Updates on the Fight for Quality Public Education in Brevard County, FL
0:00 Good afternoon. This afternoon we have a work session on several
0:09 policies and an update on our sales surtax.
0:12 Pam, roll call please.
0:13 Mrs. Belford? Present.
0:15 Mrs. McDougal? Present.
0:17 Mrs. Deskovich? Present.
0:19 Mr. Susan? Present.
0:21 And Mrs. Campbell? Present.
0:22 Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.
0:27 Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America
0:31 and to the republic for which it stands,
0:34 one nation, one our God, indivisible, with liberty and justice
0:38 for all.
0:39 We have Board Policies 2371, Hope Scholarship, 5350, Student Suicide,
0:48 8390, Animals on District Property,
0:52 400, Environmental Health and Safety Issues, and 9160, Public
0:57 Attendance.
0:58 Looks like all of those belong to Student Services, so I will
1:01 now turn it over to Chris Moore, Assistant Superintendent.
1:04 Hey, thank you guys.
1:05 We have Patricia Fontaine with us today and Jamie Jenkins, both
1:08 directors for Student Services,
1:10 as we work through the policies and have any questions, they’re
1:12 available to help.
1:14 Section 371, Hope Scholarship, this policy is being developed in
1:17 compliance with applicable Florida law.
1:19 This policy provides that students in public schools are
1:22 eligible to apply for a Hope Scholarship
1:25 if they are subject to an incident as that term is defined in
1:28 Florida statute.
1:29 The policy outlines provisions related to eligibility, required
1:33 investigations, parental notification,
1:36 statewide assessments, and the terms of a Hope Scholarship.
1:39 This new policy outlines that students are eligible for a Hope
1:42 Scholarship
1:43 if it is established that the student was subjected to and
1:46 subsequently reported an incident.
1:49 These proposed revisions, they’re not revisions, this proposed
1:53 new policy encompasses the suggested language of Neola.
1:57 Anyone have any questions on the Hope Scholarship policy?
2:02 I have a, I’ll ask a quick question, kind of related, but well,
2:09 it is, but while Katie’s finding hers.
2:14 I, we are incorporating statutory language by utilizing the term
2:21 subjected to, right?
2:24 And I ask that kind of as a, like, I already know the answer to
2:28 it,
2:28 but I feel like it’s important for the public who may be paying
2:31 attention to know that,
2:32 that subjected to and reports to a principal could mean a whole
2:37 lot of things.
2:39 The other piece in that policy that I, I’m pretty sure it’s
2:43 coming from statute,
2:44 and that is, or at any other school.
2:47 So, the point of the Hope Scholarship, and I understand it, and
2:52 I support that we want to keep kids from a going environment,
2:55 but in the statutory language, I’m not sure that they
2:59 necessarily achieve that,
3:01 primarily because we are basically saying, if my daughter is
3:05 walking down the hall,
3:06 and she sees two students get in a fight, and maybe it’s not
3:10 even at her school,
3:11 maybe she’s visiting the middle school to shadow another student
3:14 today,
3:15 and she sees two kids get in a fight, and she reports it to the
3:18 principal,
3:19 she’s eligible for a Hope Scholarship.
3:21 I think it really defines out the eligibility, and you are
3:26 correct, subjected to, is left open.
3:31 With the Hope Scholarship application, it details a little bit
3:38 more about what has to be in place
3:41 for the Hope Scholarship to be granted, and we get many more
3:44 applications than are granted
3:47 based on that eligibility requirement.
3:49 Okay, could you share that application?
3:52 I think we have, was it part of the, it wasn’t part of the
3:56 policy, was it?
3:57 I don’t think it’s attached to this, but we can.
3:59 You don’t have to, you have it, if you want to.
4:03 And the form that was created was required from the Florida
4:08 Department of Education,
4:10 so we have to use this form, we can’t deviate from the form.
4:14 I’m trying to figure out what’s the easiest way to find it.
4:17 Yeah, there were some districts that tried to add clarifying
4:20 language to the DOE form,
4:22 and their hands were slapped pretty quickly.
4:24 Got it.
4:25 So, we don’t.
4:25 I’ll be honest, I was one of them.
4:28 What I try to do on the form, let’s see if I can log in.
4:38 And this is our internal website where it has all the documents
4:41 for the investigation process.
4:48 I know we have a tight agenda, it might be something we have to
4:51 get to you.
4:51 And that’s my problem.
4:52 Yeah.
4:52 Yours are short?
5:04 Do you want to go ahead and ask them while they’re looking for
5:06 more?
5:06 So, and Eve talks about statewide assessments.
5:09 I’m just curious, do those, does that mean that if they have a
5:13 HOPE scholarship,
5:14 even if they go to a private school, they still are going to be
5:18 taking the FSA?
5:19 And they can.
5:21 There’s a choice.
5:22 So, if you’re a letter that we’re currently sending out to all
5:24 our private schools in the district,
5:26 who have McKay scholarships, HOPE scholarship students,
5:29 and the private school sends that information to the parents
5:33 that they would like,
5:34 they don’t have to, but if they would like to participate or
5:36 stay with assessments,
5:37 there’s a process that explains it in the letter.
5:40 So, there’s an opt-in that they have to take.
5:42 And then, if they take those assessments, do they count back to
5:47 their homeschool, or is it just…
5:50 No, it doesn’t count to ours.
5:52 That does not, okay.
5:53 And then, and AFIT talked about the eligibility remaining of
5:56 fours.
5:57 Does that mean even if they start in, say, kindergarten,
6:00 then they’re eligible to keep the HOPE scholarship all the way
6:02 up through 12th grade?
6:03 Okay.
6:04 And if it’s a public school, through the end of that grade level,
6:07 that’s cool.
6:08 So, they got it in kindergarten, they were at one school, school
6:11 A, and they went to school B.
6:13 They keep, they’re there through the end of sixth grade.
6:15 When they get to middle school, they kind of have to reapply.
6:17 Okay, so it doesn’t go from kindergarten to 12th.
6:20 Well, the school level changes,
6:22 Yeah, so they have to choose to tell what school they’re going
6:24 to go to.
6:24 Okay, gotcha.
6:25 And that’s kind of public McCaith scholarship.
6:29 It’s the thing, very simple, pretty much exactly the same as the
6:32 McCaith scholarship public schools.
6:34 So, this is the form from the DOE, and this is the form that we’re
6:38 required.
6:39 We cannot alter this form, because if you, this is the same form
6:43 that if they get it,
6:44 and they choose to go to a private school,
6:46 they have to scan and email the original form to the website, to
6:50 the tax scholarship website for them to process.
6:52 So we, and the reason I learned I did, I was one of the school
6:56 districts that edited.
6:58 I wasn’t going to send her out.
7:00 That was nice.
7:01 Because at the bottom of the form,
7:03 where it says to transfer your students to another public school,
7:05 please contact your school district office.
7:07 I actually put our link and our information in there,
7:09 because it doesn’t tell them who to call.
7:13 It just says district office, so I wanted to be more specific,
7:16 so I actually put our information on there,
7:18 and then a parent submitted to the, to the state, and they
7:22 immediately called me and said,
7:23 you can’t have them there, you’ve got to take it off, you have
7:25 to use this form,
7:27 you can’t edit it, you can’t make any changes to it.
7:29 Wow.
7:30 And still, even on the form, there’s, there’s no…
7:35 Shame on you for trying to be more helpful.
7:37 I know, right.
7:38 I’ll get off my soapbox.
7:41 Thank you, I love you very much.
7:43 Any additional questions on the policy from anyone?
7:45 All right, back to you.
7:47 53.50, student suicide.
7:50 This policy is being revised to clarify procedures for ensuring
7:54 all staff have access to suicide prevention resources
7:57 through professional development and other changes in compliance
8:00 with applicable Florida law.
8:02 Particular areas of revision include the following.
8:05 Title change to student suicide awareness and prevention,
8:08 and in-service requirements for schools to become a suicide
8:11 prevention certified school.
8:13 These proposed revisions encompass the suggested language from EOA.
8:19 Any questions, comments, or concerns on policy for the 5.3.5.0?
8:24 Yeah, just a really quick one on E3.
8:30 The SRI, we’ve had, leading to a Baker Act, we’ve had
8:39 conversations about this before, about who does them,
8:41 and it seems pretty clear, but nowhere in there does it say
8:45 anything about our SRO,
8:46 and actually, this whole policy about our SROs being involved.
8:50 So, I know, they can Baker Act separately, right?
8:53 Well, we don’t Baker Act, we do the SRI process, and then we
8:56 kind of, but it seems like we’ve had some problems,
9:01 especially in the younger grades this year, with an increase in
9:04 the number of the Baker Act,
9:07 and we’ve had some conversation about, you know, increased
9:10 presence of law enforcement,
9:12 maybe, maybe, been correlated to an increase in that.
9:16 So, is that, is this a change from what we’ve done before at all?
9:20 It is not.
9:21 That language was added because the, there was legislation
9:25 written that specified that you have to use certain instruments
9:29 for your SRI process.
9:31 We were already using those instruments, but when they went in
9:35 to add the certified,
9:36 suicide certified prevention schools, they said you can’t, you
9:40 can’t even be a certified prevention school
9:42 if you don’t do certain things in your policy, including saying
9:46 you’re going to use the DOE SRI approved instrument,
9:51 which we already do.
9:52 One of them is the Columbia, and we use that as a second tier to
9:56 our process.
9:58 Well, the only other thing I would just add is just a compliment.
10:00 This isn’t, I know some of us may have come straight up, but
10:02 this policy is much clearer,
10:04 much more specific than the current, so I think it’s.
10:07 It’s Jaina and her team.
10:09 Yay.
10:09 Any additional comments, questions, or questions?
10:14 It’s on policy 5350, student suicide prevention.
10:18 Okay, back to you, Chris.
10:22 All right, 8390, animals on district property, a policy two
10:27 years in the main,
10:28 making, I believe, this is a proposed new policy to address
10:31 service animals on district property
10:34 for students, employees, parent legal guardians, vendors,
10:37 visitors, others, and other changes
10:40 in compliance with applicable state and Florida law.
10:42 There are currently a number of policies that mention animals on
10:47 district property.
10:48 The passage of this proposed new policy is in compliance with
10:51 House Bill 71 in order to comply
10:53 with Florida statute.
10:54 The proposed new policy includes a definition of service animal,
10:58 clarifies a vaccination, licensing,
11:02 vet requirements, eligibility for transportation of service
11:05 animals, removing and or excluding
11:07 service animals, and non-service animals on district policy.
11:11 New proposed administrative procedures for 8390 animals on
11:14 district property will be presented
11:17 for approval related to this policy.
11:18 The proposed new policy reflects the requirements set forth in
11:22 current state and Florida law.
11:24 Questions, comments, concerns?
11:28 I just have a comment.
11:30 I just want to really appreciate that you did not use biola as
11:35 any living dog creature.
11:38 I just want to really appreciate that.
12:08 animals are not considered service animals.
12:09 Correct.
12:10 Does that mean that we are not allowed to have an emotional
12:12 support animal for the district?
12:14 Well, so there’s two different things?
12:17 Yeah.
12:17 So that’s animals on, well that’s more of animals on district
12:21 property.
12:21 Yeah.
12:22 So the way service animals is you should relate it to a person.
12:26 Yeah.
12:27 So if I’m working with a student, that service animal has to
12:31 perform a task.
12:32 Mm-hmm.
12:33 Not just emotional.
12:33 So for, yes, for that student, I would be denying that request.
12:38 Now what I think you’re saying is can we have one for the
12:41 classroom?
12:41 Mm-hmm.
12:42 Like an emotional crisis team.
12:44 Or can, yeah, can we have a dog as part of our crisis team that
12:46 goes out to schools in response to crisis?
