Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County Public Schools, Finance & Operations Committee Meeting, Tuesday, November 18, 2025

Date: Tuesday, November 18, 2025
Place: LCPS Administration Building / School Board Room, Ashburn, Virginia
Length: 24m (video)
Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/1138236305?rel=0

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 2026-10-12. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:02] - Good afternoon, everyone. Hope you're all doing well. I'd like to call to order this November 18th meeting in 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, who are also part of the committee.

[00:00:20] And we'll go ahead and get started with any public comment for this afternoon. So I see there's no public comments. We'll move on to item three, which is our approval of the draft meeting minutes from the November 4th meeting. Do I have a motion to approve the meeting minutes?

[00:00:37] Mrs. Griffiths? I'd like to make a motion to approve. - Motion has been made by Mrs. Griffiths. Do I have a second? - Second. - Seconded by Chair Mansfield. Is there any discussion? Seeing no discussion, we'll go ahead and vote to approve the meeting minutes. All those in favor, please say aye.

[00:00:53] - Aye. - Aye. And that motion will pass unanimously. The meeting minutes have been approved and we will move on to the approval of the consent agenda. Do you have a motion to approve the consent agenda?

[00:01:08] Ms. Chair Mansfield. - I move to approve the consent agenda. - Do I have a second? - Second. - Seconded. Motion has been made by Chair Mansfield and it has been properly seconded by Mrs. Griffiths. Is there any discussion?

[00:01:23] Seeing no discussion, we'll go ahead and vote. All those in favor for the approval of the consent agenda, please say aye. - Aye. - Aye. - And that motion will also pass unanimously. The consent agenda has been approved and now we'll move on to our information items.

[00:01:41] We'll start with 5.01, business financial services, budget transfer request, communities in schools, I believe this is presented by Casey Jones, Director of Budget and Financial Analytics. - Good afternoon. During last week's school board meeting, the Division of Family and Community Engagement presented an update of their team and how they support our students, families, and communities every day.

[00:02:06] Ms. Dawson presented this overview and she is joining us this evening. One of the many powerful supports discussed in that overview is the Communities in Schools program. Communities in Schools is a nationwide initiative focused on helping students stay in school and succeed in life by removing academic and non-academic barriers.

[00:02:24] LCPS is currently engaged with the organization to provide support to Seneca Ridge Middle School and Dominion High School. The terms of our agreement include an even 50/50 cost share of the program between communities and schools and LCPS, with neither party contributing more than $190,000 annually.

[00:02:42] For the LCPS component, LEF is committed to fundraise for and provide $65,000 if LCPS provides the remaining $125,000. Our request this evening is for FNO to recommend that the school board approve per policy 4120 management of funds, the transfer of $125,000 from the Department of Teaching and Learning's textbook program to the Department of Communications and Community Engagement to be used for the community and schools partnership.

[00:03:07] We are glad to answer any questions you may have and unless otherwise directed, this item will be included on the FNO committee's consent agenda during your meeting on December 9th, 2025. Thank you. - Thank you very much, board members. Do we have any questions or discussion? Chair Mansfield. Okay, so this was supposed to be all in Virginia funding. Looking on VDOE, we were supposed to have 70% of the funding was to have tutoring, learning acceleration with focus on grades three through eight. Category two, 20% of our funding was preparation for an implementation

[00:03:47] of the Virginia Literacy Act. Category three, 10% of the funding was supposed to go to student attendance recovery addressing chronic absenteeism. So I guess I'm wondering, oh, in category four, additionally operating and infrastructure support expenditures. So I guess I'm wondering where in the percentage is this coming from? Is it coming from materials and supplies for tutoring learning acceleration or for preparation and implementation of the Virginia Literacy Act? Thank you for the question the funds are actually coming out of the operating fund instead of the

[00:04:26] grant fund the all in Virginia funds are compartmentalized in a grant fund and when originally contemplated and submitted that grant application included a large dollar amount for tutoring services in that first program within the school board's FY 26 adopted budget there were additional funds for tutoring which meant that the LCPS could apply additional tutoring dollars in grant to help ELA adoption and speed up the process there so that freed up dollars in our textbook fund and it's textbook dollars that are being that

