Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County School Board, Finance & Operations Committee Meeting, Tuesday, September 3, 2024

Date: Tuesday, September 3, 2024
Place: Loudoun County Public Schools / School Board meeting (see BoardDocs / LCPS-TV)
Length: 1h 11m (video)
Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/1006057205?rel=0
BoardDocs (School Board): https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/loudoun/Board.nsf/Public

Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting.
Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-10-21. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:01] - Thank you everyone for your patience. I'd like to call to order this September 3rd meeting of the Finance and Operations Committee. My name is Arben Estreffi, I'm the chair of this committee. I'm joined by Chair Mansfield and Mrs. Griffiths. Welcome. I'm also informed that we do not have any public comment for today.

[00:00:20] So we'll just move forward with the agenda. I'm excited about this agenda. I think it's a really good mix between policy revisions and contract renewals presentations And I think we even have a new school schematic design review. So pretty exciting.

[00:00:35] It's a good mix. With that, I think we'll go ahead and get started with the minutes from the August 6th, 2024 meeting. We will, first of all, are there any additions or changes to the meeting minutes from August 6th?

[00:00:53] Seeing none, I'll entertain a motion to approve the meeting minutes. Seconded by Mrs. Griffiths. All those in favor? Aye. - Hi, seeing the minutes have been approved officially, we'll move on to the action items.

[00:01:20] We'll start with action item 4.01, business and financial services, RFP R25250 vision services. Do I have a motion? Yes, Chair Mansfield.

[00:01:36] - I move that the finance and operation committee recommends the Loudoun County School Board Award, RFP number R23267 vision services to Davis vision, effective from January 1st, 2025 to December 31st, 2027.

[00:01:54] Thank you. I'll go ahead and second that. And I believe we have Ms. Filial presenting. Good evening and thank you. I'm bringing before you this evening this action item for vision services as we were out of renewals on our current contract.

[00:02:10] We went out and solicited using an RFP and the recommendation is to award to Davis Vision who is our current provider for vision services with no change in costs for the services. And we're bringing it before you this evening as action instead of information due to the need to getting it awarded so we can start working with them on the upcoming open enrollment period that is fast approaching.

[00:02:36] Thank you, Ms. Villar. Any questions? Seeing no questions, we'll take it to a vote. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. those opposed seeing um we have three in favor uh that motion passes unanimously moving on to action item 4.02 business financial services fy 24 supplemental request for self-insurance funds

[00:03:10] do i have a motion chair mansfield i move i think you chair astraffy the i move that the finance and operation committee recommends that the louden county school board approve a supplemental budget increase of $1,700,000 to the health self-insurance fund and use the fund balance in the same amount. I will second that motion and I believe we have Casey Jones, Director of Budget and Financial Analytics, presenting. Good afternoon. Staff is requesting an FY24 budget increase of

[00:03:45] $1.7 million for the health self-insurance fund, which is necessary to recognize a final FY24 or incurred but not paid claims liabilities estimate. At a high level, incurred but not paid claims liabilities, or IBNP, is an actuarial estimate of remaining unpaid claims costs for services rendered during the fiscal year.

[00:04:04] The original IBNP claims liabilities estimate provided to LCPS in May was based on paid claims through April 30th with actuarial projections for the remainder of the fiscal year. The final IBNP delivered to LCPS on August 8th included claims through June 30th with increases in the full IBNP amount driven by paid claims for May and June coming in higher than expected and an actuarial assumption that these trends will persist.

[00:04:29] We can answer questions you may have, and unless otherwise directed, staff recommends this item be moved to the school board as a consent item during the second Tuesday meeting on September 10th in order to facilitate the timely financial close of the fiscal yearbooks. Thank you very much.

[00:04:46] Just a note about the previous item, was the recommendation to put it on consent as well? Yes. Okay. Are we in agreement that that previous action item can go on consent, thumbs up, but yes.

[00:05:03] So for this item, any questions? Seeing no questions, we will take it to a vote. All those in favor, aye. - Aye. - Seeing none opposed, this item passes unanimously.

[00:05:30] We'll move on to 4.03 support services school proffer funds. Do you have a motion? - Yes, Chair Mansfield. - Thank you, Chair Struffy. Wait, let me find it.

[00:05:51] - This is a long motion. Oh, gosh, it's the whole thing. I move that the Finance and Operations Committee recommend that the Loudoun County School Board conferred projects to benefit from available cash proffer funds and to direct staff to submit required requests to secure proffer funding.

[00:06:11] The projects include, I'm just going to read the Ashburn Village, Ashburn Elementary School Inclusive Playground, Cascades, Seneca Ridge, Middle School Walking Track, the Coral Property,

[00:06:27] Eagle Ridge Middle School Outdoor Basketball Hoops and Backboards, Loudoun Station, Rosalie Carter Elementary School Walking Track and Stonehill Middle School Walking Track, and Moore Field Station, book break subscription for elementary and middle schools, a library collection for the Health and Medical Science Academy, and the expansion of environmental science library collections at all school.

[00:06:52] Further, pending the Board of Supervisors approval, the identified Ashburn Village, Cascades, Coral Property, and Loudoun Station proffer funds will be appropriated to supplement the fiscal year 2025 capital improvement program budget for capital improvements and enhancements at the identified schools.

[00:07:13] The Moore Field Station proffer funds will be appropriated to supplement the fiscal year 2025 operating budget and for library media materials acquisition as identified. Thank you. I will go ahead and second that motion.

