4.1.2024 Facilities and Operations Subcommittee

good opening today's meeting Monday April 1st 2024 facilities and operations uh Deb roll call please M Dr here M toor here miss lar here uh salute to the flag I pledge Al 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 thank you find it 03 is our open meeting law uh pursuant to the open meeting law any

person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or Transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and ad missible since it's input that very is thank you move on to discussion uh 3.1 discussion and vote to uh to refer Right

View contract uh Madam superintendent Mr Pico I'm going to hand it over to Mr Pico this is the contract for um the folks that keep up the facility at dery high school so put together a a comparison of what we currently have with um Bright Bright View uh what they provide us um it's a limited I called it with boundaries um because they don't take care of the entire dery campus they take care of the

street side the curb um on Ellsbury uh to the building and then the back of the building and almost everything that touches the building um and a little bit of phase two of the construction so the Ring Road up until um again the back of the building the remaining area around dery is covered by um our uh uh campus group so what what I did here was outline what they currently do

uh the services they currently provide and then the the contract is also attached but I wanted to kind of separate what um what we do what we've done and um the comparison both in dollars um and what we're able to accomplish first couple of pages can I interrupt for a second yes just to try to figure out what's happening I was under the belief that we were no longer using their services as

of once the weather they not calling so this is totally you're recommending to the superintendent a new contract something is that would like to so if you m s if you look at the at the contract itself it was a three-year proposal we only signed up for one as we always do with all our contracts and so this is an ask for a second year with the rest of the doc I didn't want to

interrupt you I just was trying to figure out if I was missing the fact that at prior meetings we talked about we added six staff to that four whatever to make six people it was told to me and the committee that we were going to do everything with these people at that time so that's why I was just trying to set the yes that's all and that's absolutely true we have the minutes to

prove exactly what was said that day one of the statements that I made um and I was asked the question um by meimi at the time was do you think that four is going to be enough and um I can't say that right now because in the document I don't want to go I just was trying to set it up I don't want to no no it's not do your thing I just wanted to put perspective

on what I'm looking at that's all absolutely thank you absolutely so you're looking at the comparison of the two what we can provide what we can't provide how many people they've roughly spend um 40 to 48 hours a week on site of which it's one day normally uh they come in and do other services when they do the um the uh feeding you know the the um the feeding of the of the grass and

the shrubs um all of that fertilization um is all done on top of the regular cutting that that happens every week uh the mulching is all part of this particular proposal so the during the reorg the the department of Campus Services um grew by four employees the last employee was hired uh I want to say the last day of October um came on board October 31st and that's when we had finally had

the eight people what that didn't do for us is allow us to do any cutting um so far with that crew um we've done all the other work and there's some photos in there uh when we get to um the director uh Taurus's presentation in that presentation it'll show all of the things that that group does during the winter um and up to that yes so the custodians right now are still cutting

no oh but no one was cutting we didn't we we cut what we were cutting okay and we picked up a few of the buildings and currently um I don't want to take away his Thunder but currently they're setting up to start doing that work cutting edges at the schools um setting up dery all the netting all of the items at dery treating the new Fields um um with um grooming and the such to to get

started so what what I put together here was was the two sides of of taking care of dery high school one side is using right view um to do exactly what they did this year nothing more nothing less um and basically there's a comparison of what we would do um and what it would cost us dollarwise Bright View landscaping services if they were to be um contracted with us this year would be

16852 last year I think was 164 if I'm not mistaken and for four of our public schools to do that what we would do is we we would assign one employee that their sole Duty would be to take care of dery every day all year round would be assigned to dery when that person was out that would be covered with overtime or pulling another employee from campus services and as I stated in here the

only thing that I'm not sure of is what pulling that other employee actually pulling the two but pulling an additional employee out of the regular service to be able to take care of everything that has to be be taken care of we didn't have enough time to do all of that time study and actually go out and see how long it's going to take us at each school what we're finding now is

that the schools have not had the work that dery has the cutting of the edges all of that fertilization all of the um the trimming all of that particular brand of landscaping um at any of the other schools we cut the ground we did what we could with what we have um the custodians took care of the grass they took care of the the weed whacking and that was about it um on the

schools and the schools looked okay but that's not what the look we were looking for we're looking to try and bring those schools back to the day that they were hand over to us from the city um with the Landscaping all in place most of that Landscaping is gone dead ripped out um Grass Grows in most of the spots that used to be um flower beds and um and Landscape

beds and we're trying to get it back the other way in order to do that my best guess was four more people to put together an eight person team that would work in groups depending on how the director and the employees figured how they were going to do that which would be the best method so the financial comparison as I said 16852 for Bright View to do it one employee they all the time 62

969 uh I'm sorry 62 696 and 6700 of overtime to cover vacations and sick time of that particular employee or anything else that come up losing the 40 hour employee for a full year is difficult to quantify until the one-year Mark so I don't have a benchmark as to what it's going to take what it's going to cost us to not have eight employees and just have seven that's that first piece um there's a

couple of options um that we have obviously um we could do a partial with the landscape company doing all the fertilization um if you look at the last page um the department of recommendation is one thing the page before that one um would give us a um a second option which would be um doing some of that work so for instance we can do the mulch installation we won't be able to do all

of the summer uh spring cleanup and all of the Fall cleanup without having some help and not losing too many employees to the other schools and um the irrigation system um would be still done through the private contractor turn on turn off um service calls the lawn care which you'll see at the bottom of the second to the last page which includes all of the feedings um and um applications right through

um the end of the year and then the shrub pruning which is done later on in the year and sometimes in the spring and then collecting the debris each uh each week so the financial comparison dollarwise is about $1,000 more to have them do it all uh doing half of it um or a third of it would be the cleanups and um the fertilization and such my recommendation would be to maintain the status quo for

another season where I can give you an accurate time study on each of the schools um as we are seeing now syvia for instance we've been there a couple of weeks cutting edges stuff that hasn't been done since the school was open um vas um is a different story there a lot of raised beds of AAS not a lot of lawn to take care of um the fansa has the field the baseball field a softball

field to take care of well the little leag field used to be and then the rest of the surrounding if if you look at all those raised beds they're all grass now up top that's not what they were intended to do the front of the building is washed out um on the dery side of all of this uh we spent a couple of weeks and you'll see some pictures in there of the work that

was done um just putting up nets so it's almost two weeks worth trying to get all the Nets back up we don't leave them out over the winter because the the weather and the wind would ruin them so we take them down and then put them all back up every field has a set of Nets that can want at football field the baseball field softball field um tennis tennis SC

uh screening on the tennis cour the red screening and the tennis net so there's there's a lot of work at dery prepping for the fields uh for the field use and those are our eight guys so this is all the eight guys right this is part of that group eight people putting down that the the screening also all the fields have been groomed after the winter we Bo all the fields once um and

all those records are kept um as to when we're doing them and then we keep track of how many hours they're used and then redo that process three or four times in the course of a year um the dery campus alone is a big area to cover um in when uh Mr taorus um comes up he will also show you the acreage that we cut um and what what we're taken care of it's

it's over 100 acres of land that has to be cut and the remaining is um either designated as fields or or the buildings but uh he also has that information clean up from the different rainstorms at the different schools tree cutting a major tree came down at um at Henry Lord not too long ago that crew had to take care of that there's a there's a a lot in he'll when he gets to

that this particular piece um and again I I uh I was there at the meeting I heard what everybody else heard and I said what I said um and I also agree with Mr Agia that that's exactly what was said then that's exactly what was said then hiring people um for the last higher was October 31st we did not have enough time to do the time study that was needed to figure out exactly how

many employees we need every day doing that work um and as you can see with the spring rain is um you know two 3 days a week right now uh and that will end um but for now uh it makes it difficult to do that work they are still out there in the rain cutting those edges on the beds and preparing um for the mulch mulch installation in about 3 weeks

just in context have you looked at this and are you endorsing this proposal have your leadership team looked at it um we've had this discussion Mr um picho and I um I will say I have a different uh I I struggle with this because I don't like to go back on my word because at we we went over the minutes we went over the I went over the video and talked about what we told the committee

and what we said we're going to do moving forward so we've had many discussions about this right Mr yes absolutely um personally I feel that we're never going to know what it's like to be 100% staffed ever in any Department because you always have a you know people that move out people that uh call out sick or whatever so that's a factor that is always going to be a factor in whatever whether you're School

whether you're whatever the position is so I think we have to test it out at some point to see whether we can do it or not um I want to be respectful of the fact that they're the experts and they're the ones that are doing the work but I also feel like we added Staffing and we need to test that those Waters so just um I thought it was clear

I voted against the riog so with a lot of different reasons one of which was I think we added too many staff I think we don't have the proper uh pay um scale for for um laborers so we're paying everyone $60,000 to cut grass basically and I don't think we have a scale so if you were going to run this organization as a business you wouldn't have everybody doing the same pay you'd

have a foreman and then you'd have somebody that may have some technical stuff but then you'd have more volume of laborers that could do some of the work that is needed not necessarily what's in this contract cuz it's so I think that was part of the problem and now we need to have either more staff so that we can get Vacations or whatever else we have to do but we still don't have a laborer

and we still don't so there's no scale and we're paying pretty chop dollars so we're paying a license plumber 69,000 or whatever they get thereabouts and we're paying these folks that can cut grass without a plumbing license 60,000 or whatever it comes out to I think that was we have a contract we have to I understand but knowing that you have contract I think sometimes that would

kind of like you balance it I thought when I first saw this proposal it was going to be to cut a few staff and actually just use more specialty like a contract like privatizing a certain aspect of things that's what I thought but I when I'm hearing is increase we'd have to increase more like I would have no problem having a specialist come in to say we need to do specialized lawn

care this that whatever specialist but at what expense this is an addition too I was thinking we were going to get get a proposal to say it makes more sense to do some specialty items and then have it so I'm definitely not in favor of a proposal to but we need to have the people we hired including the director do his work hold them accountable to do their work making sure that they're

giving us a for you know an 8 hour day and see what you can do and then at that point I think knowing we have that system in place to your point Madam superintendent would be well we have to do something different because of x y and c I just think we're going to pay for extra money for what and 100,000 is $100,000 $20,000 a month is a lot of

money I mentioned that the last time we should if we were going to do anything with that paying a landscape we should put it up for bid for some local people to be able to apply for it as well but I'm not in favor for uh a variety of reasons and I think at the end when we whatever time the day come up I'll have more questions on what we currently are

doing but I'm definitely in favor how you Mr cor so um who's the director of this particular project yes so how would you say your staff is your staff adequate enough to handle the the immense responsibilities of the landscape honestly right now I couldn't tell you that because like Mr Pico stated the last person that we hide start at the end of October I mean I haven't really and the

weather is yeah so that hasn't been any of that that that lawn cutting and stuff right no or or or it's not only lawn cutting it's not if you if you look at those pictures like here's an example like Spencer bordon is one of the things I did the card Spencer bord you look at those pictures that courtyard was never touched never never touched right so my staff came in I had my staff come in had

