Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County School Board, Finance & Operations Committee Meeting, Tuesday, August 4, 2026

Date: Tuesday, August 4, 2026
Place: Loudoun County Public Schools / School Board meeting (see BoardDocs / LCPS-TV)
Length: 23m (video)
Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/1215584462?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 2026-10-11. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:01] - All right, good afternoon. I'm calling this meeting of the Finance and Operations Committee meeting to order. Chair Griffiths is not able to be with us this afternoon, so I'll be presiding. I am Amy Riccardi of the Sterling District and joining me today is Mr. Pepper of the Dulles District.

[00:00:17] And that will be a quorum for the committee. I do not believe we have any public comments, so we are just gonna move right along to our meeting minutes. May I have a motion to approve the minutes of the June 16th Finance and Operations Committee meeting? - Yes, Madam Chair.

[00:00:33] I move the minutes of the June 16, 2026 Finance and Operations Committee meeting. And I will second that. All in favor? Aye. And that will be passed with two yeas and Ms. Griffiths not here.

[00:00:54] We'll now move on to our consent agenda. The consent agenda contains one item. It's 4.01. Support services adjustment to grant of sanitary sewer and treatment facility easements to Loudon County Sanitation Authority, Loudon Water and Luckett's Elementary School. Madam Chair, I move the consent agenda.

[00:01:15] I will second. All those in favor? Aye. And that passes two to zero with Ms. Griffiths not here, not present. All righty. So now we will move on to our, we have no action items for this week's meeting.

[00:01:33] So we're going to move on to our information items, 5.01, business and financial services, award of RFP R23250 printing graphic design mailing and related services. - Good evening, happy for you this evening the printing graphic design contract.

[00:01:53] This is actually a renewal of these services and these are services that are used across LCPS for large print jobs. Some examples may include the annual guide and directory, bond referendum postcards, employee benefits materials as well as our central copy center here at the administration building uses these vendors to outsource large jobs that have a rush turnaround time.

[00:02:21] The anticipated spend across the school system for these services is $355,000 distributed in budgets throughout the organization. We are recommending renewal with the vendors that did respond. This is the fourth of the four renewal options.

[00:02:37] We did have one vendor custom graphics chose not to renew for this year our current contract is scheduled to expire on september 30th 2026 we're bringing this before you this evening to either move forward as an action item on your next finance committee meeting or to move to a consent item followed by school board consent on september 8th great thank you so much you have any questions uh just a couple questions really quickly um first off how do we decide which printing company we're going to use are they specializing in different things for example is one better like for sure is other better posters

[00:03:15] or is it just luck of the draw I would say yes it depends on what services you're looking for the turnaround time of said services the expertise that they have on staff and the availability to get the work done and our print shop knows which one kind of would be their go-to our print shop uses copy general okay for their work when they have large print jobs to send outside of our copy center appreciate that and then um is and maybe this is a bigger question that you may not have the answer to would lcps have the capability at any point to kind of in-house all of this work

[00:03:55] and if so would at some point this go towards some sort of savings in the long term so for example um if we were able to have someone in-house to do all this work um obviously we have to buy the machinery the equipment all that stuff and it would be an initial outlay probably a relatively expensive outlay is there a long-term savings or does that not seem like something that's feasible I would have to defer to Mr. Traynor or Mr. Stocks who's not here this evening Mr. Stocks oversees that program that's part of his area but I will defer to Mr. Traynor for additional

[00:04:28] information so the some of a lot of what's is outsourced is very specialized type printing and And so it would not be cost effective to try to pull in very expensive equipment to do very small numbers of specialized work.

[00:04:49] The other area that Ms. Fayol talked about us outsourcing are those rush items where it's a very large volume in a very short period of time. We have a very capable print shop, and they do an amazing amount of work in-house. But there come times where we just can't support it because of the huge size of a print load.

[00:05:12] And so those we outsource to a private vendor. And sometimes we just don't have the luxury of having more time to print an item, which is what it would take doing it in-house. Appreciate it. Thank you so much. Okay, thank you. I was just curious about the $355,000 figure.