12:49 That would be a, follow the procedure of animals on, like the
12:52 specific animals on school property has not a service animal.
12:55 Like a service animal.
12:57 Yeah, like, yeah, whatever you want.
12:58 And there’s procedures in here on how to do that, how not to be
13:01 able to control the principal.
13:02 Where does it come out?
13:04 Okay.
13:04 I just wanted to make sure we weren’t eliminating that option.
13:07 No, it’s, let me look at this.
13:08 But non-service animals in schools in Ellsbury, it’s under D.
13:12 Yeah.
13:13 Under D?
13:14 Yeah.
13:15 So that’s still in there, but we just wanted, what happened, if
13:18 you look at the other policies, service animals was under ESC.
13:22 Right.
13:23 Service animals were not at ESC, it’s a section 504.
13:26 So we took it, and then we had animals and district property
13:29 under facilities, and we just took everything, put it on one
13:32 policy.
13:32 To make sure employees, people who want to move into public
13:36 events, we have one policy that has everything and not trying to
13:39 figure out where it was located.
13:40 So that’s why we kind of pulled it all together.
13:43 Thank you.
13:45 Okay, so do we do emotional support?
13:48 We have been.
13:50 I mean, we could have peacocks, we could have eggs.
13:52 We do not.
13:52 For student kids.
13:53 For students, please try.
13:55 For students, we do not.
13:55 For dogs, we do not.
13:56 So we have rabbits, we have all kinds of stuff, and teachers.
13:58 Yeah, and teachers’ classes are animals.
13:59 And non-service animals.
14:01 Okay.
14:01 Non-service animals.
14:03 I just want to make sure.
14:04 Horses are service animals, right?
14:05 But is that a miniature?
14:06 It’s a dog or miniature horse.
14:09 So rides, we can take the kids on rides?
14:10 No.
14:11 That’s true.
14:12 No.
14:12 It has to be approved by the principal and has to show.
14:15 And it has to perform a job.
14:17 Why does that?
14:18 Why?
14:19 We do actually have horse therapy programs.
14:22 No, no, no, no.
14:22 So you would think.
14:25 We used to have a rabbit in my son’s school, in one of the
14:27 classrooms.
14:28 And if everybody loved that rabbit year after year after year,
14:31 that a principal banished the rabbit.
14:33 Because they might have a task.
14:35 That’s, okay.
14:36 To do the things.
14:37 That’s not a service animal.
14:38 That would follow under letter D.
14:40 D. Non-service animal.
14:41 Correct.
14:41 That doesn’t have to program it, allowed to come back.
14:44 I don’t want to.
14:45 If they follow this person, I would say yes.
14:49 I would refer the principal to this policy to ensure that they
14:58 were in compliance with this policy and their decision making.
15:03 I would refer the principal to this policy and make sure they’re
15:10 making decisions in relation to this policy.
15:16 I’m glad the camera is fine.
15:18 As long as it’s supporting the trigger.
15:19 I do have.
15:20 Any additional questions?
15:21 Yes.
15:22 Concerns?
15:23 Yes.
15:23 My concern is policy, and maybe it’s in here and I read through
15:26 it and I missed it, but you know, it’s very easy for people to
15:29 get their dogs qualified as service animals nowadays.
15:33 Not officially.
15:34 I think emotional support.
15:38 Right.
15:38 I think it’s easy for emotional support.
15:40 But is there documentation?
15:42 Does it have to be in an IEP or a 504 or some kind of health
15:46 card?
15:47 Not necessarily, but they have procedures.
15:49 Yes.
15:50 So let’s say we have a lot of students who have requested to
15:54 bring a service animal.
15:55 Currently, they were not identified as a Section 504 student
15:58 with an accommodation plan or a student with a disability.
16:02 So we are only required to ask two questions.
16:04 And once we answer those questions, I can’t ask for
16:07 certification.
16:09 Now, if they’re not either one, I reconvene a team to consider
16:12 maybe you should have a 504 accommodation plan if you’re
16:15 requesting.
16:16 But it doesn’t have to be tied to either one of those.
16:19 Okay.
16:20 But so I guess what I’m asking is what about our policy is going
16:24 to keep that from happening for everybody who wants a comfort
16:29 dog to bring their body.
16:30 Yeah.
16:31 They just have a card that said they need to have a stop with
16:34 them.
16:34 So there’s a team that meets together and the parent fills out
16:36 an application.
16:37 It goes through the principal.
16:39 It goes through me.
16:39 We look at what tasks.
16:41 We can only look at what tasks they’re performing.
16:43 There is a meeting that we also have that’s part of the
16:46 administrative procedures to talk about how that’s going to work
16:49 in the school.
16:50 We have had approved some service animals that we question the
16:54 task, but we couldn’t really question them until we went through
16:59 the process.
17:00 And once they start coming to school, we could say, you’re not
17:04 meeting these criteria as your animal is not training.
17:06 And then we stop them from coming.
17:08 But without, we can’t get into asking too much information.
17:12 Yeah, we’re allowed two questions.
17:14 Yes.
17:14 And it is, is the animal required for a disability?
17:17 And what is the work or task that they do?
17:19 Right.
17:19 And like Patricia was saying, it doesn’t necessarily relate to a
17:22 504 and IEP, but once you start talking about is the animal
17:25 required for a disability, it generates a different conversation
17:28 about what’s going to be.
17:30 It’s going to be health related, which wouldn’t necessarily.
17:32 Could relate.
17:33 But I would, I would question whether we have a 504, if we had
17:36 enough to open a 504 or had to add accommodations.
17:39 And then this is getting into the specifics, but I mean, part of
17:43 the training, I mean, are we going to have to like allow the
17:46 kids to take their dogs to the, you know, body breaks?
17:49 I mean, it just, it kind of opens a can of worms.
17:53 Oh, there’s some good worms, but this isn’t new.
17:56 We’ve been allowing the service dogs on our campuses for quite a
18:00 while.
18:00 And I will tell you that part of the process that, because I was
18:04 a principal the first time I interacted with this and with
18:06 Patricia’s group,
18:08 is that they come in and they work through a plan.
18:11 You know, how is, how, what is the best route for you and the
18:13 dog to take when you’re changing classrooms?
18:16 What is the acceptable time for you to go and, and have your dog
18:20 use the restroom, bathroom, whatever, and for you to clean up
18:24 after it?
18:25 And so it’s all part of the plan that they work through before
18:28 the student even starts in the school with the service animal.
18:31 Can we also do training to the students and the staff at the
18:34 school so they know this is not a dog we go pet?
18:37 So we work through that process.
18:39 So each one that we’ve had, we’ve developed a plan individualized
18:42 to back school needs.
18:44 Sometimes we involve facilities because waste, where do we put
18:47 it?
18:48 And we need to get an extra where it is all.
18:50 So we have problems solved through that.
18:52 The truly people who actually have a service animal to go
18:55 through this process and nurse, I haven’t had issues.
18:58 And so once that we question, once they start the process, some
19:01 of them will say, okay, this is way, way more.
19:04 And some students will bring the dog for a couple of days and
19:07 then feel like this is too much work.
19:09 And also the staff on the panel is no longer there.
19:11 So truly the people who need that service animal are the ones
19:15 who go through the process and actually do.
19:17 And the ones you’ve had one, I mean, it’s really not an impact
19:21 to the school.
19:22 Yeah, it didn’t impact the schools, but it was a situation where
19:25 three weeks later it was like too much.
19:28 Because it is, it’s quite a lot to deal with having a service
19:32 dog with you and you having total ownership of that dog.
19:36 Do you have an estimate about how many?
19:38 I’ll let you.
19:39 It’s under five.
19:41 Oh, okay.
19:42 Yeah.
19:42 Does this have for service goats?
19:46 No.
19:47 I don’t think it’s not a dog.
19:49 No, I don’t mean like goats.
19:51 I mean, is this allowed?
19:53 Because it’s talking about on our campus.
19:54 The non-service animals say only if it supports curriculum,
19:56 which our goats did not support curriculum.
19:59 Oh, but Sue’s going to tell you that they did support curriculum
20:02 because they were providing better facilities.
20:04 I’m just saying, I want to make sure we’re not excluding future
20:07 goat usage in the future.
20:08 I think that was a separate contract.
20:12 I mean, I’ll certainly have to work through that.
20:14 I hadn’t considered that, but I would say that was a separate
20:17 contract.
20:18 I think Mr. Gibbs could probably give us a good evaluation.
20:21 If we have good facilities, then it supports the curriculum.
20:24 You’ve got to maintain your facilities.
20:26 You do.
20:27 As long as it’s maintaining your facilities.
20:28 You can argue that people call in.
20:31 Right.
20:32 That’s what we hired.
20:33 He’s awesome.
20:36 Good answer, Mr. Gibbs.
20:38 You did not ask that question in the interview.
20:40 You support your figure of usage.
20:42 I wouldn’t have been able to answer it.
20:46 Any additional comments, questions, or concerns on policy 8390,
20:49 animals on district property?
20:50 Moving on, Ms. Morgan.
20:53 8400, environmental health and safety issues.
20:55 This policy is being revised to remove the section related to
20:58 animals on district property
21:00 and other changes in compliance with applicable state and
21:03 federal law.
21:04 Again, we just moved it into the policy we were just talking
21:06 about.
21:07 Particular areas of revision include the following.
21:09 The deletion of animals on district property section.
21:12 The animals on district property section will be included in a
21:14 new proposed board policy, 8390.
21:17 The new proposed policy will address animals permitted on
21:20 district property.
21:21 Administrative procedures 8400B, student use of service animals,
21:26 will be repealed
21:28 and readopted as administrative procedures in 8390, animals on
21:31 district property procedures.
21:33 These proposed revisions encompass the suggested language of NEOLA.
21:36 Questions, comments, concerns on 8400, environmental health and
21:40 safety?
21:40 No.
21:41 You good?
21:46 Yep.
21:47 All right, back to you, Ms. Moore.
21:48 9160, public attendance at school events.
21:51 This policy is being revised to clarify language concerning the
21:55 accessibility of district facilities
21:57 to individuals with disabilities at school events
22:00 and other changes in compliance with applicable state and
22:02 federal law.
22:03 In addition, this policy will include clarifying language for
22:06 individuals with disabilities
22:08 to be accompanied by service animals.
22:10 These proposed revisions encompass the suggested language of NEOLA.
22:14 Questions, comments, concerns on 9160, public attendance?
22:17 You found my typo.
22:20 You fixed it already.
22:21 Well, Ms. You found the typo.
22:25 And there were two.
22:29 Ah, see she’s working on my end.
22:32 All right.
22:35 Activated of chance.
22:36 Yes.
22:37 And then there was administrator instead of administrator in the
22:40 last sentence.
22:41 Y’all are good.
22:42 Any additional comments, questions, concerns regarding policy?
22:47 9160, public attendance.
22:50 Thank you, Dr. Fontan and Ms. Moore.
22:52 Thank you.
22:53 Thank you for your work on these policies.
22:54 Now I will turn it over to Sue Ann, Assistant Superintendent of
22:58 Facility Services for our sales surtax portion of the workshop.
23:01 Thank you.
23:02 If you could give me just a moment to address it now.
23:05 Definitely not, Sue.
23:07 Thank you.
23:37 Can I just say that I look forward to this presentation after
23:40 flipping through the PowerPoint and saw all the jokes.
23:43 It does look like a good presentation.
23:46 It does.
23:46 You can recall last time I had a joke in my presentation, we
23:49 ended up with goats.
23:50 So the big debate in our office is, what’s like a slide this
23:54 time?
23:55 I love it. I wasn’t sure to be entertained or concerned.
23:59 So good afternoon, everyone.
24:02 And I want to start my presentation by asking you, do you all
24:05 know what all of these schools have in common?
