001I haven't heard from her in a while, which is >> very unusual. >> I didn't hear from her. >> All set. Yes, sir. >> Good morning. I'd like to call the Tuesday, July 29th special meeting to order. Uh, treasure, please call the role or roll. >> Mr. Ferguson, >> here. >> Mrs. Washington, Dr. Ballard, >> here. >> Mrs. Nazaria, >> here. >> Mr. Sturgil, >> here. >> Please stand for the pledge. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Recognition of visitors. Seeing none, we will go to the first hearing of the public. Seeing none, uh I will entertain a motion to approve or amend the minutes of the July 14th meeting.
002>> So moved to support. >> Roll call, please. >> Dr. Bor. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Sturgil. >> Yes. >> Mr. Ferguson. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Mazar. >> Yes. >> I'm just reminded uh we'd like to take a moment and ask for a moment of silence in honor of or in recognition of the terrible events that happened in our city last week. Please join. Thank you. Any old business? Reports and recommendations of the treasurer. >> I have no items for this agenda. >> Thank you. Reports and recommendation of the superintendent >> and some information became available. We information we've been looking into for quite some time. I think was finalized yesterday. I'm going to ask Mary Mays to step up and and share what we found in terms of transportation. Uh we've been looking at transportation
003now for several years. We reported out a few months ago the savings uh that's already occurred by bringing back uh the the 20 say 20 we have 28 buses, 25 routes, whatever the numbers are, but uh the the investment has already paid for the initial investment of the buses, the labor, and the building. We're starting to save money on that that portion. Uh but we currently do and and have a contract to do for one more year is we partner with Auxilio to uh transport our students to private and charter schools and we're looking at the cost savings to bring in uh eventually all of those routes. Uh but is it based on what our contract allows for next year uh but Mary and Otia and Julie worked very hard to make sure these numbers
004are all been verified and and appropriate. Uh and again there is an upfront cost which is to purchase 10 more buses, excuse me, but there's a savings that goes along with that. And what I asked them to put together was uh at what point do we break even? At what point do we start saving money? Um as we have had conversations in our last couple board meetings, uh what we were projecting to receive from the state and federal government is not what we think we're receiving. Uh I think the federal government has changed their their tune a little bit, but uh we're still um concerned about the not only the bienium budget, but also the House and Senate tried to overturn some of the governor's vetos and didn't have the votes to do it. But
005if they become standalone bills, they need fewer votes. So, we're still concerned about changes in money that we're going to be receiving um moving forward based on actions that'll be taken between now and December 31st. That being said, I think when we have the opportunity to save money, it's something we need to consider even though there's an upfront cost. So, Mary, if you would please. >> Thank you, Dr. Graham. U I this morning, as Dr. Graham said, I'm I'm looking at >> Mike, can you move the mic a little closer? And just more for uh people watching on YouTube than Yeah. You could have just said thank you and sat down. He gave your whole spill. The thunder's gone. >> Yeah, it's sunny day again. >> Yeah, >> you need help with the PowerPoint. >>
006We're asking for consideration uh of purchasing 10 buses this morning. That would be nine full-size buses and one orthopedic. >> If I could also interject, regardless of what we choose to do, we need that orthopedic bus. Correct. >> We do. We absolutely do. Um, and this will allow the district to to bring uh transportation back uh the contracted portion of transportation. Uh, we are looking at a cost uh for the purchase of those buses just under $1.3 million. Uh, and we did look at the savings. I know that uh Barb Mrick and and Julie West sat down and talked about numbers and we looked at the overall cost of what it would cost for transportation to do that inhouse versus the contra uh the contracted service we have right now. And it looks like it
007would be about three years, just a little over three years before we would see that savings, uh, come back for the purchase of those buses. Um, and so, uh, if we went out to, if we continued to outsource that, we would have that continued extra cost for contracted services. Um, and if I'm correct, Julie, we were somewhere around 300 and I think we were about 330ome thousand that we would save overall um for the first three years. 600 and some I think we were close to 600 and some thousand >> per year. Yeah, that's what correct. Yeah. >> Yes. >> With the payoff a break even point at 3.27 years. Uh and then after that obviously the money is just savings but the first 3.27 years is to pay for our original investment in terms
008of buses, drivers and everything else. >> Correct. And again to remind folks the reason it took us a while to come up with a comparison on how much money it's easy to to see how much money you spent and your spending but to project things sometimes it's a little bit more difficult and what I mean by that when we used uh for student uh they charge us just a lump sum um and sometimes per route um with auxilio is by driver. So when you look at things, it's you can see how much we're saving compared to how much we spent. Both cost of uh inflation and other factors kicking in to project how much you're going to save takes a little bit more to make sure that I guess a math term that we had
009to come up with the lowest common denominator for in-house auxilio and for students and it took us a while to get comfortable with those numbers. So I just want to thank everybody for your patience in doing that. Um but for me uh when these numbers were shared with me yesterday I originally thought the year or the numbers be two years 3.2 is a little further out. Um, but to start saving money and to invest in our future, uh, to wait another year, I'm the only thing that in my mind gets in the way, and I'm going to defer to TIA, is the fact that because our projections are so much lower than we thought from the money we were told we're going to get from the state that we planned on in May to what
010we were told after the binding budget was approved is a lot less. So, and I I think Mark made a point um, at one of our previous board meetings. Yeah, it'd be nice to have that, but can we afford it? Um, so I will defer to TIA if whether or not the money is going to be available to wait three years to pay it off as opposed to continue to invest. >> Based on what we know um from the state and the bino budget, we we will reach a deficit much sooner, a year sooner than projected from May's forecast. >> Any questions about transportation in general or the purchase of >> Yeah. So one, as he talked about the differences in how we were calculating what it would cost us versus saving us with auxilio
011and first units, when we put out those RFPs, can't we make them count with our numbers? Can't they give us our budget the way we want it structured? So we can do apples and apples and apples. >> So uh we we give them the information of the students that we need to transport. Mhm. >> Um and because they're businesses and they're they're in the transportation of students or folks >> to make money unlike the district. And so when we put those RFPs out, we're trying to get the best uh number that we can based on the one that wants to make you you got one that want to make a lot of money and other ones that are really considering the transportation, but they're in the business to make money. No, >> I get that.