[00:05:02] we're proposing use for CIS so what are we taking away from I mean that's kind of harsh didn't mean it that way but are we so there's OG tutoring that could be happening there's orton gillingham cohorts there's qtel training all those kinds of things so I I'm having a hard time miss fans fail since this is an information item we could take this back and get basically I think we were

[00:05:41] looking for is you know what where is the give on the all-in-virginia grant side why do we have since that was the first domino to fall why do we have surplus in the all-in-virginia grant that then led to the surplus to be able to provide the matching funds for this grant so we can go back and outline and identify exactly which area as you were describing and the why that we have had some additional funds available there and bring that when this returns as action if that's fine that's fine it's not like I I do like communities and

[00:06:19] schools in fact I volunteered for them when I was in college myself but which was many years ago in Texas but it's just I have this there's a little knee-jerk reaction when I know something was supposed to be for all in Virginia funds for learning loss and then we're although I will I will admit that there is family engagement and homework help social emotional I will admit that however we don't know what they're going to do until they do their assessment is that

[00:06:48] correct like they do an assessment of what they need and so we don't know exactly Ms. Dawson yes they they have already done their community they've already done the comprehensive needs assessment and based off of the needs assessment for both Seneca Ridge and Dominion they have created school support plans for both of them so for example in the Dominion needs assessment they looked at attendance as one of the areas that they wanted to focus on and so the coordinators

[00:07:25] created a plan to have targeted activities and things like that to support increasing school connectedness and attendance so they have for both of those schools done the comprehensive needs assessment and created support plans and what did what did Seneca Ridge Middle School it was at the same for attendance they are doing attendance as well discussion on my side I very much curious on the line of

[00:08:04] discussion that chairman's feel brought up but also first of all I love the Communities and Schools initiative. For me, I just had some questions about the partnership, and I know that the cost is $380,000 per year. How long is that program, or how long will CIS Nova continue to match, or LEF continue to fundraise per year? What was envisioned for that?

[00:08:33] They have committed to three years, this year being the first year. So then LCPS would have to provide $125,000 for the next two years, and then LEF has to fundraise $65,000 for the next two years.

[00:08:52] That is correct. Okay, thanks.

[00:09:02] Okay. Any other questions or discussion? Seeing none, this will go to action at the next Finance and Operations Committee meeting. And we'll move on to item 5.02, Business Financial Services, RFP, R25271, Enterprise Resource Planning, Software and Implementation Services.

[00:09:25] And I believe this is presented by Ms. Filia. Good evening and thank you. I'm happy to be here this evening to present to you who we have selected to award the contract for replacement of our current Oracle EBS system. We went through a rigorous evaluation solicitation process that began on February 4th, 2025 and included several evaluation sessions.

[00:09:49] We originally received responses from seven vendors. We cut that list down to four vendors. Those four vendors were then elevated to our software demonstration and implementation interviews. Following those interviews, we then selected the top two vendors to move into our discovery session.

[00:10:07] Following extensive negotiations as well as we continue to work through the contractual requirements of this project, we are recommending award for the implementation services to International Business Machines, or IBM, and to Oracle for the provision of Oracle Fusion as the software.

[00:10:27] This will give us a SAS-based ERP system, and in addition, we are also looking to award a contract to TimeClocks Plus to provide hardware for the recording of hours worked. This is very high-level information, but a presentation will be provided as an overview of the project at a future Finance and Operations Committee meeting in January-February time frame.

[00:10:49] We've also included, for your review, a draft ERP strategic roadmap timeline outlining the implementation of the various software components. This project is scheduled to commence in January 2026, with full final phase going live in October 2028.

[00:11:08] In addition to the various enhancements that we will receive through this replacement, this application will actually separate us from the County of Loudoun. As you may recall right now, we're sharing a system with the County of Loudon, who them themselves are going through an upgrade of their current system.

[00:11:26] The total dollar amount of this contract is $22,464,093, and that is for the implementation of the application. We are asking that you approve this to be put on action item or consent on your December 9th meeting and on the school board consent agenda on December 16th.

[00:11:48] This is a time-sensitive request as prices only remain firm through December 31 with the contract start date being January 2nd, 2026. Thank you, Ms. Millio. Questions or discussion? Maybe just one or two quick questions from me.

