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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAgenda - September 21, 2022 School Capital Needs Workgroup Agenda - with notes ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS CHAPEL HILL-CARRBORO BOARD OF EDUCATION ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION Capital Needs Work Group September 21, 2022 Meeting— 8:30-10am Due to current public health concerns, the Capital Needs Work Group is conducting a Virtual Meeting on September 21, 2022. Members of the Group will be participating in the meeting remotely. 1. Welcome—Commissioner Jean Hamilton, Chair of Work Group Attendees: Bonnie Hauser, Rebecca Crawford, Greg Wilder, Gary Donaldson, Patrick Abele, Al Ciarochi, Nick Mincey, Kirk Vaughn, Jean Hamilton, Alan Dorman, Renee Price, Rani Dasi, Patrick Florence, Carrie Doyle, Jonathan Scott • OCS: Final report is on consent agenda for next meeting but don't anticipate any issues • CHCCS: shared at a recent meeting • Orange County: shared at a recent work session • Jean: today will review and share next steps at next Joint Meeting on September 29t' o Capital Needs will be last on the agenda and will have about 30 minutes to discuss o Formal presentation will be very limited (will work today to scale draft back considerably—max 5 slides) ■ Spend more time on consultant and drafting the scope of work for consultant 2. Final Report Scope of Work and Proposed Timeline a. Add deleted slides as an appendix, not slides b. Combine funding slides (3 and 4) i. Put FCI in appendix ii. Bonnie: would like to discuss the slide with the $60 million already committed 1. Should we show how much is committed vs how much we actually need?Add to slide 2 c. Renee: Chairs want to introduce the topics and then spark discussion i. Renee was planning to summarize the background and then pass to Jean to present the combined slides 3 and 4, then present the recommendations, then go into discussion about consultant (each board has the report). Want to make sure everyone agrees to accept the report and consultant ii. Could present the entire slide deck for elected officials as a reference even if don't review entire deck verbally d. Scope of Work i. Gary: reviewed other county school districts that hired consultants to do this same task 1. Spoke with Guilford Co. Schools CFO, Durham County—know of about 4 consultants that do this work 2. Guilford's cost was $899k for 126 schools. We have 32 schools so could estimate the cost would be substantially less than Guilford but will depend on what we want in the scope of work— entire study took about 8 months once the contract was awarded ii. Carrie: combined score affirms the building score for the most part (the other scores don't do much to change the combined score) 1. Jean: Are you saying, if the facilities score captures the FCA score, do we need the other metrics? This is just one example from one school district but helps. 2. Carrie: tech and suitability are good metrics to have 3. Al: A proponent of having the extra scores denoted. Are a part of the FCA, but it's better to see what is driving the scores by these categories. a. Site scores can change over time, especially if a school is very old. Don't want to just look at just the envelope and don't want to be constrained by an architect saying the other metrics are extra 4. Should keep these benchmarking metrics in the scope 5. Bonnie: how important is safety? It's become an important topic. 6. Bonnie: Will the consultant come back to us with an estimated cost to implement projects proposed? Need to included that and underscore the importance of working with two separate school districts a. Report to, compare to each other, etc. b. Jean: can they look at each school individually,regardless of district? 7. Gary: also important that include language in RFQ that if you are awarded the consultant role you forfeit right to bid and be awarded contracts for construction/design a. Bonnie: 100% supports that 8. Bonnie: there are different models for program management — how do districts feel about that? How do we implement and staff this? a. What are different models that are out there manage risk and cost? 9. Gary: could our school district facilities staff reach out to Guilford and Durham and get ideas about how they handled these 10. Jean: did the peer jurisdictions talk about funding options? a. Gary: they did but won't help us much— we're already using both sources Guilford is using (property tax and Article 46) — we recently partnered with both school districts on high need district capital grant applications through state and will continue to do that b. Carrie: is this the first time we qualified and collaborated? i. Gary: first time we've collaborated. The state did tweak the eligibility qualifications, which made it easier for all to