to be on Saturdays because we can't do it during the week cuz the only access to get in there is through the school into the classroom into the courtyard they spent we we what three weekends four weekends on a Saturday to clean it up to just to cut that all that trees all that overgrowth on so yeah uh that you you answered my question the next thing I need to know is when it

comes to mulching right is mulching absolutely essential cuz the price of mulch itself is skyrocketing can we stay away from mulch well you can but I mean you're not going to bring the property up you want it to look you want the properties to look good yeah I'm just and here's the thing so this this this year is going to be tough because it's the first time that these schools are all going to be

addressed yeah cuz they haven't been addressed in years here's an example like Sylvia school like Mr P stated sure my guys have been working there Sylvia school is a big property to maintain so my guys have been up there I mean you're more than welcome to take a ride by there and see what they so far the work they've done it's got to be like 20 or 30 trees that we have to we have to cut

around we we cleaned the we cleaned the entrance on the right hand side and on the left we we started the cleaning the back of the school that access road back there trimming all those all those bushes where the sign is in front of silia we cleaned all that up we made a nice bed to make it look nice I'm I'm trying to prep everything so when the mulch so when it's time for the mulch

all we do is go pull mulch down so the first year it's going to be tough so now now next year when everything's mulched it's not going to be that much we're going to just clean it up and just put you know a talk we need new mulch this year but maybe not next year is that what you're telling me right some answered my question that's what that's what I'm kind of getting to even around

my own property that's how I I'm not getting mulch every year the cost is sky rocketing this year I mean there's a lot all the all the all the schools in this they've never been Tak yeah and I'm not even pressing you but you I'm I'm I'm concerned about the pressure that they're under to get all of this work done that's that's my concern is for your people well and and the other thing

is it's not just Cong grass I mean right now we're delivering if a school needs a lift my staff delivers the lift so when they do that they ain't going to be grass right or we we repair fences I print it out on school dude on uh since the 21st of February this is some of the stuff that we've done no that's cool uh you're answering all my questions I I

I get a picture from it the other thing I want to know is how is retention are you guys sticking around are your people sticking around or uh oh yeah I mean the guys you got a nice tight crew you guys are tight and your yes they are very good workers that's so important what I mean that's what I'm I'm hoping they all get along they you know they're out there they they do what

they have to do and all the all the odds and ends that they have to do yeah I'm hoping that you got some good retention and then we'll be able to tackle this enormous task I mean we're also fixing the traffic signs stop signs that far we fix it the signs all right me the the athletic director he has equipment that he needs put together my guys have been putting that stuff

together at the cost of doing landscap and all yeah I mean it has to get dun because who's going to do it they need batting cages it took what two days to 3 days to put the if you had a wish list how many more people would you hire for your staff I don't know three you think three three three or four maybe I would say four is a small

crew could go out and and work so many little things and plus you got vacation and you got sick time okay so so here's an example so the last two three months I you don't have to get into that next question question if if you had extra staff with with all of our vacation costs and and all of those costs figured in is that cheaper than Bright View or or more expensive than Bright

View I don't know I couldn't adding the employees adding four more if we added four more more than Bright View it would be more than Bright View the issue is this the eight number has worked through the winter so it it has worked it's allowed them to put benches together we bought some bleaches so they've been working on that stuff it's allowed them obviously all that netting that normally to be totally

honest was always staying up netting never came down are you happy when when you hire out to these private contractors are you happy with their level of services the difference between this contractor and and and I agree 100% with Mr agar as far as hiring locals the problem is is that locals are not always willing or able to bake Pilan wage we can only pay prevailing wage so it doesn't matter what anybody every

single person that works for us has to provide wage rates when on on request to whatever we need so they would have to provide that which means they have to pay it they're not just providing a paper that says they paid it they have to prove that they paid it because they can get in a lot of trouble for that so they have to pay prevailing wage which means that without come right out and

saying it every employee has to be legitimate every single person that works on our project would have to be legitimate and with all of that being said we've hired plenty of locals in fact probably 50 to 75% of the work going on in the schools is all local contractors good if they're on the state contract if they're not on the state contract they B our work they've been doing our work for years and we do do

that but this this particular piece so for instance the Bright View piece is that they were the original contractors from dery when the school was built brigh view was the landscape contractor so there's a little more responsibility that they have and obviously they're they're um they're very interested in the project and how it looks because it's a direct reflection on them that's from the

original installation um that's just one more piece so yeah I'm I'm the newest member of this subcommittee so I'm General I'm just coming up to speed on where things are at I'm just trying to build my own perspective as to where things are at with the facilities in the ground so you got helped me figure that out thanks a lot I yield than you Mr T So Mr Torres if you were to make your

professional opinion okay we we had Bright View last year this time correct we had Bright View we haven't given up we've always had Bright View right it was a onee contract it was a one-year contract but stating back to that point so if if we were to end this contract do you think we would be able to do all this work that you just spoke of honestly yes I couldn't tell you that

I couldn't tell you that right now okay because the re it just started like I said end of October and these properties need a lot of attention right now which they never received so to add dery into it I mean will we be able to do it it depend I mean it depends how the a guys in what falls in between I I need I really I need one good year this year to

start to to give you you know to find out right I mean I'm just I'm being honest I I can't I'm not going to say yes and then I can't I can't take care of dery and then everybody going to say you know or or just concentrate on dery and then leave the other you know schools I mean it's it's eight guys it it's it's eight staff so on a daily

basis if we were to end this contract with breit view how many guys do you think you would have to put it at dery if we kept our if we kept our eight probably one gu like Mr and then we have the trash and then plus we also pick up the trash we also do all the trash I think you're you're answering my question I yield M AA just a couple for follow-ups so you mentioned the

courtyard expens Gard y had him in touched so when are you going to have to go back in that courtyard and do that level of work again so I'm looking into that so because because the way it's it's set up it it's it it's going to be tough to put we're trying to figure out whether I should put mulch in a or stone in have you ever been in the courtyard in spener

I haven't been in but I've seen so if you look at the pictures it's tears it it's y That's the design somebody designed that we that we Reed right so I'm trying to put something in there so nothing won't grow back I mean I've already I I sprayed it I got to go back and spray it again and everything that has to be done in there has to be done by hand

wheelbarrow or either that I got to get a crane and that's a lot of money that's the only way to do that courtyard not just that courtyard the top level of that courtyard you can access from the Chestnut Street side but then there's a decent sized wall and then it drops down to three tiers the bottom tier which is um accessible from a classroom near the main entrance that

is the only area to Cho the rest is tiered as a DEC I was only saying than that we can't we can't use that kind of logic to say why we need like so if those guys were taken off for two weeks that's over that's not going to happen again or it shouldn't happen again to that level of you know so you can't really use that in your logic to say

you can say that we're going have to do things now because of what you're doing that's like I like I said like I said so the problem is is getting access in there to do the stuff if I had easy access it probably would have been done already but we've been talking I've been talking to Mr Pico trying to figure out what's the best thing to put in there so

we don't have to go back in there again and it's not used for anything student Rel it couldn't be correct way the point the first level can be but to your point the other pieces shouldn't be they should be something that is not ever needed to be which is why he said the stones so the stones would be decorative they been higher levels so they couldn't be but that's where that's where I'm

trying to get to where you see the numbers then you you talked about the um Time study and all this stuff so if we use that same logic in the next discussion with custodians and how much we would really require for that we're going to blow this contract out of the water in my opinion because of the volume if we're using like how long does it take to to properly clean a building

the way we should have with the areas the right size and everything else the this 150k is chump change compared to what we really need if we get into this which is why I asked the superintendent the first question because the superintendent is in charge of this District making recommendations for the whole District so she has to make recommendations based on the custodians the maintenance the teaching all of the

different areas we can't just keep saying well we do a Time study let's wait another year and do a Time study and see how much we need if we did that across the district we would even though we have money now we'd be bankrupt because it's going to it's going to really tell us so at some point it's got to be we hired these people I disagreed with it but we did you hired them at a

higher rate than I would have hired them you did so now if you need a laborer you should be coming to us saying we need a laborer to be able to do some of this stuff but we don't need laborers we don't need laborers then we don't need this contract grass cutting is not just don't this contract I'm just just saying can't I just can't agree with the fact that laborers are going to fix this

problem hiring at at a cheaper wage so could a laborer do any of the things that this gentleman just said and could do any of the work that the custodians do and could do just about anything in the district if we so choose correct so so let's talk let's talk real numbers then everything that he just said putting up nets taking down Nets cutting trees putting mulch we just spent 30

grand or whatever we paid for a mulching uh which I voted for to be able to easily put mulch in I haven't yeah I haven't got it yet and I haven't even start my point is that's that's resources that we're giving so everything that you said sir every single thing that you said does not take a person that has to be skilled in making $660,000 in my opinion and you can say I'm wrong

you can whatever the fact of the matter is is everything that you said I didn't set the pay rate so I understand that but if it was your business you wouldn't be saying let's pay everybody the top dollar so we can't get laborers to do some of the labor award there's a difference if I could just with all due respect the reason why we lose people in this district is because we don't p and

that's a proven fact and we've all had that argument this I'm not trying to be difficult but that argument is old that it's okay in Fall River to pay peenuts it's for another day I mean no it's not for another day I I totally disagree these gentlemen are here to ask us to pay an extra $100,000 if you don't like to get the questions asked that's on you that's not on me my questions are

being being very targeted towards this yes I am very professional and on and talk about contracts we pay these people right now that the they have a contract we pay them the60 something, a year to do this work you think that's okay I'm not going to comment on if I think it's okay or if I don't because that's not the convers you can go along to get along that's what you do that's fine I first

asked the superintendent what your feeling was superintendent basically said I disagree with this proposal but for some reason we talking about it she's the boss of the district she says she disagrees with it she said she knows what we talked about she says we're still going to allow this contract to come forward for this debate so at that point now I have to say I'm going to argue the point that we talked about it

before we weren't going to do this so you're allowing this to come here so now we have to have the conversation because it's real talk we're allowing these people to come and say we want another proposal you admitted basically and without saying it that you disagreed with Mr Pico's proposal but it's here before us well there's in in this proposal there's another option which is

to put one full-time person in there and have them do Mr Pico articulated that from the beginning so our option would be to renew the contract have another year or to take one of our eight people and put them solely doing that work right and that's cheaper by $100,000 or whatever what I said was I don't like to go back on my word we did go before the sub commmittee

we did ask those questions and we did say yeah we think we can do it I feel like we'll never be able to tell whether we can do it or not until we test the water I feel like maybe we need to test the water to see let's put a person dedicate a person to that and see if we can and if we can't then we come back but we're never going to know that and I

get it there's always going to be people on vacation there's always going to be people that are absent but we will never know whether we can keep up with it or not unless we try it so isn't that what we doing nothing would be well I don't the other piece would be to say listen the two there's two options here I personally feel our option two is reasonable to say let's try it out and

see that's Mr is very well aware we've had this discussion many times but you're saying you want to add another $60,000 position no I didn't say that no I what I said was I think we need to take one of the eight people we have and make that their full-time they're going to keep up with those grounds and we're going to see if that works exactly we need to add another person take one of

those that already I guess my point is why is why is this Bright View before us it would have been much clearer if you just said my recommendation as superintendent is we got to exactly you just articulated we hire it up to 8 we said we weren't going to add we're going to see what happens let's hope that we're doing systems we're holding people accountable and the guys are doing a

great job or girls whoever applies and let's go with it this whole discussion doesn't even need to be had then well it does because I also respect the fact that they're the professionals Mr uh uh Pico feels strongly about the fact that he thinks that we cannot do it so he wanted to come before the committee and to say this is what will happen whether if we do this or if we do that and your

recommendation is option two my recommendation will be option two I make a motion for superintendent's recommendation I need to uh have a question yep Mr Pico would the superintendent's recommendation be feasible or or or would would there be a better alternative so first of all I apologize to the superintendent this happens quite often but I apologize to the superintendent for causing such a

