001All right, we don't have any citizens' remarks. Look to approve the minutes for the last meeting. I move that the minutes for the February 5, 2026 Finance and Operations Board Advisory Committee meeting be approved. Second. Can I get a roll call, please? Ms. Becker-Dodd? Abstain. Aye. Mr. Boranick? Aye. Ms. Brandon? Aye. Aye. Aye. All right, here we go. Committee reports and discussions, the audit. All right, good evening, everyone. Tonight we have Chris Scolette, managing partner from Evans, Marshall, and Pease here to go over the FY 25 audit for the district. Thank you for coming, Chris. No problem. Good evening, members of the board and district officials. On behalf of Evans, Marshall, and Pease, I'm pleased to report that we have completed the audit of the financial statements for June 30, 2025, as well as the
002single audit. We issued unmodified or clean opinions on both of those audit reports, which is the highest level of assurance that I can provide as an auditor. I'm also pleased to report that this year's audit went smoothly, as I did not identify any deficiencies and controls, material weaknesses, or any findings that would need to be reported to the board. This reflects very positively of the district's financial management practices, internal controls, and the hard work of your staff. I would like to extend my appreciation to Scott and the entire business office for their cooperation, preparation, and professionalism throughout the entire audit. As the district's new auditor, we greatly appreciated the transition and the team's proactive supports. Their thoroughness and responsiveness contributed significantly to an efficient and effective audit. In summary, the district continues to demonstrate strong
003financial stewardship and accountability to its community, and most importantly, its taxpayers. Thank you for the opportunity to serve as your auditors. And I'd be happy to answer any questions that the board may have. No questions are good. Yeah. Yeah, you don't really want questions, I think. It sounds like, you know, it was, you guys had an easy time with the transition from the, this is your first year. It is, and I've worked with Scott in the past at other districts, and I mean, they were so organized. You know, got things as we needed it. I had a cataract surgery, which kind of slowed down some things. And then I was on vacation, too, so that I don't think I foresee it being a little, like how it was next year, so I can't really control
004the whole cataract thing. One other thing I did want to say is this financial profile score also was a perfect four. So highest in every category, which typically I don't see these days, especially for Cook County School Districts, and with the delay in property taxes as well. So that's a whole nother thing that's highly credible. So that's great. Thank you. Great news. Yep. Cool. Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for your time. You're welcome. So two hours for that, huh? I know. It happens all the time. We could have let you zoom in, you know. No, it's fine. It's not supposed to be that far. I'm glad I checked Waze, otherwise I'd have been walking in at eight. Oh my goodness. You're gonna make them come Monday? No problem, thank
005you so much. We're just gonna give a summary on Monday with and do the highlights. In board docs for Monday will be the comprehensive audit, the single audit, and the state AFR is loaded in board docs on it. There'll be a summary on Monday, just kind of highlighting what Chris said tonight with the compliance portion of it, and then I'll highlight some of the financial profile scores. I'll also highlight with the single audit how he checked our federal funds and had no findings in that too. That's what the single audit was on federal funds. Correct. And that's really the highlights that we'll have with it. They'll be out there available for everyone to look. Following the board meeting, they'll be posted on the website so that they'll be available, not only through board docs, but
006then also on our website. Right. If you have any questions after he does that, feel free to email Scott, and I'll follow up with whatever you guys need, okay? Perfect. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Chris. All right, transportation bid. What's the good news? All right, so just a little summary before we go into the figures. I know there's a lot up there that's crunched into the numbers, but so we did put out a bid package on February 4th. We sent it out to eight providers that were out there. We had to do this as we were with American school bus for 10 consecutive years. Per Illinois school code, you can't extend that unless you go to electric school buses and show that you're going with the fleet with it, and ran that
