'd be fair because I do think there's I mean generally we know what they want. It's just like how important is turn around. That's what I was going to say. But do we really because I think sometimes we hear one coach might want this or and another person might be like we just want our own field. It's not necessarily we want to have as Rachel had once said you know the Taj Mahal. I don't want to speak for her like she wanted to be here

083but her child's in supreme showmanship tonight. I think that there's a plethora of coaches that or assistants, whatever you want to call, everybody that works with our softball team that could also offer insight. There's not only so many options like all right, do you want a masonry uh dugout or do you want a you know aluminum? There's not I agree that normally it's like there's a a lot of options. Are you good not having batting cages? No, they're not. They've already said that. So like what do you cut out? I think there's some things that I look at it and I'm like, we have to have a flag pole, don't get me wrong, but I'm like, it's $16,000 for a 30ft flag pole. We do that. You know, it's little things like that to me

084that could add up over time where then you can make the project fit within what budget we do have available. So, we all know we're not going back to the we've never gone back to a project and redone anything. So, I know somebody at my house would be really mad at me for saying this, but even let's look at even parking lot. I mean, you could go a gravel over a paved parking lot. Don't have that To begin with, I mean, I want to do it right. We can't do We've had a softball or a soccer parking lot that's been gravel with a porta potty for years and we can't seem to figure out how to do redo that. So, I stand by. We don't ever go back to projects once we commit to them.

085So, we got to get it right. I just don't see a ton we can cut out. But, so let's let's let's have our our work session. Let's invite all the the parties. I'd like to again have our AD, our principal, Rachel, Ryan Gar if he wants to come. Whoever they they'd like to have a 10. I mean, like I'd like to be pretty tight. I don't want necessarily 50 people from the Maybe you you ask your head coach and if he wants to bring a couple. Yeah, Jeremy was gone last week on vacation, I think. So, I tried to get a hold of him and but he was out. But, you know, I I think you know, a finite number of folks and and let's block out, right? It's probably going to take more than

086an hour, honestly. Can we have the options available? I mean, it's either astro or natural or masonry or do you have a list of all the different options that I think we have all the data or I'm not trying to add expense to it, but I do wonder if you want to have somebody with some design expertise I would think you would need. So whether that's Fred Prao, that was my thought is like if you're incorporating we want input through this process like the value like we don't we can all guess but we really don't know. It's like to me if you don't start the process now you're not going to be ready for next season. So the answer is we want to do that. So I think that's the decision we got to make.

087The goal is to get it ready. The the answer is we have to get a design proposal and probably get them signed up by the work session whether that's context design and then when do you publish maybe you can somehow they've already context is already done some of this work and they they do a lot of this kind of work as the engineer and I don't I can't get a number if they could design the specs and stamp them do we have to bid that or we just not not a design professional. You don't agree with that. So that's why I preferences tonight. Can you can you get a quote for that? Yeah. I mean, I think he's basically doing it on an hourly basis for us. So, let me I'll just shoot him an

088email or call him and say, "Could you be available?" And I think if for no other reason because he can offer some suggestions based on experience and he can probably also take some notes which is another thing that we we suffer from a little bit is you can get a lot of ideas flowing and everybody thinks they know what was said but that doesn't always come out in writing so that you have a record of it. I'm just curious, not to I don't want to derail it off of this, but you know, is there's all the rumbles of a quote roundabout possibly going in at that intersection? I know, right? So, this was a jump. You're going from softball. Well, because of its position of us quote maybe expanding the parking lot needs. Is that

089something that we need to reassess also? The opposite direction. But I thought the original one that we showed was the parking lot was going following along. Um would that be River Road? Yeah, it would. But it would be going west. Okay. Away from the proposed roundabout. There's just got to be a lot of possible site work needed for that to actually flow properly. If that's the future, you're going to the parking lot going west, right? the roundabouts the other direction, right? It'd be right in the pretty much center of that. The the design I saw, we pull that back up. It would be where the where the current intersection is. They would they would be taking part of our property to the south of our tennis facility. Yeah. Yeah. So back where the artistic elk

090right there where your arrow is, that's where it would go. Whereas parking lot would go. There was a proposed one that I have viewed that it showed multiple lanes of river road needed in order to make a quote roundabout work in that area. So it' be like encroach like our walkway or the drive entrance into like it would be there there might there might be an additional lane. Uh-huh. On the east side of Tiger around the corner and then possibly on the north side of river. Okay. Gotcha. Along in there. So, I guess just looking at dates, if if you say I'm going to get a proposal, the time clock doesn't start until they have a design. Can you dual track like the I guess advertisement for the design build contractor simultaneously to when the