24:08 I’m going to go right in the corner.
24:10 Andy Lennick is old.
24:12 Well, Mila is old, too.
24:15 All 50 this year?
24:18 They are all older than I am.
24:20 So there’s something to be said for aging gracefully, and that’s
24:25 kind of where we are in our facilities at Revard Public Schools.
24:31 So I’m going to talk through a little bit about where we are
24:33 with our facilities, what we’re doing in assessments, eventually
24:36 leading to a conversation about the surtax.
24:38 So if you could just bear with me while I run through some of
24:40 these things.
24:41 So Revard is big.
24:43 We have a lot of square footage.
24:45 We have a lot of classrooms, a lot of schools.
24:47 Facilities is a big deal here.
24:50 And the big deal is that we are starting to reach the end of our
24:53 useful life of many of our facilities, many of our buildings.
24:57 So this is an issue that is not going away for us.
25:00 We’ve done a good job with the surtax of trying to mitigate the
25:04 effects of aging, but the aging continues.
25:07 So many of our facilities are in that boat.
25:10 If you think about how big we are, about 12.8 million square
25:13 feet or so, that’s equivalent to about 5,000 homes.
25:17 So that’s what we’re managing.
25:19 It sort of puts it in perspective as to the scope of our
25:22 responsibility.
25:23 Similarly, in terms of the students that we serve and the
25:27 families that we serve, we serve more students than the
25:30 population of every Brevard municipality except Palm Bay and
25:33 Melbourne.
25:34 So, again, we’re on the scale of municipal services, the
25:38 services that we provide and all of our folks, I think she’s
25:42 been on the administrative side.
25:43 If you put it in that perspective, we have an enormous amount of
25:47 responsibility, not just in facilities, but in things like
25:51 transportation, food services, technology, and our core mission
25:54 of education.
25:55 So I think you all are familiar with the decline of resources
25:59 over time and the perfect storm of the economic downturn.
26:04 Our reduction in maintenance personnel and equipment reaching
26:08 the end of its useful length.
26:09 And that’s sort of what got us to the situation where we
26:13 initiated the 2014 assessment and started talking about the surtax
26:18 last round.
26:21 One of the things I want to tell all of you is that we are not
26:24 alone in the state of our facilities.
26:27 I’ve looked at this at a national level, state level, local
26:30 level, even looking at across municipalities and counties and
26:34 what they do.
26:35 We are all struggling with not keeping up with the maintenance
26:37 of our infrastructure.
26:39 So as I go through our slides and talk about where we are, we’re
26:42 not by ourselves in this boat, but we are in the boat.
26:45 What I’m going to talk about in the next sort of 12 slides or so
26:49 is some excerpts of data from two different publications.
26:53 And I’ve put on the slides some of the more relevant pieces of
26:56 data just so you have those references.
26:59 But you’ve also got the documents in their entirety in your
27:02 agenda package.
27:03 But a lot of what I’m going to be talking about is sort of
27:06 stating the obvious, things that I’m sure that you know.
27:09 That this publication, Reversing the Cycle of Deterioration,
27:13 this is by the Council of Great City Schools.
27:15 76 large urban districts collaborate.
27:19 And this is based on their research.
27:23 But basically talking about student performance and the
27:26 relationship between facilities and student performance.
27:29 Very important point.
27:31 Talking about teachers.
27:32 If you think about our strategic plan and teacher recruitment
27:35 and teacher retention.
27:36 Facilities matter when you are competing with brand new schools
27:41 in other districts.
27:42 You’re competing with brand new charter schools.
27:44 Facilities are a part of that competitive package in recruitment
27:48 and retention.
27:49 Of not only teachers but also our other employees as well.
27:53 Deferred maintenance.
27:55 Everyone I’m sure has heard the discussion about deferred
27:58 maintenance.
27:59 And the long term cost impacts of deferring our maintenance.
28:02 And the disruption in our learning environment is particularly
28:06 important as well.
28:07 So deferring maintenance has impacts financially.
28:10 And we all talk about those a lot.
28:12 But we also have severe impacts in the classroom.
28:16 When the air conditioning doesn’t work.
28:18 When the intercoms don’t work.
28:19 When the plumbing doesn’t work.
28:21 Whatever system is not working behind the scenes has a huge
28:24 impact on our learning environment.
28:26 And when we don’t have reliable systems it is particularly bad.
28:31 Because our principals and our teachers, administrators, our
28:34 students, everybody is distracted by stuff that should just work.
28:38 So it’s a big issue in my book.
28:41 This I thought was particularly relevant in that the dollar of
28:45 preventative maintenance that is deferred will result in $4 of
28:50 initial costs.
28:51 And that may be plus or minus whatever for our local situation
28:55 here.
28:55 But it’s a point that I think is relevant when we talk about the
28:59 importance of investing in maintenance.
29:02 Where is that from?
29:03 That’s from that same thing.
29:05 Great city schools.
29:06 Yep.
29:06 So this is a slide.
29:11 And this is not from our data.
29:12 This is just a slide that was in that document.
29:14 But the concept here is that if you do maintenance properly,
29:20 your cliff goes out in time.
29:23 If you do maintenance improperly, your cliff goes this way in
29:27 time.
29:27 And we’ve seen our cliffs.
29:30 We’ve seen instances of this in our own surtax program where we
29:33 are replacing equipment sooner than we should.
29:36 Because we’ve not done proper maintenance over the last 8 to 10
29:39 years.
29:40 So definitely agree that this is in fact factual for our
29:45 district and everyone else.
29:47 This starts to get to how much we should be investing.
29:53 And in this particular reference document, they were talking
29:57 about 2 to 4 percent of the current replacement value of our
30:00 buildings.
30:01 And I did a quick calculation based on our current assessments
30:06 and extrapolating that data across our facilities.
30:09 And looking at about 2 percent of our current replacement value,
30:13 we should be in about the $55 million a year range.
30:16 And so our surtax brings in about $45 million a year.
30:21 And so that’s good.
30:23 We’re doing good work with that money.
30:26 But it is basically the amount of money we need to do proper
30:29 level of maintenance.
30:31 And in fact, it could be argued that we need more depending on
30:34 the sources that you use.
30:36 And again, in this particular reference, they were talking about
30:39 maintenance.
30:40 And then they said, and you should be planning for replacement
30:43 of your facilities.
30:45 That’s a whole other conversation and a whole other pile of
30:48 resources that you need in order to do that properly.
30:53 So this came out of that particular reference, and I hope you
30:57 can see it, because they had an example in this reference that
31:00 is very similar to Brevard, and it’s on the right side of the
31:03 screen.
31:03 So in this particular example, there was a district that had
31:07 about 11.5 million square feet, 100,000 students.
31:12 The cost of construction per square foot is about 200 bucks.
31:15 That’s about our extrapolated current replacement value per
31:20 square foot that I just did a quick calculation on.
31:24 So it’s very analogous.
31:25 And they’re recommending about a $47 million a year investment.
31:31 And keep in mind, this data is from 2016, which the publication
31:34 date is 2016, so the data is probably 2014.
31:37 So we’re starting to get, you know, eight, nine-year-old data,
31:40 too.
31:41 So this is just giving you kind of a perspective on the level of
31:46 resources that would be appropriate if we were to do this 100%
31:50 properly.
31:52 The other resource is State of our Schools, 2016 National
31:56 Council on School Facilities, and had a couple other points very
32:01 similar.
32:02 Students’ ability to hear their teacher clearly, substantial
32:06 impact.
32:06 We’ve talked about intercoms a lot from both a security
32:09 perspective and from a classroom perspective.
32:12 We need to do a better job there.
32:14 We really do.
32:15 We’ve been doing intercom projects and think about intercom
32:18 projects, and here’s data that supports that that is a good
32:21 investment of resources in the learning environment.
32:24 Another point is that not only are students affected, but our
32:28 community is affected as well.
32:31 Economic development, we talked about incentives for businesses
32:34 to move to Brevard County, to our cities.
32:37 A lot of that centers around the state of our schools.
32:40 And the quality of education is very important, but also the
32:43 facilities are important, too.
32:45 When you’re trying to attract a major employer, you drive down
32:48 the road, you look at the school.
32:49 You’ve got to think, is this a school that is cared about by its
32:53 community when you look at a 50-, 60-year-old school?
32:56 So very important in the context of community health as well.
33:01 And this graphic is, from that publication, kind of a similar
33:04 type of percentage, talking about 3% of current replacement
33:07 value for maintenance and operation, 2% for renewals, 1% for
33:11 alterations, 1% for reduction of the deferred maintenance that
33:16 has accumulated.
33:17 And you add those up, and you’re in the 7% range.
33:21 And we’re, right now, at about, you know, 2%, 1.8% or so, if we
33:26 just kind of extrapolate those numbers.
33:29 So you could argue that we really need four times where we are
33:33 with our surtax, just on the basis of some of these broad-brush
33:37 national-level statistics.
33:39 So you’re talking like $200 million per year?
33:42 Yeah.
33:44 Now, I couldn’t spend $200 million per year, but we’re not staffed
33:49 for that.
33:49 Right.
33:50 The $45 million is very good.
33:52 So it’s really like $200 million plus, you know, tripling your
33:55 staff on top of it.
33:57 Yeah, like if we were to do this perfectly, then yes.
34:00 But I think the $45 million we have from the surtax is serving
34:04 us well.
34:05 And correct me if I’m wrong, so it includes replacement as well.
34:11 Yeah, this is planning for replacement.
34:12 That’s a large chunk of money, not that it is or should be
34:16 dismissed, because we don’t have a great replacement plan in
34:22 place now.
34:23 But that’s why that amount is so high, because it includes
34:26 replacement.
34:27 So if you think about, maybe about half that is on the
34:29 replacement, saving for replacement, half that is on the
34:32 maintenance and operations side, roughly.
34:35 So what are we doing locally?
34:37 I have a quick question just about, and it’s a finance question,
34:40 I’m not sure.
34:42 I know we don’t see it, but it’s so many doctrinal as you can.
34:45 If we were to save, I know sales tax money we’re not going to
34:50 sit on, per se, but saving capital funds, how?
34:56 Is that allowed legally for how many years?
35:00 Aren’t we expected to, you know, we know from the last year that
35:04 we’re expected to use our funds as quickly as possible to put
35:08 them in to some of our students.
35:09 So when you’re saving for replacement, which some of these
35:12 things you can replace for 10, 15 years, are we saving money for
35:16 10, 15 years in an ideal world where we were fully funded?
35:20 No, we’re not.
35:22 We’re using educational impact fees for new capacity.
35:26 We really can’t use those to supplant existing capacity.
35:30 So I really have no plan to replace facilities that are aging.
35:35 If we had the funds, though, it’s kind of a hypothetical, but it’s
35:39 also a legal question.
35:41 If we had the funds and we wanted to start saving to do some
35:44 replacement to be, you know, easier.
35:46 So we can do it without debt.
35:47 Yes.
35:48 Is that legally allowed?
35:49 How many years can you carry capital funds forward before they’re
35:52 just?
35:53 Joanne, do you know?
35:54 Sorry to put you on the spot there.
35:56 I don’t think there’s a deadline on how long you can save those
36:00 funds.
36:01 I’m not aware of one.
36:02 Maybe Mr. Gibbs can speak to that.
36:04 But you can save for it, but there’s so many other needs,
36:09 capital needs.
36:10 That’s never happened in the history of five-month-old schools,
36:14 so no one knows.
36:15 But at the same time, we do have a very small fund balance in
36:18 our capital budget for, really, just for the emergencies.
36:22 It’s $4 million-ish dollars, but, you know, when you think of
36:26 potential emergencies Sue would face,
36:29 so we do save, we do have some money that is available that we
36:33 don’t budget every year in our capital in that event.