Ruckus since I came to the department from the other side of the world I have been allowed to use my best judgment whether it be snow removal which I would say I'm the expert to in the room maybe um and some other things and she's always allowed that yes and the former superintendent also did I obviously didn't have a good read of the temperature or not as good as the superintendent did

here I will make whatever works work we're going to do the best we can yes I will be honest we will keep very good records as we would have the other way around as to what we can and can't do and my hope is is that we can produce the product that you have there now at dery and duplicate that with one of our employees and the other seven employees can do all the

rest of the work that needs to be done and I have no doubt Mr Pico uh with your track record which is filled with expertise if this is just one feature of all of that work then I'm sure we'll iron out all of the wrinkles that exist because when I look at your body of work running this department I'm amazed at how much you have to keep together I'm praising you on this

because I know what you guys are looking for you guys are just looking for a little bit of time to Iron some things out and figure some things out and I'm going to give you the benefit of that doubt by supporting your proposal the way that you want it so I'm going to I I think I didn't mean to confuse the point there if Mr Pico you think the superintendent recommendation is the way to go on

this I believe that the superintendent would like to see exactly what I want to see in Reverse yes so either way we're going to have results at the end of this year either they're going to be positive or they're going to need some work and either way we will have to deal with it at that time that's fine and I trust that will be done too thank you I so I have a question as well

so so as far as a timetable Mr Pico when will we be able to come back for the positive or the negative and discuss how things are going I would probably say March when would you have your best March because we'll we'll be able to have the worksheets for you for everything that they've done for that fulltime um and then you'll have what we can and can't do and the proof of what

we've done at the other schools would be easy to see um and hopefully hopefully we we'll do as good a job with brightley with one employee there um in the same amount of time frame we stretched over a few more days right and brightly ends what Right View Right View ends that no they're done now they're done so they would we would renew from April on April on yeah so we're going right into this

yes we have budget season be able to right yeah the next during the next budget season we're already to have an idea as to how the summer goes brightly from you know from April to November more or less okay um so we'll have an idea as to how how this plays out your binder it said we were at what $6,700 over time 6700 and that's a guess that's a guess we're not at that yeah

what I'm saying is that we have an employee depending on who bids that particular job someone's going to it's going to be p as a as a position to spend that time at dery that whatever that person is and whatever their salary is um that will depend on how many weeks vacation more or less right so if they have 3 weeks vacation that's 3 weeks we have to cover that project mhm and then

whatever else you know happens days uh sick time or personal day all of that stuff can't be predicted we know the vacations but that other stuff can't be predicted so the 60 6700 is a projection projection but not the motion that we have on the table no no there nothing to do with that no so projection well that'll be it'll be the it's it's the The Proposal is us going with our own employees no brightly okay

and that is the projection it'll be the salary Bri VI keep saying bright okay uh Bright View it'll be the salary plus the overtime and then the other thing that we'll be able to quantify is the work that's going to be done by seven employees and whether or not we're keeping up on the other side of this yeah okay okay we have a motion on the table do we have a second um I'll second

it okay all in favor all roll call I question to not I guess that the motion should have been just uh don't it's cont think it's just giving you Direction basically basically not good right so on the um where are we at with the Spring Cleanup in the so at dery nothing we haven't hired them at all so I'm just looking in the old and I don't have the old scope Med it's here and I'm missing

it but when went from April to I got the months but it's April to November so knowing once it once it ends what are our locals as far as like the uh irrigation that you know are you prepared to do all of that work that was expected that you would be doing well the irrigation I would have to rent a compressor and all that other stuff to do it or will purchase oh we purchase it

yep we'll be fine because it's not just any compressor you need a you need a no I just I was just referring to what was what was in here if we're going to do it in house and see how it goes which I think is the right thing yeah like April 1 is today so we got to be prepared with doing these next couple items fortunately the weather is cold

when I looked it said there was no uh it too late to germinate seed or something like that like I just that doesn't make much sense right to me why we didn't do that CU it was under us under your department from November some of that work was also done last year I'm saying I'm just looking on the um there's a thing here that says will seed areas affected by grubs in the spring too late

to se in the season to germinate and I'm like well what why didn't we internally seed that's it said carryover items well it won't be we won't be we will be seaing um and we'll be following the recommended schedule for the the spring application and all the other products just as they did we're going to do it in house basically what you're saying so when I look at that I was just looking

at it as we probably when it said we missed the season I I'm I guess does that mean the winter like winter came too quick like when that comment is made what I was saying was missing the season is that if brightley was under contract they would have started April 1 they would be there today so we're going to be a little bit behind the eightball but we can still seat if need be this isn't

like seating mean today there's still things you can do absolutely shrubs other ones are dead shrubs uh that warranty stuff was the warranty stuff was already taken care of this is non warranty stuff so just this is WI stuff that we would that we would take care of anyway thank you one more question Chico yes in here you did mention equipment and it was just brought up again so moving forward now

that we're taking them out of our contract out what do we foresee so when Mr Tes and all and all the rest of the directors uh have their moment coming up soon they have um equipment um recommendations that we've already talked about as a group um uh in our budget meetings but we wanted to just again another discussion item way to go get our own equipment until it starts breaking I'm going to pay for that but

okay all right let's move on 32 update and trash recycling organic waste for the district so there was a request for some information um we have two invoices so far one of which is paid um first quarter three months July August and September for $ 33,6 and the second um invoice is for October November and December which is $777 61 the discrepancy between the two is we generate a lot more trash from kids in

school full-time than we do when they're not um these numbers are higher than they were last year um the superintendent myself Kevin um am had visited city hall um and had a conversation with um with the powers to be about what we're charged a couple of things have changed um one of the things is they weren't um we weren't provided with the Tipping records so I wanted to see when the um trash and the tonnage

that the trash was um generating so that's included in now we have a couple of items so this this invoice has not been paid um because we have some additional conversation to have um the city has a private hauler none of this work is done by the city themselves and that private contract covers a lot of the work here so um I just need some answers in my other life I wrote that

contract so I know what it says and I do have some discrepancies here so this is just an up I'm sorry I just had a a question out curiosity Mr beo not not according to any of these contracts but uh all the schools have paper recycling going on is there any plastic recycling going on in the schools the paper and plastic so for river is single stream yes so paper

Plastics all go in the same container is there any credit given back to us as a result doing that the unfortunate part about it is um because it's single stream and the market is terrible for recyclables um it cost money to get rid of recyclables yeah different from 10 12 years ago when we were getting paid to get rid of all our recyclables that's not the case anymore so the city is

charged for recyclables now thank you I this guag yeah so on that same issue the um when it says a charging a pickup do they count how many barrels they actually pick up or they it says like recycling bins 84 87 70 like does that mean how many per week or did they actually only pick them up if they're full or do they bill us for things that

they don't pick up so if you look at the next bill it looks exactly the same it looks exactly the same so I'm going to say that it's a flat fee and they're assuming they're picking up the same amount every month and which the last page that yeah so if you're looking at October November and December yeah if you look at that they're 107 95 recycled totes and 18

trash totes and if you look at the first one it's 107 recycle totes and 18 trash to yeah so it's identical I don't think they were that regular um that that's thing so it's it's a it's a small number but um it's still a number there that's a little too convenient so that's one of the conversations we're having and and the other one is the hauling fee um the hauling fee is this the page I was

thinking about the last page SEC so we don't have a page after that last page I think he was referring to this page I I was refering to the bill the actual bill it 107 those numbers don't match to this back one I don't know that might be for like a separate site or something I'm not sure where these numbers even come from but these cuz they're not matching the small graph uh graph the small graph

yeah it doesn't match with the rest of the numbers nor it doesn't match with the tchi just pull it out so get us and then when you when you look at the um I think I asked this question a while back about how much we pay and it was 66,000 something in that7 last year last year was 66,000 for the year the year before was 63,000 53,000 before that 54,000 before

that so it's not like it was in that ball pocket and I actually felt that was low for the amount of volume that we have and I sometimes I be critical of the May when it comes time to try to get money for the schools and stuff but in this case I felt like when I looked at that I said I think we're actually either getting a good deal or for some

reason it's under whatever because if we if we only pay 66,000 for the amount of volume we have what does everybody else pay that would be my question to the city Side to say we are being treated many times like a private business for City for trash right so I would like to know how the how is other places being treated and are they being treated fairly other City departments other city

um um revolving account whatever I think we should be treated not we should be treated like everybody else fairly so if we're paying you know $17 $8 a week for a cycling tote what do they how does they how do they get rid of it did that built into their contract with easy does easy ways pick up stuff that they shouldn't be picking up for the city Side for free and meanwhile the schools

are paying eight bucks every time like I think there's some inqu included all of this is including an easy contract so why every bit of it that's just the conversation we waiting to have okay so you you hear what I'm saying and that I think that we should pay off air shap but not necessarily just because we have a lot of s SOA funds doesn't mean we should keep giving them away to the

city we should pay what everybody else um pays there recycling cardboard if you could get the answer on where Mr Cory asked the question what did we get for that so they we get some cash for that or some money we don't get anything the city get some money I'm not sure the city does anymore because I'm not sure where where that goes so for instance if if a Company the company that the city

hires to do that pickup if they're only emptying cboard then that's fine I'm going to say they're not and they're probably picking up the cardboard and then going picking up other recyclables that may not go to the same but if they theoretically if the city was taking cardboard yes directly to Mid City Scrap yes and they take it in it's a tonnage the guy at the gate gives him a slip and

says here's the $88 in cardboard that's exctly my question is where does that money go right you know that's all the city doesn't get any the city doesn't I know the city doesn't get any rebates from any company that they're dealing with right now it's just a good question to ask so if if we're going to use all of our cardboard and we can get money for it but we can't get money for the