091specs are being issued. It would be difficult. I think your design build firm is going to develop your specs. Yeah. Just reading the specs have to be part of the public process. As I read the statue, I don't know how much of these you've done, Steve, but as I read the statue, there's supposed to be some independence between the designer Yeah. and the builder. Correct. The design builder selected is responsible for both the design and the construction of the project. Um, but it does say the governmental entity creates a committee containing a licensed architect and engineer and engineer along with others that scores all aspects of the responses submitted. And that I don't know what the documents that they're submitting on like it's basically an RFP. They do they do a design that they submit

092and then you can actually pay a stipend to people for submitting them even if you don't select them. And then you you make a selection of who you want based on the RFP that they responded to. some design build you're hiring an architect or engineer to prepare and issue your combined request for qualifications, requests for proposals. So they're they're putting together the specs. So that we wouldn't have to hire context. What I hear is, again, Steve, I don't know if you have an opinion on this, but the real savings in some of these alternate methods is in larger projects. And the smaller projects, you know, the theory is you're going to be able to find a good general contractor that's going to come in and do this for you. So really, it's a matter of

093you deciding as the owner what's it going to be. But that's that's just the the chatter I heard. I've not seen bot used on small projects very often. It looks like most of the time they've been they've been bridges. Bridges and convention centers. Yeah. Highways. Yeah. Yeah. And I again I I think we're all in agreement. the most affordable, expeditious way to do it. So, but design bill allows QE or the 520 or anybody else in that realm to bid on it or respond probably, but but you're going to you're going to have to hire the designer. So, and I I think I can explore. We don't hire the designer. We hire the designer to vet the proposals. You're talking about on design build. design build. The people that specialize in design build make their

094money somewhere. Government will hire an architect or engineer. Dave, did I send you this? No. Can I send it to you? You can pull up on the screen real quick. I mean, it's only 7:15. It's going to be daylight for another two hours, folks. to the hair. But they prepare the solicitation for responses. I would think so. Yeah. So that's action we'd have to take to start moving would be to hire someone to prepare the solicitation. Performance Services is an example of an established design build firm and they're it's all inhouse, but of course, you know, there's a fee and it's their argument is that it's you're going to get the contractor you want. You're not going to take the risk of having to have a contractor that you don't want on site. But then,

095you know, I I think the jury would be out as to whether it's really a savings. It's just a different delivery method. We could have Skilman come in and tell us how construction management is the right way to do it. Yeah, it's interesting when you talk to the different architecture firms, the ones who don't use the construction manager methodology as the architecture firm or like why would you ever use a construction manager to to do your project? because they want a fee for project administration. Well, in general, um I the only thing I guess I would say on finance side is I'm two things. Um if we bond part of the softball project, let's say at least half of it. You're saying like in addition to the current bond like going to the 5 million

096that we have now, either either as part of that. The only thing I don't like about that is that's it's a 20-year bond. It's not I don't I don't love the idea of financing a softball field for 20 years. It's the simplest route to go by. Cost of issuance and all that is already baked in. You can make additional payments and refinance it, right? If you want to go lower. Yeah. Pay it off quicker. I like that that idea better than saying let's take our 2.2 million that we have left over. Yeah. I I just don't think that's responsible for us to say cash. I just don't think we can. So, if you took a million in bond and if you could build our all-in facility, if you could get it for something south of

097of 2 million, I think you have to have money left over over the course of the next 12 to 24 months to be able to touch the pool. And I think the auditorium and the, you know, our our our folks that are, we can't just continue to spend all of our ECA money on athletic facilities. We can, but I think we've got to look at at our arts and uh our arts program and our music program. Um, and and we need to touch those. There's a lot of kids and a lot of families that are that participate in those as well that don't participate in athletics at all. Oh, and our auditorium needs a lot of work. Absolutely. My armrest came off of my arm the last time I was in there. So, and there

098was no seat in the seat beside me. So, take your own armrest. Well, and when we go through the strategic planning process, hopefully those projects will will also rise to the top in terms of of needs uh as well. and and you know at that point in time we can hopefully look at costs of of what we can invest in those two. But um but those next projects take time, right? Like softball has been a discussion for five plus years. I'm not saying delay softball. I'm not saying that, right? I'm just saying that that's why I don't want to spend the full $2.200 that we have the cash for sure. That was my always thought is like a million a million half the cash. The rest is bonded. You get to two and a half