007by the attorney, and they said, yes, you need to put it out on it. We also reported at the last board meeting that American school bus was purchased by first student on that, so you'll see on here that first student did put the lowest bid. So our bid opening was February 27th. We received three bids, two letters saying, thank you for the opportunity, but they were not going to bid on it. I summarized the three bidders that were out there. We have first student, Illinois central, and Safeway. First student is the lowest. The first year is a 5.5% increase, what we currently are for our 25-26 contract. And then as you move through the next four years, it's a 3% raise over the next years, each year on it. Really think it came in pretty
008favorable on that. I was anticipating a little higher than that, but this is good news that it came in year one as just a little bit of an increase at 5.5, and then the remaining are at 3%. On that, they will be recommended for a five-year contract at Monday's board meeting. With the buyout of American school bus by first student, from what we've been told is that it's going to be the same drivers, same dispatch, same router, same manager. They will just rebrand the buses to take off American school bus and put first student. There is going to probably be a brand new app for the parents on it because first student has their own app, so the My Ride K-12 will go away. We still had in the bid package that they have to
009have some sort of tracking app for the students for the parents to know when the buses are coming if they're running behind schedule throughout the course of arrival and dismissal. So I do think we got a pretty favorable bid here with first student coming in with their five-year proposal on it, and I think working with the same drivers, knowing the routes and doing different things, and then also getting a larger first student coming in. They might have some other things to look at from the outside to maybe help with efficiencies with routing on it. So we'll see how it goes, but like you said, all in all, I think it came in at a pretty favorable bid package. Well, we know how horribly it worked out last time we changed bus companies. I mean, I
010wasn't on the board, but I had a kid. I heard all about it, and then like you said, I was nervous that the first year was going to be double digits. Yeah, and then, kinda. Do they utilize an app now? Yes. Yeah. First student or? First student, yeah. First student's app is a little different that they have. I've seen a couple different ways that they have an app. Their app is more of a, we'll call it, when the bus breaks a geofence, it shoots a notification to the parents to say the bus is five minutes out. So little different ways of reporting it versus how they're getting it now. It kinda gives, tries to give real-time running with it, and then it gives, hey, your bus is running behind schedule by five minutes or 10
011minutes on it, so this is what I've seen until they officially roll it out. I don't know if it's gonna be what the current app is or if it's gonna be, hey, it breaks the geofence and notifies the parent. Obviously, the main thing is if there's a route time, we want them running on time with the route just because you're getting a message that it's broken the geofence. That still doesn't help if you're running 10 or 15 minutes behind, because then ultimately that's gonna hinder you getting to school on time. So we'll closely be monitoring that as we get closer to the start of next school year and how we're gonna roll that out to the parents as to, okay, yes, the old app doesn't work anymore, here's the new app, so we'll have to
012see how that all plays out, but knowing that if you did take over American School Bus, they still would have the software with the old routing system, so if they don't use their app, I would imagine K-12 would still be out there, so I don't know how it's gonna all factor out. I know when they mentioned it to us that they were looking at potentially having that new app, so we'll have to bring that forth and let everyone know so that they're not using the old one, saying, okay, what do I do? I haven't seen anything, and we'll clarify it as it gets closer to the start of next school year, but overall, I think a very favorable bid package. That's good news. What does really dismissal private mean? For the St. Mike's runs on
013it, so anything that deviates from our schedule, if they run something different, there is a surcharge. Why are they cheaper than the other ones? Well, maybe they wanted to retain the business. Yeah, that's what I was thinking too, like made it. They did come in very aggressive, you know, I will say on that, I mean, they're here, they have the property here for the buses. And they just bought the business. Right, yeah. They used this account. Yep. No brainer. Yeah. I think we're a pretty good client. Absolutely. You know, big. We're not going anywhere. No. Now we just gotta hope that the routes run good with all the road construction for next year. Let's see. That's another story. Yeah. All right. Any additional questions for the transportation bid that we received? Levy adjustment. All right.