other stuff we should probably have a cardboard contract dumpster whatever so that when we do it at least it'll recycling which is good for the environment but if we got a a little bit of money um and what is the amount in the budget for this is this like are we going off that trajectory of what you had we're high this is higher than I originally anticipated than we had in the budget so

you know we've had you know the numbers have been pretty similar in the past 5 years so this is a lot higher than I either they were not paying attention and two either two things are happening either we were not paying our share based on the amount or something else is happening and you guys are trying to get to the bottom of it I would say and my last question is how does this go into

the end of the uh the indirect cost agreement that's been under review for way too long does it say that we pay but when we pay the city whether it's a water and sewer or whatever isn't there a section in there that should articulate what we pay so we would pay like everybody else pays or there so so the indirect agreement outlines all the costs that sit outside on the city Side

you know part of The Ledger and this would be one of the costs that we pay as part of our inside our budget uh it doesn't outline exactly when you say exactly how to build and that kind of stuff that does details of how we're build is not not essentially drawn out but I think that's if I'm assuming it's still under review for over year and change I think that needs to be

clarified so that we can put something in there to say school department will pay a trash fee similar to other businesses or other departments in the city because we're not everybody's not getting a bill for what was this 3 months yeah so 10 11 Grand a month you know every other City Department is not getting bills like that for for the trash so I would just ask you to keep

the schools in mind when you do that you thank you thank you next up 3.3 update an electric bus so this is just again just that an update um the Chargers for phase one um are just about complete um I don't think they're energized as of yet um but the uh Power Company um National Grid has has put the Transformer on site all of the charges are in place there's a

little bit more work on the charges there's a recoil system that needs to be put in um I attached some of the photos a photo of the bus looks like just a regular bus you just don't hear it coming um and the site uh which is whing city um it is in um Westport just up in back of uh just off the sord road this is right on Route Six so these should be

operational we're expecting um the first 10 buses to be delivered by the end of April and put into service over the in the meantime once they're all uh ready to go and and test it up questions Mr Cory so this is pretty still pretty abstract to me I there's obviously there's been a lot of work that's going into this proposal before I got on this committee but I just trying

to catch up to what the idea is okay so we got 10 buses yes are they going to service all of our school needs no not even close they're going to service yeah so these these buses will probably um service prek um where so this is a step in the direction of it is so there's there's 30 buses total soal future progress this is the first baby step in that direction

going in that direction so my next question is now the charging stations are at wailing city right there does that lock us into wailing City 20 years down the road no the contracts with with um the the federal government on all of this stuff is 5 years it's a 5year um operation so the buses have to stay in operation for 5 years the charges have to stay in into operation for 5 years

okay so that is how this works so whether or not we renew contracts with anybody um is they have to have the contract for 5 years and then Our obligation is is finished with that there's no out of pocket money this is all through grants two separate grants um that that work with each other that's great one pays for Chargers the other one had paid for the buses uh and then

National Grid provides some um help in in the form of rebates for this so um phase one um there's there's been no cost to the city um phase two we've already been awarded 10 more buses phase two um is the same deal so there'll be 10 there are five charges there now there'll be five more added to this Westport project as soon as um all of that paperwork is finished um and then

there'll be 10 charges total to to um um help out whaling take care of those 10 so the buses will have a place to charge each and every night all of the the 20 buses the third round of buses um it doesn't happen until um sometime in July or August and we will be um putting out an RFP for yellow buses um on um anytime after July 1 and that point we will whoever wins that bid

in the RFP will be um a particular piece that designates part of the contract has to be uh part of the bus contract will be 10 electric buses so they have to accept electric buses and the charging station whoever that contractor is that bids that it's B a question for me the rest of the buses not only the privately owned company but the theer of buses for the city that are internal combustion

engine the those buses will eventually stay online until they phase out they'll they're slowly but surely probably going to get some grants also I'm guessing the regional transit authori will be the next round of of electric U buses yeah the issue with the with the buses is the time it runs so the school buses are kind of unique because they run in the morning run in the afternoon yeah where

is the SRTA buses are constantly running so there would be a different technology my guess is thank you you answered my curiosity i y Mr Pico the buses we have now yes what passengers are they so the the uh buses that are provided by whing yeah that these are replacing a 48 52s okay so that's what I thought we had some 70 passengers so these buses have the car seats in them built into the seats um

they need the specifications that we had in our contract whing originally okay yes the next round won't be back yeah okay the next round will be 77 passing that's I thought I heard 77 and then I saw thank you yeah I think they there 77s in the original I think they CH we had to change them well the 77s wouldn't work for the prek pickup it's too big and um there's too many wasted seats

because the prek pickup is a smaller group of people due to stopping and going whole time so on the paper here I I'm just confused it says delivery date of 101 2024 from the Vivo bus companies that's the original date that was the original the buses are all in place now so the buses are all because of no electric right you can't you you can't uh get a bus delivery until the charges are in

place they were supposed to they were supposed to be delivered 101 24 when all of these contract started hitting the manufacturers the manufacturers put two or three shifts on at all of their factories and were able to produce the amount of buses that all the contracts that they received um were able to fulfill those those obligations so the buses were delivered to the Vito in um Connecticut

I want to say in March early March and then they'll be coming to us um as soon as the charges are able to um to be operation and inspected and you had mentioned that they weren't tested in the winter has that changed since or they've tested the buses in the winter what they haven't seen is they haven't tested them they feel they've tested them in a controlled environment they haven't

tested them field tested them for the amount of time they're all warrantied we all know how much time we need them for the middle um the middle pickup with prek is I mean yeah is the problem because that bus would normally have a pickup in the morning and a pickup in the afternoon when you add that third pickup it gets them um probably 75% of the battery mhm you know charge so they

probably will a mid midm morning or mid afternoon recharge yeah they got they got quick charges on those they do what what the problem is is that we're waiting to see when the nation when National Grid is going to determine the peak hours of charging so that is still to be negotiated with the uh with the but if they if they prove that if we are running based on tiers and the like

right we're going to have to go around the charging schedule no in order to the prek is the third the third round so that's a different setup the morning and afternoon runs won't be a problem and the tearing won't be a problem it fit in there based on the charg and cost the city more money um there's nothing to change really because the the issue is is the middle piece of of the the uh Our

Roots the problem we've created with a pickup midday pickup yeah I'm basing on your last comment last month about you're not sure how long it could last for the hour or whatever the we're not we're not sure yet and we we need to see it in operation so what happens if when we see it it stops like what do we do cuz we don't have the buses that they

had were gone like you have to give up 10 buses to get these they do have quite a few is there they have protection to say bus stops in the middle of the route we they need to have a bus so that is doen but it could not a sudden thing anyway there's no like they can literally watch the battery drain you know right in yeah we just don't want to

be held with exactly kids on the bus and we can't get an electric charge right um on this the last sheet here this money one yes it says funds for the transportation director and is that like we had to match or something is that what is that what this is trying to tell us Project funding

CH this one the green and colors yep says direct labor cost MC School contribution 12,000 so C so CC contribution is um is the um clean energy center which is giving us an additional 2 million so they get they're paying $7,000 for the transportation director to us yes not for us not us it would be for the expenses of the um of the the uh dealership the uh I'm sorry not the dealership the U bus

company there are added expenses for the bus company so School transportation director doesn't mean School trans Transportation director that means wh C trans trans it's not us it would be wh cuz I wouldn't consider them to be a school transportation person that's a to us they are a transportation person that's assigned to us yes so they're getting 7,000 and then it says School business

administrator cier 10,000 what is that just pass through like is that fake money it's not fake money cuz someone's getting paid for it it's not us though it's not coming to the school am I missing something like on here you're read I read ex it say School business administrator cost share 10,000 where is that coming from and if you don't know it's coming from like get an answer and who's getting it paid I

don't know can we find out absolutely yep and then I I can't see the the other part is for I guess putting in the charging station the um couple hundreding company and the contract and then the piece that I had mentioned at the start of this was what happens when a new contract comes who pays for that money and you're saying it's going to be buried into the contract which will just increase the

contract so who pay which which thing contract so if it will be if City already has so if whing City already has or whatever company it is has 20 charging station already on site paid for by somebody else and we're going to bid out the contract and the next person has to bid and pay for those I they don't have to pay for it it'll all be paid through the grants so they going to

take those out no they stay there and the next 10 will also be in the same kind of Grant situation where they will have the buses plus the charges there's no charge there's no charge per se to the city nor is there any charge to the company that is hosting the charges those are all paid for the installation paid in the future beyond beyond the 5 years is no longer a city issue so the bus company

will probably expire probably 6 years total the contracts the new company will come on for five their obligation is to use the electric buses for 5 years they have to dispose of their other buses paid for through the grants right through the grants and then yes when did the batteries uh 7 to 10 is and that's that's it and the whole buest got to go uh no but they can I'm sure by then

they'll have a better replacement of value than they do currently Y and this is just informational that's is there a presentation on Transportation later like the departs yeah there's really I mean there's nothing per se I'm saying is in the back if I had Transportation question I can do it at the end not about this thank you yeah so Mr I'm just curious let's say one of the electric buses goes down um

and in operation failure uh whing City would provide a backup bus just in the abundance of safety concern for the children absolutely absolutely and the buses obviously have a warranty so the company from Connecticut will take care of the repair yeah they'll fix the repair but in the meantime Welling City would send one of their other regular buses just they're required by contract

to have the extra buses anyway yes and that's right across the board thank you AO okay on to three four update from directors and supervisor facilities and operation on ongoing I know but projects so um we're broken down um each each one custodial Services up first John cloud and Mar B can I ask a question first just the process sh yes so Madam superintendent can you just take us through how we got

to this point related to um the budget and items that are in here for what's the for the custodial the equipment yeah for the which is part of like I'm looking at this and this as the uh we're jumping right into the equipment yep as you know what the process yep as you know we had budget meetings with every principal every department head um we had our department head meeting with Mr