099you have 500 grand left over of proceeds. So really timelinewise, if we're going to get this done, like we got to get the solicitation prepared to be presented at the next board meeting. That would put responses due to at the September board meeting and you probably don't award it till the following board meeting, right? Oh, we have a special board meeting. Or you could have a special board meeting, too. Yeah. Yeah. Keep in mind we can vote during a work session because it's a public but the vote but the solicitation and those things have to be 30 days right generally speaking yes it's like I think the only thing we can expedite with a special meeting is the ability to give you direction to prepare a solicitate like select the firm to prepare the solicitation

100they essentially have to get that ready for the September board meeting and then you really got that board meeting plus 30 days to award the earliest I put you at the October board before you really ever start full design on design build. Uh you can see up there on on hopefully you can see on the screen it's behind you Jason that that um uh is that what you're looking for? Go up one. Uh was there one more? Your screen was up there. Yeah, I was. I was like, "Hey, that's cool." Um no, I'm sorry. Uh roll down. So there page number page seven of the PDF. Thank you. Just needed some. There we go. So minimum 37day response period for projects over 5 million or a 15-day response period required for projects costing more than

1015 million but can be longer. that actually says kind of the same thing. I think the the second one should be probably less should be for projects costing less than 5 million has a 15-day response period. So there's another opportunity to squeeze a couple of weeks perhaps out of the pro process on a design bill. So the is there consensus amongst this group to a do softball, b do it for somewhere around $2 million and c to do it for next spring? Is that what we're all five working toward? And if not say so is that necessarily have like a price line on it, but yes. I mean I've had a softball queued in two years ago. Yeah. How about two million or less? Kind of like Well, I mean, maybe you're at 17 and

102you don't have parking yet. I know. So, I know I I mean, and and I'm just going to offer this and I don't mean to be a wet blanket, but you know, spring spring is is an ideal. You're talking about some moving parts. If you're if you're going to go back through and use a process that we haven't used before, there's some scaling up that has to happen just to even put that in place. I think the luxury we have afford is similar to tennis, right? If you're late, you do what you do this year, right? You you already have a feel, right? We have a back stop. It is not like it is not like uh football, right? Where Yeah. We're going to have to have it done at a certain point in time.

103Yeah. or science labs or so to answer your question I'm a yes on what you're describing I'm a yes on all those except I think it's going to be two and a half or lower be my mind but I guess we can amend it later if it comes in higher but the goal is to get as low as possible Dr. Hel, if we go with a bond for a million, I mean, what's the latest that we can It's already in process. Oh, I thought Okay, so we're pulling. Sorry. Yeah, we I think we we agree that and I I will way to do it. Interest rates are different. I will tell you, Cara and I are going to have a rating call. I guarantee you our bond rating is going to be lowered because our

104cash position is worse. So, I mean, there's there's going to be some additional cost to do it that way. baked in there somewhere. But, um, that's that's probably the easiest way to do it if that's what you're convinced you're going to do rather than doing a separate one. For one thing, um, do you want to use general obligation capacity to do it? And if not, then you got to go back through the building corporation process, which adds several more time. You'd have to Yeah. It take four months. Um, I so I I guess I want to come back to I I feel like the one thing that's still hanging out there is I don't think I think you got to have somebody in the room that can lead you through the discussion of design and

105totally agree. I think there's got to be a consensus amongst everybody that this is what we're getting. That's what I don't know or understand about the [ __ ] bid because I don't know what it's based on. Right. And you know, it's like, well, good faith. They built it before. Well, maybe, but you know, if their version of a dugout's different than what the softball coach thinks he's getting, and he picked a lowest grade possible turf, I don't know. I don't know what he based it on. Yeah. And I think this board has a responsibility to say we're getting what we want here. Not just trusting, oh, they know what they're doing. Maybe I guess I'm going to say again seems to me like the person that's got the most expertise and the highest level of neutrality

106is context design Fred Po because he's already looked at it and I think Fred has enough business that if you said we're not going to use you again, he'd say fine, I'll see you on a different project. But he's he's not a design builder. He's an engineer. So he I think he can give you relatively objective recommendations about what to do and who to talk to. My fear is if you don't have some if you bring in if it's Culie or if it's Myernium or whoever they're going to have an incentive to say here this is how we can do it for you and maybe that's the right way maybe it's not whereas if you got somebody that's got some objectivity there they can say here's what's worked and here's what hasn't worked. But I