36:38 But that’s not growing.
36:39 Correct.
36:40 It’s not growing.
36:40 It’s, in fact, it’s actually been on a decline because the needs
36:45 have exceeded the revenue.
36:47 If we could save, could we put it somewhere that it could grow?
36:51 Yeah, you could invest it.
36:53 The problem that you have, even though the facility needs are so
36:56 great, there’s so many competing interests,
36:58 like IT and some other things out at our school that have
37:01 competing interests for those funds as well.
37:04 Yeah, no one, yeah, no one would let that money sit there, we
37:06 would have protesters left and right wanting to know where we’re
37:09 sitting on some of which money.
37:09 Well, we invest currently, we have investments for our capital
37:13 projects that are all good managed out, which wouldn’t be any
37:16 good.
37:16 Do we ever fear that those, is there ever been a downturn in the
37:19 economy where those investments then all of a sudden are in
37:21 jeopardy?
37:22 No, safety is our priority and we have an investment advisor
37:25 that understands our policy that safety is our number one
37:29 priority.
37:30 And we’re governed by statute, right?
37:33 Yes, we are.
37:33 And what percentage we can put in the rent?
37:35 Oh, I know, I’ve just heard.
37:37 Yeah.
37:38 I’m not aware of any legal problem with it either.
37:42 I have seen districts that have, like, they’re, if they had a
37:45 surtax, it was geared only towards schools in a particular area.
37:49 Like, Marion County had one at one point.
37:51 I still, I think they’ve had, like, $10 million left over in
37:54 that account for at least a decade.
37:57 So, it is sitting there.
37:58 It’s not enough to, what?
38:01 They have to use it.
38:04 The way it was set up is it had to be used for a new school in a
38:07 designated area of the district.
38:10 Oh, goodness.
38:10 Yeah, they don’t have, they didn’t have the property at that
38:12 time.
38:13 They have recently acquired the property through in-end domain
38:17 action and they were looking now, turning that eye toward, you
38:23 know, how do we get funds to replace a school?
38:26 That’s the new question.
38:27 Could you use, kind of, use sales tax money to save for future,
38:33 if, I mean, we have to designate it in before it was on the
38:38 ballot that, you know, a portion of this will be invested and
38:42 saved for the future.
38:43 Okay.
38:44 I’ll go into it over.
38:45 Thank you.
38:47 Okay, so, just to bring it back down to the local level, I think
38:50 you’re aware we’re embarking upon our facility assessment
38:53 project.
38:53 We’ve got, I think it’s 17 now done.
38:56 We have a few more where field work is done.
38:58 We’re waiting on the documents to come in.
39:00 And we’re using that work to get us to some good sound capital
39:05 planning practices.
39:06 So, hopefully, we’ll be able to bring you a scope of work for,
39:10 you know, three, five, ten-year type of needs.
39:13 We can aggregate the data by roof systems, mechanical systems,
39:18 electrical systems, those types of things.
39:21 We can aggregate it by school.
39:22 We can aggregate it by geographic area.
39:24 We can aggregate it by time.
39:25 But it’s really going to give us a good resource to be able to
39:28 do much better with our capital planning process.
39:31 Software is live.
39:33 So, for example, we did our first assessment with Endeavor
39:36 Elementary.
39:37 And we intentionally did this.
39:38 We did the assessment before we did work in the summer.
39:41 Then we did work in the summer.
39:42 Then we updated the assessment.
39:44 Worked out beautifully.
39:45 And the assessment adjusts.
39:47 And so, the numbers you get can be real-time.
39:49 We’re also working through, you know, any type of other
39:52 maintenance investments where we’re replacing, you know, little
39:56 AC units or things that are in the assessment.
39:57 We pick those up and it’s real-time data.
39:59 This is a bit of a cultural evolution for our departments.
40:03 So, you know, we have some stressors in getting this
40:05 accomplished and getting folks used to doing things a little
40:08 differently.
40:09 But I think over time it’s going to yield tremendously better
40:12 results and better data on which to make decisions in the future.
40:17 So, these are just some pages out of the assessments that give
40:20 you the indication of the type of information that we receive.
40:23 And it includes things like the current replacement value, the
40:27 facility condition index,
40:29 which is a reflection of the type of work that we need to be
40:33 doing over certain time periods.
40:35 It is indicated by priority levels so you can kind of see what
40:39 your near-term, what your mid-term, what your long-term needs
40:43 are.
40:43 And then for each school it goes into the needs by system, the
40:48 needs by time,
40:49 and gives you kind of a colorful depiction of what you should be
40:53 worried about.
40:55 So, it’s very easy to read, easy to look at, easy to digest and
40:59 use for facility planning.
41:01 This kind of just tells you what the different priority levels
41:05 are.
41:05 So, if you happen to be wandering through these assessment
41:08 reports, which are hundreds of pages long,
41:10 you kind of see what the different priorities mean.
41:13 And for us, when we are implementing projects,
41:16 if we receive this book today, we would be working on the
41:19 priority one and two projects,
41:22 like right now, we would be planning to do those.
41:24 And we might be thinking about the priority three to five, too,
41:27 because it takes us a little while to actually get the inertia
41:30 going to execute these types of projects.
41:33 So, we’re looking at priority ones and twos very closely,
41:35 and right after that, priority three projects as we get these
41:38 reports in.
41:39 This is just a sample output.
41:41 I asked Tony and Torisi, our project manager, to just aggregate
41:44 all this for me
41:45 to kind of show by system what our priority needs are.
41:49 So, you can see the architectural, and that includes roofs.
41:53 Electrical is an area where we have invested, but not invested
41:57 as heavily as we need to.
41:59 The mechanical systems, interestingly, are better because we
42:03 have made such a heavy investment through the surtax.
42:06 So, the data that we’re getting so far is consistent with what
42:10 we might expect to see.
42:11 And this gets to your…
42:13 Oh, Sue, can I go back to that?
42:14 I just want to add a little context, and I think you alluded to
42:19 it.
42:20 This represents the 17 school assessments that are 100% complete.
42:25 There’s several that are currently underway as well, but this
42:29 gives a snapshot of the cumulative effect.
42:32 As we look at the bottom, you can see that the 10-year needs for
42:36 those 17 schools accumulates to approximately $128 million.
42:40 And these are direct costs, and these are direct costs, so this
42:42 doesn’t include engineering and all the other things that we
42:44 need on top of this.
42:45 So, I would caution you, I wouldn’t use this data for anything,
42:48 this is only to show you the type of information that we are
42:51 receiving from our assessments.
42:53 And this slide really goes to your question, where we are
42:57 comparing the current replacement value, which is in red, versus
43:02 the facility needs in blue.
43:03 And what we would be looking at is for those schools, whereas
43:07 the red and the blue are close to one another, we might be
43:11 thinking about replacement versus renewal.
43:16 And there’s been a few schools in the past five years where we’ve
43:20 had those conversations, but we’ve had no resources to say, even
43:23 if it’s a good decision to look at replacement, we have no way
43:27 to do that.
43:28 So, we’ve been executing kind of the money pit process, where we
43:32 just put money into it because we have to have it operational,
43:35 but we really have no need or no resources to make good
43:39 financial decisions.
43:41 Impact fees can be used for a replacement.
43:44 Not for replacement, to add new capacity.
43:46 So, that’s the constraint there.
43:50 So, again, this is just data for you to see about the type of
43:54 information that we’re getting.
43:56 So, does it cost as much to replace a school as, you know, our
43:59 general rule is about $20 million, $30 million, $40 million, but
44:03 is it the same numbers to replace a school?
44:05 So, I have to say, when you think in theory less, but if you
44:12 think about,
44:14 if you take it down, you’re going to have to meet current codes
44:17 and you’re going to have to put kids somewhere and, you know,
44:21 all those things that are going to be sort of ancillary costs,
44:25 my guess is going to be at about the same.
44:29 And, you know, I don’t know, maybe you all have some perspective
44:32 on that, but I don’t feel like it’s going to be substantially
44:35 cheaper.
44:37 And what we’re seeing on these current replacement values that
44:40 are direct costs only, they’re kind of consistent with what you
44:43 might think it would cost to replace a school.
44:46 And we’re going to still have to do engineering and all of the
44:49 temporary facilities.
44:50 And so, we’re starting to look at that a little more closely.
44:56 This came up recently where, in order to effectuate a renovation
45:03 on the interior, we needed to bring something up to code,
45:08 which is now going to require, like, sprinkling the building,
45:11 which is like a half a million dollar investment.
45:13 And is that really a good investment?
45:16 But we can’t do the renovations we want because it doesn’t meet
45:19 the current code.
45:20 So, it’s a catch-22 scenario, but we actually pay attention to
45:25 this.
45:25 And even though we may be forced into making a less than perfect
45:29 decision, we’re actually looking at those types of situations
45:32 when we make decisions.
45:34 So, how are we using the work?
45:35 We have a tiger team in facilities.
45:37 And as these come in, in groups of, like, three, we get together
45:41 sort of an inter- or intra-departmental team.
45:45 And we look through what the priority one and two needs are.
45:49 And everybody gets an assignment.
45:50 So we are actually using the work and that’s really the
45:54 important point that I want to make for everyone is that we’re
45:57 using this data and we’re using it every day and we’re making
46:00 improvements and we do work orders. If it’s a maintenance item,
46:04 it’s a project item that we can incorporate into some of our
46:07 sales tax work. We send it over to data shop.
46:09 The EH&S guys are engaged in things that are like ADA
46:12 improvements and our energy guys are looking at our improvements
46:16 like lighting that are coming out of this report. So we are
46:20 actually using this data really closely. We’re also sharing with
46:24 principals. They have access to it. They get kind of an exit
46:27 interview with the assessment team and so they’re aware of what
46:31 the needs are. We are tagging our assets and we’re finding
46:35 assets that we didn’t know we had.
46:37 So that’s been an interesting experience for us as well.
46:41 You’ve seen our experiments with analytics, kind of trying to
46:45 figure out we’ve got all this massive data and while the massive
46:49 data is relatively small, what can we do with it to provide good
46:52 reporting to the school board and public about our facilities?
46:55 So we’re figuring that out at the front end versus waiting until
46:58 we have this massive amount of data.
47:00 And then we’re keeping the ICOC in front too. They’ve been very
47:03 interested in our facilities and I want them to know what we’re
47:06 doing.
47:06 So they’ve been interested, our auditors have been interested
47:09 and we keep those folks up to date.
47:10 One of the neat things that has come out of this whole process
47:12 is Jim Ross, our maintenance director, has been doing, standing
47:17 up an experiment in preventative maintenance and putting
47:20 together a preventative maintenance plan that is very specific,
47:23 very detailed for Endeavor and Ocean Breeze.
47:25 And he is actually taking staff resources and putting them onto
47:32 the preventative maintenance function and seeing how that goes.
47:37 So we’re taking them away from something else, but we think it’s
47:40 a good investment of staff.
47:42 And we want to see what it takes. If we were to do preventative
47:45 maintenance right, what does it take?
47:47 So we’re doing an experiment to see what it looks like, and you
47:50 will probably hear more from me on that point, but I want you
47:53 all to know that we think it’s important enough that we have diverted
47:57 staff resources to preventative maintenance to preventative
48:00 maintenance to preventative maintenance to preventative
48:01 maintenance to see what it looks like and what effects it has.
48:06 Just wanted to kind of remind everybody that there are other
48:09 capital needs besides just facilities.
48:12 And we hear a lot of requests for athletics, playgrounds, buses,
48:17 we have technology, security is a big deal.
48:21 So what was the first one you said?
48:23 I didn’t hear.
48:24 Athletics?
48:25 I just want to, no, I don’t want you to decide.
48:27 I’m not sure if I heard it right.
48:29 I just want to hear you.