[00:07:29] Ms. Tate, Director of Planning and GI Services, would you like to add anything? I have nothing to add. I thank you for entertaining this item. Proffers are a voluntary contribution that are asked for to offset impact, and so we need board direction to appropriate these to the capital operating budgets.

[00:07:55] Thank you. I recall we had a pretty in-depth discussion in the last meeting around the parameters of proffer funds and these specific projects, right? We went kind of in a bit of depth on, you know, why these specific projects.

[00:08:11] And I think, I remember if I'm not mistaken, most of these projects were already planned for and they're just being expedited or funding is being added to expedite some of these projects using proper funds. That was my understanding.

[00:08:26] So I don't, beyond that, unless you have any comment to what I just mentioned, I don't, from my side, I don't have any additional questions. Board members? Yes, Mrs. Griffiths. - Thank you, Chair Struffy. I have mentioned, I mean, several times the arts and theater and I see that here so is it just broad run are there other schools that's proper money could have gone to as well and we are going to be doing the storage because it is on on this list here mr. Lewis thank you I

[00:09:02] understand your question mr. Griffiths the we are doing storage for the music and arts programs at all of our high schools that project is underway now was approved by the board as a part of the end of year funding process so that is underway currently for all the high schools. There was just some confusion with band storage and theater storage, correct? If you can just explain that. Yes, there was some confusion, and we caused that in our office, so we apologize for that. So it was for dual purposes for not only the music, theater, fine arts area, as well as athletics, and so we're working with each

[00:09:39] principal to best utilize that to make sure that everyone has an opportunity to get storage as they need it. Thank you. Yes, Mr. Chair Mansfield. Thank you, Chair Struffy. I think part of the other reason was it's not air-conditioned. The ones that we provided are not air-conditioned, and so therefore we can't really put our instruments in there, and sometimes we can't put theater storage in there. So that's why the principals had the discretion. Can you help? Yes, absolutely. So

[00:10:18] there are many different needs for storage at a high school level, and some of them require conditioned space and some of them don't so we're asking the schools to work together with each department to best utilize those spaces and put things out in the storage containers that do not require condition space and allow those spaces inside to be in the interior of the building so it is a work in progress we do have a long-term CIP project that we'll be talking with board members for over the next couple of months in the CIP process to address those things on a permanent basis but this was a temporary solution to try to help the schools get by until we can get

[00:10:55] the permanent solution in place any other questions yes thank you chair straffi and one more thing um i know it's probably a small cost but uh how much is the eagle ridge uh the basketball hoops there i don't think i saw a cost for that i don't think we've gotten the actual cost yet we'll we'll get a proposal from the contractor to do that work once the board agrees that that would be a priority for that, and so I think we've determined that it likely will be within that area or maybe just a little bit over, and then we would supplement that with operating funds if necessary.

[00:11:34] Any other questions? Seeing none, we'll take it to a vote. All those in favor, aye. Aye.

[00:11:50] Seeing all the board members are in favor, that vote passes unanimously. Is the recommendation to put this on consent as well, Ms. Tate?

[00:12:07] That would be fantastic. All right. Thoughts? I think I might be more comfortable allowing the other board members to check out what it is first before we, so they don't have to just take it off consent.

[00:12:29] Absolutely. Yeah. Sounds good. So this will go as an information item in the next full board meeting moving on to our last action item support services contract award RFP 2434 architectural engineering services for Waterford ES renovation and addition.

[00:12:48] renovation and addition do i have a motion thank you thank you chair straffi i move that the finance and operation committee approve and recommend the loudon county school board approve the contract award for rfp number 24-534 architecture engineering services for waterford elementary school renovation and addition in the amount of 1 million 659 thousand seven hundred sixty seven dollars to hoard Copeland mocked and authorizes the chair of the board to sign the final contract

[00:13:26] documents upon presentation. Thank you, Chairman Mansfield. I'll second that motion and pass it over to Mr. Pasquarelli to present. Good afternoon. This project is a approved CIP project. We received design funding appropriations in fiscal year 25. This will add a multi-purpose room as well as four classrooms to Waterford allow us to remove the modulars when the project is complete we went through an RFP process for architects we had great participation we had 11 architects participating and this is our

[00:14:06] recommendation to move forward with just want to clarify the proposal analysis group is are all internal stakeholders on the teams that were identified they were all within LCPS or is that something else the the RFP the RFP review team are LCPS employees amongst different divisions of LCPS got it any other questions board members seeing no other questions or comments we will go

[00:14:45] ahead and take it to a vote all those in favor aye aye that motion will pass unanimously and I believe this just want to ask consent agenda so I'll just support going to consent if that's your question yes sir okay thumbs up from

[00:15:17] everyone yes we'll move on to our information items starting with 5.01 business and financial services revision of policy 8020 relations with school support organizations presented by miss Susan Casale good afternoon the updated policy aims to provide clarity by delineating the responsibilities between school support organization activities and school sponsored activities we added additional language under the general guidelines which separates the two organizations and provides corresponding guidance. I would

[00:15:55] like to bring two things to your attention that we updated. First is the revenue from school support organization activities. They should be deposited into the school support organization's bank account. They can also make a donation to the school if they like. And secondly if an LCPS employee takes the day off during their contracted workday for an SSO event they will need to take the appropriate leave in accordance with policy. Also before presenting this policy to you today we requested favorable feedback from the Loudoun County Council PTA president which helped with delineating SSOs and school sponsored activities responsibilities unless otherwise

[00:16:33] directed we will bring this as an action item to the F&O committee on September 17th thank you very much board members are there any questions or comments yes Ms. Chair Mansfield okay as I was reading this SSOs I was getting state State-sponsored, I mean, school-sponsored and school-support organizations, it's all kind of similar language.