[00:12:07] The discovery phase with the two vendors that was just a short list Was that a separate scope of work that we implemented or some other RFP or it's just a that was part of the RFP in the RFP It clearly spelled out the various phases at which we would be doing evaluation The way this evaluation process worked is phase one They were scored to move into phase two they started at ground zero for phase two phase three they started at ground zero so they were only evaluated based on what they provided in the demo session or the discovery session and that was all spelled out in the solicitation okay i

[00:12:44] appreciate that and then um the the dollar amount for the contract the value of the contract um the 22 million and um 22.5 almost million is that that is that is when you say implementation um oh and software okay got it so it's the licensing as well that is correct for the project yes And what does support look like? Is there support obviously involved for a period of time from the vendor?

[00:13:13] Yes, it includes the out years, but there's also support at the end of each phase where they will support us as we continue to utilize the application. Sounds good. Exciting. Yes, Ms. Griffiths. Thank you, Chair Streffi. I'm just wondering if this decision is financially sound.

[00:13:34] This application will no longer be shared with the county of Loudoun, and LCPS would be fully responsible for all the maintenance. I'm just not quite sure. I would like to do a little more research unless you have some more information for me.

[00:13:51] I think I would actually ask Mr. Smith to perhaps describe the situation that we are in with the county as well as how they are no longer going to support us as well. So while we definitely support having our own system that we can completely manage, there are other factors as well to take into account.

[00:14:11] The county informed us in 2023 that they were sunsetting their existing system and would be moving forward with their own separate system. So LCPS is in a position to have to get our own system. Also, since we've had a shared system in place, you could think two completely different business units trying to share one common business practice.

[00:14:32] It's kind of the easy example we always give is the County of Loudoun has one calendar. We have 30 calendars that we pay on. And so there's so much manual work that goes into outside of the system because the system isn't designed to meet the LCPS business needs. So once the system is implemented, we'll be able to have automation throughout our buildings.

[00:14:50] We'll be able to have automation with our time clock collection. Right now, time clocks are manual punch, record, and send. This will automate that entire process with a badge scanning system for everyone. So we envision this as like a revolutionary next step for us to kind of revamp operational items and really get out of all that manual work that's going on now and then really align our ERP with our business processes.

[00:15:14] Part of this endeavor, we use GFOA, who came in for a year and helped us build requirements and process map and then evolve our process mapping so that we could actually have a modern system implemented. So we're very excited that this is going to kind of help us shift into much more modern processing of 20,000 employees and everything that goes into from hiring to onboarding to applicant tracking to budget to accounting, general ledger, everything that's kind of behind the scenes.

[00:15:42] And lastly, if I can just add on at the end, knowing the situation that the county was putting us in, they allocated $18 million in RCIP towards this project. Obviously, this is about $4.5 million over, and we've already had conversations with the county related to potentially tapping into the CIP contingency to address the overage.

[00:16:08] I really appreciate the details. Thank you. Now that Ms. Griffiths got my brain going, just one or two more questions. So just out of curiosity, the ERP system, does it have any touch points to our student records management systems or other systems?

[00:16:25] Specifically, we're always talking about data, like enterprise reporting. What other efficiencies or opportunities could we leverage through this new implementation? So our current environment shared with the county is really limiting because we do not manage that system or control that system.

[00:16:43] So we are kind of like more of a user level of that system. So integrations are limited as into what the county will support for us and how we've kind of built those. So moving forward, there's going to be over 100 data integrations with this system, data feeds to the data warehouse. as well as integrations for human HR record keeping, all of the other aspects that go into this, that's also a document in data management.

[00:17:08] So there's an entire process built into this for data management to make sure that that's aligned with how LCPS is doing our data governance and our data governance framework. So this is our opportunity to really embed that work versus it being kind of a silo system that we've built a lot of bridges to.

[00:17:25] This will allow it to be directly integrated with a lot of those processes. Super helpful. Thank you. Any other discussion? Seeing none, this will, is there, does the board, would the board like to put this on consent for December 9th?

[00:17:40] And this would be F&O consent, correct? Yes. So this item will go on consent for the December 9th, I'm sorry, consent to the next F&O meeting. We'll move on. Yes.