48:30 And what I’ll talk about a little bit later that isn’t on this
48:33 particular screen, because it’s incorporated into our work,
48:37 and our classrooms are, in some cases, really not optimum for
48:41 learning.
48:42 We have some with no walls, we have some that are as old as I am,
48:46 and we really need to consider that as well as we’re talking
48:52 about investment resources.
48:54 I wanted you to know that we’re looking at playgrounds, but we
49:00 realized we really didn’t have a good set of data on our
49:03 playgrounds,
49:04 so our EHS guys have been out doing playground assessments, and
49:08 these are the types of things that we’re looking at.
49:10 We’re about 40% complete, we should be done in about another
49:12 month.
49:13 These are the condition code ratings, and I just wanted to give
49:17 you some examples.
49:18 This is at Coquina, and this is what you see out in the field.
49:22 And I don’t have children in school, but I’d be a little, you
49:26 know, concerned about that if I were a parent, when I see
49:30 something like that.
49:32 Sue, can I ask a quick question on playgrounds?
49:35 Sure.
49:36 Many moons ago, I worked for a parks and rec division, and they
49:41 actually sent me through training.
49:44 I was required to go out and inspect every playground in the
49:48 municipality.
49:50 Yep.
49:51 I want to say it was once a month, or once every…
49:56 Do it once a year, John?
49:57 We do an annual inspection.
49:59 You do do an annual hallmark?
50:00 Our staff do.
50:01 We have staff that go to the National Parks and Recreation
50:04 training course and have a certification for that.
50:08 There’s a standard of care for that.
50:12 It’s not a regulatory requirement.
50:15 It’s more of a risk management decision.
50:17 We have forms that the custodians fill out, that they do a
50:21 weekly inspection of the playground.
50:23 The teachers are instructed through this process to look for and
50:27 report if there’s something broken, not just daily, but between
50:31 usage.
50:32 So, you know, teachers are pretty conscious about the safety of
50:34 the students, so they’ll report that to the custodian.
50:37 The custodian will put in a work order, and then maintenance
50:39 will show up and do a minor repair whenever it’s needed.
50:42 But that’s maintenance.
50:44 This is where capital, you can only do so much for structural
50:47 components.
50:48 Which was kind of my next question, is how often are we going
50:51 out to do these inspections and determining that we have to
50:54 actually shut down the playground?
50:56 Because we look at it on an annual basis, we will give notice
50:59 that this is a system that’s going to be failing within the next
51:01 year or two.
51:02 So we don’t want to just sneak up and wrap it up with a fancy
51:05 red bow and keep everybody off of it to have grounds come and
51:09 demolish it, basically take it out of service.
51:12 So we kind of track those that are kind of long in a tooth, if
51:14 you will, so there is no surprises.
51:17 Right now, it’s a school asset, so it’s not like facilities has
51:20 money to go and do a capital replacement of a playground.
51:24 It’s up to the school and their school community, although you
51:26 have the sharing funds now that are helping.
51:30 It still has taken some of them a couple of years to raise the
51:33 funds to get the match.
51:35 I have a question about custodians, do they have the, is there
51:40 training we can give them to make, like, things we’re looking at
51:44 here.
51:45 I’ve been told that you sand that down when you start seeing it
51:47 and then paint it or seal it, that we can extend the life of
51:50 these things.
51:51 Can we train our custodians?
51:53 So yeah, so we have a gentleman, Patrick Darvill, he’s a custodial
51:55 coordinator, and he’s been to the playground safety course.
51:58 And so he has his staff that are the certified custodial
52:02 trainers that are assigned to schools individually, and they are
52:06 the professors of the body knowledge, if you will, best
52:09 practices to maintain, look for these common safety concerns.
52:13 So there is this transition of knowledge, if you will, within
52:17 our trade for safety inspection of playgrounds.
52:21 So the custodians are getting?
52:23 They’re getting hands-on training, so that’s a custodian that’s
52:26 visited by a certified custodial trainer who has some body
52:30 knowledge, has been trained a trainer kind of a process.
52:34 Is it a formal, is there a certificate hanging on the wall? No.
52:38 Do we ask our custodians? I mean, you say they’re inspecting
52:42 them weekly, I would probably raise one eyebrow and say I don’t
52:46 know if that’s really happening.
52:47 They have a logbook, so if they’re doing it, they’re generating
52:50 a paper record, and so when we do an annual assessment, we
52:53 assess whether they have those records, and to what extent are
52:58 they done with rigor?
52:59 That varies, as you all know, we’ve got AD.
53:01 So when they see a rusty patch, what happens now?
53:04 Do they just write it down in a book, and you see that in a year
53:06 when you can look at it, or do they call your trades?
53:09 They see a rusty patch, oftentimes the custodian can do their
53:12 own minor maintenance prep and paint, or they’ll put it onto
53:15 maintenance trades, and maintenance could handle it as a work
53:18 order.
53:19 And how long does it take us to get to something like that?
53:22 It seems like that would take, I mean, a really low out-priority
53:25 list.
53:26 Low out-priority.
53:27 Yeah, I mean, I would guess this is not our out-prior.
53:30 Well, if it’s something that could, a student, I’m sorry, could
53:32 fall off and get hurt.
53:34 No, I get that.
53:35 I’m trying to, I’m thinking, how can we get the schools to own
53:39 the little patches so that, you know, they’re not hit.
53:44 I believe there have been instances where a school community, or
53:47 a PTO or that sort of thing, have intervened and actually hired,
53:53 there are companies who come out and do a refurb of the
53:56 playground, you know, X years into life and extend it.
54:00 But I have seen or heard that as well.
54:04 They just have to know.
54:05 I feel like sometimes school communities will step in, but they
54:07 have to know, and if the maintenance, if no one tells them,
54:10 right, mom and dad are just sitting there, and then one day they’re
54:12 like, the playground might have been in a situation where
54:14 playground’s getting shut down, and all the parents are like, I
54:17 wish we would have known.
54:18 Like, dad may have checked on it once a week if he would have
54:20 known he should have.
54:22 That’s the purpose of this, and we have another one I wanted to
54:26 show you, but we’re trying to compile this information so that
54:30 we get a sense of where we are with our playgrounds, so we can
54:34 do exactly what you’re talking about is, you know, we have, at
54:37 the moment, the first group, you know, none in condition code
54:42 one, but we have some that are heading there, so these are the
54:45 schools where we probably should be looking at a better plan for
54:48 doing maintenance.
54:50 But again, this takes resources, whether it’s Jim Ross’s
54:53 resources or school resources, somebody’s got to make that
54:58 investment to deal with the rust so it doesn’t degrade faster.
55:03 So it’s the same problem on a smaller scale.
55:06 And then something that has just, you know, concerned me over
55:09 the few years that I’ve been here is this issue of equity.
55:13 If we have schools with a lot of good resources, parent groups,
55:16 et cetera, they get more playgrounds, they get more maintenance,
55:20 they get more everything because they have those resources out
55:23 in the community.
55:24 Other schools do not.
55:26 And we are not quite ready to talk about equity.
55:29 We haven’t captured that data yet, but I think what’s coming out
55:32 of your report, Jim, will show us how many we have in each
55:35 school, and then we can start to evaluate the equity side of
55:38 this equation as well.
55:40 So athletics kind of in the same boat.
55:43 Jim Ross’s team did an assessment back in 2018.
55:48 The big expense that we have not really addressed yet is tracks.
55:53 That’s the big one.
55:54 And only from a maintenance point of view, that 1.5 or so number,
55:59 that is resurfacing what’s there, re-striping.
56:03 It is not rubberizing.
56:04 It’s not making it wider.
56:05 It’s not doing all the things that we’ve heard from some of you
56:08 in the community that they would like to have done.
56:11 We basically have no budget for this.
56:14 We kind of address things that are on your last legs, but that’s
56:18 not the optimum way to do maintenance.
56:21 We wait until it’s on its deathbed and then we do something.
56:25 That’s not the best time to do maintenance.
56:27 So this is an area that gets neglected.
56:31 It’s an area that has equity concerns all over the place.
56:34 We have lots of requests out in the community and interests.
56:38 We have opportunities for partnerships where cities or counties,
56:42 a lot of folks are like, hey, we would like to share and do X.
56:46 Having the capacity to be able to develop those partnerships and
56:49 do a better job at that is missing.
56:52 And then we get a lot of enhancement requests.
56:54 So we love our track.
56:55 We want rubberized.
56:56 We want our field to be something other than grass.
57:00 So all of those things come at us regularly and we really don’t
57:04 have a good framework to handle those.
57:06 So just a couple things to summarize.
57:09 We have some really good things going on.
57:11 I feel like we are moving in the right direction in terms of
57:14 having a whole lot better data, analytics.
57:17 We can give you better information on which to make decisions.
57:20 And the surtax has been great.
57:22 It has reduced our deferred maintenance backlog.
57:25 And I want to make sure I emphasize the word reduced.
57:28 It has not eliminated.
57:29 It has reduced our deferred maintenance backlog.
57:31 On the side where we really need some additional work, our
57:36 backlog is still growing.
57:37 There are still things we are not doing.
57:40 Preventative maintenance, we are not doing that well.
57:43 We want to do it well.
57:44 We believe we need to do it well.
57:45 But that is not what we are able to do.
57:47 New and deferred capital needs.
57:50 All of you have talked about various capital needs at your
57:52 schools and in your communities.
57:55 And then capital planning just to support educational programs.
57:58 We talked about our classrooms are maybe not exactly what we
58:02 need for the type of education we would like to deliver.
58:06 We want to do new CTE programs.
58:08 We want to do different things with our educational programs.
58:12 We really do this kind of on an as needed basis.
58:16 But we don’t have a good plan because we haven’t had the
58:19 resources to support it.
58:21 So let me talk a little bit about sales tax and just run through
58:23 that quickly.
58:24 I’d like to say we have had a lot of successes with our sales
58:27 tax program.
58:29 And so I’ll talk to you about what those are.
58:31 Revenue, of course, is coming in much better than had originally
58:35 been expected.
58:36 So that’s allowing us to do better scopes and more work.
58:40 So that’s a good thing.
58:42 We are intending to finish all of our schools this summer.
58:46 And so I am super proud of that.
58:49 In my career as a government administrator, this has been one of
58:54 the most successful referendum happens.
58:58 Revenue comes in.
59:00 Revenue is deployed where it was supposed to be in a timely
59:03 manner.
59:04 Experiences that I have ever seen or been associated with.
59:07 So I am super proud of that.
59:09 Our team has done a tremendous job.
59:11 And it’s really been a – we have – sales tax comes in, it goes
59:15 out to the school.
59:16 So I appreciate the team’s effort in making that happen.
59:20 So that’s hilarious facilities and some of our closeouts and
59:25 some of these little add-on projects.
59:26 We will be working on those probably for the next year.
59:29 But basic projects in the schools will be done.
59:33 Our ICOC is working really well.
59:36 We appreciate the work that they have done on our behalf.
59:40 And we communicate regularly with them and appreciate that.
59:43 And then we’ve had some really good audits.
59:46 So I’m very proud of the work that we’ve done with our sales tax.
59:49 It has done some really good work in our schools.
59:52 Sue, if I can pause you.
59:53 Yes.
59:54 Just because if you go back.
59:55 Sure.
59:56 You know, we heard from our ICOC a few weeks ago.
1:00:01 We expressed our appreciation and certainly well-deserved for
1:00:06 their support
1:00:06 and their ongoing engagement with the entire process.
1:00:10 But their level of willing to engage, admittedly hold us
1:00:14 accountable as we want them to,
1:00:17 is directly correlated to the work and the communication and the
1:00:20 follow-up
1:00:21 and the confidence that they can have, knowing that in fact the
1:00:24 work is being done,
1:00:26 that it is going where it’s supposed to be.