apply c. Bonnie: In terms of other funding opportunities, what about when the feds offered large tax incentives for high efficiency HVAC, the vendors were advertising them as a subsidy to school districts. Are there opportunities for collaboration across school districts to save money? Also, if we lease could that keep us from having to put debt on our books? Each option comes with risk. Should we ask the consultant to comment on things like this? iii. Renee: Was there any discussion or concerns from elected boards about the report 1. OCS (Carrie): no 2. CHCCS (Rani): only concern was that this would put us further behind in timeline to improve capital improvements 3. Renee: What are the next steps after the Joint Meeting on the 29 h? Do we need another group to work on this? a. Rani: agree and don't try to create the scope of work at the Joint Meeting i. Need next step slide with action items —keep out of the weeds on the 29tn ii. Jean: do the school boards want to look at the RFQ? 1. Do we want the RFQ out by the end of October 2. Rani: agrees with timeline but anticipates all boards will want to look at RFQ 3. Bonnie: circulate RFQ to boards and deal with comments outside of a meeting 4. Jean: how long would we give for respondents to reply? a. Gary: about 4 weeks. Will use the Guilford RFQ as a template to use as a starting point. Gary will follow up with more specifics about timeframe 5. Bonnie: Very impressed that Gary went out and did benchmarking — could we add this as an early slide to show we aren't alone in approaching this issue? a. All agree iv. Jean: should this group develop a subgroup to review submitted qualifications? 1. Gary: 3 facility managers(county,both districts), 2. Rani: maybe subgroup makes a recommendation and BOCC make the final award. Could we add board representatives to the subgroup to have buy-in from each district 3. Bonnie: could we be ready to start this by the beginning of the new calendar year? a. Jean: award before Christmas? 4. Al: can anticipate will take 4-6 months but how fast it can be done will be based on how much we are willing to pay a. Bonnie: could we add in RFQ to add cost estimates on a traditional timeline vs accelerated b. Kirk: may not get many advantages to rush in terms of budget year c. Rani: really want to urge expediency on this and request the accelerated timeline d. Renee: don't want to get a product that is out of date 5. Bonnie: Guilford did 2 bond referendums to support this —we could have multiple rounds to fund this 6. Bonnie: should we note the urgency on a slide? a. Jean: if we discuss the urgency and bring stories, that will be more impactful than if we add it to a slide b. Carrie: concluding slide, supplemental materials — timeline of funding such as the next bond (will be helpful for new school board members) i. May not need to discuss but could leave in slide deck as a resource ii. Include budget cycle calendar and bond cycle calendar c. Bonnie: Could we include the penny equivalent on the property tax rate for the total amount needed? i. Jean: I think that's too much for this point in the process. Let's do that when we get the final product and talk about how to fund it ii. Renee: suggest Gary has that ready to go just in case because that question comes up frequently — don't include in slides or narrative just have available 7. Renee: Greg, When is next joint meeting scheduled? Not set yet, but most likely in April 2023 a. Rani: Could we have something to discuss (project update) to start talking about alternative funding sources i. Make that an early deliverable from consultant and work that into budget cycle discussions ii. Greg and Kirk to work on schedule so joint meeting isn't so close to meeting to discuss budget with schools v. How will the consultant deal with existing district facility plans? Should this be in the RFQ or just given as information? vi. Rani: Who will do presentation at joint meeting? 1. Jean: Jean will do it with Gary supporting a. Slides to go out to work group with agenda 3. Discussion and Next Steps a. Rani: Thanks so much to Jean for her leadership and vision 4. Next Meeting is Wednesday, October 19, 2022 a. Gary will have a draft RFQ prior to the next meeting to discuss Adjourn Capital Needs Work Group virtual meetings are open to the public to attend remotely. Should any member of the public wish to view this meeting, please click the following link to register: Capital Needs Workgroup Registration Link After registering, you will receive a follow-up email which will allow you to access and view the meeting. If you have any comments or questions, would like to submit any written comments to the group, or would like an emailed copy of the entire agenda package for this meeting, please email Rebecca Crawford at rcrawfordgoran ec�oun . nc.gov before 3:00 pm on September 19, 2022