12.4 2024.FRPS Facilities and Operations Subcommittee

okay this meeting of the facilities and operations uh subcommittee has been called to order today Wednesday December 4th 2024 Deb can I please get a roll Mr Drago here Mr Cory here miss laric here uh swoot to the flag please I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation God indivisible with liy and justice for all thank

you uh open meeting law uh Pur 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 acknowledgeable and permissible is there any citizens in

cour uh de no no thank you uh discussion one we'll move on to 31 discussion and vote to refer uh the hbac request in of qualification uh Kenny please sure so um before you you have the uh craft that um was put together um with um with the uh City and um facilities and operations here and um all the highlighted items are dates basically a moving Target I want to be sure that everyone's

comfortable with the um with the document um it's uh pretty comprehensive um it's going to give us um the the information that we need to move forward uh basically it's a districtwide um document and um it incorporates uh some engineering pieces and uh the conversation during the negotiations of the um of the contract for whoever is the the winning bidder will also include envelope work um

making sure that um we have um we don't have other issues that are contributing to any of our um hdac WS uh in the district so there um as I said it's a draft um there's a lot here a lot of information um but anything that's highlighted uh throughout the document um is uh I would say would be fluid until we know for sure um that mostly dates those most that the subcommittee

is happy with and also that the full committee um wants to um to to vote to approve this so um okay any questions comments uh Tommy thank you so Ken this is obviously looking like it's a long-term move right so this is a full yes districtwide study is going to be pretty in depth so they'll be crawling around on the roofs um they're going to check um to what work um is needed but

they're also going to check to see what work has already been done so we're hoping to um have items like uh upgrades were done on such and such a Time based on the equipment you know serial numbers things like it's going to be very in- depth and what's going to happen is um some of the work um at the end of all of this stuff um or I I would say a list of

both recom commendations and also um uh consideration to um if there is any PM work that they feel needs to be um let's say if we're doing something once a year they may say this part should be done twice a year three times a year um that work that will also show up in in the document that they're going to produce it'll be it'll be a document that we can

work off of will the documents be for each individual facility will be so they'll they'll spell out all of the equipment in each facility and then they'll spell out what work needs to be done what work has already been done so it's sort of like a map of each facility where we've been what we've done and where we need to go to right and that's the long-term projection long long long-term projection they'll also um at

our request uh put together a um a capital plan that goes along with that so we're telling you to do X Y and Z this is the cost do X Y and Z you know with an escalator as to when we do it we know that right now the the uh driver of uh most of the um projects is about a 5% escalator from year to year so if we

plan on doing a new roof for instance if there's a roof that is that is giving us an issue they're going to say that if you do it this year it's x amount of dollars continue to you know extrapolate that out over the amount of years before you do the roof and they'll highlight by um necessity so to speak so so I'm speaking out of the uh the turbulence that we uh we suffered

through all summer with the mold issues at the lerno at the green I worked at the green I remember when the hva systems weren't really working at Peak Performance even when I was there over 10 years ago um this is a good idea to keep to keep U ahead of things as long as it's followed through and who do these contractors answer to your department or they answer to us and the

city so basically they answer to the school committee as well oh yeah ABS the school committee has got to approve the doc everything they do absolutely so if something goes Ary they answer to us right right um as far as the issues that we went through last summer are they going to be able to help us work uh in a proactive sense to try to head off any Future Mold is issues because of the uh

debilitating effects it could have on our on our staff and our students what we're looking for is exactly that okay I I need to know what's wrong and if it's something that we're doing wrong I need to know that you know if it's something we're not doing or if it's something we're doing in a way that we could do better that's what we want out of this report but we also need to

know what kind of dollar value we're putting on all of this work yeah um so that we can plan with the city you know the city's asking us right actually we we have a due on the 15th of this month a capital Improvement plan of what we anticipate for the next 5 years and and most of it is is work that's already that we've already tried to plan um and

we just keep pushing it out you know financially where it's going to be um but part of their work will be to take a look at at that Capital Improvement plan and see if our priorities are where they need to be and make adjustments moving forward from there are we going to retain the services of of that mold consultant the do Dr Bill so we are uh uh Terell Mr Terrell yes so we haven't I

haven't talked to Mr Terrell in quite some time I know he was traveling um and every time I've reached him that's the message I got that he was away um Mr Terrell had mentioned to us um not not right at the beginning but that he was slowly going to retire he's not going to walk away away from the company but he he's going to slowly retire and um that

he would um work you know do work for us when we needed it um we obviously have other Consultants that we work with uh other companies to do this work so what we're hoping to do is to retain Mr Terrell to do some items that we would like him to do he has a very good handle on um preventive maintenance and the certain things that we need to Target in preventive maintenance so with that

being said I I would like to continue working with him um when he comes back you know when he's available um we would like to have a you know a conversation with him on what that piece of the work would cost us one last question so the overall goal it seems to me of this is to create some type of a a capital Improvement plan on our facilities would that help us to spend our money more

efficiently absolutely what we need to do is be proactive and unfortunately last year put us in a very reactive mode and that's not where we need to be reactive in making repairs makes the repair but it's it's that one it's it's in the moment yeah and what we need to do is try and head off some of the things and and a lot of it is the fact that up until the last let's say three

three years four years the dollars have not been necessarily invested in the building um we started investing heavily when when when uh the money came around and obviously with some uh different funding here and there but it now that we're built you know that msba is not going to be a major portion of what we do moving forward um we need to be able to figure out where we're going to we're