014Just wanna keep this on the radar. This is the month that the board has to either take action on it to say yes or say no to it. This is once again, an additional levy that is out there to recapture dollars from PTAB decisions, tax objections or certificate of errors. Our levy amount on this is a little over a million dollars on it. It is going Monday night to the board. They're gonna make their recommendation on it. Just wanna keep it on the forefront that this levy for the million dollars on it for the median home value in Orland Park, it is roughly $35 increase to a taxpayer if the district accepts the money on it. So that'll be going Monday night. There'll also be the same little recap on this as to what it
015is with the resolutions ready to go. It's in board docs for the board to make their decision on Monday night. Well, when we talked about this, I wasn't at the last meeting, but two meetings ago, it seemed like a census of the committee, X, the two of us, was to take it. And we had another conversation at the board meeting last month and we talked about what's gonna happen at the park school with construction on 143rd Street and that we're probably gonna have to do a million dollars worth of work to put another access road in. So for me, this money, I always thought if we had a project that we needed to use it for, then it would be a no-brainer and I think we have one. So that's sort of how I'm leaning
016and also just looking at the financials that Scott put in front of us, where our fund balance heads with all the projects that we're doing, the buildings and everything else, it seems like it's the right thing to do. I was against it originally, but then looking at the surplus and where it goes in the next, what was that? Was that five years? Yes. Yeah. That was kind of scary. Yeah. And we would be ecstatic if the access road at park was at a million dollars. No, I know. That would be, oh. No, I know, I know. But just, I mean, but that's for the safety, obviously they have split lanes, so parents would go in one and then the buses would go in the other and that would be the only school currently that is
017combined and that would be, like you said, the safest on that at park. What was our board's vote in the past? We've always taken it. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it'd be hard not to take it now, I guess. All right. All right, so moving on to buildings and grounds. They had some bids that went out. Record meeting, let's see. Well, I better talk next time. Ted, it's all on you now. It's up to me. Wait, hold on, Ted. Oh, there we go. It wasn't projected, Ted, sorry. OK, we had several bid openings. We had a really good turnout and number of bidders for all these bids. So we were very, very happy about that. And just quickly, like when we have these bid openings and we do the bid openings with the architects and go through all
018this, myself does, and with the architects, we do a scope review with the contractor that is the lowest responsible bidder. We do reference checks on all of them. We look at comparable projects that they've done, experience with other districts, experience with other villages, park districts. So we really do our due diligence on our lowest responsible bidder to make sure that they are capable of doing the work, doing the jobs that we have in the timely manner that we have. Because again, we only have a certain, we have a short window for all this stuff to get done. So the park mechanical, the lowest responsible bidder was Romas, Incorporated. They just completed the remodel at Centennial. So we have worked with them before this project. The award amount was 2,619,900. It was estimated and budgeted at
0192.75. So this project did come in a little under. So we were very happy with that. And really on all these projects, I'm gonna show you tonight, all the bids were pretty close. I mean, we had some that were extremely high, but all the bidders were really, we're all pretty close. So again, really good results on that. So this is the, this is what we'll go to the board for approval for park mechanical renovations and that'll be Romas, Incorporated. The Liberty Interior Renovations, again, went to Romas. We did have, was it this one or was it, oh, I'm sorry. On the last one we did have, after scope review, we did have the lowest responsibility bidder did pull out because they left some stuff out of the scope. So that was why it was then
020awarded to Romas. So if you see in the bid tally, when you get that stuff, that's why there was a difference in that. But again, moving on to Liberty, Romas was the low bidder again here, which again, we've worked with them. So we're excited about that. And then this one really came in a lot lower than we had anticipated. We estimated this one at 2.3. So don't know why it came back lower than expected, but we've gone through, again, all the scope review with the architects and everything is right where it needs to be. So again, that was kind of another win for us for the summer. The Jerline Bleacher Replacement, we had two bidders on that one. There's not a whole lot of companies out there that do Bleacher work. And generally, we're finding
021that a general contractor really won't take, really won't bid these jobs because by the time they put their markup on it, they can't competitively bid against some of the companies that I'll say more specialize in Bleacher replacement. So we had two bidders on this one. Larson Company, again, a company that we have worked with on several jobs before. This one, we were budgeting 200,000 on this one. It came back, it'll be awarded with board approval at 159,583. One thing I do wanna point out here is this was what we were using our school maintenance grant towards. So the 50,000 will come, I won't say come off of that, but that's what we're getting in grant funding for this project. And then the rest of it will be supplemented with district funds. The High Point Playground,
022that one came back at 455,230 to D&J Landscape. There was, again, five bidders on that, so it was pretty competitive. The base bid, and we are going to go with the alternate shade structure because there's a couple trees there that they're losing just because the roots from the trees are causing some problems with some of the pour and play on the playground, the roots are popping it up, so the trees have to be removed. We're replacing the trees outside of the playground, but this'll give a structure that the kids can sit under and just give them a little bit of shade if need be. On this project, that is just the install for the 455. We purchased the playground equipment separately through the co-op, and that alleviates having a 10% markup by the manufacturer, and
023it kind of sets that we know we will get the equipment in time. If we, sometimes if we wait, and the contractor, we know the equipment's ordered, we will get the equipment in time, and again, we save a few dollars on purchasing that through the larger co-op. So that's what's laid out there. So again, all in all, I'm very happy with the results, and again, the competitiveness of the bidders that we got. So it worked out, worked out very well. I mean, do you talk to other folks in your position in other districts, is this like something that's going on that the costs are coming down? It seems like it, with our architects, they're seeing some, it's just a little bit more competitive and that's kind of driving the price a little bit more down.