[00:16:59] And so I kept on getting confused. Is there any way, and I know this is annoying, but instead of using an acronym of SSOs, can we just go ahead and write it out? Because it could be school-sponsored, it could be school-support organization.

[00:17:17] it's just the SS I wish we could figure out another word instead of support organization so if we could do that and then also I'm wondering on oh we don't have lines here but on to let's see C2C I guess can we just change the school principal may sever a relationship

[00:17:54] with a SSO at any time in which and instead of in which case the school board should will be notified can we just have and the school board would be notified in which case as opposed to in which case is do we have any thoughts about that language at all um we could update both of those and we have school support and we have school sponsored should it not be school supported

[00:18:27] organization as well as school sponsored activities i mean i just am looking for some consistency i don't know um then in on f on 2f in one area you say that if they are if there is a person an employee who gets a stipend then it's already a school sponsored activity but then in

[00:19:02] But then in F, it looks like it doesn't have to be a school-sponsored activity. They have to encourage, they have to donate funds so that it is a school-sponsored activity.

[00:19:27] No? Okay. Can someone explain that to me a little bit? I think the SSO and the SSA, all the SSs are getting me mixed up. For the SSOs, the first thing you had brought up was about school support organization-sponsored activities. This is specifically related to when an SSO sponsors something at the school versus school sponsored, which means it's sponsored by the school.

[00:19:51] So we have those two delineations because there's different documentation and things that are needed. And then in regards to what you were reading about the SSO, if it's a school sponsored, right, it's a school sponsored and they get a stipend.

[00:20:09] But if it's not school-sponsored, like if the school support organization, the band boosters sponsor something for the band students and the band director goes, they need to take leave or they need to take leave because it's not school-sponsored.

[00:20:28] So you've got school-sponsored and school-support organization-sponsored. If I may add, I know when, so we created this policy two years ago, and we struggled then in trying to find an appropriate way to delineate between basically what's LCPS and what's not LCPS.

[00:20:46] And so the school support organization, the SSO, which I also know is school support officer, I mean, there's a lot of overlap. But that terminology came from just some of the materials at a national level of how to refer to PTOs, PTAs, and booster clubs.

[00:21:03] And that's really what we're trying to identify, like a differentiation between LCPS, school-sponsored, versus these external school-sponsored organizations. And so we can go back and perhaps try to, I mean, another option would be basically replacing the SSO with PTO slash PTA slash booster slash et cetera, just to capture all those external entities.

[00:21:32] But that is why then, to your question regarding an LCPS employee, when they are going to participate in an activity for this external organization, they have to take leave because it's not a school activity.

[00:21:48] It's an activity that is sponsored outside of the school through the PTO, PTA booster. So it's not during their contract. so that's where in terms of trying to read through the confusion where there's those two different sections in the policy that we adjusted to really try to create this dividing line as well as the

[00:22:08] requirements for both can we have something like lcps sponsored versus not lcps sponsored so i was so i was kind of jotting down some notes of maybe for the school support organization adding the

[00:22:46] word external in front of it external school support organization and then lcps school sponsored activities so adding one additional word before each will probably help trigger really what we're talking about lcps or not if that that could think will be helpful that could be an easy remedy um to making an adjustment to the policy i think that's a good idea i don't know what is the what do you guys think i think adding the lc lcps in front of school sponsored um is enough brings

[00:23:19] enough clarity for me um and then beyond kind of the confusion of the of the words or the acronyms um i'm just sharing kind of my my thought beyond just the confusion confusion of the words i think the policy itself does well to delineate that separation it's just those two different entities i think the policy is written well enough well from my perspective i think it's i do agree with chair mansfield is that if we add something like lcps in front of school sponsored that at least for me, clarifies it enough.

[00:23:55] I don't see the need to rework the policy itself or the wording of each of the clauses, but I think that we can bring more clarity to what we call the entities. And I think the LCPS does enough. I would be hesitant to change the actual, as much as I don't like it either, I would be hesitant to change the school support organization, given that you've already stated that it's kind of referenced that way nationally.

[00:24:23] so that's just my two cents maybe lcps sponsored activities would be better than school sponsored activities or or i'm seeing maybe not i don't know miss filial did you have a thought i think

[00:24:45] that'd be fine yeah okay just so just to summarize instead of school sponsored activities lcps sponsored activities is that cool is that okay with staff thank you so we would then be um taking

[00:25:22] a vote on the amended version of this or would we would this come back oh it's information i apologize yeah so in action it would have those edits any other comments well and this goes to other people to look at it too I guess when we before we go to action right we go to action it'll be given to other entities to will there be public review actually between now and the action will post it for feedback and

[00:26:01] that will start the public comment please thank you any other comments all All right, so we can move on. Next information item is business and financial services, revision of policy 4030, non-locally funded programs.

[00:26:18] And that will be presented by Ms. Cassali again, executive director for financial services. - Thank you. This policy was updated, aiming to align with internal practices and provide clarity on seeking revenue sources to supplement our funds.