going to let me end on a positive note uh so just recently I delivered some turkeys to the Watson School just last week and um I was I was fairly Blown Away by the uh the level of improvement in that one facility itself from the windows to the painting to the overall Vibe of the building uh and and everybody was noticing it oh the vibe in the building is just wonderful and the

improvements were intense so we have that capability to keep our buildings up to Snuff I say let's do it thank you I yeld s so do we have didn't we have a an update on equipment like a survey done recently do we are we starting from scratch or do we I thought we had you so we have so when um I won't mention the company's name but when we did um some of the work with

the the easer money the buildings that they were involved in um they did a full walk through prior to that we had brought in a company to do a a just an hdac um MEP look at a quick look at snapshot of what we have and then come up with a spreadsheet that would allow us to work off of that so it was a it was a big ticket item it was shortterm money it

was probably 15 to 17 million where about 18 to 19 million with the Easter money that we've done of that major list but it only hit three schools so moving forward we now have to take a look at that list which all of this everything that we have that we've done these prior studies or or audits so to speak for lack of a better term those are all being will be handed over to the company

walking in the door so they're not trying to go back and do work that's already done um because there's a lot of information within the documents that we had done in previous so my uh I think it's a good idea to do this but my concern is that how did we get to the mess we were in recently Y and what are we doing about it like I just don't want

to move and say let's just move forward and not address how did we get to this point things as you just said that we could do better things that we did wrong things that we didn't pay for at the right time whatever it is but I don't want it to just be let's move forward let's figure out how do we sort of mess up a few things maybe absolutely and

then at that point we can they can tell us this is what we don't do like one that gets me all the time is a couple years ago we shut the air conditioning off yep like who the hell does that you know but that's clearly something not something that we should do you got to handle the you know moisture in the buildings and all that so I think we

learn the hard way on that but we should should have learned we shouldn't even had to learn the Hardway so that's why I'm trying to figure out they're going to look at the they're going to look at what you know whatever piecing stuff together don't pie something together that's wasting money to try to do this and do that you know so I think it and it says in here about being

comprehensive uh so I totally get that um one part in here said about the maintenance HRA Tech being on the committee or some kind of thing it's on um just circle it says that when they meet they're going to have an a TR technician be the person on the as part grp as part of the group so it'll we have inhouse person we'll have some in-house person that will be here

working on this someone that works for us so it says representative and it says parenthesis H technician yeah dep part but I think that should read you or director or something you know what I'm saying like we can when I see HRA technician in um parenthesis I think that's qual for the h technician but that's more of a l you need you or a director if you have one in place or somebody Everything is Everything has

got to run through so the one thing nice about Pages said I don't care it's like five or four the one thing nice about doing a project like this in a in a study way is that we're going to be able to drive it right so we're going to be able to drive it where we want it to go and and um and I believe that um yeah this was on bullet number two under the

project parameters yeah scope and Status it just struck me that put in the word h technician might be limiting it to who it should be like who the superintendent or yourself feels like wants to yes be representative and then we want to be able to not point but have somebody to say you were there for all this stuff right it's anct techncian they don't they're not the boss of anybody no how

do we hold them accountable to um the other thing I I I think I know the answer to this but the policy on repairs and who pays so this is going to be a hell of a bill at the end of the day they're going to provide us a thing and it's going to say we owe if we want to do all this work it's going to cost us $50 million right who's going to pay

that bill and what is the policy currently on how that goes because we don't want to get into something to say oh we're going to do this and then we're going to think the city's paying and then they're going to think that we're paying like I I think it needs to be maybe not part of this but needs to be compensation right now it's anything over 150,000 the city pays right so as

this member that's what I'm voting on right that the city's going to pay they can raise revenue we can't right so if we do this study that says we need $50 million in repairs in the buildings and the policy is that they pay everything over 150,000 right we shouldn't be sitting here saying how are we going to come up with the money do it we can't bond we we can't raise revenue all that stuff

so I think in collaboration with this I think it needs to be be acknowledged from the administration we're asking for how much it's going to cost but this isn't a cost that the school department takes and if that is the case let's tell us now before we go plan this right because if the school Department's going to take the this fee I'm going to say no to this because we are going to approve

like we can't do it right we we don't have the means to actually do this so I think at the full committee I'd like some sort of put it on a record from you guys to say this is what we have to do to pay sure otherwise I want to vote no okay thank you are you sir yeah to follow up on that are there any Department of energy grants towards projects like HVAC projects or anything

like that so there's a few things um and I don't know um I don't know the political side of of where all of it's going to go but there are new initiatives that that are coming out right now most of them are to deal with energy uh and uh some of them are funded by by um National dollars and some of them are State dollars one of them is a

a a green roof initiative so the roof is um is an acceptable conduit excuse me if a roof is an acceptable conduit for a solar system and we're willing to put the solar system on they'll pay for the roof and that's running through msba so msba is going to be the conduit in order to get the money because they have the the the ability to um with the engineering

side of it to to do all of that and then check come down check and see whether or not the school is legitimate for for that particular P then we can go through Ms then we can go through msba for that funding which is a no cost to the district no cost to the city that's the kind of stuff that we'll be able to do so that's roofs we also uh there was

initiatives on on um on heat pumps some other energy saving pieces right that are major major you know you buy a unit with one ton for instance is a small re small unit it's $2,500 rebate you know so those are the kind of things that are out there and and the companies that would that will bid on this work are going to know all of that okay it's part of what they do because that'll be work