[00:05:30] Since it's described as an estimated value. Do we know what the actual spend was? Under this current year that three hundred fifty five thousand dollars is based on past spend as well as Anticipated future spend that is incorporated into the number and this item was bought before the committee last year as well and have the rates Maintained there was no change in the rates that they were charging for their services under this renewal is is that unusual for the print market to keep the rates the same it's contingent upon volume

[00:06:06] you know if you bring them the work they're going to work with you on the rates the only fluctuation we really may see from time to time with this contract is paper costs as you know paper cost is one area that goes up and down depending on the economy and current things going on in the market but there was no change in rate or no price increase for this contract I think transportation too considering costs of fuel and whatnot too but they're maintaining their costs they're maintaining their costs interesting I think that's all I've got for this

[00:06:46] let me check here quick you all are recommended that this goes on the consent agenda for the school board for next week's meeting consent agenda for your finance and operations committee meeting on September 1st followed by school board consent on September 8th so are we good to move this to consent I'm fine with Senator the sickness that is okay great thank you so much thank you we'll move on

[00:07:18] to item 5.02 business and finance services award of RFP r26024 dental insurance services this was a new solicitation that the awarded vendor recommended awarded vendor is Delta Dental we had a comp we did a competitive solicitation for this working with our consultant Aon to disseminate this out and also get the responses evaluate the proposals through the proposal analysis group and after all the scoring was completed and consolidated Delta Dental came out on top and they are proposing a 3.84

[00:07:57] percent overall increase in the annual cost compared to the current year as you know they are our current vendor for these services and we once again are bringing this to you the first contract term would be from January 1 2027 to December 31st 2029 of course we need to make sure we have this in place and ready to go for open enrollment that comes up later this year and then there be four one-year optional renewals the current contract we have with Delta dental scheduled to expire December 31 2026 and we are asking that this either be brought forward to your September 1 Finance and Operations Committee as an

[00:08:36] action or consent item, and then on school board, consent at the September 8th meeting. - Thank you, do you have any questions? - Just quickly, I assume this is part of the self-insurance fund as well.

[00:08:56] What's the relationship with Delta and the self-insurance fund? It's kind of a little bit more complex question. - I have Ms. Brown here, who is the director, who would be happy to answer those questions. - Yes, so the dental expenses are paid through the self-insurance fund, and it works very similarly as our medical coverage.

[00:09:18] So Delta Dental processes all of the claims and makes sure everyone's paying the deductibles, the in-network, the out-of-network costs. So they administer the program, and then they invoice us, and we pay it through the self-insurance fund. And so the $16 million-ish figure, is that for the life of the entire contract, or is that just one year?

[00:09:40] I believe that's one year of dental costs for every covered individual for Loudoun County Public Schools. That's one year of dental costs, or that's one year of what Delta is charging us to process the claims? It would be both the administrative cost as well as the dental claims themselves.

[00:10:03] Okay, so maybe I'm confused here, and I need a simplification of this. We pay the claims through the self-insurance fund. So I go to the dentist, I'm an employee, I go to the dentist, I make a claim, say they cover $500, that money to cover that claim comes out of the self insurance fund, or does it come out of this contract? I'm a little bit confused here.

[00:10:27] This contract, the way this contract works is the value of this contract says what services are covered, paid for, you know, two exams a year, for example. The cost of that, as established, $150.

[00:10:46] I don't know. But that $150 is paid to my dentist by Delta Dental. we then pay Delta Dental for that $150 plus we pay the administrative fee on top of that for them to process our claims and handle our claims processing and everything for us. So this is all encompassing a value of this contract because all of our payments are going to Delta Dental.

[00:11:11] I understand that. I'm going to let Ms. Riccardi ask a question. I'm going to think about the flow of money and why in my mind this is not clicking.