[00:26:35] The updates include defining grants, donation, and proffers. Each definition guidance is provided to assist individuals departments in ensuring proper accounting for the various monies that are not funded through local sources you will also see the attached updated corresponding regulation for your reference the regulation includes language to ensure proper approvals and compliance are adhered to from the beginning of the process this ensures transparency transparency and accountability in the management of funds unless otherwise directed we will bring this as an action item to the fno committee on september 17th thank you very much board members any comments or questions

[00:27:15] Thank you, Chair Struffy. Okay, so it looks like you took off D, school-based grants, principals may accept a grant on behalf, and you put it in regulations.

[00:27:41] Is that what happened? We were defining the difference between grants 5,000 and larger and grants less than 5,000.

[00:28:01] But I have a cross-out here. That's why I was wondering if it was crossed out so that you put it in regulations instead. Yes, sorry. Yes. Is there a reason why we would put it in regulations and not in our policy? more details for in the regulation that help with the individuals, so I'm just wondering since we might I mean I might want to consider going ahead and keeping school-based grants in policy and

[00:28:39] Saying that they may accept a grant and then going ahead and delineating it further Which is what you guys do in the in the regulations defining it further If we were to unstrike that with then we would want to actually Rework the wording because it's it expands beyond just principles And that's what we have included in the regulation was we were really trying to capture grants across the division Less than 5,000 not necessarily just the the schools

[00:29:14] So as they were as this policy was being reworked as and you see the significant, you know red language It really was expanding this policy and the regulation that is included for reference is a brand new regulation so the whole package is is really structured much more broadly than what it has been done in the past but again to circle back if you're wanting to have that lifted of giving more specific guidance but again as miss casali said i think we're just trying to we were

[00:29:46] thinking that that was more operational um and that's why we include it in the regulation the other and i wish that there were numbers here um in our policies can we put the numbers on the side

[00:30:21] so I can when we refer it we can yeah I'm please not sure because I think has

[00:30:31] them all right so on page I guess okay on 40 line 42 and 43 where it says be

[00:31:08] submitted after obtaining appropriate approval by either the superintendent or designee or by the school board if required so there's an opportunity here for the school board not to be approving grants?

[00:31:29] Is that what I'm seeing here? That is correct.

[00:31:41] So I guess I have a little bit of a problem with that because let's just say for an example, we're looking at literacy and somebody gets a grant for literacy and it's not going to happen now because of VLA, but in the past it could have happened where someone is getting a grant at the school level for a program of some sort And it's more whole language than it is structured literacy.

[00:32:16] And so I guess I have a little bit of an angst there that then the school board wouldn't even have knowledge that it's even occurring at all. So we do have in the regulation an approval process, which is a vetting.

[00:32:34] And actually, because, as I mentioned earlier, with the regulation being new and a significant, you know, some changes to the policy, we were concerned from a business financial services perspective, a similar concern that grants could be accepted out in the district and perhaps didn't meet the objectives of the division.

[00:32:55] And so before a principal or an account manager, despite perhaps best intentions, signing, you know, obligating us into a grant, we wanted to have this pre-vetting process, which is identified in the regulation. And as part of that, it goes through and identifies stakeholders, which would be, depending on the type of a grant, that the accounting division would kind of help, you know, steer potential grants towards the appropriate stakeholders.

[00:33:24] Is it the Department of Teaching and Learning? Is it support services? Depending on what the grant is for to make sure that it has been properly vetted before there was any approval. And so that again is in regulation with the expectation that that would be like an operational decision of reviewing and committing us to grants unless the grant specifically called for the school board to approve.

[00:33:53] So that is the practice that we are trying to put in place. I will also say that we have a significant number of grants. And so again, this is, would be what we believe would be a best practice for LCPS.

[00:34:09] Would you guys consider a monetary, like I can understand 5,000 and below, not school board, or is there a monetary that we could say that this would be school board approved? I'm not sure that in this example, tying a dollar amount would necessarily give us, I'm trying to think what the word would be, the proper level, because it really is about the details.

[00:34:36] Because it could be a small dollar amount, but perhaps what they're asking in exchange from LCPS would just not meet what LCPS would want to do. So I don't think it's necessarily a dollar amount in this instance. I'm saying the school board wouldn't even know that it was there if it's a certain dollar amount and below, but if it was a certain dollar amount and above, then we would get a heads up.

[00:35:02] So would you want to see a listing of grants? Again, we have several grants. I'm trying to think of how to meet your request for, I guess, additional transparency in a way that also allows us to efficiently administer grants.

[00:35:29] I'm also still trying to process this, and so I'm thinking about the difference between the ability to submit a grant and then the approval or the, you know, binding the division into a grant that might have obligations on us, right? So I want to separate the two, and then I'm curious about the volume of grants that schools individually are actually applying for and then receiving.

[00:35:57] Is that, so is there any context from this that you have or historical context that, you know, why we're kind of taking this approach? Well, especially, and I appreciate you bringing up the schools because there's actually kind of two categories here.

[00:36:13] There are the division, there are the grants that would come to the division and be processed through accounting and go into the school operating fund or, I mean, the school grant fund. And then there are the grants at the school level that go into the individual school activity funds.

[00:36:29] What I would think would be most comfortable with at this point is allowing us some time to pull some additional information and bringing this back again as information so we can quantify some of the numbers of grants that we're looking at.