1:00:28 It’s being validated through audits semi-annually throughout the
1:00:32 year.
1:00:33 And I want to just again attribute that to Sue, her leadership
1:00:36 as the former project manager,
1:00:38 and the entire team that this is not a small machine running.
1:00:43 It is a big machine.
1:00:44 And the time ahead that has to go into planning to make sure
1:00:48 that everything is in place
1:00:50 to get done during those short windows of opportunity to not
1:00:53 disrupt the educational learning environment.
1:00:56 That is no small task.
1:00:58 All while meeting a relatively high level of accountability to
1:01:03 our public and to our citizens
1:01:05 and the dollars that they awarded us to do.
1:01:09 So just, I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to accentuate the
1:01:13 work of the great team
1:01:15 and the confidence that we can go out to our community and say
1:01:19 we have done what we said we were going to do.
1:01:21 You can be confident that the money, the dollars have gone where
1:01:24 they have been prioritized.
1:01:26 And although you walk up or drive up or drive past your school
1:01:30 and you may not see new and fancy,
1:01:32 there are stronger infrastructure in place, particularly through
1:01:36 HVAC as a result of the sales surtax.
1:01:40 And I’ll add, I know specifically of districts that will remain
1:01:46 nameless to protect others that envy the accomplishment
1:01:53 and the work that we’ve done at Provard with our sales surtax.
1:01:55 Because I know that there are districts who are in a very
1:01:57 difficult place right now with the deployment
1:02:01 and the implementation of their sales tax for capital rule.
1:02:05 Sounds like Marion has some extra money.
1:02:08 You don’t have a person.
1:02:11 Yeah, I mean think about how many times you hear, like just the
1:02:14 federal government roads,
1:02:16 I mean it’s months and months and months and then they repave it
1:02:18 and then you see them digging it up and repaving it.
1:02:21 And I think we are taking for granted what you all have
1:02:24 accomplished over these last few years.
1:02:27 I have to give Dan Theodore some credit on this because he got
1:02:30 us started.
1:02:31 He had the contracts in place for design and construction.
1:02:35 So when the surtax passed, we were able to really jump on it.
1:02:38 So that act alone probably saved us a year.
1:02:42 And I gave him credit for putting us in a really good position
1:02:45 to act within the surtax.
1:02:48 It takes a whole team from the beginning planning through every
1:02:51 last person that’s trying to work to a schedule over the summer
1:02:54 on some of these.
1:02:55 And, you know, we are used to putting out fires of people
1:02:58 complaining and screaming at us.
1:03:00 And we don’t sometimes when we take the time to notice that
1:03:03 nobody’s screaming and yelling and complaining that we’re two
1:03:06 years behind.
1:03:07 You know, or some horrible thing that most government entities
1:03:10 do when they try to undertake something like this.
1:03:13 So thank you.
1:03:14 Thanks.
1:03:15 And our contractor teams and our engineers and that whole system
1:03:19 has to work together to make it happen.
1:03:21 So we’ve just been very fortunate with the renewal of their team.
1:03:24 So thank you.
1:03:25 Okay.
1:03:26 So you all know the history about surtax.
1:03:29 And the most important point that I want to show you is right
1:03:32 here.
1:03:33 When we did our assessments in 2014, the needs were assessed at
1:03:37 $721 million.
1:03:39 The funding for facility renewal was provided at $157 million.
1:03:44 You’re at 22%.
1:03:45 So I think one of the impressions out there in the community is
1:03:49 the sales surtax fixed our problems.
1:03:52 The sales surtax did not fix our problems, but it made a nice
1:03:55 dent in the $721 million.
1:03:58 So this is how we’ve really been spending our money.
1:04:02 These are the categories that were funded.
1:04:05 And where we are right now is through November 30th is this pie
1:04:09 chart.
1:04:10 But HVAC is 74% of our expenditures and encompasses.
1:04:15 So a lot of what we’ve invested in is HVAC.
1:04:18 That was the, if you look at the program as it was designed, it
1:04:22 was right about 74%.
1:04:24 So everything that we have done has been very focused on air
1:04:28 conditioning.
1:04:30 Another 11 to 13% is what electrical runs.
1:04:33 That’s most of the work.
1:04:35 So very little that is visible application.
1:04:38 Is that just of the portion for facilities?
1:04:40 That’s not counting the security?
1:04:41 That’s not counting the rest.
1:04:42 This is just facilities.
1:04:44 Yeah.
1:04:45 So 70, you couldn’t say 74% of the sales tax went to HVAC.
1:04:49 You could say 74% of the portion that was for facilities went to
1:04:53 HVAC.
1:04:54 Yes, correct.
1:04:55 I’m sorry.
1:04:56 I just want to make sure I’m not repeating information.
1:04:57 You are correct.
1:04:59 I apologize.
1:05:00 So yeah, the problem with that is you can’t see it.
1:05:03 And so, you know, big discussion about we’re going to do a great
1:05:06 surtax project at your
1:05:08 school over the summer.
1:05:09 Yay!
1:05:10 And you come back in August and it’s like, well, it looks
1:05:13 exactly the same.
1:05:14 So I think security has helped that because that is more visible
1:05:19 with our front office renovations
1:05:21 and the fencing.
1:05:22 But even Russell’s, some of his work, it’s behind the scenes
1:05:25 work.
1:05:26 So it’s very hard to see and very hard to talk along.
1:05:29 So what was not funded?
1:05:31 These are all the things that were specifically assessed but not
1:05:34 included.
1:05:35 And I did a little quick calculation today.
1:05:37 I pulled out, I think it was attachment B where all of these
1:05:40 things were listed.
1:05:42 And the $751 million was articulated by type of stuff.
1:05:49 And if you look at just the pavilions, parking, restrooms,
1:05:53 theaters, kind of the top four or
1:05:55 five of those, that’s like $208 million back in 2014 that was
1:05:59 not included.
1:06:01 That clearly needs to be done.
1:06:02 Flooring renewal is probably one of your most frequent requests.
1:06:07 I mean, if you just look down at your feet in my office and most
1:06:10 offices around here, we’ve
1:06:12 got flooring that’s, you know, pretty old.
1:06:16 And in the classroom, it doesn’t work well.
1:06:19 So, you know, these are some things that are eligible for a surtax
1:06:24 investment.
1:06:26 They were not part of the 2014 surtax, but could be something in
1:06:31 a future surtax that we
1:06:33 could consider.
1:06:35 So, learning from experience.
1:06:37 We have learned a lot over the last five years.
1:06:41 And a lot of what we’ve learned is that the initial sort of
1:06:45 framework for the surtax, the
1:06:46 like-for-like philosophy, basically was not the optimum
1:06:51 philosophy for good, sound investments.
1:06:54 And fortunately, our work with the Citizens Oversight Committee,
1:06:57 we talked about that.
1:06:58 And as we learned, they were okay with us doing better scopes
1:07:02 and better work and doing
1:07:04 that better investment.
1:07:06 So, it wasn’t just replacing a 1950s air conditioning system
1:07:09 with a 1950s air conditioning system.
1:07:12 We wanted to do better work and we’ve been able to do that.
1:07:15 They also allowed us very early on in the program to get away
1:07:18 from the component approach
1:07:20 and start looking at a systems approach and also to prioritize
1:07:23 our work based on the needs
1:07:25 of the assessment at the day that we’re standing there, not
1:07:27 based on 2014.
1:07:29 So, I’m sure as you’ve seen our contracts come to you, it’s here’s
1:07:33 attachment F and we can
1:07:35 do work within attachment F based on the highest priority needs
1:07:38 at this particular moment in
1:07:40 time.
1:07:41 So, that has worked out well for us.
1:07:42 One of the flaws in the program has been incomplete projects.
1:07:46 So, we do this work because that’s what we have enough money for,
1:07:49 but it’s this work that
1:07:51 is causing the problem when the kids go back to school in August.
1:07:54 So, that’s been an issue for us and we’re trying to do better
1:07:57 and assess what might also be
1:08:00 a problem and do more complete projects.
1:08:03 So, that’s been a big learning curve for us.
1:08:05 And then having those extra resources has really allowed us to
1:08:08 do better work.
1:08:09 That’s really been what has saved us.
1:08:11 It’s allowed us to address things that fail kind of midstream
1:08:14 that we’re not on the schedule
1:08:16 until later.
1:08:17 We’ve been able to do some projects earlier.
1:08:18 So, that’s been really good.
1:08:19 But, the bottom line is that we are doing work that is basic
1:08:24 needs.
1:08:25 Functional and safe.
1:08:26 That’s it.
1:08:27 So, that’s been our framework.
1:08:29 So, I’ve talked to you previously about thinking differently
1:08:33 about facilities and I thought
1:08:36 I would bring our friend back.
1:08:38 Because we do need to think differently about facilities and
1:08:43 what we can do for our students.
1:08:45 So, linking to the strategic plan.
1:08:47 Talking about student performance.
1:08:49 Teacher recruitment and retention and about equity.
1:08:52 We play a big part in those three things and I think we need to
1:08:55 think about them as we are doing
1:08:57 our facilities at the planning.
1:08:59 Improving our reliability of all of our systems.
1:09:01 One of our supervisors in maintenance has been an advocate for,
1:09:05 he calls it N+1 chillers.
1:09:07 And you’ve seen on your agendas where we’re thinking about
1:09:09 adding chillers to particular schools.
1:09:12 Because we have a system that is like right on the edge of
1:09:15 performance.
1:09:16 And if something goes down, we don’t have air conditioning.
1:09:18 And we don’t have a way to provide air conditioning.
1:09:20 So, we’re looking at those N+1 approaches.
1:09:22 And then technology building solutions.
1:09:25 Russell and Robin and I have been collaborating on what we can
1:09:28 do in things like intercoms
1:09:31 and communications and fire alarms and classroom technology.
1:09:35 How those things all work together.
1:09:37 And so, instead of me buying a system and Russell buying a
1:09:39 system and Robin buying a system.
1:09:41 We think about what that system looks like.
1:09:43 And that’s evolving.
1:09:45 You may see different staffing needs and different staffing
1:09:48 approaches.
1:09:49 Where some of the things that are now in my shop may migrate to
1:09:51 Russell’s shop in the future.
1:09:53 Because they’re so technology driven.
1:09:55 So, a lot of things that we can do to perform better and serve
1:09:59 our students better.
1:10:01 As we start to think about facilities role.
1:10:05 We also want to be cognizant of fiscal responsibility.
1:10:08 And this is a big thing with preventative maintenance.
1:10:11 And this is why Mr. Ross has been advocating for it.
1:10:13 I will stand up here and advocate for it.
1:10:15 We think it’s important.
1:10:17 We also think technology solutions can save money.
1:10:19 Sometimes it’s a bigger investment upfront.
1:10:21 But, big payback at the end.
1:10:23 LED lighting is probably the best example of that.
1:10:25 Where we can invest more in LED lighting.
1:10:27 Better for our kids.
1:10:29 Better for our energy consumption.
1:10:31 Reduces our air conditioning load.
1:10:33 We could stand up an LED relapping project across the district.
1:10:37 Probably would have a really good payback long term.
1:10:39 And then we look at investment decisions that are reducing our
1:10:44 maintenance and operational costs.
1:10:47 That’s kind of part of our normal work with our surtax projects.
1:10:51 And as we talked earlier in replacement of aging facilities.
1:10:54 We’ve started to think about that.
1:10:56 Even though it’s not something we can do.
1:10:58 It’s something that we need to think about.
1:11:01 So, our future facilities.
1:11:04 I think, like I can clearly document our facilities needs.
1:11:10 It’s pretty easy for me to do that.
1:11:12 Our assessments are evaluating what we have.
1:11:15 But they are not really capturing what we want.