that they'll have in the future now this company who doing so they'll be able to propose that to you exactly exactly once they take this on they exclude themselves so basically the company who bids on this won't be able to bid the work they'll be able to bid the design and that's it what they're going to give us so the company whatever company this is um they don't Grant seek though right

sorry no no no they don't do any of that they don't do any of that stuff this company is going to hand us a document what this what this will show us is in the in the report they will say you have an opportunity to apply for this Grant and that Grant and this grant okay because of the nature of the work that we're doing the rebate system the the last school so they are knowledgeable

about Grant because they do this work also but if they choose to do this side of the work for whatever reason um then they'll be giving us at least Direction the way they go just in my in own inquisitiveness um you said that there's going to be one of our own Department people uh in HVAC right and will will that HVAC is that correct so it might not be the HVAC person it will be

someone who has some HB background and and within our school department right who will answer to me is is there any any any chance that we can partner with diamond on on those kids in the HVAC program on minor repairs or anything like that the problem is is if it's work that's um I don't know how to say it without sounding like um Union work has to be done by Union employees yeah so

they're not eligible to do some of the work Diamond's going to do a lot Diamond's helping us with this building here yeah they're helping us with the woodwork outside um because it's historic preservation um there's there's a learning piece with that the repetition work that we're looking for on a project like this is not as educationally sound yes it's just repetition it's like changing life I was

just thinking in terms of partnership that's all but they may but they may you strengthening our partn we wouldn't we would never turn away you know we have our Construction craft labor program that we try and get involved in a whole bunch of projects y um we wouldn't be um so ultimately now the the last question I'm going to ask is for all of these all of the movement that's going to go on

with this piece you're going to be at the wheel yes steering it if the superintendent chooses me if I'm lucky enough um yes I will be I will I will keep my eye on it good thank you very much I S okay on to that to refer motion refer second de col Mr AA yes Mr Cory yes M lar yes on to 32 discussion vote to refer Transportation invitation for bid for yellow bus services

Mr so this is um an invitation for bid um for the items listed on on the letter it's typical Transportation canny vento Transportation late buses and athletic and extracurricular activities uh this contract hasn't changed much over the years um the roots are getting bigger uh the amount of buses um that we use um is much larger uh and quantity wise many more buses than we used to have

um a lot more Riders so to speak um but this um is all inclusive of of almost everything except for um special special education so root buses this would entail root buses the mckenny vento is the only specialized piece of this Transportation um and then the um the late buses and athletic MH and normally and this will go out but there may be more than one um winner right so someone

could bid just on mckenny vento rides someone could bid just on on um the athletic and or someone could take the whole thing if they wanted to bid on each and every item anything so the uh I know the special letter was already done because of the electric bus isue right we already approved that right so with this uh new package what is different than the prior package was this a 5-year contract so

this is a this is a three-year contract with 2 years extension so we didn't go straight was St 5 um what we're hearing is that nobody wants to lock into a 5-year contract because of the volatile market and how the escalators are starting to work into all of this um there's slowly but surely there's some large bus companies not necessarily in area but in other parts of the state that are scooping up smaller companies

and um they just want to test the water so these nobody wants to lock into a 5year term for a couple of reasons they can't put in enough of an increase um and um they're very concerned about the labor market and having be a get D so we have one more year left in in um the current contract so the next school year is covered right and then um we will be I'm

sorry yeah this contract will go into effect in September so the other one is ending the F ending yes we did this 5 years ago this was 5 years ago and there's no one year cuz five is the max so you can't do like one and one like the other yes so what we'll do is we'll do a three we'll go to if the school committee wants to do this this um ifb

um as it is we'll do a three-year contract with the twoyear two one-year extensions we'll still go to uh City Council on the following day so we would try and put this on the agenda um or the following month it would matter which to get them to approve a 5year cuz technically it's a 5-year contract even though it's a three and one in one we wouldn't want to have to go back again

and what changes done to the package anything are we looking so there's some small changes um there's obviously uh a small increase in price um what is in here is the option for electric buses so if the electric bus phase three which is where um this would come into play if that comes into play then they have to work with us to negotiate the use of those electric buses um and how many we

wouldn't know how many we're getting yet um the the district currently along with the city the we have 10 buses of which um they will be in operation sometime this winter um the uh the uh actual terminal is ready um we just had it commissioned last week and um the next 10 Buck is also the same company the next round of the of the 44 passenger buses so those are um going to be going to the

same contractor which is the whing city um the difference is is they were the owner of the buses the second time the city's the owner of the buses the first time the only thing that changed in there is um the uh Grant opportunity was for us to also um do the um next charging station in that particular site the third round of this funding if it stays in place again um depending on

whether or not the program stays alive for one more cycle um we would be looking for uh typical transportation out of that group so we wouldn't be looking for the smaller buses we would be looking for a typical yellow um and with that one um whoever the winning bidder is this they would have to be willing to accept the terminal at their location or at our location if we if they don't

have the ability to have um a charging station where they're are depending on the power company so not much has changed as far as this would reflect uh routes and all that to save money that's on us so some of the routes yeah some of the routes have been so Deb has done a fantastic job with tightening things up on the routes um we are down on approving hardships we are up on

hardships um but we're looking for a little more criteria on the approval of the hardships we're trying to work with um with the vendors with all of our vendors to figure out how we can maximize um roots and um and time so we run out of time we don't run out of seats in the district yeah that's been our problem of the last two years two and a half years we attribute some of