[00:11:27] well somebody wants to explain that a little bit yeah a little bit it's I guess well I have a couple so the initial term plus the renewals is seven years I'm trying to understand the rate guarantee period so and who kind of governs the pricing after that initial term do they come back and give us an increase each year like I think health insurance does something similar but how does that work that was part of the negotiations for the best and final offer and I

[00:12:05] can get to that information but I believe that there were at least three years of a price guarantee and then with an escalation potentially for a year four four to seven mm-hmm yes okay and then you all receive three proposals for this for this process I'm very familiar with Delta Denta so I know they're a well-respected dental provider but I'm assuming there was some kind of evaluation process in the bids that were provided in your packet in the behind this packet there is the evaluation results is part of that packet there

[00:12:42] should have been a table or a grid in your committee member only information not in the public packet I didn't even know there was one so that's good to know yes behind in behind the scenes there's executive information that's only available and there is an evaluation sheet in there I didn't take a look at that this time around so thank you for letting me know you're welcome did you have a chance to anymore I think I'm okay with it I for it's just it's weird because for me when you're taking money out of the self-insurance fund it seems like this 16 million part of it

[00:13:21] is from self-insurance and part of it is from payment of a contract but I process I process it I think I'm okay with it it's a little bit tricky and a little bit confusing because of how we pay things through the self-insurance fund so that's 16 million 340 326 368 i believe is the bafo offer that was the estimated value based on their best and final offer and basically your self-insurance funds covering all your expenses it's covering the dental visit plus your administrative fee

[00:13:54] understood if we get to a point where our employees say need extra dental work this year for whatever reason could we end up spending more than this best and final offer you would only spend this estimate is based on calculations that Aon did for us based on the number of employees that were covered based on the fact each employee and their family member goes to the dentist twice a year figuring in there's a whole analysis and calculation they do based on an estimate and past experience so they could have taken our claims for last year you know and said there's going to be

[00:14:32] this many root canals this many these things done and then they calculate this to their best estimate possible do we know do we have any estimate of how we've done on these projections in the past so for example i see the current plan year was like 15 723 have we gone over under do we know where we're at on those so i will say that our dental coverage does have a maximum benefit per year so there is kind of a control on the dental plan itself for costs and then the escalation would just be the differences in the reimbursement rates between the agreements with Delta Dental

[00:15:10] and the dentist that provide in-network service, and so that would be some of the analysis behind why the number is higher this year, as well as the number of employees that are participating in the plan and the number of covered individuals. I'm not surprised the number is higher. I mean, everything is getting more expensive.

[00:15:26] Let's be very clear on that. I just want to know if we were hitting those targets, if we were over, if we were under. Like, for example, they've, you know, budgeted $16 million, but if we only spend $14 million on dental, I assume, is that a cost savings for us, or do we still owe Delta the extra? I think there are multiple ways that you can look at that.

[00:15:42] Cost savings, yes, but if there are more cavities in the future, maybe no. So we do want to encourage everybody to do the cleanings and utilize the benefit that is covered. And so if they don't take that up, yes, it would probably save us money in the short term, but may have health impacts down the road that we would pay for later.

[00:16:05] - You good? - Yeah. - Okay. The recommendation here is to have this go to consent for the school board. - Either consent or come back as action for your finance committee meeting, September 1st.

[00:16:21] - Which one? - I'm okay with consent, if you want to send to that. - All right, then we'll move this to the consent agenda for the next meeting. Great, thank you. All right, we're on-- - Thank you, and thank you, Ms. Brown. - Thank you. Now we'll move on to item 5.03.

[00:16:37] This is the support services easements for Evergreen Mills Road widening heritage high school simpson middle school and evergreen elementary school thank you the town of leesburg is seeking easements in order to widen a section of evergreen mills road which is adjacent to heritage jl simpson and evergreen mills elementary so this widening project will add two lanes to the existing road from south king street route 15 all the way down to battlefield parkway a sidewalk will be constructed on one side and we'll have a shared use path on the other side through this widening um the lighting and the roadway will be increased storm water

[00:17:14] management will be addressed and this road widening project is in alignment with the county's long-term evergreen mills road corridor widening projects so the lcps engineering team and division council office has reviewed this and we recommend approval great thank you i have so many questions so i happen to be taking a look at the um there's a new data center coming in here on evergreen mill is it i think it's north of this or south i can't remember there's some proposals but they're all