Pico and all the directors um they brought their asks to the table so um Mr CLA um and their asks the asks yeah I provided the asks no they brought their asks to the table and then we went through them um certainly one of the one of the um discussions that we had was that um I asked about um our custodians and and the equipment that they were using and whether they had everything they needed

in order to do their job and uh in the midst of our discussion there was some discussion about how some of the equipment was aging out and um they were actually uh peac mealing and putting some stuff together so I asked Mr Cloud uh to and Mr Pico and Miss bores I wanted Mr CLA and Miss bores to sit um with Mr bico to go over um what custodians needed in order to do their

job efficiently and to prioritize that equipment first um and then come back to us with a uh a list of of anything they needed so that they could do their job and you're satisfied that that happened with all the players uh well um then I followed up um after um to ask with Mr bico to ask if that meeting had happened because I think that also at the school committee meeting when I presented the budget uh

when we did one of the hearings there was a question that was asked you know about about the exact same thing and um whether we already had purchased uh the materials the equipment that was requested and I said no they had not uh not until we have that meeting and because the the point of that is we do have money but we want to PR there's no sense in buying something uh that's not

a a priority in order for custodians to do their job not not saying everything is important but prioritizing if you're asking them to do something they need to have we want them to do a good job I want them to have everything they need in order to do a good job so I asked Mr Pico if that meeting had occurred with Miss fores and Mr Cloud it had not at

that time but it it was scheduled for a follow-up meeting on a Monday they sat together uh went over um equipment the three of you uh had a meeting and then um we followed up with uh as Mr Pico had a discussion with uh Mrs Gores and Mr Clow in regards to how the list was generated and then uh review the list um prior to submission do you have the date

of when that meeting happened roughly um I know that the meeting happened on a Monday I don't know the date but was on Monday I mean all three of them got together when they got together it was it was 25 it was quite a few of us I know but there were other people in so everyone had their Fair input to the process is what you're saying well that's what I asked Mr Pico to to do

with uh M bores and Mr Cloud I only asked CU it's 3:25 that's why I'm looking at the date so it couldn't have happened in the last week if this was already done at 325 I'm assuming it would have been before 325 that was why I asked the it did happen and all I wanted to do is make sure that we were all on the same page page and that what

the superintendent said was a go and what the CFO said was a go was what was being presented here mhm that's right so I had asked for the old info CU I think it's important first to know what we have and this is um I'm assuming that this was used to which I we're going to see the presentation on what it is my concern is that we're actually talking to everybody in the department

leadership assistant leadership to like come up put the best opportunity to some of this stuff is junk that we've had for years and that was why I asked for this over a year ago to get the summary to do it so as we go through the presentation my concern is going to be just asking who who are we asking these questions we need to ask the people that have been

here that are doing the work and that's my my main concern so thank you I Mr Cory no I I I don't have a I'm always thinking out of the box but I'm actually going to go back in time uh and recall that at dery High School in the years that I worked there going back into the 80s gentlemen um there were uh in there was a department where like you

could bring your lawn mower and they fix the lawn mow and they shop in the blades and things were broken down they'd repair it on site household appliances that kind of thing as far as Madam superintendent as far as chap chter 74 funding is concerned is there any any hunger to go in that direction to add something like that to the uh the industrial curriculum at dery well that would have to be

another program that we would have to explore we just added the criminal we're in the process of adding criminal justice yeah that's a good something for us to explore cuz that's would be the first I'm thinking about it born out of this conversation we just had about broke old equipment in need of you know repair in need of a little bit of love and I'm just wondering if if we had

something like that uh with the students learning in a Hands-On process it's just my curiosity speaking right now um this is not like you know if we have an opportunity to even think about it and research it then why don't we what do you guys think and in in all your expertise you think that something like that might help us retain some of the old equipment that's being used to clean what do you

think I personally think it's a fantastic idea I think getting the kids to buy in and getting everyone to be a part of something like that where where where most people would look at it and say well you know it's just lawn more if they buy in and the kids are a part of it and it's a class I think it's huge I think it's great so so so the earlier

discussion we had around the table was about the Landscaping issue and I'm sure there's a a serious amount of alwn equipment needed to run that operation and so if we had an in-house repair shop with two instruct is guiding the children in a Hands-On you know I'm just wondering how that might cut down our cost on maintenance absolutely long-term costs would be cut down quite a bit I think um

if you were to include the pooo cleaning equipment that as well I I think the only thing Mr Cory is that from what I've seen about what we have in the buildings I think most of those opportunities of past years they're the ones they used in the 80s you're talking about you're talking about the modernization of the equipment itself no I'm talking about the fact that we've they've been broken down for

so long whether or not they are too old for us to work on I agree 100% yeah I don't I don't know what your equipment catalog I mean I agree 100% Mr senator the the for the lack of a better term small engine repair program there's a better name for that today but would be very it's it's a Well sought after program where it exists in other vocational schools around as a CT

opportunity I just don't know like I would say it's a great idea some of this stuff is long on you know as far as usefulness but I do believe that there's items on here that you know may have have a home um I misunderstood I thought you meant after the purchases prior to yeah some of the stuff no I I don't know what catalog of equipment you got on hand but even even the equipment that

we would use into the future is you know I was thinking about the whole longterm Prospect of it right cuz if you build a program it's going to take a couple years to build that program absolutely right you go through different stages so I agree it's a long time so so is that something that we might be able to continue to think about in this subcommittee moving the uh the Flor of

public schools forward and maybe looking at at a possible chapter 74 ad down the road somewhere down the line yeah when it's when it's Fe when it's feasible if the interest is there and then feasibility and all that kind of stuff thank you a so if I may as far as the custodial piece of equipments I was a custodian for 14 years and yes those equipments were already terrible shape so there's no way

of patching these things back together so what we're asking is definitely a need that we have for the custodial staff you need new equipment absolutely surely I apologize for interrupting but I didn't mean to interrupt Mr Cloud was going to give his presentation I was just trying to ask a question that's all I'd like to hear from Mr CL the problem with our equipment is as technology

moves forward yes pie is parts are no longer available there's a few pieces that uh of the Magnums they no longer they still make that Magnum but they don't make that particular model anymore yeah of course and any upgrade there you go so you messed up right there well it has to do with different parts that are unavailable hard to find and any repairs are going to creep up on us because it's

going to sit in the shop until they find these things absolutely I I sense that too um and that's one of our problems cuz our technology moves so fast um as far as the equipment these are all things we need to get our summer cleaning and throughout the year done um some of the schools um there's a spreadsheet I literally called the companies to research each one to make

sure that we had no chance of find uh getting parts or what the chances are of getting parts for some of this equipment um just a question so the push mowers and the um say the snowblowers that's coming under custodial no no this this is a combination list whole of inventory equipment that's okay yes all right one looks like there's a do you have anything else no I kind of put most a

lot of that stuff in there and tried to identify what schools needed what and you spoke with all the custodians and the maintenance all you have to do is look at the equipment and know right away yeah it's pretty cut and dry right yeah is your storage facility still cost Middle School excuse me cost Middle School is that still the main storage facility no no it's on uh Main Street is

one of our main storage facilities all right yes so just looking at the I see all of these uh bunched up and then there somewh in the end are these all the same this is all of these are equal what's in the back here pretty much yes and this is only the way I'm seeing the spreadsheet on the end is basically floor stuff with scrubbers and the light well that it has

scrubbers on there it has um the square scrubber it has uh floor scrubbers which are two totally different machines it has carpet extractors and uh wet vs and that's all your custodial equipment that you're looking for it's not yes a lot of the other stuff is purchased through our regular channels of um um Supply needs our pads and we get all that through we can order budget through the budget this is above and

beyond what we can call our distributor and say hey can I I need 10 cases of red pads delivered we can get that and it's built into our budget I can't call and say hey I need four machines without going through the channels right so in your budget you spended all of your lines for custodial all year I don't know that answer um I just started in November and I'm trying to learn um what

we have in there so as I'm looking through this I see a bunch of scrubbers and December comes you need there's a stuff on here says the scrubber is junk not good in December you want to order a scrubber in the budget what's the process what's process is I plan for so so many scrubbers so many pieces of equipment every year that I think is going to start breaking down um and as

the year goes I try to see okay cus needs a new one let's get that in the budget for the following year I'm I'm stuck on immediate needs so in the middle of the Year something breaks machine breaks how do you buy a new one I have out what line item in your budget I don't know the particular line items would it wouldn't be something that he would do without coming to

me no I there's an approval process but if I ask you should you know your budget as a director I'm assuming you would say yes yes so that's why I'm asking so during the course of the year they hasn't been a case where you said I have uh a need for a a piece whether it's a carpet washer whatever in December since you've been here in November you haven't had a need to purchase one piece of

equipment other than what you're asking here for next year in this current budget is my point no because I was walking through all the schools seeing what was needed to propose it up so that I could find out what you ever seen this thing before I don't know what oh this is the one from dery this is from the uh F what they got at when the school was built

that's not what that is what this is Sir is about two years ago I asked the superintendent to do a um inventory of all of the custodial equipment that's your department now we sent out a gentleman named Mr Borges who works for either you or maintenance or both I'm not sure that's a whole another story went around to all the schools and did this inventory of all of the products

that we have in the schools so when I say we had junk it was based on looking at this that a report that was already done by your departments that showed every piece of equipment Watson School push mower good snowblower excellent snowblower good leaf blower good weed from Fair FL floor scub poor this was two years ago that this was out so that's why I figured you might have had it because you're the director but this

is why I'm asking these questions because to me this was we've had needs all year to go so I want to support what we need but I'm wondering why we just keep on waiting for later on that was sort of the the gist of the conversation to get back to the meeting that you so you're the director Miss bores is the assistant director when did you meet with her specifically to get her input

on this items to present here when we first started talking about what equipment needs and you took her input in to create this or did you just miss P just may eyes is that accurate No the original list that we did as um in collaboration me and John was for the first um list we presented to the superintendent um roughly it was um um six Auto scrubbers uh eight February that was in

February yeah at the budget meeting and it was uh for 6 um AO scrubbers which is the flow machines eight um Square scrubbers and six extractors that was our original collaboration with me and John we presented that John presented that to the superintendent she felt that the need was there for us to um obtain more equipment for the um custodians she then instructed John and I to sit down and R do a list with the

additional um with the additional um equipment that never happened still to this day until this day it was just addressed with Mr Pico after our meeting that the superintendent again readdressed it for us to sit down I approached John John did not um set aside a time for me and him to sit Mr Pico again afterwards called me on Friday presented me with a package where I stated to him I had no

clue what was in that package besides the original um equipment we had asked the superintendent at their budget meeting Mr Pico after gave me the paperwork and asked me what do you feel that we needed and I went through with Mr Pico he agreed what we needed so there was additional equipment that was placed and is that in Incorporated now in the it is in the 325 yes do so when

a lot of troubling pieces I don't want to get into it the present time but I'm of the belief that when we do a budget we have director assistant director they would communicate go over the issues we have an assistant director that's been here a long time would have inut say any other that's exactly what I instructed them to do because she's was the boots on the ground she has she

who's new to the district so I said because she knows what they are using sit down because they talked about people duct taping or piece meal putting things together there's no need for that so sit down go over you know what the custodians she's um done that work for many years go over the list and make sure that they have we can't expect them to do a good job and do their job if

they don't have what they need and I said that that's what we needed to do right so I totally agree with what you're saying I'm disappointed that it didn't happen and when they say there no readings it needs to so when I'm voting on a budget I'm looking at not only a number I'm looking at what that number entails as a member of the committee and I believe that we have this right to be

able to say this is what we want to get out of our budget so when I'm looking at this comparing it with this old which I'm this is part time I'm not doing this whole time but I would like to see something like a um materials list for uh equipment by this so that when we look at it we say look at all the whether it's a scrubber a square scrubber round scrub whatever it is we