that to construction but not all of it m um so um Deb is Deb cavalo is uh the director of transportation and what she's been doing is um working with lorri over the chain assistant superintendent um special education to uh come up with a uh A system that according to the rules door to door is not door too not physically stopping in front of one house door too the total definition from

the Department of Ed is getting getting it to within one side street so we're hoping to capitalize on that one piece saying that if this student at 190 North Main Street and this student at 210 North Main Street can meet then that's one stop instead of two which saves us 3 to 5 minutes 3 to five minutes means we got another stop we can make so we put maybe two more kids on that bus and the

idea would be to continue that process um so that's where we are trying to make Headway with um some of our special Transportation but also um even our regular route as we were we met today um we have some buses with 77 passengers on or 72 the capacity is 77 so we're maximizing the typical buses what we can't maximize is our other Roots our door too stuff because uh we're ring out

of time to keep it within the hour the whing city it's that's the Wailing City piece but it's also a problem we have in the city with construction and everything else that's what's really given us a tough time the last couple years there been a lot of road construction which means a lot of detours and um and then you know with the larger buses our our issue is narrow streets like it always has been um so

it's it's transportation and Fall River is not an easy thing and we're getting into the season where it becomes more difficult and the city pays the transportation yes and um has there been any discussion of them baring at that again we haven't heard anything as of yet but we haven't I don't know if we've cashed in any of our tickets yet so um I just think it's another thing to be clear about that we

are going to approve this but it's very clear that the city pays it yes we don't pay it the state doesn't give us money to pay for it the city pays it so when we approving this it's like yeah we're approving some language and obviously we' want to try to maximize and save the city money but this is the city's money not our money so we're taking a vote but

they're the ones doing the payment and I just think that needs to be very clear to everybody and when we go to the full committee sure uh about what it is the only other thing I would say is the the bus these regular buses so when we do like charter school or anything do you or do superintendent acknowledge when so we got to move our St times to make it

work for us right do we have authority to tell them to move the St times to make it work so that we can tear their buses as well or are we are they now we're paying plus we're locking them do we have the ability to tell anybody else that we're doing funding for which is probably only ausy right it's only ausy yes if we said in order to save the city

money ausy start time needs to move if it was the regular school superintendent comes to us we say yes I I'll have to get back to you because I think we do tear we made teer with them already but what I'm saying is maim more so like if you could if fitting that number of students into our stuff makes it more sense if there if they don't have to budge their times

and then we're just locked in that's just something for yeah I'll talk I think some three TI but we can't do a three tier if they're in the middle of the tier saying we're not moving our so we do a three tier with three schools it's a two-tier because we can't do three but we do two two and what we do is this school has seven buses the next school has three

three the other one has four so that's our three tier technically it's three schools but only two sets of so we could do what you just said similar um if if we can arrange times yep and um this might affect the because the trembly one is different is that trembly vot different than this one yes a lot different so uh what I would like to see is when in the bid somewhere if a

company is bidding on all the work for um the regular buses and they have access to Vans they should get first priority to get the van work if we're do going outside of like if trebley can't do it so now we go out to three different companies we should have something in here to say if you win the bid for the other piece you automatically uh the first call for the other so

we unofficially it's not in there but unofficially that is exactly what Miss cavalo does she calls the other companies who already have contracts with us and try and get them the issue is over always the Manpower it's not anything other yeah I'm just saying not make it unofficial I would think it's official if we put it as part of the bid to say you're going to also get first dibs on any extra van work or something

like that just to make sure that it's happening okay thank you I okay can I get a vote motion to approve forward second yeah M drag yes Mr Cory yes M ly yes on to three uh three discussion vote to for a renewal request from trembley's van transportation so uh tremley tremley provides all of our 7D Transportation um in and out of district and um we the track record uh from tremble

is very very good uh and we um we've had a relationship I I don't want to quote it because I haven't been here long enough to but I'm pretty sure that they've probably been with the district for at least 20 years if not longer um we're doing some kind of work for us so um what we did with um with tremble is we sat down with them and talked out um

what things we couldn't couldn't do with them um what we liked didn't like in the contract um and um also would for the first time um acknowledge that some of the things that change within the contract is not in our control and we didn't mention this a lot in the other pieces in the other contracts so uh one of the things is the changes with 7D Transportation that's been uh a a

particular piece of the contract um especially with a company like tremble who only does that kind of 7D transportation for us that when those changes happen um they usually you know take a hit on it if it's if it's a cost piece so we acknowledged that and said that we would negotiate if there are any changes that are financially burdening that they could not foresee at the time a contract

was was done um they also um the U monitors that work for trembl um are um probably some of our more veteran um monitors um and with um as I said with these companies scooping up all the smaller companies um what they're doing is is they're just outpricing people out of the market you know out paying them so to speak kind of you know with contracts so um we're looking at um uh

taking their contract uh it's prevailing wage so everyone bus drivers and and all of the people make prevailing wage the prevailing wage for the monitors is not quite um covering the cost so there is an increase here for monitors um and um there've always been 4our minimums um but it was never written so um when we uh sat down with um Mr tetrol one of the things that um he had asked was if we

could put that into the agreement um and the um the added van mileage cost um is pretty much holding um it's been right around this number for a while um it was I think $285 if I'm not mistaken so this would be any kind of extra rooting that they would do and they could prove that extra rooting to us uh via the methods they currently do um and then the um the again this would be a