012But I'm just saying, can we just say everybody either count heads or everybody count routes? So, we're doing apples and apples. >> Well, we do. We give them the number of routes and everything else. It's just based on their number how they come in with that number. >> So, maybe I misunderstood his statement. >> No, no. And I think I think I understand your question. Um when this was originally done with first student was 10 12 years ago and I think that we phrased things differently back then than we did now most recently when we brought in auxilio and did have require much more detail. >> Okay. >> But I think the big piece was uh when we had first student it was to Mary's point what what would you charge us and they were
013the only game in town and and they charge us. And my followup is if three years is break even, what's the typical lifespan of a bus? >> Right now, we're looking at uh we go about 11 years, which is a long way out, but we have great mechanics and they're doing great jobs on our buses and keeping them up. Uh so we're looking at about 11 years. Some districts go six. Um I don't think that's reasonable. Uh you can you can get 11 12 years out of a a bus before you really have to start looking at at replacing it. reason it's reason, >> right? It's reasonable to say though that if we make the investment and I assume we'll be around 20 years, >> um we'll save almost $2.3 million over that next 11
014by making upfront costs now. >> Correct. >> That Okay. Thank you. >> And that's just with the additional buses. That's not a >> Right. Right. >> We're just counting those those 10 that we're getting though and just seeing what the value would be for those. But thank you. And I see um I love the young guns with the young legs, but when Jeff want to sell something, he brings the wisdom in. And uh >> and I love both. Yes. So So the big guns came in this morning. So >> will we have drivers? I mean that's >> So we are we are currently uh looking at that. Uh, and uh, I will tell you that my my assumption, and I hate to make those, but uh, if we have contracted service that's out there right
015now, that those drivers will be looking for a place to and and I would have no problem bringing those folks in because they transport our kids now anyway. So, uh, just the same as we did initially, um, and a lot of the folks came over from, uh, first student, uh, we would we would find a home here for them as well. >> Okay. And I'mma steal off his one more time. Then I'm going to be quiet the rest of the day maybe. But but I know it's late in the year now, meaning the summertime. But so we have a farm team of drivers. Have we ever considered just handing out or passing out or doing our own CDL classes and advertising almost like a hey come to night school, get you trained, then we got
016a farm team that we can pull from. >> And we are doing that. >> Okay. >> We are doing that. >> Okay. We will bring folks in and we will train them uh and and run them through the whole thing. And >> I've never seen that promoted though. I've never seen that promoted. But it's good to know that we're doing >> work with other districts to help them along that way because we've got the house talent. >> I'm glad we got people to think quicker than I do. >> Any other questions? >> Thank you. >> Thanks, Mayor. So, with that being said, I'd like to uh recommend we walk on item. >> We'll do that. >> Do operation section. briefly the two are >> okay. >> So you'll take that one. All right. Thanks. Like
017the board to consider for approval items 9.01 to 9.04 personnel matters. >> So move >> discussion. Um the same question I always ask. Where are we in terms of staffing? >> Uh we are actually in pretty good shape for most positions. Um, math. We're still We lost some math teachers at the high school that uh we're still looking for math teachers. You'll see one on the agenda today that has retired a few years ago that we brought back. Um, and uh students or teachers of students with disabilities are the areas that were struggling as well as pair of professionals. >> Yeah, pair of professionals is has been a struggle for us over the past few years, but uh we are for it being July still, we'll we'll figure it out. We'll be right. >> Okay.