1:11:18 So, questions of things like equity, athletic facilities.
1:11:21 Some things that you all are hearing out in your community.
1:11:23 And in schools that folks believe would be a good enhancement to
1:11:27 our school facilities.
1:11:28 We are not capturing those yet.
1:11:31 And then, you know, we’ve been kind of focused on the basic
1:11:35 services.
1:11:36 That’s where we’ve been.
1:11:37 Because that’s where the whole goal was.
1:11:39 We needed to get our air conditioning working before we started
1:11:40 talking about other things.
1:11:42 But I think we’re in a place now where having a conversation
1:11:45 about bigger ideas is a good idea.
1:11:47 Not necessarily, you know, going there tomorrow.
1:11:52 But I think we need to start thinking about our facilities and
1:11:54 what we want them to be in the future.
1:11:56 So, we designed our resources around that.
1:11:59 So, that leads to the sales surtax renewal decision.
1:12:02 And, I think, as the board, you will have some decisions about
1:12:07 the sales surtax.
1:12:09 You know, yes/no, duration, use of funds.
1:12:14 And we’ve been in the renewal realm for a while.
1:12:17 And we could stay very solidly in that renewal realm.
1:12:20 And very comfortably.
1:12:21 And utilize the resources.
1:12:22 And we would do good work with those resources.
1:12:24 But I think some of the other things that you have been talking
1:12:27 to me about over the last several months.
1:12:30 Can also be considered in that context.
1:12:33 And talking about new capacity.
1:12:34 Talking about replacement.
1:12:35 Talking about new capital assets.
1:12:37 Talking about things beyond facilities that touch Russell’s
1:12:40 world and Robin’s world.
1:12:41 There are other things that we may want to do in the context of
1:12:45 the sales surtax renewal.
1:12:47 It is a bondable revenue source.
1:12:49 I am not recommending that for a variety of reasons.
1:12:53 But I think that is something that you need to be aware of as a
1:12:56 board when you’re making your decisions.
1:12:58 That that is a bondable revenue source.
1:13:00 So, that’s kind of the context of the decisions that I think you
1:13:04 as a board will need to wrestle with.
1:13:08 Primarily the use of funds.
1:13:10 And how you want to allocate potential revenues from the sales
1:13:14 surtax should you want to work on that.
1:13:18 This is an excerpt directly from the statute.
1:13:21 You have the statutes in your package.
1:13:23 But this tells you the things you can spend sales surtax on.
1:13:27 It’s simply a point of reference.
1:13:30 The process is that the board would adopt the authorizing
1:13:35 resolution.
1:13:37 I provided the prior resolution for you in your package just so
1:13:40 you can see what’s in it.
1:13:42 You need to decide on duration and rate and any other terms that
1:13:46 you would like in there.
1:13:48 The citizens oversight committee, as I said, has been a really
1:13:52 good part of the process.
1:13:54 And I believe strongly that if you want to continue the surtax,
1:13:57 it should be part of the renewal.
1:14:00 If you choose to change the duration and rate of the sales surtax,
1:14:05 there is a new requirement in state law that requires the state
1:14:08 audit that is done by APAGA.
1:14:11 And in that case, we need to make a decision earlier.
1:14:13 So we need to decide by, I think, April at the latest in order
1:14:16 to give them the six-month notice that is required.
1:14:20 We choose to do that.
1:14:22 We need to speed up the general election, so 2020 is the choice
1:14:25 on that.
1:14:26 And then we can spend it on fixed capital outlay.
1:14:29 So that’s kind of the process that we need to go through to
1:14:32 effectuate a renewal of our sales tax.
1:14:35 Could I just add something?
1:14:36 Because I saw this yesterday in the legislative update that
1:14:39 there’s a possibility in Senate Bill 62 that a sales tax will
1:14:43 have to be shared with charter schools.
1:14:47 I don’t know when that would be effective.
1:14:48 Okay.
1:14:49 But that’s – did you see that?
1:14:53 So just something to keep on our radar proportionally.
1:14:56 Thank you.
1:14:58 I’ve not seen that yet.
1:14:59 Thanks.
1:15:00 Specifically to surtax because there is a provision for millage
1:15:03 as well.
1:15:04 That one was sales tax.
1:15:06 Okay.
1:15:09 And then –
1:15:10 Yes, ma’am.
1:15:11 I have a question.
1:15:12 I haven’t asked for an hour and 40 minutes, but –
1:15:25 Do I have permission to speak?
1:15:26 Yes.
1:15:27 May I speak.
1:15:28 When – and this is probably for maybe over there in finance.
1:15:31 Do you know what year our debt payment is paid off?
1:15:36 Is it like 2040?
1:15:37 It’s 23 or 24?
1:15:38 No, we have a couple more.
1:15:39 37 comes to my mind for something.
1:15:41 2037.
1:15:42 That does sound.
1:15:43 I think it’s better.
1:15:44 Because that puts $40 million back into our capital in 2037.
1:15:49 So it’s like seven.
1:15:52 Can you ask for a 17-year – no, I’m just kidding.
1:15:57 No, but –
1:15:58 I think it – isn’t it limited to 10?
1:16:03 Is it 10 the max?
1:16:05 Who knows?
1:16:06 I don’t believe there is no.
1:16:08 I think I saw –
1:16:10 I don’t – I don’t know what it is.
1:16:11 Really?
1:16:12 Six, eight, or 10?
1:16:13 Yeah, you can’t go in.
1:16:14 There is something –
1:16:15 I think it’s six and a half, some 10.
1:16:17 Can you say what?
1:16:18 15?
1:16:19 When did you say what?
1:16:21 I’d have to look at it to tell you for sure.
1:16:24 Sue, I wanted to say something.
1:16:26 What really burns –
1:16:28 What really burns me up inside sometimes is what I hear in that
1:16:34 this is a sales tax for facilities.
1:16:37 This is a sales tax for – not for our kids.
1:16:39 You know, there’s that dividing line, right?
1:16:41 And one of the things that really bothers me is that not many
1:16:43 people understand and appreciate your team and their dedication
1:16:48 to the same thing that the teachers are.
1:16:50 A lot of times we just think that these are guys that are just
1:16:53 normal maintenance guys, whether that’s the county or not.
1:16:56 But if you truly get to know these guys inside their hearts,
1:16:59 they’re actually doing it because they believe in the student
1:17:01 achievement too.
1:17:02 And that never really comes out.
1:17:04 So when – and it’s even in our contractors.
1:17:07 When you go to some of the contractors and you sit with them
1:17:08 inside the construction sites, they’ll tell you that my kid goes
1:17:12 to this school.
1:17:13 I am on this PTO.
1:17:15 I mean, it’s a team effort.
1:17:17 So when we go into this process of talking numbers and talking
1:17:19 about, you know, achievement for the teachers and everything
1:17:22 else,
1:17:23 we forget that family, that aspect, and that impact that it has
1:17:26 on our overall learning environment when we are a community
1:17:30 moving forward.
1:17:31 And I did want to talk to you guys about – on the Economic
1:17:33 Development Council, when we were doing some rezones for our
1:17:37 schools about a year and a half ago, two years ago,
1:17:40 I contacted some of our local primes like Northrop Grumman and
1:17:44 then those guys and their HR departments to talk about.
1:17:47 Because one of the issues that we have now on the Economic
1:17:49 Development Council is that we can’t attract companies to this
1:17:54 location unless our school district,
1:17:56 along with our workforce, are number one.
1:17:59 So they’re no longer looking for tax incentives.
1:18:01 That is no longer part of the site developers.
1:18:03 They are only looking for the school districts and for the
1:18:09 actual labor force.
1:18:12 And the reason they look to the school districts is something
1:18:14 that happened to Boeing was that they opened up a plant in –
1:18:17 they took over a plant that was over in Louisiana.
1:18:20 And when they move a whole operation, they have to have the
1:18:24 incentives for those workers in that old operation to move to
1:18:27 the new one.
1:18:28 And they cannot be successful.
1:18:30 That entire operation had dissolved and fell apart within 18
1:18:33 months because people didn’t want to move there because their
1:18:36 school system was not good.
1:18:38 So when a lot of the people that sit around here and enjoy a lot
1:18:40 of the amenities that are brought to us by these corporations
1:18:43 and everybody that are coming in and building out our new areas
1:18:46 like Vieira and Palm Bay and Melbourne,
1:18:48 those are all directly attributed to our school system.
1:18:51 And for them to ever make an argument that this sales tax does
1:18:55 not tie back to jobs, to the community,
1:18:58 to improvement of our overall county here is preposterous.
1:19:03 I just wanted to say thank you for everything that you did and
1:19:05 kind of tie all that together.
1:19:07 And thank you for your guys’ dedication.
1:19:08 I know you guys just look like sometimes the maintenance guys,
1:19:11 but we know that we love you.
1:19:12 And you guys here.
1:19:13 Well, you have that building out there.
1:19:15 You guys have that building out there and you can go out there
1:19:19 and visit with them.
1:19:22 They’re just as dedicated as anybody else to our cause and we
1:19:24 really appreciate that.
1:19:25 We do.
1:19:26 Special folks.
1:19:27 So thank you.
1:19:28 Can we talk about this?
1:19:29 Right.
1:19:30 Hang on.
1:19:31 Before we can jump off this, can I ask one more question about
1:19:33 the future moving forward?
1:19:35 One thing that I am wondering is, you know, you shared in the
1:19:40 presentation that the ICOC has been helpful in allowing the team
1:19:48 to have some flexibility
1:19:50 with attachment F, but is there a way, and we need the
1:19:52 accountability of something like that.
1:19:54 If this is what we say, we’re going to do it.
1:19:56 But I just would love to see as if we move forward with this
1:20:00 again to have the flexibility as needs change,
1:20:04 you know, so that we’re not stuck with the way things were
1:20:06 assessed in 2014 and now we’re in 2020 having to do just only
1:20:11 those things.
1:20:12 So that your live data on your maintenance software can be used.
1:20:17 Is there a way to kind of ride it so that we’ve got some more
1:20:20 flexibility?
1:20:22 Sure.
1:20:23 Do we need to or is ICOC doing that for us?
1:20:26 So I think the answer to both of those is like, yes.
1:20:31 You know, we’ve got a great learning experience through this
1:20:35 sales surtox and so I think we can design the program to be
1:20:39 specific enough where it’s clear what we’re doing,
1:20:43 but also have flexibility to address the needs as they exist at
1:20:47 the time we’re doing the project and still have that level of
1:20:50 oversight with the ICOC or an ICOC.
1:20:55 And having that level of oversight and having a group to bounce
1:20:58 some of these ideas off of has been really good.
1:21:01 You know, occasionally we bounce an idea off of them and they
1:21:04 don’t like it.
1:21:05 And so it’s been good to have that citizen’s oversight.
1:21:09 So I believe that after hearing from our board members as to
1:21:12 some of the things we would like to see in a potential sales surtox
1:21:17 renewal,
1:21:18 that I would be able to design something that is both specific
1:21:21 and flexible.
1:21:23 And you always have to be careful because if you make it too
1:21:28 open then you end up in a school district where people are
1:21:31 starting to purchase stuff that becomes suspect.
1:21:34 And I tried so hard and failed miserably to try to expand the
1:21:38 current sales tax to include more cameras when we first got on
1:21:42 the board.
1:21:43 And it was rightfully so to keep it the scope of the project so
1:21:47 that we could continue to get successful audits.
1:21:52 So…
1:21:53 Can we talk about this yet?
1:21:54 I’m not fully prepared to talk about that but it depends on your
1:21:56 question.
1:21:57 Is it from Matt Reed’s program?
1:21:59 It is.
1:22:00 I think we got two more slides and then we transition to that.
1:22:03 I thought we were on the questions.
1:22:04 Clearly.
1:22:05 These are just wrap up slides.