three-year um with a 2year um two oneyear extensions year at a time not to Mr Cory basic question Kenny the monitors 4 hours how does that work they work in the morning to bring the kids to school then they are they off and then they come back to work in the afternoon most and even drivers are like that so so they un they have Works to do they work in different shifts but it's all

considered in the day's work it's the same they do stuff it's the same group of workers the same drivers the same monitors morning and afternoon except if there's a you know if there a there's a sick you know a sick call or something like that and it's important on the a of District that's a basic structure of the exactly yes right okay Mr AA the the amounts in here that's the prevailing wage or is that

the amount that the this is the amount that they this is the amount that they're asking the prevailing wages um this isn't the amount that the um the company has to make some of this no yeah that's not the that's not the actual rate no yeah and this is legal based on because the special education doesn't have to go exactly yes motional approve I have a question first So based

on their wage I mean their wages are pretty good so in a 4-Hour day is their morning shift considered a part of their 4H hour shift like 2 hours in the morning 2 hours in the afternoon is that how that breaks down basically is I'm not I'm not sure that they're only getting 4 hours what I think is the 4 hours for instance if we had an in an AED

District um up the cape and it was an hour there you know or if it was 45 minutes there or 40 minutes there they're going to get a 4H hour minimum for the day the driver is is also going to do the the vehicle check M the monitor is there they they go pick up the child and maybe a slight delay at the home for whatever reason and then wherever they're going to drop it off

they could hit traffic stuff like that so it's all fig it in the minimum would be 4 hours as far as the whole Transportation umbrella is concerned and I know I'm grateful that the city picks up the bill for the school department on this um well it was the city that devised the demographic map of all the new schools and when you look at the demographic uh travel areas in our city

it's sort of like very angular you got very you got Points North you got points South then you got Points East not a whole lot of points West and it's like uh there are certain outlying districts within the uh the region that make it difficult you know for kids to walk to a bus stop and so I I could see what Transportation costs would be increased over time but could you just pull a

number out of pull pull a number out of your hat about Cola increases per year is it does it raise 2% per year overall Transportation cost Cola raises has been in five sens in the last couple years 5 to 7% each year right that's considerable given given the size of the transportation budget right wow sag so the other thing I want to ask on Transportation is so the regular red one that we're voting on we

have to we were told last year that we were going to redistrict and re redraw all the lines and thing and I think that needs to happen I thought it needed to happen last year but the cost is tremendous for for why when schools are not drawn the lines aren't drawn right we got kids coming all over the place now we're transporting kids all over the place it's a mess and then we also have

situations where people are doing favors to give transportation so it's not all like there's all kinds of rationale for why people are getting Transportation I think we need to say enough's enough time out redistrict the whole school system know exactly where they're going and we know we can't do favors for people because somebody called it has to be the same way you eligible for it or

you're not I for it and that's a tough line people might not like it but we can't afford to keep doing what we're doing and if you did an analysis you're going to show us that it's crazy there's kids coming and going we fill up one school because of policies and kids are coming now that school's not done keep moving into that District where did that kid have to go that kid has to go

somewhere else guess what we pay Transportation or figure out a way to transport it is a absolute nightmare as far as for what uh M Valen has to deal with so we have to take a stand and say no we're not going to do it we're going to redistrict we're going to make some tough decisions but it's got to we got to reset the the whole place and this number will even if it just stays the

same it's a victory CU like you're saying it's 5% we can't keep holding it the same number every year and keep doing all these things it's it's crazy so the number has been around the same for the last several years hasn't gone up tremendous in my mind if at all but we're we're like you know we're up against it so Now's the Time let's fix it once in for all thanks I Mr Cory yeah

I agree I want to follow up on that I I know a few years ago there was a consultant's study of our bus routes and stuff uh that gentleman then I left the school board and I came back I lost track of all of that did anything come of his study so it's I mean what what came out of it is the fact that we have the system that operates so we have the

the um traversa system that is allows Miss B Call to um Miss cavalo sorry um Miss cavalo to do the um uh The Roots so we we double check so what we normally would do is we would we would send our names um and addresses bus company would take that build a route and then we would take it back make sure that everything was where we needed it to be

um and then we would know a capacity so every route is timed so we know exactly how much time we have left and then what Miss cavalo would do is if we get a request a hardship or we get a new student moving into the district or changing locations within the city she takes those those items puts it into the system that we have yeah and and does that the the the issue is is that our

our um we have a lot of students on Transportation I mean half of our students are transported by us the other half are by parents um but that's a lot of student students yeah it is it's 5 6,000 kids and it's um it's it's a it's a major it's a major it's very complex and we have more students writing overall including their please so you would say that that Miss cavalo has a

handle on abut on the efficiency of the demographic map itself for transportation and there's been a lot of good changes yeah um you know she that she's made that you know that made us a little more efficient um but it also is a work in progress there's there's a lot to do yeah and it's a changing work because right year to year there got to be some variables depending on what kids

are still in school and what kids are just coming up and where they live so it's a changing map all the time yes okay thank you thank you can I get a motion second uh Deb Please Mr yes Mr Cory yes yes Mr Pico we're moving on to 3 four Pace Building yes so uh a couple of things um on the Pace Building so we are um not through anyone's fault um but

we are about a month behind on um the completion of the roof at the building um some of it some of it has been um some unforeseen stuff some of it has been um a materialized issue like maybe not having everything um at the building on time um it hasn't been weather so we've been very fortunate for this whole project that the weather is um has been um you know really um I'm not going to