[00:36:45] I will also say, again, recognizing that this is a new regulation where we have recently instituted this pre-approval process it may be a little bit more difficult for us to even quantify because we didn't have full transparency into all the grants that were coming in and this is this was actually trying to set that structure up so that we could make sure we were aware of what all was happening out there that's fair but but we could absolutely try to pull what what what information we do have access to currently and bring that back yeah i um i've had conversations

[00:37:20] with folks in teaching and learning as well around you know how we look at the budget process for big initiatives that we've as a board that the board has supported such that that lead to kind of special programs or grants that help us to identify needs in stem and we go ahead and move forward and then you know the grant funding kind of matures right and then we have to figure out Do we continue that in the operating fund?

[00:37:50] And so I'm just thinking about whether the board would have a say in, or how the board is typically involved in going in a specific direction when it comes to a big grant that is for a very specific type of program or initiative.

[00:38:14] So I'm just trying to understand the inputs that we would have. I think trying to align to what you were saying, That could obligate us in the future in terms of budget. That's really the bottom line.

[00:38:34] Ms. Griffiths. Thank you, Chair Struffy. I agree with my colleagues that we need to have, and I was not aware of this, so I apologize. If all these grants are coming in, you're saying some you don't know about.

[00:38:52] Is that right? Because they go through different schools. There has to be a way that every grant that comes in, it's documented. I'd like to see a list of grants we get. I don't know how you'd go about doing that, but I would like to see a list.

[00:39:10] Specifically, there are so many things, like for example, continuing technical education that somebody might send a grant for. I'd like to see things like that. Making an amendment here at 42 and 43 where, you know, it would be not necessary.

[00:39:35] We would also take a look at these grants and maybe be able to make decisions as to where some of this money goes. So I don't know how you'd reword that to clarify that. But I was not aware that different schools are getting grants for different things and it's hard to keep track of.

[00:39:56] That's something that should be kept track of. Thank you. Let me clarify, because this existing policy does for the ones above 5,000 principles are to notify us. But there are significant grants below 5,000. So that, in my mind, is really what I was referencing.

[00:40:13] I'm thinking all grants. And so as we're pulling all this information together, you know, we absolutely want to make sure we've got a list. And we absolutely can produce a list. And in the budget book that, you know, is adopted, there's a whole section on grants.

[00:40:30] And while we don't list every single grant, they are broadly categorized in there to give some idea in terms of the dollar amount of grants that we receive at the division level, but not at the school level.

[00:40:57] Ms. Willoughby, you said that you would come up with some more information for us, and we can mull things over a little bit more, marinate on them. Would that be okay with y'all? Because I don't want to hamstring anybody.

[00:41:16] And at the same time, Chair Streffi is correct in that, let's say, for Propel or some of those things that were grants, then we want to maybe continue them. It does affect our decisions later. So, thank you.

[00:41:34] Thank you. So, moving on to item 5.04, Business and Financial Services Methods of Procurement Presentation. And that is presented by Ms. Filia.

[00:41:51] Chair Streffi, could we go back to 5.03 first? I'm moving too fast. Yes. 5.03, business financial services, RFP, R23250, printing, graphic design, mailing, and related services. And passing it over to Ms. Villiao again.

[00:42:08] Thank you. Before you this evening is an annual contract that we bring for printing, graphic design, mailing, and related services across the school system. The estimated cost for these services is $328,000, and you'll see in the summary that there are multiple vendors awarded to provide these services to Loudoun County Public Schools.

[00:42:30] This is the second of four renewal options for this contract and is being brought before you as an information item this evening and then if approved could go forward as an action or consent item at your next Finance and Operations Committee meeting. - Thank you, any questions board members?

[00:42:49] Yes, Chair Mansfield. - I'm all full of questions today. How many kinds of things are we able to allow our students to do in the graphics and arts design i mean i know this probably isn't one of them but are we able to use them a lot i would have to get back to you with that information i can tell you that for example school nutrition has posters that they do and students at the academies of loudon do those posters so there are school students out there that we use for some of those publication

[00:43:23] works. Okay. Thanks. Yes, Ms. Griffiths. Thank you, Chair Streffy. These businesses that are listed, can we stay with like local businesses? I think you have a business here in Minnesota and one in Maryland. Can we patronize businesses that are just in our area in Virginia?

[00:43:48] Sorry. I mean, I'm not sure. Maybe there's a reason why you're using it. In the state of Virginia, we cannot give local preference to vendors. So these are the vendors that responded to the solicitation and were awarded the contract. Any other questions?

[00:44:11] Consent, there's information. Oh, for us, yeah. We can move this to consent for the next committee meeting. Yeah, that's a great idea, Chair. All right. I guess I was really waiting for the methods of procurement presentation, so we can now do that.

[00:44:28] Ms. Filia. Okay, just a second. I'm pushing the button. Joe, the button's not pushing.

[00:44:50] Well, he's bringing that up. If you, I would like to bring your attention in this evening's packet, you were provided a handout that says procurement thresholds, methods, and vendor communication at the top of it.

[00:45:09] It was a one-page document in addition to the PowerPoint presentation. And this is just a cheat sheet that we have put out as far as the information I'm going to share with you this evening regarding the methods of procurement. Okay, policy 4320 spells out the methods of procurement that I'm going to go over with you this evening.

[00:45:38] The first method of procurement is small purchases. Those are purchases $5,000 or less where you get a single quote and our preferred method of ordering and payment for those is our purchase card. With our purchase card program we do receive a rebate on these purchases and we use the purchase card program that is used throughout the state of Virginia.

[00:45:57] We use the state of Virginia contract for that. Greater than $5,000 but not exceeding $30,000 is three quotes and those quotes can be gathered by the end user requesting the purchase and they can be done by email. An informal solicitation, which is also known as a request for quotation, is for items that are greater than 30 and not exceeding 100,000.