should be able to see it very clearly that here's what the district has we got 14 buildings we all need to have you know this that and the other thing so that when we knew if we say yes we're going to vote for this 250,000 at the end of that we're going to have all of our equipment here would say new excello or some sort of date where we can go by to manage to say yep

we now have everyone has a need there's wet back in there how like not this school but I'm just saying in general a wet V is sort of an important piece when you get spills and you got you know so if you have lousy ones it makes sense to say we have 18 buildings we should have 36 wet backs that are good quality commercial not stuff that youd buy you

know for your house whatever if we get it in a document like this I would personally would rather see that so that we can know what we're getting at the end of the purchase and when you mentioned 86 I don't know what that means about the what was the rationale between the why you recommended the well that was the beginning cuz we didn't know what we were going to be allowed to

get right off the back until we spoke with that budget meeting with the superintendent and then she just said she absolutely agreed that the department of custodians was depleted of equipment so and then that being said we said okay then we're going to up our equipment to what we need it to be correct but when you said whatever the amount of scrub is or whatever what are we getting at the end now at the bottom

line I know we that was stuff that I don't want to get into right now but that sheet is accurate this sheet is accurate I'm saying at the end of the day how does that show what what our equipment is going to look like overall so I'm going to say that everything that's poor on here will be disposed of and then the fair stuff and the good stuff are going to stay in that's say

there are the problem with with the problem with the lodge per purchases is chances are they all break down more or less around the same time and we're always doing large purchases so what this will allow us to do is there are a lot more wet and dry vs in the district okay there are some buildings that have a few there you know we know we have uh some available to us so we're going to still

buy chances are we'll be buying a wet vac next year and we'll buy some scrubbers next year and we're going to be buying this stuff constantly because we're not changing the entire District this is just a drop in the bucket of equipment that we need and eventually all of those that say good or Fair are going to be replaced yeah as time wears out or they'll be put in as spares we'll

put a new one keep these as spares and we won't run them into the ground round which has been the Mantra running until they don't run anymore I couldn't I totally agree with you what I'm suggesting is that what we should get is something this with a little more detail to say the dates and times and stuff because i' me I'd actually be inclined to put more I asked why is it only the

floors and the stuff because that's what I was looking at here I think the custodial department has a lot more needs for some other things probably if we were going to get them up to doing like you want them to do the job you got to provide the materials and the equipment but not everything is a big ticket item so for instance if I needed a wet vack tomorrow I'd buy it it's only

$978 and I'm not saying that you know to be Cavalier about it but if I need a web back tomorrow we're going to buy it I'm not going to buy the the the auto scrubble at 14,000 you know I'm not going to do that but I am going to pick up the small items cuz we shouldn't be without it in that particular building so I'm sure that there are dozens of other things

that we need to buy some of those will be bought as we look deeper into what the custodians have we also have a lot of schools that people squirrel things away I'll be looking for that stuff myself because I found a lot of stuff already over the time and I and I believe that I was a teacher I had cabinets that I stored stuff away and squirel it away CU I always knew the bad times were

coming because they came and everything's you know is a cycle and I know they're doing the exact same thing the problem is that it's no no way to get a gauge on things without actually knowing what's there and that work hadn't happened so I'm assuming that now this is a list that everyone agrees on amongst the three of you or four of you because the superintendent had to get involved the this document here as far

as like the floor stuff and um which document you talk about so the document yeah yes uh no this one here that kind of summarizes all these Pages no no I know that but well that doesn't have anything yeah summarizes these Pages not nothing to do with this right what I'm saying is what you're asking here is it 24 something 294 whatever is something that is agreed upon relative to the four

people here and then beyond that you can make a better presentation at some point of each School whatever they need I would expect that to come from the director to say each school has the following equipment custodians can see it they get their way in now this is junk because we shouldn't have to hear like superer said they taping things or whatever snow blowers don't work and and

U so is that something that can be done at some point in the future yes you can just have the columns and stuff while we're talking about the floors one of the I was always intrigued by the I think it was 150,000 for the UN unmanned scrubber or whatever the floor thing at dery the three of them yes yeah how is that um working out very well the robots the robots are working out very

well cutting our costs by three custodians one for each floor and they're working like the the technology or whatever they I saw myself I was all freaked out by it it works real good cuz it's all sensors the sensors guide it along cameras and other things and the repairs and stuff it's they're holding up what saying yeah we have not had any major repairs so far and they're under

warranty for how long um the warranty is 2 years on some of it there's a few more extra years on some of the technology and it also receives updates so the technology is part of the the the U updates are part of the original contract and relative to the floors being in the field as superintendent stated you've been on the ground here is that are you comfortable with what's in

there for the floors and stuff is this a good or we should we well for now either look at some other things or Well for now as far as you know um having um again I have to be honest the only thing it was one of the the automatic scrubbers which other the Chariots I was never comfortable with that but that's something John really is animant about

and so so be it but as far as all the other scrubbers in the um schools with this we'll have it sufficient enough to hit every school did you say I don't know what a chariot is can a chariot um it's a a floor zon instead of a push behind it right right and what does it cost for a chariot 14 is that 14,000 or something 14,000 and what's

the is there a non- rde there is what does that do there's a 23 a t3300 and a a t um 500 which we the custodian Works behind it by working behind it so I was looking in I don't know the T300 t500 all the different schools had the those so are we now going to have everyone have if the chariot's the way to go you can't no some buildings that don't

require there are some buildings that don't require a chariot the not long enough but can you can a walk behind be used in every building like if you could use the walk behind could be but it wouldn't save any time the walk behind is not going to save time with a charot will what do what do you mean what is the explain to me the the difference between someone walking and someone

riding in is a difference it's also a fatigue piece hallways for instance dery would be a bear to do walk behind as opposed to a chariot now this one is the next step above that the the dery one is automated but a chariot for instance the main hallway in cus is a quarter of a mile long from door to door that's a long way to walk seven or eight times and then going

upstairs we have elevators so whether or not the Chariots in that building are used upstairs I haven't seen it with my own eyes but I will because I need to look at all of this stuff and find out exactly what the hoop is about all of the scrubbers and all of this different equipment there's a lot there is a lot of focus on new equipment here that we've never used before and we are going

to see it and we're going to time it and we're going to see if it's what it says and you're saying before we buy it or you we're buying it and then going to no no we're going to make sure it's being used I just want to be sure that there isn't anything on this list that's not going to be used so we have current chariots we have chariots that came with

yes that came in some of the buildings do we have those where are those at CL has a chariot um no no doesn't because the hallway none of the hallways are long enough in the continuous dery had chariots so if cus has a chariot that walks behind for the sake of cuz it's a long Cora how many floors is c as you just said three it's it's three floors but not all three

floors are the same length cuz the main hallway is is ground floor to the third floor so they don't use it in the they do they use it in all the floors I'm not sure I'll find out cuz I'll just call all the seniors you know I don't think the current one they have can fit the I haven't seen it on for a second I was there it doesn't fit inside the elevator

not the current one is it the one they sit on yeah just on the main that that's a lot longer that that's a ride on as well a ride on it's not called The Chariot no The Chariot is Chariot is a standon so it's it's smaller in shape in length so it good it's maneuverable in small hallways and large hallways and it's a lot easier to fit into the standard elevator now if you take a a

t500 which is bigger and longer that may not be able to go into some of the elevators depending on the doors how what would be considered a walk behind yes and those are in some schools some of the bigger ones yes um that's the only part I'm having a hard time is the uniformity of why do we why are we picking one versus the other we're going to have some schools with

walk behinds we're going to have some with small walk behind C because of the the shape the size of the hallways um certain hallways are the more narrow and you can't do a turn so Mr when I saw the uh the machine at dery it was in that first floor uh where the cafeteria is and where the auditorium is a big wide open expans of flooring and that machine

was it was amazing how how how it just clocked its whole thing you know I was I watched it for a while I was pretty Amazed by its operation but a smaller one would take much longer time to do it that was a a big machine in itself so I could see where it wouldn't be appropriate for some of the other schools due to the size of their car yeah and it's expensive too but what's

the size of a t500 versus a chariot is a chariot smaller yes like less in width yes so so I can maneuver that in just about any school but if the point of the Chariot was to get a hallway if it's is it twice as wide no have less it's I think it's like 24 in we have one of the CL yeah um it's not as wide it's smaller it's it's compact it's

basically probably this wi right here the one that you do you stand behind yes that you stand on y but I'm saying it sounded like you said the other one was too wide for the The Chariot is too wide to fit in but the the stand on the standon one isn't the stand but I was asking is it is it a walk behind that's twice as wide they're longer yes it's

like having a lawn mow that's 18in cut versus a 36 in cut so if I could push a a 36 in thing down the hallway and otherwise an 18 I'm doubling the time that that has to go back and forth no because the speed will make up that time the speed makes up that you're not walking but this it's double the it could be double the size that's my point

is just trying to get the rationale for why are we doing it in some not in others and every school has its own um particulars as we stated cus has those long hallways so if money wasn't an issue you tell me you wouldn't be recommending chariots to any any other schools no because of the size well I think at the end of the day if we didn't have the money then be a whole bunch of

things on this s we wouldn't be buying no I'm saying as far as what piece of equipment so no but that's what I'm saying if money wasn't if money wasn't the factor here if money is the factor then we throw this away and we stop from scratch I didn't believe that money was the factor and we didn't get push back for this so is this number higher than the original one I think it's higher by about

42,000 um we've asked for a lot more than this number and this is trying to get us everybody's going to have all the Flor needs that they need yes as far as yes totally supportive of I think we have lot the equipment I want to support you with the equipment I would just definitely ask to try to get us this list a little better I think it's going to help you to get some

more resources from the the school committee in my opinion with that are you thank you just a comment more than a question I I wholeheartedly agree with with that aspect especially with the dates in the schools and and we can uh have that overview so we can be as supportive as you guys need us to be so that would definitely help on our end have a better understanding of what is at each

school okay we are on to can I ask one more question cust we talked about this before that the custodians were going to not be required to uh cut the grass even though it wasn't in the contract uh vice versa have they been given notice what their requirements are we are um under Dem meaning is coming up that's why I'm asking we are going to be um having a conversation um on a um on a document

that will be reviewed by the Union uh very shortly as a hold over until the negotiations are finished so they're going to get some clarity one way or another yes cuz I know people hear it and then they say well we never heard will they will have absolutely thank you moving on to campus Services