107don't think it's, you know, a hundred different decisions, but there's probably eight or 10 important ones that there needs to be a consensus amongst athletics and administration and the board. This is what we want because I've heard, you know, well, we're building the Taj. Well, I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, we don't know. Could you reach out to Fred? I can do that. And see what his availability would be. Let's say over the next I'd love it to be next week if we could do an evening next week, but um I think we need to uh I'm going to reach out to to Rachel as well too and see if she can give me contact information for Jeremy and Stacy. Do you have that? Yeah, I mean we could organize them for you. You

108let us know. That that would be great. And uh um let's see when Fred's available first and if he has a couple of date evenings in mind, then we can float those to the board and the and the group in the next couple of weeks. Yeah. And see see what date seems to work for everybody and and schedule it. I think it's going to take more than an hour to be honest with you. Can they can they prepare the solicitation simultaneous to that? because really it's the timeline of the 15-day period is can they plan on a work session and the solicitation for I assume for and I who's the they context probably yeah and I I don't know the answer to that I don't know whether do we need to give you I don't

109know whether context personally is a design build firm but they're not design building it they're preparing the solidation I don't know the answer to that I mean That's a question I can ask. Do we need to give you action to because again I think we have this weird window. It's like if we wait 30 days to actually prepare the solicitation, we're not getting it done next year. I'm all I can do is ask. Yeah. I need to know if we had to give you action to solicit. Honestly, the only thing that the board the board really only needs to approve bonding and okay contracts in a perfect world because the one that Greenfield I think it's Greenfield was like a one-page solicitation. So if the answer is it's easy, they can get out by 81,

110you open up for 15 days, the bids could come in or the responses by the next board meeting potentially if it's the two 15-day periods. And if not, then again, you can still you can convene a special meeting. Yeah. Right. At any time. Yeah. Because it seems like none of the actual design happens until that group is selected, right? So like that's the key is how do you get to that stage and then it's everybody's included and you're going to get okay. Okay. Do you have enough to to be dangerous now? Probably. Okay. So yeah. All right. Anything else you want to add before we wrap that that up? No, I don't think so. Okay. All right. Um Okay. Okay, I think that takes us to the end of the rainbow. Final closing comments. Uh,

111starting with you, Dr. H. A lot of these we covered, but I I do want to really emphasize the staffing piece. Um, at the end of the day, um, the primary thing that we do is instruction of students. And so, we do invest a lot of time and energy in trying to make sure that we are attracting and retaining the best instructional staff. And so anytime you can start the year fully licensed, fully staffed, um I've lived on the other side of that, even a few years here, and it's better to be this way. The football project, I know, I know there's some anxiety around it, but it's all all the parts are currently moving, and so we'll just continue to move forward day by day. Um and I think once it starts to come

112together, it's going to come together quickly. the high school project. We were having a little off thereord conversation here before the meeting started about um there's there's going to be some really great there already are some great spaces in there and there's going to be some more to come and uh it's going to be super useful when it's all done. All that space safety and uh all those considerations. The tennis courts were resurfaced. They finished that last week. Um, I was over there this morning with Paul taking a look and there was a a tennis camp going on and it they they look considerably well they look perfect. I mean, they look like new. Um, so we'll see. And I appreciate the cooperation of our contractor and our subs and everybody and making this happen

113at no cost to us and so we'll continue to watch that. But I appreciate all that. Um they're so this is all embargoed so I can't really talk about it but I've seen our AP scores and I've seen our iLearn scores and uh I'll just say we're moving in the right direction and um there's there's going to be some good stuff that we're going to release later. And I know the board's heard me say this before, but my sense, my interpretation of what the average parent values at Yorktown is at the end of the day, does my Yorktown High School student graduate with a diploma? That is the key to open doors after high school. And one of those doors is, do I can I get into the university I want to get into? And

114am I going to be successful when I get there? And we just see that over and over and over and over again. And uh you know we we had a board member who used to talk about it's not by chance or luck or accident and there's a lot of work that goes on inside those buildings every day to make sure that that's all aligned. And I think they make it look easy and sometimes we go oh yeah okay that's nice. But um one of our principles you know said we have a worldclass high school. It wasn't Stacy. And you know the the things that come out of those programming that programming K to 12 are pretty phenomenal. And so I just want to highlight that. And then I saw in X that we had a