[00:46:22] But in the Virginia Public Procurement Act, it spells out that professional services greater than 30,000 and less than 80,000 would be an informal solicitation. Professional services are like the architect contract that was brought before you this evening by Mr. Pascarelli along with some landscaping services and medical services. Formal bids and contracts are what you're used to seeing here at the Finance Committee meeting. These are the RFPs and IFBs and must be done when purchases are greater than a hundred thousand. I do want to add when I say purchases greater than that's the aggregate spend annually across the

[00:46:59] school system so it's not just one school one department spending a hundred thousand dollars it's what we spend on the purchase of like items across the school system. I already did mention that greater than 80,000 is the professional services and then greater than 250,000 for these RFPs and IFBs is what comes before you for approval as the finance committee as well as by the school board. And that's all spelled out in policy 4320. In addition, in the methods of procurement, we have a cooperative. A cooperative

[00:47:33] contract is a contract which was awarded through a competitive process by either another jurisdiction Or there's also national cooperatives that will solicit, they'll have a hosting jurisdiction, they'll work with them, and they will select vendors that provide services across the country.

[00:47:51] For example, Office Depot. That's a cooperative that was awarded by another jurisdiction and can be used nationally. Sole source is there's only one vendor that can provide that product. An example is textbooks. There are textbooks that we have to get directly from the publisher.

[00:48:09] That would be a sole source. Emergency purchase is things like a fire, a flood, natural disaster, where facilities primarily as the user of this can go out, get the services they need to get the work done, to get the building safe, and then they send me a notice and let me know they had to make this emergency purchase.

[00:48:29] We have had a couple instances where we've also participated in an auction. We've gone to an auction, and it was a piece of cleaning equipment we got at an auction because the price was really good. This was brand-new equipment somebody was selling at the auction environment.

[00:48:45] In addition to Policy 4320, you've heard me mention the Virginia Public Procurement Act, which is the code in Virginia, which identifies how we do procurement. In that Virginia Public Procurement Act, there are a couple exceptions to the Policy 4320.

[00:49:02] one is government to government. If we enter into a contract with George Mason University to use their facilities for graduation, that's government to government, and none of those other items apply. Exemptions. Real estate and legal fees are exempt from the Virginia Public Procurement Act, so those two items do not have to go through the formal solicitation process. So that explains the policy as written, the Virginia Public Procurement Act, and what I wanted to show you is this is

[00:49:35] the FY24 spend analysis on spend by method of procurement. You'll see that our largest spend is the RFP process. Primarily, that includes all of our benefits. So that is why there's such a large amount of that. Then you'll see next is the cooperatives that I mentioned followed by our IFBs. So we actually, in FY24, our spend was $886,374,250. This is all funds this is CIP cap operating grants school nutrition is all in this

[00:50:12] number that I've presented to you this evening and that really concludes my brief overview of the methods of procurement for members any questions or comments my just just a quick question around what would trigger in situations X you know going past a certain threshold let's say there's a common vendor that schools are using you know a p card for and then there's lots of schools using it and and then across all of those individual purchases we exceed some threshold is are we

[00:50:50] does that then get bidded the next year how does that work yes actually you have some of those that you approve music equipment toner cartridges computer supplies that is the purchase across all departments in all schools in loudon county public schools that puts it at this threshold This vendor spend analysis that we are doing helps us identify those things where we may need to bid competitively or find a cooperative to use.

[00:51:17] Okay, got it. And that answered my second question, which was, do we look for opportunities occasionally that we may have not discovered in the past? Okay. That is correct. Thank you. So, moving on to FY25 Supplemental Request, the LCPS Electric Bus Pilot Program and U. S.

[00:51:47] Environmental Protection Agency EPA Clean School Bus Grant Program, Round 3, presented by Mr. Casey-Jones. Good afternoon. On December 12, 2023, the school board approved the school division to submit a grant application to the United States Environmental Protection Agency for its Clean School Bus Grant Program.

[00:52:07] The LCPS application proposed the purchase of 10 electric buses and related charging infrastructure, plus an additional 15 propane buses. The final grant application assumed that the grant would provide just under $4 million, while the remaining amount of approximately $2.7 million would come from existing CIP funding that was already appropriated for the purpose of clean energy school buses.

[00:52:31] The school board's approved motion from December was specific that any federal funding resulting from the award of this grant should be appropriated to the operating fund. Now that the grant has been approved and given the long delivery times for clean energy buses, staff now recommends that the school board direct that the federal funding be added to the grant fund, which is a more appropriate place for multi-year programs using restricted funds.

[00:52:55] We are glad to answer any questions you may have, and unless directed otherwise, this item will be brought forward to the Finance and Operations Committee as a consent item on September 17 and on the School Board Consent Agenda on September 24th. Thank you. Any questions?

[00:53:13] Yes, Ms. Griffiths. Thank you, Chair Struffy. Electric buses have come up previously, and I have several questions. If you could just reiterate what we've discussed in the past, how far can you get with an electric bus?

[00:53:30] I mean, if you wanted to take the kids on a field trip from here to the Franklin Institute in Pennsylvania? Would you make it there? And then with your answer, where would you be stopping to charge? How long do you have on a charge? Thank you very much.

[00:53:48] So the majority of our buses have a range of about approximately 120 miles, 120 miles. We have five long-range buses. Those are out in the east. They park at Enric Elementary. Those have a range of a little less than 200 miles.