Yes W you to use the rest of them so y so in front of you I believe you have the uh the Capital Improvement for the campus services so what I'm looking for is the uh 4 z turn mowers and a leaf V the 4 z turn mowers I have in stock actually for one's really old yeah so that give me a total of eight and the reason for the other the other

three zero turo is is cuz I like to set up two Crews cuz we got two trailers that way two on one two on the other one crew goes one way put everything on the put everything on the trailers that way when they go out to a site they have everything there and that's done done deal y that's the way it should be done and not only that so I have four of

them if any if anything breaks down right now just say one breaks down I'll end up with three sure and that ain't that ain't GNA going to stop operations that ain't going to work even the FL it's going to be really tough yeah but you you can still keep your operations going until the repairs done right right first with with these are you requesting an extra these are all these the three this

is all we purchase these are all the three zero turns are uh are uh our can you explain what you're looking at cuz I I'm confused a little I'm sorry you have four items but they're all different amounts right because they're different because they're different they're different size mowers and it's a different brand so all I'm saying is that for clarity when you're saying we have four I'm asking

for four I'm looking for a document that says four of X item what you have is four different items and you have a rationale that you're trying to tell us why you want the four but one one one and one and not together one cost well that's the I right I did it that way did the prices that I should put them all together I did so you got three so there's four items there one's

a leaf vac which is the uh number two is the leaf act that leaf Act is so right now the guys when we were cleaning up fall the guys were putting the leafes in the barrel taking the barrels and dumping them in the truck wait time consuming yeah so now if I purchased if I have get the Leaf act it's got like a an 8 in hose on the end

of it and it and they put the leaf in a pile and they suck it up in the back of the truck and and it dumps it and that is also a zero turn Mall no that's a leaf vac number two is a leaf vac I thought I heard you say the you're asking for four zero no three I'm asking for three three zero turn mod sorry the first number one two number one three

and four see see I says zero turn zero turn yeah I was just throwing off cuz you kept saying okay no I'm sorry saying I can't see four M no no I'm sorry no it's three I meant to say four items with the leaf Wonder trailer right now in stock I have four zero turns that's what I have in stock right now MH and one is really old BL bless you thank

you and like I was saying so the reason it is so if I get these four I mean these three with the four I have I can put two on one two on another with all the whackers and all the stuff they need to go to a site and if one breaks down I have them I have enough to cover me until I get it repaired yes yes yes the um are we

seeing like quotes in here that are not like the there should be three quotes for everything so they're not like some of them don't match up to these numbers but that's because they might not have won yeah only one needs two one of each of those matches so there's packages of three quotes each other so right so the one so all those numbers the match there is the hillside did the lowest bid out

of all the quotes I got and the um the trailer I you started to talk about a trailer to put the so the guys go out they have the stuff on it think I have yeah just talking in general yeah right so that's why I need these extra these extra three zero TRS cuz right now I got four of them I mean a trailer makes sense because that's what you go out and you

don't back to the shop to get something say that for a couple years I got I got a cargo trail and I got we got I got another trailer how do the how does the workers get to the site they get in the truck and they they truck with the the trailer trailer on it right yep and how many people fit in it is it I don't know your equipment does

everybody jump on the same truck so the four of us are on the crew C no the crew C the the 550 I think can hold four guys in a truck right so basically every crew is if you got two Crews they're going out together yeah one one crew one crew in one truck would go with one truck two people go another and then depending on what other equipment is going to that

would be the other trucks they're not going like seven different people going seven different no no you're going as a crew to do the work you're not going back and forth to the shop no no that's why that's why I need the extra ones and and and they're going to be in the trailer so what like just say they go to Sylvia school they they need to cut grass or whatever they're going to drive

up they're going to pull up with the trailer they're going to have all that stuff in there The Lawns the weed whackers the blowers the shovels the rakes uh whatever yep whatever they use and they're going to pull up there they're going to do that school and then when they're done they come back to the office or if if they're done in time they'll go back to another site and when

you say the leaf the leaf V uh the leaf vac I'm assuming that you mean that picking up leaves is part of your responsibility of your workers not the custodians no it's it's us yeah so they go to the each School pick up all these which we started this fall we started doing some schools this far but that's under your six people it's not a custodial right eight people eight eight

eight who is the eight is that six workers and like seven workers eight eight total so you're the ninth staff and sometimes do you cut grass too I would hope I I'd like to but no I'm saying you can right no no no that's grievable no no no director should be doing anything like that none of them and they've been told that by me they don't touch the tools that's not what their

job is yeah well sometimes when you got to have all hands on deck I could disagree with you on that the um snow plowing you got on here about a plow yeah that was the that was a truck that I was going to order but I held off on that truck so that truck was going to be 30 37,000 okay so what is the the reason why I pulled back on is number one I

thought it was going to be 90,000 but I'm going to see if I can get away what I have to use it's another we'll see how we make it through oh we needed to prioritize let's get all the equipment first before exact spend 100 Grand on the truck no I get it I'm just going through the process so when the schools come we say what did you ask for that

wasn't done and we should see that so we can know same thing here so we should see a document that shows the director said recommended a truck because the following reasons blah blah blah blah blah this is why we need the truck we see it it might not have been funded but we can see it I'm only reading a one sentence question mark uh related to it and then all of these pictures are all

stock um that's all stuff that the guys have been my crew has my staff has been doing can I ask how much uh Outsourcing you've done since you've been here how many outside people have done projects under your none none no my gu been so no so they only actually no no V so since I've been on since I was hired I I contacted car Colton from uh the construction

class so he's he's done few he's done work several jobs for me with no charge with the kids yeah yeah yeah I'm talking about outside company so you haven't outsourced anything as far ASC oh I mean I'm sorry snow removal yes other than that other than that no I had a question on snow removal just a brief one so we had had uh overtime sheets from early in January for a storm that never we didn't

get any snow yeah can you take me through how that happened so I saw like hours of over time so I told the guys to come in cuz they were predicting we were going to get the snow and the snow never came and then I I had I had the papers I don't have them I don't look at the details I'm just in general been so we came in I think it was what 8:00 or

something like that or 6:00 I was here through the whole time and they kept saying snow snow snow it it it snow then it rain then it snow and then I think the first night they left at 12 I believe u don't quot me on it but I'm trying to think now it's been a while and I don't have the papers in front of me and then the next morning that's when

it it finally hit it like at 3:00 4:00 in the morning and that's when everybody came in and that's when everybody plowed again I mean then everybody came back in yeah I when I asked for the overtime it looked like there was overtime without snow that's why I asked for what would what would it be is there contractual obligations for minimum nope hours the reason why you call in people is you go

by weather forecasts there is no other way and the problem with not doing that is I'm going to try and figure out how I can say this without insulting anybody but 200 snowplow contractors that worked for the city of for River had to be called in x amount of hours and told they're going to work and they're paid from that point because if you don't tell people that they're going

to work you may not want them to come to work that's the only way I can explain it if a if it's a Saturday or a Sunday or a Friday night that you're calling people and asking them to come in then you need to make that commitment cuz that's how this works cuz if not they're going to make a commitment to something else and when that commitment is made then we end

up with no drivers and a bunch of equipment and then we privatize the whole operation that way so those are calls that Lou and myself sat down and said all the weather forecasts are showing it because the city had 75 pieces on while we had four and they had no snow that's just the nature of this there is no way to predict it and there's no way to be

safe when you make a call and if it's not snowing that you start sending people home you really have to know that that window is closed for a snowstorm before you send anybody home because the price you're going to pay for having someone come in that shouldn't be in could be yeah I asked it because it was on a Saturday and schools weren't opening on a Monday so probably made

more logical sense to me on a Sunday night if that was happening to say we need needed him and you had them all day Sunday anyway I found it to be just a um a waste of overtime quite honestly and when we look at the reports it shouldn't say snow removal if there was no snow it should say on call you know something to clarify a little bit because well I put

snow remov because it that's what should be on there snow REM that's what we got called for and with all doe respect this that yeah I can't control the weather now if I didn't call them in and all of a sudden it started snowing then you're going to then you're going to problem then then you're going to have a big problem no I understand I'm just trying to figure out the the

timing and the hours as well as finances I I was watching that weather forecast all day now what did they do when there was no snow what did they what were they doing as far as well they they were at the shop they were at the shop and they were cleaning some stuff whatever had to be done I mean I was there with them I mean you got to wait you got to

wait to see when it comes I mean they put the balls on personally I think it was over time that we could have done without just U my personal opinion but I do appreciate I know my staff me personally I mean my staff they did a hell of a job to through all the storms well the storms that we thankfully we didn't have too many right everything everything excuse me thankfully we

didn't have too many so that's always a good benefit uh as well but the ones we did have I they did they did an outstanding job thank you are aren't maintenance well mine isn't very elaborate isn't as long as the other folks um but with the idea of you know creating a base to move off of um I've asked for an open trailer which is a landscape trailer uh and an enclosed trailer to

mimic what the uh what the campus Services has now and the reason for that is uh once campus services does get get ramped up in their program then we're going to have to uh we're going to have to utilize those trailers we'll need tra um I've also requested two scissor lifts those two scissor lifts that are requested are different than the ones we currently have they actually have extensions on them so when we need to

work over the top of bleachers over the top of basketball uh back stop those such things um those are a lot more

accessible questions D yeah can you take me to where you were just reading off what you're looking for I see uh stuff I see a summary of list of Main Equipment but looks like you're looking off of something that's a requests well mine was the the budget request that we had it's not there's no yeah it goes right to we'll get that too so it's not like I'm not missing it it's just

not the um I just had a question on the same like can you tell us or and it's not on the spot but how much Outsourcing you've had to do over the last year outside vendors are you doing everything in house other than the the contracts that are already signed and Renovations that are already happening I I haven't gone out for outside vendor services with the exception of drain cleaning we got a couple of issues

except for what drain cleaning dra cleaning soal oh I'm sorry very sorry yes how could I forget yes Turnal even the the project so some of um when I look at what we pay we pay people to do we have skilled labor in a bunch of different areas so if we're paying a plumber we shouldn't be having the Outsource somebody to do plumbing work you know that theory in theory um

that's the nature of my question so if we're going to either repair something build something we have Carpenters do we hire people that do carpentry work no outside you know like No And and just just like Lou I mean me person personally coming here from the world that I Liv in um I was stunned pleasantly surprised when I found out that these guys were actually going to build the bathrooms at RPA and

and and the uh the security room at RPA I thought it was Monumental but they did it they did it the plumbers did their piece cops did their piece electricians did their piece and and it's moving right along it's you know once once it started it kind of picked up steam and I love the fact that I have accessibility to uh to licensed professionals that I can trust yep so if you could just get

us something to miss Pico and superintendent on the projects that you mentioned are like whatever the projects if you had to get an outside vendor it makes it a lot more easy than just asking for vendor list and try to figure out I think we should be doing stuff in- house I also think that if you have skilled people that can do plumbing work you're going to save a lot of money and

and I I have the same Theory I think that uh we're paying them to have their licenses and we'll use those licenses and centry I'm not sure like it's easy to say what an electrician does and what a plumber does it's not as easy to say what a center does but there's projects that we see sometimes and we're like well why couldn't Center do that work I get calls all the time about things like