say pleasant but for roofers this is perfect weather for them to work uh and um that has helped us we also it's a complicated roof because we have to pull the rooftop units off we had um 18 um skylights in that building and add on another six rooftop units that have to be the C lot of work covered flashing all that kind of stuff take the room off put the put the

unit back down we got rid of all of the Skylight pieces which are very expensive to maintain but also they were going to be very expensive to replace so we covered over those areas um we've done some nice work on the inside of the building uh to make those areas look acceptable um it's also quieted down the building a little bit because that was an echo chamber um where those skylights were um

so we've done that work on the inside of the building that was all part of the project so school department hasn't had any expenses um on any of that work there was some HVAC work uh to disconnect the units to reconnect the units to um the old roof was um I'm going to use the term litter but it was was littered with piping everywhere um because the rooftop units were

changed from the old ones to the new ones and um it was the at the time it was the most economical way to do it so what we've done is we started to do it um about three or four years ago bringing all of those pipes inside the building would it protected that'll last longer but also um they're better insulated so more heat efficient um and now we as part of this project we were

able to bring more more of that work inside the building so we have very little sitting on top of the roof now um so that piece is has been done the last rooftop unit um is going to be um lifted on Monday and put back on Tuesday of next week um and that'll take care of all of the HVAC stuff on the roof so there'll be some minor work left to do

I'm hopeful that the work that's that's going on on the roof will be done um by the end of Christmas break and then in January um they'll be just doing some fine tuning um around the edges and stuff so that piece on is the roof side of it the um fire suppression system not quite sure when that bid is being opened I think it's within the next couple of weeks but I'm not

positive um but the um fire suppression bid is the next big piece of um of that project and um it it will allow everything in that building to move forward um with that being said our portion of the work at the pace um was put to a a halt um by me because I had to shuffle money around to make the other projects work so we had the playground project we did

have some stuff um a lot of copet work um a lot of tile work uh some H those more expensive than we thought correct those came in a greater cost so the the playgrounds came in much higher um not due to the playground price cuz that was locked in the playground prices were bit out quite a while ago um it was the site work at each one of the sites the site's a very difficult site so

251 um the slope on that property is significant so if you haven't been down to that particular building if you take a look at that you'll see that it's a retaining wall it's a short wall almost flush on one side and it's four or five U blocks high on the opposite side um so that was a major undertaking um very expensive proposition to make that um playground level and safe

um tany we move the playground from the back to the front for a couple of reasons the playground by Design um is bigger um for two reasons one for more use there's much more activities on that new playground at panzi but also um the concern by putting it by putting it in the back of the building um we took away would take away most of the yard the Playard in the back

sure so for recess and for other things that that they're not out in that play area and we're going to lose too much space in the back so we moved it to the front that created a situation where we had to um make a an area that was suitable for the play area so it meant digging up putting curbing Street curbing around it so that we could pour the rubber surface up against it and

install that playground so unanticipated because our intent was to put it in the back originally um the third playground that we did was um fansa fanska is a totally enclosed um Courtyard so we we literally had to to remove windows so that we could drive the equipment yeah through the building I area there yeah um we had to um the concrete was in rough shape we were removing some of it but some of the

concrete was in really bad shape um not on the surface but when we broke up the concrete on the other side it this spider cracks all over it was really damaged um so we decided to remove all of that concrete so we again Trucking all of that material in and out and then bringing the new material in and then again putting the playground in in pieces pouring the um the surface another 25 35

$40,000 of work by two or three different companies the glass work had to be done um on two sides of that building and then some repair work and we do have little touch-ups on tile that still have to be done fourth playground that we've installed is at the westall again West all is much worse than 2501 um on on the slope so we we have one playground which is up higher

um that now is age appropriate for the school we built a second playground um larger than the first one that has um swings and other things on it climbing um uh play areas and that one also had to be built up with so on one side we have nothing on the other side we have six layer High which is how bad that is and then every one of these playgrounds

with the exception of fansa we had to put fencing around for protection both for protection mostly on on both of them the playground also at the um one one last thing the playground at 251 we had to put netting on um because when the kids were out there with a ball if they let the ball roll it probably end up a day Village down Summit Street so what we needed to do was make sure that

that play area was going to be something that they could be in and and feel safe and the instructors and who Zed teachers would not necessarily be concerned about them throwing a ball around or something like that my my question um how are the rest rest of the playgrounds are we doing preventative what are those looking like so some of them we've already done some repairs some small repairs um we're

developing a list of play areas we um with um which ones from you know from obviously from bad to to uh to in good shape we do have quite a few of them that um with minor repair we can do the the the biggest issue with all of our play areas is the surface so the surface on the play areas is really bad um the this is Third Generation in the new ones

so this was when this rubber surface just came about um so there's not a lot of of um of uh cushion so to speak the new ones the process is much different the preparation under the ground is much different um so we will eventually have to to do all the playgrounds um some of the equipment in some schools like lal's little top area is in great shape the little um area the big area not so much

but the little area of the the ground surface needs to be redone so we're going to prioritize that um that as one piece right so when we do our Capital all at once and get crushed so with that being said um the the hold on Pace is strictly a financial hold yeah um but there's a small piece of it that's a Time hold and not much of it we were expecting to get

into the building um to start the um uh buildout of the 14 classrooms um probably by February looks like that's going to probably get pushed into March um depending on when the fire suppression um contract gets approved and they get started once that happens the areas that um we need to work in to do the pace work will be available for us to do that work once we put the petitions up we