[00:54:05] So we're unique in that we are testing all three major manufacturer brands of electric school buses. We have Bluebird in the south, Thomas in the east, and International in the west. International are the ones with the long-range batteries.

[00:54:23] We have not exercised these on a field trip where they needed to charge outside of their home base. So we do utilize these buses on field trips, but mainly within the county where they can complete their run, complete the field trip, and then go back to their parking location to charge.

[00:54:42] We are looking as part of this pilot program at where they could charge. For a fast charger, it would take approximately three hours to recharge the bus from, say, 10% to back to 100%. On a level two charger, which is the predominant charger that we use, especially in the south and out west, it's approximately six to eight hours to recharge the bus.

[00:55:08] Thank you very much. How much to replace the batteries? How much would that cost? I think we have charging stations here in Loudoun County, but surrounding counties, they also have charging stations.

[00:55:30] if you could let me know, point those out. But I guess my question is how much to replace the batteries and how long do the batteries last? So the planned lifetime of the battery is approximately 15 years.

[00:55:46] Because the buses haven't been around that long, that's the planned life. That's not actually been demonstrated. So I know on the buses that we got through the Dominion program, those are the first five buses. Those are the ones that are parked in the east.

[00:56:03] those the batteries are actually owned by dominion energy and so if those batteries fail during the um during the 15 year life of the bus uh they are responsible for replacement at no cost to lcps the buses the subsequent buses that we bought through the virginia department of environmental quality uh grant program uh those are owned by us and uh we haven't had to replace any of those batteries yet so i don't have an exact exact cost for battery replacement i'd have to get back to you on that with that specific number um i think i missed it but what is the

[00:56:37] warranty on these buses uh depends on the brand uh the the it's a uh predominantly a 15-year warranty for the buses uh in the east uh the thomas buses and i don't know off the top of my head the warranty length for uh our ic and bluebird i'll have to uh follow up with that Mr. Streffi, if I may, we are gathering a lot of this information, and we appreciate you bringing that up so we can do that when we do our study.

[00:57:08] This is a part of a pilot program, and so one of the things we did when we started buying electric buses is made sure that we wanted to collect all this information and provide this data before we come back to the board and make a request for this to be a standard. You'll see in this particular grant, we've also included propane buses because as a staff, we're not ready to recommend yet to the school board that it's time to move to all electric.

[00:57:32] This is part of the pilot program and that it's really important to know that all of the buses that we've purchased so far have been through grants. So we're not spending any additional funds because the electric buses are more expensive. We're spending the amount that we would normally spend on a diesel bus, which is part of our budget through the CIP.

[00:57:50] And the grants are supplementing those so that we can do that, do our assessment, try to find out the reliability, all the operational choices and challenges we may find through that process, which is why we expanded to the propanes as well. So we definitely plan to have a full report on all the challenges, risk, and costs, and all those things once we get to that point.

[00:58:13] Mr. Davies pointed out we're trying different brands to see different brands of buses, but also different brands of chargers to make sure that we have a full assessment and can make a good recommendation to the board, whether that's next year or the year after. We want to make sure we're getting a really good sense of how these buses are performing at regular service, trip service, all of the above.

[00:58:35] - Super helpful. In the interest of time, I just want to see if everyone is okay if we finish that last information item. Are we okay? Ms. Gropfus, you have time? Okay. In terms of this information item and Ms. Grant, appreciate the context, and I do understand the shift from operating fund to grant fund.

[00:58:56] So moving on to high school HS14, Dulles North schematic design review. It's always fun. - All right, thank you.

[00:59:12] So HS14 is our new high school and it will be co-located on a site with Watson Mountain Middle School as well as a future elementary school, as you can see by the site plan here. Currently, we have access off of Red Hill Road and with the completion of this high school project, we will now have access, in addition to that, we'll have access off of Evergreen Mills Road right here.

[00:59:37] And so that's the overall site plan we see here. And you can see here, here's the high school. And much like Watson Mountain, we have the bus loop off to the side. We have parking on this side of the building. Our football stadium is here. And we have a practice field as well as our other fields down here connected.

[00:59:55] So this is all one cohesive campus that we're designing here. And as far as the design's concerned, the look of the building won't match Watson Mountain exactly, but it will use similar materials and tones so it will complement Watson Mountain as sort of an overall campus look.

[01:00:14] A couple things I'll point out. On the first floor, we have our cafeteria down here at the bottom. We have our gym and our aux gym. And what's interesting about this is we have the aux gym and the gym itself are connected, so there's a folding partition.

[01:00:30] So when there's a need for a large sporting event, that partition can be opened up, and we have capacity for over 3,000 spectators within that space. On the second floor, we have our classroom block here in the front. We have an interior terrace, which provides some outdoor learning opportunities.

[01:00:49] Adjacent to that would be the art rooms here at the top, as well as science at the bottom, which both will have access to that outdoor space. We also have on the right side here, we have our bus drop-off entry, much like Watson Mountain on the second floor. On the third floor, we have our main entry here on this face of the building here, our administration there, as well as our auditorium and media center on this floor.

[01:01:17] And the fourth floor is primarily our classroom block up here on the fourth floor. So just like Watson Mountain, this is going to be a four-story building. It's built to respect the current topography of the site, so that's why it's four stories.

[01:01:34] And then moving on to -- so the other thing I want to point out is strategy with restrooms. So with restrooms, our strategy here is to provide a variety of different options.