[00:18:01] Real quickly, just to confirm, we had identified this going then to consent at the school board on the 16th. So for this to go straight to the full board? So consent committee, consent school board. So long as there's an action taken at the school board, I'm just wanting to make sure if it's consent or if you would like to have it as action.

[00:18:24] I see. Oh, because of the... Because of the time frame that we're up against. So then, yeah, let's... So would we have to suspend the rules here so that it goes straight to... Are you sure? Because normally it would go to consent here, then it would go to consent to the board.

[00:18:42] But if we're going to not take an action here. Can I speak, sir? I believe Ms. Willoughby said the 16th. Our next meeting is this December 2nd. So actually. So that is the process. The process is correct.

[00:18:58] It would go here first, then to action on the board on the 16th. Correct. Staff is proposing that this goes straight to either consent or action at the next full board meeting. Is that correct? No. Actually, if you read in the item, we would bring this back as action or consent to your December 9th finance and operations meeting and school board consent on December 16th.

[00:19:24] If the decision is made to pull it, we would need to pull it as action on December 16th to ensure action is taken in time for the signing of the contract and the locking in of the pricing. Okay. I'm sorry. I just heard that they wanted it straight to the 16th, and I was like, okay.

[00:19:42] Did I? Okay, sorry. So it'll be consent for the next F&O meeting. And so we're all okay with that. So that'll continue on consent. Okay, wonderful. So we'll move on to 5.03, Business Financial Services, R24252, Legionella Water Management Programs Renewal.

[00:20:02] And I believe this is also presented by Ms. Villia. So we're jumping from the ERP system to now Legionella Water Management System. This particular renewal is to establish the multi-term contract for full Legionella water management programs for the school system on an as-needed basis.

[00:20:21] This is the second renewal option on this contract, and the current contract expires on January 31, 2026. We are recommending that the board or that the Finance Committee either approve as an action or consent item on their December 9th agenda to renew this agreement with Water Chemistry Incorporated.

[00:20:44] Any questions or discussion? Seeing none, would we like this also to go on consent for the next F&O committee meeting? Thumbs up. So that item will also go on consent. Thank you.

[00:21:01] So we'll move on to 5.04, Business and Financial Services, IFB, I-24322, Box Trucks Renewal. I believe this one is also Ms. Filial. Thank you. This is our contract to renew the purchase of box trucks with K. Neal International Truck.

[00:21:20] We are looking to purchase nine box trucks on this contract and would be using lease purchase funding for the purchase of these vehicles. Members, any discussion? Yes.

[00:21:36] I'm sorry. What are the box trucks used for again? I'm sorry. Mr. Davies can answer that. I believe it's for the distribution center, but I'm not sure, but he can answer it. Yes, ma'am. Both the distribution center and our facility services teams use box trucks throughout the county.

[00:21:55] For supplies? Supplies, preventative maintenance items, and distribution of warehouse items. And it was how many trucks? It was eight, you said? Nine. Nine trucks. All right, thank you. Any other discussion?

[00:22:15] Seeing none, would we like to put this on consent for the next F&O meeting? So yes, that item will go on consent as well. And then our last information item is Business and Financial Services R24251 Automotive and Special Vehicle Parts Renewal, presented by Ms. Filial.

[00:22:35] This is another contract for the Department of Transportation Services to provide the parts needed for the ongoing needs of the Lowndes County Public Schools System. This RFP, the current contract term, expires on December 31, 2025.

[00:22:50] We're looking to renew with the vendors as listed on your attachment. There was only one vendor that requested a 2% increase in their pricing, and that was Advanced Auto Parts, in that the total value of this contract is $3.4 million. We're bringing it to you this evening for your approval as either an action or consent item on your December 9, 2025 Finance Committee meeting agenda.

[00:23:13] Thank you. Any discussion or questions? Seeing none, would we like to have this item also go on consent for our next F&O meeting? Yes. So that item will also go on consent.

[00:23:31] And I believe that is it for our action and information items. Is there any new business? Seeing no new business, this November 18th meeting of the Finance and Operations Committee is now adjourned. Thank you all very much.

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