just added a lot of work for everyone else to try and um lay all of that um piping for the fire suppression system up in the ceiling so um my ask um here um is that we um have a conversation or allow us to have a conversation uh with um St Anthony the desert um parish and um Conley and Conley to see if we can rent those two spots for one more

year the I asked a question to both uh entities and um one was a yes and the other one was um we'll get back to you and and we now know that that is a yes um we haven't negotiated numbers um but that is um so you got two yeses so we've got two yeses um that they would um sit down and negotiate an additional year um by doing that obviously it gives us um time

that we don't have currently so they would be are you going to need a whole year or can you move out mid year I I don't I I think back to the work at Green and Spencer Bard and when they moved in at a half year was a nightmare um it's it's very uh disruptive to everyone and you you've got such a short amount of time to have everything ready

so I would ask that we go for the full contract and then we would um at that point we would play it by year um we our same intent is to um attack that building as quickly as we can so we won't stop financially I don't know where we'll be I think that some of it is hinging on other things going on in the district uh financially which the committee is aware of so uh depending on

on what we have available um we'll see where we go but this um I and I I want to preface this by saying that the the 750 the over uh on the playgrounds that's all me that's not um and I you know I've let the superintendent know that I should have come to the district first and then brought it to the school committee so that we could fix I don't know how we

would fix it I and the only thing I want to say about construction is I've been in business for most of my adult life and um change order is invented in construction business um because there's so many issues that can come up and this was yeah this was four four playgrounds that were not your typical playground um I the green school as typical as that was still had its own

issues that we did the year before um that one had its own little uniquness um but it it did um it did not have these walls and um topography changes in in the in the property that made it almost impossible to do it um for anything less so that piece is on Mr Cory yeah so no no I I I get it you know these These are we took on 251 and we

took on West all as of last year you know to fulfill our requirements to U for early childhood and this is what comes with the territory so you got a good handle on it Ken and I and furthermore I trust you and um you needed to put a stop to the Pace Building as far as the Pace Building is concerned I got a question for you madam superintendent when when it comes to the

ancillary space in the Pace Building what are the plans for the extra space in there the ancillary spaces any ideas in turn which in the Pace Building like once it once it opens are they going to be extra offices maybe placed there I don't know if you guys have discussed any of that yet we haven't we haven't discussed any plans beyond what had been plan for um for prek um there how much extra space is that

so depending on um the the layout of the 14 classrooms is going to take up um the I keep calling it the airplane room CU that's how I remember it but the the room that had the the airplane in it the next environmental science room the two um carpentry areas the end um that whole area will be classrooms 14 classrooms there'll also be uh classrooms up in the next space which was was the um engineering space

Su area there right so that area and then the very next one would be an indoor recess area for the little ones when the weather is bad sure right right there so in that particular Wing there would be no extra space um I don't know what is planned for the opposite side of the building the music Wing my guess is is that at some point the conversation has been since the bridge came down that it would

be nice to have that as part of the Performing Arts Center and hopefully that's a city project um whether we maintain the building or not is a is a conversation for another time but I I believe that that is the only place that it'll be is that Auditorium shut down right now and not the auditorium is shut down because of roof leaks the National Guard is using it yeah um they do

practice on the stage um and then they do have all of the other area to themselves that's the only space that's left the auditorium in the music Wing ex the music Wing only that's what they're using right okay um in your in your overall view of the district in in our facilities um we had that glaring mold issue this past summer which buildings are in low-lying or like high water

table areas and are those is that a factor in the mold I think there's a whole bunch of things that are factors in the mold the old of the building so so there's a point where the HVAC system um takes control over the building our real older buildings like Watson and westall didn't have those issues because the building um was breathing the building you know there was enough there was enough air

infiltration that stopped that they also are two buildings that are located where there is no water issues right but we do have buildings Henry Lord for instance um is one it's a wetland Lal was until they built up a lot of the backland um and now it's not um so the drainage I I would think that latero suffers a little bit from all of the construction that's going on around it it did but it it it

it seems to have leveled off because when we do some of that groundwater testing um we didn't see a lot there and I went back and look at some of the documents um during construction um and it was um it wasn't an issue you know it wasn't an issue there we didn't hit a lot of groundwater um green was no issues not a lot of groundw but anytime you have a building that's subsurface so

you you green is half in half out dor is L that took a major hit in the floods of 2010 wiped out the gym right so overall most of the buildings the hvc system is the key to all of this and and removing humidity in large quantities is is a to do it until you have a system that's designed to do that work a regular system isn't and none of those schools

with the exception of Morton and Derpy were designed with dehumidification in the process so now with the new plan that we're going to approve in place you're going to be able to stay proactive with all of the HVAC systems districtwide as long as we can secure financing we can do everything okay Saga so uh the the reason why this is on the agenda so I chair the early college early

childhood so I had asked this be on there because of the P you know go back to February January of last year you can go back and look at the records it's very clear to me what happened last year is oh was too late but we got to deal with prek we got to deal with the uh lines drawn all that stuff I have pretty good memory of exactly what happen and if I don't I'll

go watch the video again I was under the belief right from the Geto that after this year we talked about controversy to tany school what are we going to do we fell on this and we were told by PR superintendent but he was assistant and by Chico we were going to do the pay center so I'm of the belief that we're still doing the pay center we were told

that the roof was going to get done we were told that fire suppression was going to get done everybody knew it needed to get done in time for us to move forward with our stuff so I'm operating under that belief and I wanted to schedule meeting because no was talking about the P so the reason why this is even here was because I had asked superintendent to put it on she