024Some of the subcontractors are still, I'll say, in some areas, it seems like electrical contractors. I don't know if there is so much work that can't get to all of it, but that electrical contractor seemed to be a little bit higher in the overall project, but some of the other, I'll say, subcontractors that the generals are using, it just seems to be a little bit, it seems to be more competitive right now. Okay. Well, not gonna worry about that, that's great. Yeah, no complaints. So that was all that I have for the bids. That should wrap up pretty much all of our bids for the summer, so we should be ready to go come the last day of school, or before that, even on a few of them. You see no issues on substantial completion
025before the start of school year? I was just gonna ask this one. I do not, all these companies, as a whole, we've worked with most of them before. We do not see any delays at this point. Not that something couldn't come up along the way, but at this point, all the generals are pretty confident on the workload that they have, and with what we're asking for. And Romas has the people power, because it looks like they have two. They do, they have two here, and then they have, yeah, they have two projects with us, and then they have one project in, I believe, Matson, that is also under our same architects, so they've worked with them before. We'll start, not this week, next week, we'll start our meetings, weekly meetings, with the contractors, or every
026other, till the job starts, but we do have weekly meetings to kind of just make sure everything is ready to roll. Great, any other questions? All right, facilities are ready. And then this is just a highlight, kind of where we're at, stuff that I just covered with, that it's bids for approval, and stuff that is still in process. Some mechanical upgrades, control upgrades, is that still in process, and we're wrapping up the chillers. We should be, those should be up at Meadow Ridge, and I mean, those will be up and ready for the season, obviously, but they're wrapping up their work there. They have a little bit more to do, but the weather has actually kind of helped with that, because some of the outside stuff they were able to do, because we really didn't
027have too many days, where, you know, I mean, some snow here and there, but all in all, we've been pretty fortunate with the weather, so we're moving right along on everything there. Excellent. Kind of a living document with just tracking it, so they do a nice job tracking it. Absolutely. All right. Any questions for anybody? Okay. Any other discussion on agenda items for anybody? I have just one on agenda. I'll be quick. Ted, relax. We, I'll say, we deployed an autonomous floor scrubber at Jerline. So, we heard about it at one of our conferences, and it's not replacing an employee, it's adding to, it's freeing up some time for our employees to do extra things that they can't get to at night. The nice thing about this was, we got to work with the kids
028in the STEM club at Jerline, and on the last PL day, they stayed after their school day for probably almost two or three hours. They worked with our vendor along with us and mapped out the whole first floor where the machine would go, doorways and everything at night. The kids were so into it, super excited. There were lots of questions for our vendor that was setting up the machine. So, they really got to, they got to map it all out, so it does the whole first floor at Jerline. It does the small gym and the large gym and has the capability of doing the lunch room. So, our staff still goes through, picks up all the big papers, sweeps everything, and then this goes through and scrubs. It starts about 11.30 midnight and then works
029till about four or five in the morning. Holy cow. So- All of that done? Yes, it's like a large Roomba. Yes. Really? Yes, they did. They did. What's its name? Norby. Yes, the kids did name it. So, just the buy-in from the kids was so, it just was so exciting. And they had, I mean, they had questions that I would have never even thought of. Programming questions for, again, for our vendor. They learned about how it goes to its docking station. It fills itself with water. It cleans itself out. There's some maintenance that does have to be done on the machine on a daily basis. But the kids are going to, I believe, highlight it at the- Yeah, we're working to map the entire second floor of drilling by themselves without the programmers and hoping
030to present it at iInnovate. Yeah, at the iInnovate. So, it just was, you know, we don't get to work with the kids like on that level too often. And just to get the buy-in from them. And then our staff was like, great, we don't have to. It's the one less thing we could do. We can concentrate on something else. So, it worked out good. And, you know, moving forward, that was just a good building because the layout of it and the amount of LVT and tile floor that is there, it was a good building to try this at. Will we add it at other buildings? Maybe going forward, we will look at that. But this was a really good trial. So, hopefully, everyone will see it at iInnovate. I love it. Are you guys going
031to do a float for the Memorial Day Parade? That is also in the works. Yes, our application was in. And the ideas are starting. So, we will see. But, yes, we will be in the Memorial Day Parade. Anything else for anybody? All right, I look for a motion to adjourn. I move that the March 4th, 2026 Finance and Operations Board Advisory Committee meeting be adjourned. Second, all in favor? Aye. Aye. All right.