115Yorktown alumnus in the MLB draft. That was the number was pretty high, but that's still pretty cool as a percentage. And that's not the first one ever either. And so just another example of you you take a Yorktown experience and you use that to open a door in whatever you want to do. That's really the test of us as a school system. And so that's again my commendation to everybody involved in that. Okay. I don't have a lot to say, but congratulations on having all of our positions filled. Coming from a school system that we haven't started fully staffed, I would say in the last probably six, seven years, we haven't started fully staffed. So, it's a big deal because a lot of schools are not fully staffed right now in the state of Indiana

116and they won't be. So, and it may be all year that they won't be. So, the fact that we can keep our staff and maintain new staff is a very positive thing for us. And thank you for all of your hard work you've done with all of this, too. Thank you. Thanks, Ashley. Ryan, yeah, I agree. I don't think we've had a staffing issue since probably you've been here. So, I think that's we kind of ignore that fact because it's the easy button and we're always there. So, I know there's a lot that goes into making that happen. Um, yeah, construction projects. I know you guys see the the day-to-day pain of the headaches that come along with it. So, appreciate you guys just working with with people in your way and the musical chairs.

117So, thanks. Um, yes. Thank you to Dr. Henel for getting everybody staffed and ready to go for the next school year. Um, no emergency license. That's huge. So far. Yeah. Um, I would also just like to let everybody know that the town is also doing a strategic um, plan and so that survey is available online and to fill that out and to put your get your input out there for the future of what Yorktown looks like. Um, and that was from the town council as well as the redevelopment and parks board I believe are all part of that right now. And then I just want to give a shout out to Yorktown um the students out at the fair this past week. Um they are rocking it and I think right now you have two

118if not three in supreme showmanship. That's out of six different areas. So that's huge. Um lots of grand champions and reserves and beyond that friendships and just they represent our town and school corporation really well. So, and real quick, I dropped my son off at FCA yesterday camp and tons of Yorktown kids there. I bet we have the most there. So, another good showing there. That's awesome. That's awesome. Or your your kids are are They're there right now. Yeah. Hopefully. Oh, we also had um I think I think I might have mentioned this farm bureau awarded only two um tenyear 4 member awards and Yorktown, one of our students received one of those. And then I think tonight there was also recognition. We maybe have five uh 10year 4 members from Yorktown. So that's awesome.

119Another huge commitment. So well represented tonight. I think probably the most out of any school district in Del County. Very nice. That's great. Good. Are you doing goats and chickens or just goats? Just goats. Going to market tomorrow. I wanted to say head, heart, hands, and health. It's all It's all What was that? At least I can remember the pledge. Um, yeah, as others said, good job on staffing. Piece of cake, right? But I don't do it. I mean, they do it, but Yeah. Well done. Yeah. Um, and just thank the board and everybody for uh, I think the support of all these athletic projects. I think it was exciting um, to hear you talking about walking through that space and I just think what that'll mean to the kiddos. And I know athletics is

120getting tons of attention the last two or three years, but I've said this before, we didn't touch it for 30 years and so rightfully so. And so I'm I'm excited what this does for the kids and those opportunities. So good stuff. Awesome. Thanks, Jason. Um, just briefly, uh, kudos to to you and and I know a lot of this is embargoed right now, but our our AP scores, um, uh, the graduation rate, uh, our recognition we received last year from several different publications about how well the high school is doing and and um, in a really competitive environment, Yorktown continues to be a smaller school that that that is right up there with with all of the the schools in the beltway and elsewhere around the state that have all the resources in the world

121at least wise to spend. So congratulations to you and your crew and all your hard work. It's again it's not by accident as Dr. Henshaw indicated and uh uh I just want to thank Dr. Henshaw for all of we've Vickiy's mentioned you know we've seem to have a construction project going on for the last seven or eight years probably because we have and I think sometimes we lose sight of the fact of everything that makes up your job that's part of being a public school superintendent and it's so many different moving parts and then when you add in all of the things that were that you're involved and that you're managing and coordinating uh as part of our our you know again our capital improvements that we've been doing. Uh uh it's a lot. It's

122a whole lot and uh and you know you handle it with skill and grace and um managing a lot of different personalities and and you know uh uh anyway I I just really appreciate you and all that you do. So uh it is uh 20 till 8 and we now stand at church. Mhm.