[01:01:50] So as you can see by this slide here, there's a combination of the -- the blue color are gender specific standard multi-fixture restrooms that we have. We have a variety of standard, the purple are standard single-user restrooms that can be used by anyone.

[01:02:10] And then the orange color here are privacy restrooms where we're showing one on each of the floors, two, three, and four. And those privacy, the privacy restrooms would be these individual stalls here.

[01:02:26] In this case, they share the sink. So these would be individual stalls that are utilized by all students as well. the variety we have you know staff only restrooms we have you know these these restrooms as well as our standard restrooms is what we're proposing so with that I will take questions comments yes thank you chair Estreffi getting to the restrooms are there going to be girls rooms and boys rooms or just all gender restrooms and then single restrooms no they will be gender specific restrooms so if you if you look at the plane anything that's that blue color like that

[01:03:05] cyan color will be our standard restrooms that are gender specific so those would be boys or girls restrooms the only time we have the diagram off to the right here which shows a single restroom single person restrooms those would be only in three locations that you see in that color on floors two three and four so mr. Griffith I think to answer your question if you look at the

[01:03:44] one on the right the little blue area there is identifying sorry there so the blue on the second floor plan the little blue area is identifying a separate boys room in a separate girls room it's very small on this scale drawing but those are our general and that the the technical term for that is the gender specific so specifically to boys or girls men or women and multi-fixture which means that's our standard restroom that we've been you know everyone's built for years and what we've done is taken one of those areas that would have

[01:04:23] possibly been another group of those toilets and made those the individual rooms so we have you know both options for everyone which is what we're experiencing right now in the schools have been very very popular with our students and our school staff as well on that on that note I was just gonna add in some of the older schools we we hear that staff access to their restrooms I just because we're trying to reconfigure and look at different options and with the pilot, and maybe some of the older schools don't have the same opportunities as the newer schools.

[01:05:00] There might be less space for the staff bathrooms, and there are not as many, potentially. And then some of the concern is that they're further away, so it might be on one side of the building.

[01:05:17] What comments do you have around some of the staff bathrooms and making sure that we have enough to accommodate staff. So on this diagram, if you notice, anywhere you see where Green Square, those are individual staff restrooms for the very purpose you just said.

[01:05:32] And we do acknowledge that during that process when we identified some restrooms, a single user did reduce some of that capacity in some of the schools. We're accounting for that in the new schools, and we'll be having that conversation during the CIP this fall on the schools that we, you know, as you know, we did non-schools as a pilot. There are other schools left that we could go back and then retrofit those, which would allow us to go back and then restore those staff restrooms as we did in the ones we did, the single-user ones this past summer.

[01:06:07] Okay. Thank you, Chair Strafi. It looks like on the first floor you have the most, and then you don't have as many. The green that you just mentioned for the staff is very small very hard to see um so um i appreciate you asking that question for staff but i feel like how many students are going to be in the school the school has a capacity for 2100 students 2100 so um an assess i'm assuming an assessment was done you know to you know as

[01:06:42] far as how many students will be in the school because i only see i see the most restrooms on the first floor but not on the second floor not on the third and not on the fourth so it's a I mean we're gonna be able to accommodate 2,100 kids yes yeah we always exceed exceed standards but the plumbing code has certain standards for restroom and we always exceed those as a school system you you see more restrooms on the first floor by nature of what's there so the cafeteria has restrooms nearby the gym has you know the lockers adjacent to the gym would have restrooms there staff restrooms there there's the kitchen there which

[01:07:21] requires restrooms as well for staff so that's why you see more of a concentration of restrooms on the first floor versus when you get to the fourth floor it's just classrooms up there and it's a matter of function okay sorry I was still on I apologize I did have another question for you I'm getting away from that and mr. Lewis you may have provided this to me already but it would be great if the full school board got the breakdown of costs for the 5,000-seat stadium and 3,000-seat gymnasium, if we could get the breakdown of costs for that, the full

[01:07:59] board, to go to the full board. Also, I would like to hear more about the contract we have with Segra Field. I've mentioned this before. Segra is very close to where you're putting this school in this new stadium, and we have that stadium at SEGRA.

[01:08:16] I know we have some kind of agreement where we can use that stadium, so more transparency on that, on the contract with SEGRA would be helpful as well for the full board.

[01:08:33] Last question from me. Just curious about the school design standards and requirements and how some of the configurations related to the bathrooms and the different types of bathrooms that we've kind of noted in this new school are they have we are is this something that we're trying in this new school or have we updated the school design standards or are the design standards really not that are they not that specific just wanted to see how they align to the standards so no we have not updated our

[01:09:12] design standards um these restroom configurations we piloted in in five different schools over starting in january of this year and continuing through now um but we have not changed our standards yet we're looking to uh continue this um with with these new schools okay awesome so it's the basically extension of um really what we're trying to accomplish in the pilot in some these new schools. Correct. Thank you, Chair Strafi. And shifting back to this, locker rooms.

[01:09:45] So the bathrooms that you've included with the colors, are those locker rooms as well? Boys and girls separate locker rooms? Can you clarify? Yes, separate girls locker rooms, separate boys locker rooms, and separate restrooms for each. So I know we've kept you all way past time so appreciate it. I will go ahead and entertain any new business. Seeing no new business, we'll now call, we'll now adjourn this September 3rd meeting of the Finance and

[01:10:25] Operations Committee. Thank you very much. Appreciate your attendance.

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