that so just putting that in the back of your head of yeah what I can tell you if you were to look at the work orders percentage wise um probably 70 to 75% are cop to work there's lots of coop to work in this District they're constantly moving constantly going yeah I was referring more to what they do what they what they can do and what they're not a

pain to we know paints CER does a whole bunch of different things and the last time we were here we talked about the uh School dude whatever the new name is and having allowed schedules to be able to be watched and looked at is there any movement on that at the time I had asked for getting some details on that to see what it looks like for so we haven't we

haven't uh had the kickoff meeting as of yet Gathering all of the dates um there'll be two or three different uh functions of brightly that will be separated by by those who use it for instance the rental piece will not be in everyone's realm the maintenance piece will be um so some of those items are going to be handled separately so when we do the um the initial uh kickoff

meeting um each group will then be asked of what their um role is and what particular nuances they're looking for in the system the system will be very customized to the needs of this district and not just a general um hasn't happened yet it's in the process proed that it's just not in it's in that planning stage between brightle and us and when do you think that would probably within the next

couple of months so summer yes yep thank you I just want to make a comment to to you all uh so many moving Parts in the maintenance and upkeep of our of our schools in this district and uh and you guys presented a a really good platform tonight and uh I want to thank you personally I know how much work goes into it thanks a lot gentlemen II thank you thank one

more Oh I thought you had some yeah last one so safety and um nutrition nutrition first y so what I provided was just a basically a 10,000 foot overview of what I've changed since taking over the program uh back in October uh the four major pieces I outlined up top there I reduced uh overtime payouts by about 30% and when I say overtime payouts I mean just idle payouts for overtime because

we were properly inst staffed uh properly unstaffed um put together systems and procedures now that they can go into any school and actually have a check checklist of things that are done on a daily weekly monthly basis um streamlined all the ordering processes there was no process for utility workers to get supplies they basically have to go beg seniors um and again with uh on that same

piggybacking off that as well getting the right tools floor machines just reoccurring theme with with needing the proper stuff to make sure they have all the tools to do the job questions T so you talked about the did I hear you correct that there was no supplies audit there was no system in place for utility workers to order supplies so they'd have to go to the senior custodian and ask the senior

custodian for their needs and it was a 50/50 chance that the custodian would give them what they needed and this sorry go ahead I mean that just sounds ridiculous I could not disagree more but we have a system in place now disagree or you me Agee I I I agree I agree it's abur you agreed and then you no no sorry yeah um now there's a system in place they

don't have to go to the senius or anything there's a point of contact I'm the point of contact for that so wouldn't that have come out of the budget so how would that have worked in the past there their stuff should come out in the past like when it went to the senior was the senior putting it through custodial and not I'm assuming yes so we had how many years of not paying for no

we paid for it believe me patrici has paid that this year so at some point it catches up to them it's already it was I think it's B in Pay but now it's just a different process rather than exactly now as you see the checklist you see the process there everything is in a couple of languages um for the custodian for the utility workers to follow there's um I'm providing training material multiple

languages where there was none before a lot of our staff in the utility are bilingual or speak no English at all so I provided training materials in both languages three languages if needed um also anything that I provide to anyone in an english- speaking format I provide in this Hispanic and Portuguese as well so you H inventory and audit essential tools for instance floor machines were you using the ones that

they're talking about or is it different for actually was the other way around yeah so custodians we using this I'm saying what is the machine like what is it it's it's a walk behind floor scrubber as well and as of right now I maybe have two functioning floor machines for my utility workers the the bulk of my guys are doing floors by hand still hand offing floors so but we're correcting that it's all being that's

the equipment now order we're just waiting on it got it so it's not like you know have it just hadn't had it or what are you getting new ones exctly um the only thing I have I've always been questioning the utility work a piece in general and that the people work an entire day in the calf and I haven't seen it with my own two eyes I'm just using it as sort of an 8 hour day

is a long time like what is the what are the workers doing otherwise during that time and yeah so the utility piece is not when you you think about it you're thinking they're covering lunches there is much more to that job they're maintaining the cafeteras and the kitchens the utility workers responsible for maintaining the entire cafeteria and the entire kitchen that's the maintenance of equipment cleaning out

vents and floor drains and floors and anything that needs to be upkept on a daily basis falls on the utility worker so you don't have to call out vendors to do that so correct the only vendor the only third party vendor that I've outsourced right now Pest Control obviously and um getting the uh um grease straps maintenance other than that they're Main right yeah other than that they're

maintaining the all of the the floor um drains and everything like that if I could ask that to Mr J superintendent you get us I think it would be beneficial I know it would be beneficial for me to have that articulated what you just said so we look at and it's not just the calf it's not just empty the barrels it kind of would back up the idea that we need them for8 hours yeah

so if anybody ask me how does somebody get paid 8 hours to do that I have a better answer then of the util Che list so I was going to say on a daily basis this this actually this first this entire first page are their daily expectations they're expected to finish these tasks on a day-to-day basis we'll share we'll share that information with the whole and monthly so yeah I just

think it would articulating it in a in a one pager would make U yeah I can get you P points not a problem at all and all of this is totally reimbursed through the nutrition now it's not question of any that stuff yes thank you are you Ian well well well yes I have more of a comment I mean I in my travels to different schools I always see that the

schools are are really clean inside and uh that's impressive to me because there's so many different rooms and so many features so I think these people all come off as really solid professionals and um and I'm glad that you're attending to especially seeing a checklist like this attending to it on a regular basis and try to keep upgrading it keep our staff busy in the meantime uh I think we have a good staff of

people on our hands we got a lot of lot of Four River people working inside our schools that carry a lot of Pride and I think you guys are doing a good job I ask you guys to treat our staff with uh in in in U in human kindness and I I think that that'll pay you back in huge dividends you show your staff the respect that they deserve because a lot

of them are doing you know some of the dirtier work and some of the harder work and the laborious work and so when it comes to that type of work uh in my past uh in my youth I had a couple of jobs as a laborer so I know what it is to get really really dirty at work and come home exhausted and filthy uh so I have a lot of uh empathy for these people and

uh and I trust that you guys will treat your people with that human kindness but I'm very very happy with what I see around the schools and the condition that the schools are in uh our schools are all very clean and very UPC kept and and I appreciate that very much I thank you security um so I yeah I I John um ventur had a pre-planned a few days off and

today was one of them mhm I apologize for that and he apologized but it was already um c s so to speak he put together uh a brief synopsis of where he's been um and uh and where you know where he's going uh his main goal right now is to uh fill the ranks um he does have a few missing uh a few officers missing and he will be working on that

and uh on the um on the other side of of his responsibilities he has been um at every school uh with the crisis plans produced crisis plans for every school new crisis plans um there's a lot of um of new initiatives that he's working on and he also has um spent a lot of time unfortunately we've had a need um but he has spent a lot of time in in particular

buildings uh helping out uh where he can he's made some notice noticeable improvements in RPA um and dery and a few of our elementaries uh that um that we see some progress in that particular Department uh and some professionalism for sure um that um is a welcome um is a welcome bit of uh of um or breath of fresh air I should speak I should say uh he's has the respect of his offices and

um he handles himself he's a very uh level uh killed person he you know whether we're running around because we have something going on he's the same person um when all of that stuff is going on so um we we're we're very happy to have him and and again he apologizes for not being here can we put him on the next agenda can we put him on the next

agenda just so we get to meet him and have a good dialogue absolutely so I um there's no backup for uh Transportation Deb cavalo is here to answer questions are related to what's going on I I have to say that um when um when we learned that uh that Donna was leaving uh the district after she would say a 100 years I don't think it was quite that long but um leading

the district um we were very concerned um that we would have a void that we couldn't fill uh and it was going to take some time Donner had um had some uh medical issues that she took care of while she was still with us uh Deb along with her partner down there um chrisy Kier um seamlessly took over the operations and um she hasn't stopped moving the district the transportation side um since she got there

so yeah it has been absolutely seamless and and um and it's been very welcome and and the the bus companies are um I don't want to say difficult to deal with because that may be an understatement or an overstatement I'm not sure on days but I have to say that um that phone never stops her phone never stops ringing and that word never stops um and it is daily with the amount

of students that we transport and the the issues that we have as other than our teachers in the classroom that contact with parents that's number two right there that without out a doubt um she does have a lot of um a lot of conversation a lot of um Tangled situations to figure out she probably has watched more videos tape of buses than she would like to um but I I

uh I can't say enough it's been um it's been very good so so yeah Mr P got to back you up on that I I for many years I worked with Donna and um every situation toward the end of the day when there was a a transportation crisis with with one of our kids she never never gave into that situation she she would find a way to navigate some solution out of any

situation that was confronted to her and and that added to the safety of our of our students Transportation um mostly from school because it was toward the end of the day a lot of the times where some issues would arise that I was involved with her in my work so I was very impressed with Donna she gave and gave and gave and gave of herself and when it came to

students going on field trips she was a real Pro in engineer and what bus companies we could use and what the parameters were you know to be for that particular field trip she was just a a pro to work with so I don't know this new person that's her so-called right there right there all right so I was unaware of that Tom did did you me did you mentor on the Donal were you working

with her yeah I worked with for almost 4 years so then you know you know where I'm coming from as far as her Relentless Pursuit you know in any type of situation that arose so I'm I'm sorry I didn't know that you know but like I said I'm new to this committee I'm just getting my feet wet but but I know that work is so important and it goes unnoticed you a lot of your work goes

unnoticed not to us but to the general public so let me take a moment to say thank you for that type of work that you do to ensure the safety of our students especially when a crisis arise thank you very much the program yeah yeah I'm getting there I'm getting I'm getting up to speed like a little broken record the only thing I would say is it's we because it's a city expense but it's a

school so it's in our laps as part of our thing which is very awkward because I would say we should look at ways to save money consolidate routes pick your brain to be able to say you have an open um opportunity to come before us to say here's what I think we should be doing it's a little awkward because that sometimes would counteract with the city so then it's like well I can't say that

it's the mayor it's this and that I'm just telling you as one member bring whatever you can to us because that feig just keeps going up and then if we don't know what'll happen schedule of changes of this and that some decisions are not popular but they need to be done in order to control cost come in I'm telling you in my opinion come before us and try to change them I can't remember

what did is but there was an issue with the reimbursement for um special education to Transportation this or that and at one point I had a conversation with Mr pico about what it what did it look like for our transportation of that I don't know if you remember this conversation but it was there was something along the lines of if the law changed for us to get reimbursed for certain um

transportation are we doing that at every single area that we possibly can I'm not looking for an answer but there's something if I if it steps my head I love Mr Pico no but if we're getting reimbursed on Transportation with different rules like for the last two years we should be doing that across the board it will be my it'll save the city some money not too much the school

so but keep up the good work thank you thank you everybody keep up the good work we we appreciate it we know it's difficult it's it's uh it's not easy but thank you thank you business any new business who's buying lunch dinner I need a second second roll call please Mr yes Mr Cory y yes thank you everybody greatly appreciated