018It's good thing we had the special meeting so he could say so it's July. >> Yeah. >> And uh yeah, we uh obviously with the severance um offer we had last year we obviously fired well over 60 teachers but the areas that we lost a lot of teachers and actually for different reasons math um but uh we lost a lot of teachers of students with disabilities. >> What about the I see we have two dance teachers here. We also have some some fluidity with uh with our our our dance teachers. >> Yeah. And I'm again I'm confident we'll find excellent Yeah. candidates >> Yeah. for those two positions. >> Okay. Uh I'll entertain a motion or do we have we have a roll call, please? >> Mr. Sergil? >> Yes. >> Dr. Valor? >> Yes.
019>> Mr. Ferguson? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Nazario? >> No. >> Like the board to consider for approval items 10.01 to 10.02. 02 >> entertain a motion. >> So move support >> discussion. These are this is the two parking lots we discussed the last meeting I believe. Correct. >> Without me have my glasses on. Yes. >> South View and South View. >> Yeah. Both Southview pieces. Okay. >> And again what happened there? I can have Mary the expert come back up and talk. Hey, why don't why don't you I can pass on information, but uh it'll do something in translation. >> So, uh over at Southview Middle School, we uh the intent was this year to mill off 2 in and then uh recoat that area. Uh when we got in there and started to mill
020that portion off, we realized that uh and this was in collaboration with the city, uh we realized that there was water that was actually coming up at the on the outside of the parking lot, which meant that there was something happening under the grade. Uh as they got about three passes through, uh they could see that there was the the uh base was actually failing. You could see that it was uh what they call whale backing. Um, and so at that point in time, we had to stop the job uh and have a company come in to do uh several um it's a process, but they come in and do uh several areas of undercuts, 12-in undercuts, where they put in a base of uh it's it's ones and twos, which are bigger stones, and
021they put that base in and then 57 and pack it all down. because there was no base uh per se on uh um the original parking lot that was put down. They tamped it down and put asphalt on top of it and uh so we didn't have a solid base. We right now are in the in the place that that has been done. Uh we're ready to to go, but we're just holding on approval to get the rest of it in place. >> Again, the same issue that happened at General Wilson where uh many many years ago we tried to save a couple of dollars and we did the job wrong. So, as a result, we have to pay for that now. >> But it was going to have to be resurfaced anyhow. Just a
022little bit extra. >> When they skimmed the top off, water was shooting out of it. Probably a good idea. So, >> that's not good. >> No. So, for the timing, uh, not ideal, but it could have been a whole lot worse. >> Correct. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Uh, roll call, please. >> Mr. Sturgil, >> yes. >> Dr. Bor, >> yes. >> Mr. Ferguson, >> yes. >> Mrs. Nazaria. >> Yes. >> And before I pass on the baton, I would also like to um summarize a conversation that Mr. Ferguson and I had before the board meeting. Uh the city sent out something and again I I uh the awful awful awful event as the son of a Cleveland policeman uh retired um and passed away. Uh the superintendent of a district and a member of
023the community. I am completely devastated and I can't imagine what the city is going through. um the LPD and and the city hall department, but they are closed tomorrow in honor of our our fallen officer. And in talking to Jay before the board meeting, uh we agree that in in the spirit of solidarity, we are also going to be closed tomorrow. And I know that many of us will be at the service uh the funeral and the service tomorrow, but uh um we just want to demonstrate our close partnership in the city. Can we we can get that on social media just for >> Lisa is typing now. >> That's what I saw. That's why I asked. >> Thanks. >> Okay. Uh at this point, I would entertain a motion to suspend the order. >>
024So move for support. >> Roll call, please. >> Mr. Sturgil, >> yes. >> Dr. Ballard, >> yes. >> Mr. Ferguson, >> yes. >> Mrs. Nazario, >> yes. And now I would entertain a motion to walk on the resolution to purchase school buses. >> So moved. >> Support. >> Discussion. >> Roll call, please. >> Mr. Serg, >> yes. >> Dr. Ballard, >> yes. >> Mr. Ferguson, >> yes. >> Mrs. Mario, >> no. >> Okay. Reports and recommendations. >> The motion to actually approve. Oh, now we need a uh motion to approve the item. >> So move >> support. >> Discussion. >> Roll call, please. >> Mr. Sturgel, >> yes. >> Dr. Baller, >> yes. >> Mr. Ferguson, >> yes. >> Mrs. Nazario, >> no. >> Reports and recommendations of the superintendent. Other matters? My good. >>
025Any new business? Committee reports and requests from board members. Still no public. Uh the next board meeting will be a regular meeting August 11th, 2025 at 5:00 pm right here at Lorraine High School in the board room. Um and with that, I would entertain a motion to adjurnn. >> Motion to adjurnn. report. >> Roll call, please. >> Dr. Baller, >> yes. >> Mr. Sturgel, >> yes. >> Mr. Ferguson? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Nazar? >> Yes. >> We're out.