1:22:06 Clearly we thought we were on the questions.
1:22:08 So just to wrap up, I always like to use this as a wrap up slide
1:22:11 because I want to make sure that we remain connected to the
1:22:15 educational mission and how our students are rated.
1:22:18 So, you know, I’m trying to keep us in the, you know, E-minus
1:22:21 kind of realm because we want to continue to move and make
1:22:29 progress.
1:22:31 And I feel like we have made progress.
1:22:32 Our team has been very dedicated to thinking differently and
1:22:35 doing things better and being tied to our educational mission
1:22:39 within the realm of fiscal responsibility.
1:22:41 So we always keep this in mind.
1:22:43 It’s right on the main.
1:22:47 There it is.
1:22:48 Okay.
1:22:49 So that’s just kind of my thought for the day in terms of, for
1:22:53 me, you know, we’ve come a long way since 2014 in the referendum.
1:23:00 But I think we have more of a journey to go.
1:23:03 And so I think we’re in a great place to continue to make
1:23:08 progress and proud of where we are and proud of where we’re
1:23:10 going and proud of our team.
1:23:12 And what we do to get there.
1:23:14 And I would be permiss if I didn’t also say that the support we
1:23:18 receive from the finance folks and the purchasing folks and the
1:23:22 leading and learning folks and Russell’s folks and Ron’s folks
1:23:25 and we, we work everybody on this tax plan.
1:23:30 And it’s really great to have such an awesome team with us.
1:23:33 Thank you all.
1:23:36 Yay!
1:23:37 Now I am.
1:23:38 Personal, right?
1:23:40 She said this personally.
1:23:41 I heard her say that that meant that she’s not leaving any time.
1:23:43 Right.
1:23:44 I think that’s what I heard her say.
1:23:45 As long as, if it continues.
1:23:46 Long term commitment.
1:23:46 I say those prayers every night.
1:23:47 I try to age gracefully as well.
1:23:48 I’m working on a PM.
1:23:49 I say those prayers every night.
1:23:50 I try to age gracefully as well.
1:23:50 I’m working on a PM.
1:23:50 Preventative maintenance.
1:23:51 To extend life.
1:23:52 That’s my bike riding, yeah.
1:23:53 I was just going to say, get her a bike.
1:23:54 I’m working on a PM.
1:23:56 Preventative maintenance.
1:23:57 To extend life.
1:23:58 That’s my bike riding, yeah.
1:23:59 I was just going to say, get her a bike.
1:24:00 For the record, I’ll limit over 40 or a PM.
1:24:01 Can I talk about this now?
1:24:02 I’m not here to talk about it though.
1:24:03 Oh yeah, he dropped it and ran.
1:24:04 But I can talk about it.
1:24:05 I can talk about it.
1:24:06 I was just going to say, get her back.
1:24:07 For the record, I’ll live at over 4 o’clock a p.m.
1:24:10 Can I talk about this now?
1:24:16 I’m not here to talk about it, though.
1:24:19 Oh, yeah, he dropped it and ran.
1:24:21 But I can talk about him.
1:24:23 So this came, do you have anything to do with this?
1:24:26 I provide data for that.
1:24:29 Who brought this?
1:24:29 And we work together.
1:24:30 Where is he?
1:24:32 He literally brought us in his spot.
1:24:35 I texted him to try and ask him to come back.
1:24:39 But I can take notes.
1:24:40 Okay.
1:24:40 Well, I am amazing, perfect, wonderful, great job.
1:24:46 A concern of mine from my very first day on the board was our
1:24:50 ability,
1:24:51 it came time to need it again to get community support.
1:24:55 And here we are just a few months out considering it.
1:24:59 And this sheet is fabulous.
1:25:03 But this sheet is what we needed, like, six months into it.
1:25:07 And in my opinion, our promotion throughout the community should
1:25:10 have been.
1:25:11 And this is more of the memory.
1:25:12 Hey, there’s Nikki.
1:25:13 Oh, there’s Nikki.
1:25:14 I was looking for somebody from your department.
1:25:15 So I was going to say, this is amazing.
1:25:18 What I was saying is, this is amazing, but this is what we
1:25:22 needed four years ago.
1:25:23 And I’m just, I’m concerned that we haven’t done our due
1:25:27 diligence over the last years.
1:25:30 This is what has been done.
1:25:32 No, this only started about a year ago.
1:25:36 This may have been less.
1:25:38 Like, this should have been day one, you know, like, what was
1:25:41 happening.
1:25:42 This kind of stuff should have been happening from day one.
1:25:44 And then from there, we should have had, and I’m not, I don’t
1:25:48 want to criticize brutally, so I’m trying to be kind.
1:25:52 But this is all, this is our bubble.
1:25:55 Like, this reach that we’re seeing, to me, is our people that
1:25:59 already know and see and feel in love.
1:26:01 There’s 500,000 more people in our community that we have to get
1:26:05 on board if this is something that we are.
1:26:07 And, again, this isn’t really directed to you.
1:26:09 It’s probably more over there and beyond.
1:26:10 We’re going to have to, I mean, if you guys remember what the
1:26:15 board and the superintendent had to do to get this one approved.
1:26:20 Were you going to hear that?
1:26:22 I mean, the work within the community was showing us, yes, we
1:26:25 already have it.
1:26:26 So if we need it again, it might be a little bit easier.
1:26:28 But they were out hitting the pavement, speaking everywhere I
1:26:30 went.
1:26:31 There they were.
1:26:32 There were people in street corners with signs.
1:26:34 Brevard voters don’t easily click yes for any kind of tax.
1:26:38 So the work that has to be done is just, I have concerns.
1:26:42 So I don’t want to end on a negative note because you guys have
1:26:45 done an amazing job.
1:26:46 As I’ve been invited out to speak on the surtax and what we’ve
1:26:49 been doing, I take all of those opportunities.
1:26:53 And there’s pieces of this presentation that are in that
1:26:56 presentation where I talk about how big the district is.
1:26:59 And I talk about what we’ve done well and what we haven’t done
1:27:01 well.
1:27:02 Because I want to be transparent about how we’ve been performing
1:27:05 with our surtax.
1:27:06 Because people experience different things in the schools.
1:27:08 And I feel like we have to be doing proactively.
1:27:13 So you’re like, when I’m invited, we need to be broken, all of
1:27:17 us.
1:27:17 And unfortunately, sometimes it’s something that wasn’t a part
1:27:21 of the sales surtax.
1:27:22 It’s broken or not working.
1:27:24 And, oh, why didn’t they use those sales tax dollars and this is
1:27:27 still broken?
1:27:27 Well, that wasn’t on the list.
1:27:30 I mean, I hate telling that people, well, that wasn’t on the
1:27:32 list.
1:27:34 You probably have the best example of that problem.
1:27:36 Yeah, in the Middle East.
1:27:38 But, yes, I agree.
1:27:41 And I’m sure we’ll be working with Matt’s department to figure
1:27:44 out how we can do better.
1:27:46 To ramp it up.
1:27:46 Out in the community.
1:27:47 If we get there.
1:27:48 I mean, I don’t know what our, you said April is when you need
1:27:51 to know from us.
1:27:52 If we are going to make any changes.
1:27:54 So the timing on that decision will be up to you and Dr. Mullins
1:27:58 as to how we bring that decision to a place where it’s made.
1:28:02 But meanwhile, we’re out in the community talking about it.
1:28:05 You said we have to have an audit.
1:28:07 Is that, what’s, what’s.
1:28:08 Only if we change the terms of the surtax.
1:28:12 What’s audited?
1:28:13 Like what we’ve done so far?
1:28:14 What we’ve done.
1:28:15 Oh.
1:28:15 The state comes in and audits what we’ve done.
1:28:18 Okay.
1:28:18 Well, we should talk about that.
1:28:20 And I think, don’t they also, in the audit, aren’t they auditing
1:28:24 us to justify that we actually need the sales tax?
1:28:28 I don’t think so, but I could be wrong about that.
1:28:32 But we’ll have that ready for them too.
1:28:34 I mean, if we need that, we’ve done all, you know, we’ve got the
1:28:37 ICU, we’ve got the audits, and we have the new attachment apps.
1:28:43 Is that what we’re getting?
1:28:43 Not necessarily.
1:28:45 A facility assessment.
1:28:46 A new attachment app.
1:28:48 I’m going to give them a stack of 300 page books and say, here
1:28:52 you go.
1:28:53 Yeah.
1:28:54 Is each booklet, is each school assessment literally 300 pages?
1:28:59 Wow.
1:28:59 Yep.
1:29:00 That’s so awesome.
1:29:01 It was pretty, I mean, I’m not going to lie.
1:29:03 I was pretty excited in the beginning of when you were going
1:29:05 over what the software was able to do and track and how we haven’t
1:29:08 been.
1:29:09 I think that all this has just been out there.
1:29:11 It’s pretty cool.
1:29:12 If you’d like, I was going to, I should have brought some books.
1:29:15 I’m happy to share them with you.
1:29:18 And I can send you an example assessment if you’d like one.
1:29:21 I would like to see one.
1:29:22 Yes.
1:29:22 Okay.
1:29:23 Can you send us one of our schools, one of our own schools?
1:29:26 Yes.
1:29:26 I can testify to some things already being done because when I
1:29:30 pulled into the first day back last week to drop my son off at
1:29:33 West Poblmore School for Science,
1:29:34 we had, instead of a pothole-filled car loop, we had a nice
1:29:39 black tub car loop.
1:29:40 Yeah, and the Atlanta.
1:29:41 Yeah.
1:29:42 I was like, holy smokes, it’s been paved and lined.
1:29:45 It looked so good, but I didn’t know, was that on somebody’s
1:29:47 radar?
1:29:47 Did it do?
1:29:48 Thank you.
1:29:50 We just randomly go to do lots of stuff before we do this.
1:29:53 I mean, what was that part of?
1:29:56 Why did that get done?
1:29:56 We’ve wanted that for so long there, and there it was.
1:29:59 Done.
1:29:59 Just priority, and it finally came up.
1:30:02 Well, it looks, it really makes the front of the school look so
1:30:05 much better.
1:30:06 Any other questions?
1:30:06 So, to that point, I love that you want to dig into the
1:30:11 assessments because that’s my next ask.
1:30:15 And that is this, all of that, there’s far too much information
1:30:20 and data and, you know,
1:30:22 still some of the questions that SUMA’s already posed about
1:30:25 athletics, about playgrounds,
1:30:27 and that sort of thing, and assessments will be finished up here
1:30:29 in the near future.
1:30:31 I’d like to ask board members to reach out to Sue in pretty
1:30:34 short order and have a one-on-one
1:30:37 and dig into the information, dig into the questions, dig into,
1:30:42 you know, provide feedback
1:30:43 that you’re hearing from the district.
1:30:45 And then I’m always in constant one-on-one, and I will be in
1:30:49 communication with Sue because
1:30:51 I won’t be able to be in all of those conversations and then
1:30:54 come back around and be preparing to
1:30:57 bring a next recommendation to the board about related to sales
1:31:01 or tax.
1:31:02 Likely well before April.
1:31:09 Thank you.
1:31:10 Thanks.
1:31:11 And look, it’s my important pocket.
1:31:13 Good job, team.
1:31:14 Thank you.
1:31:16 That has to do with our self-restraint in asking questions.
1:31:20 I think of any restrictions.
1:31:21 Thank you.
1:31:22 She stuck to her 45 minutes.
1:31:24 I can’t believe we’re dead until 2017 more years.
1:31:30 Yeah.
1:31:30 All of our comments go to debt.
1:31:32 Like, that makes me so mad.
1:31:33 Oh, yes.
1:31:35 Sorry.
1:31:36 I’m seeing no further issues than workshops too.
1:31:40 Thank you.