asked to put it on this agenda just to speak about it because we already had the meeting it's also on the agenda for next week for the early Chanel because that's a more how we're going to deal with prek across the whole so I think it's probably more appropriate for that discussion then how we going to do prek like the two um leases and all that stuff isn't necessarily for the

facilities piece but we're going to have that discussion one way or another next week but you know I'm not happy about how this whole thing went down mhm I am trying to figure out and I ask you for a bunch of stuff I got nothing got nothing well because I I have to request things as well understand so I asked you for some stuff and I got received zero is

what I'm saying today okay so I've asked for over a year probably for the documents relative to the roof U check the records anybody wants to challenge it check the records I asked in public meetings I asked the mayor what where is it how much is it going to cost when were the bids happening when is it going to stop when is it going to end how much is it going to cost where's the accounts

coming from and I've received zero answers from anybody on this team or this or the May and the city side so I don't know what the heck happened with how this delay happened or where the money was coming from not only on the city Side just that's just a curiosity more than anything because they're paying it right but our side how do we not budget like where was this money coming from which is one of

the things I asked you for like M so when we started back whenever we were told we had the money face we had the money for this we had the money for this we had the money for the playgrounds we so we we voted on these things and then we get no answer from anybody so we can only assume that everything's on track so now because I asked to have the

meeting now all of a sudden this is here oh we don't have the money for the it it really is something that is not sitting well with me and I think it's a system issue like where did the money where was the money budgeted because I think it feels to me like we were promis things with money in like a three card Monty or some we don't know exactly where the money's coming

from where I was of the belief if we said we had 3.9 million which is what's here there's an account that said pay center 3.9 somebody had to be watching that account to say we got 3.9 for the pay center this year it's simple it sounds simple but it shouldn't this didn't happen how did that 39 turn to whatever now we we got 32 because we had to take 700 of it that's the problem that I'm

having with how how the hell are we here and now we're sort of like oh we don't have a choice and it's just frustrating and I'm going to go more into it hopefully I get the information I asked for and then figure it out next you know so now we say okay we're going to go lease sounds good but it's $600,000 approximately that we're going to pay for a lease it's not coming out of the 4

five budgeted for the pace so that's 600,000 we're not getting anything out of it other than we're spending another 600,000 and I'm saying 300 for each of them roughly right that 600,000 is one fif of the you know of the whole picture at some point we're going to run out of money and I just don't feel like we're getting enough solid we just keep being told yes we have the money and nobody

it's like if you say we have the money show us the account put your money in the account we do a lot of this stuff moving stuff around and the committee is sitting here saying who do we believe at some and some people just want to believe whatever anybody says but we have been proven now and this is another example we need to tighten up our fiscal controls which I've been saying for how

long because this should not have been allowed to happen the playgrounds are great I'm all for the playgrounds I would have love to have been able to determine well maybe we don't have the money for if we're going to sacrifice the pace situation maybe we only did three playgrounds but keep the pace on track I never got a chance to vote on that because we're just told after the fact so you know I'm frustrated with it

I I think the city I don't know how the how this uh suppression is not bid yet I don't know enough I asked for all the records I asked for emails I asked for like how the hell is this oppression not bid and the job's getting done like I don't understand well the job is not so they haven't started any of the f supr question no that's what I'm saying oh

yeah how does it not I don't know what what level it's we're probably talking March probably March when we made the thing about the Tanz and we had all this controversy right at the time the city was like no we know we know it has to get done we know that this has to get done in order for this to go wi the pace so the reason why we didn't do the tany

or any other those other moves was because we were told by this Administration or the private Administration that we were going to be ready to go and we know in order to do that we have to get the fire done on time the building done on time I even said it I don't think we're going to get it done we better be careful now look at this we don't even have the fire

suppression bid done and it's almost turn of the year I don't I don't know how anybody can look at this and just say that this was a good situation because it was a mess and I'm not happy about it we'll talk more about it when I get the the info and the reason why I asked for the info is only because somebody's got to try to figure out how did we get to this

place and I think at some point the budget I ask for a budget Stu I think sometimes the CFO needs to be here too and say how are we allowing this stuff to go on because we can't just sit here and say yes we allowed an account to go $700,000 in a hole and nobody notified the school committee just shouldn't happen so at the next meeting I appreciate the CFO or somebody from his office being there

oh uh any new business come before us tonight I got one I got one yes so yesterday I read the heal the health and wellness committee agenda I don't know if that was the agenda was a memo notes whatever was on the thing that came through it indicated the Spenser Bard and fire issue was there was different information by somebody that put it out there and I wasn't at the meeting so I don't know

what it is but if you could please look into that try to figure out because they sent notes from the meeting today is that what you saying no they I think it was on the agenda so like when you get invited it said the agenda they actually had some comments from people that were concerned about at Spencer Bard and I think teachers probably could have wrote some complaints I see in those

complaints the one about the fire okay is different than the information we were given and I'm not passing judgment on okay either way but it was opposite of what we had so you could please look at that and say Here's what the story is here's what the camera show here's what whatever it just what their information that they presented was different they also thre a lot of other stuff that I

think the full committee should get about mold being in certain rooms and you know just kind of look through their notes and say I think you're going to see that we should get some correspondence on Truth or mistruth or half truth on any of that stuff are you thank you can I get a motion to adjer so so moved second yep Mr yes Mr Cory yes m l yes