[00:17:49] further south there's no room north of the schools between the between i know i know it sits kind of between on evergreen mill between two sets of schools i just couldn't remember if this is the south this is not my yeah this is definitely not my part of the the county that's for sure um okay and so is is this widening and these easements is part of extending out power to those areas or is it just purely electrical no this this this has nothing to do with electrical actually so there were easements that they're requesting are for construction easements which are temporary

[00:18:25] as well as storm water management and expansion in the road itself so there's there's no utilities that are being put on our property through this process this is is taking a two-lane it's effectively it's two-lane road with a center turn lane in some places it's going to make it a four-lane road from basically king street all the way down to the heritage high school it's being done by the town of leesburg so it's running to the town boundary and then stops and then the county has plans to pick up from the edge of the town and continue south along evergreen mill to expand it to a four-lane road and i know there's a lot of homes along that route too are are they offering

[00:19:02] any compensation for those easements at all or is it just they're just out straight asking for the land yeah typically we don't provide compensation for it what we do is we look at will this have a negative a positive effect on our schools and we looked at it and we think overall have more of a positive effect than negative effect in terms of what they're asking for helping with traffic and flow yeah pedestrian access traffic for sure if you ever traveled up and down that road we think this will help a lot great are there any neighborhoods across the street are we going to going to look at any crossings at all or are we going to need any of that kind of thing expanded

[00:19:39] so right right now the crosswalks that were there the ones that are existing we have a light right beside simpson um so that as far as we're aware that light would stay in place with the crosswalk and then for heritage it's on battlefield is where the crossing point is for that light and then well right at the entrance to sorry right at the entrance to heritage high school there's a traffic light and so you'd have the crosswalk there but it's from what we have seen of the drawings it doesn't appear to be additional crosswalks planned great thank you do you have any questions two really quick one having

[00:20:18] driven this route a lot I know it's really familiar with this and it seems like a good thing I would assume this would improve walking routes to school for many of our students with the addition of the pathway and the sidewalks is that correct yes there is an existing sidewalk on I think it's the west side of evergreen now when they build a new road there will be a new sidewalk as of course as it winds and there'll be a shared use path on the other side so it will improve pedestrian access awesome and then is this going to impact just knowing kind of where heritage sits and it's a

[00:20:53] little bit tight in that section between perhaps battlefield and the synagogue if you will down there it gets a little a little bit tight um is there still going to be room one for turn lanes off of do you know if there's going to be turn lanes in the center there either into heritage yes there's turn lanes here now and they'll continue to be turn lanes okay and then is this going to impact parking at heritage I know the parking lot kind of abuts evergreen mill or are we still okay on that yeah we're fine this this piece of the road winding actually stops that battlefield so it won't impact heritage in that way okay even that front lot that's right

[00:21:30] there along evergreen mill correct yeah all right seems easy to me okay so would you like to see to consent for the next meeting thank you both very much and we'll move on to item 5.04 which is support services authorization for school board chair to sign easement documents related to waterford elementary school renovation and addition me again thank you so as we look towards starting construction at the end of the year at the waterford project we are seeking a blanket

[00:22:07] easement approval for utilities which will serve the school so we do this oftentimes we do this all the time with new school projects because we'll get requests to for have easements for water for sewer for fiber that kind of thing so we typically request a blanket easement which allows us to bring those directly to the chair for signature and what that does is it minimizes the number of times we have to come here for those easements because they are quite frequent and then it helps us maintain the project schedule as well so with that be happy to take any

[00:22:40] questions okay thank you do you have any questions on this one you're good um I know that we just we just approved policy 6355 um a couple weeks ago and so do we have any issues with the policy and these easements is it so we did note that on the board item I did note yes thank you very much so so no and if if there were to be an issue where there was a request for a power easement that served you know something other than our school then we would bring that back to the board as a a separate we bring back to this committee as a separate item thank you so much for doing that

[00:23:17] I appreciate it um based on that do we want to move this to consent next time there we go yes all right do we have any new business to take care of talk about a quick and speedy agenda all right um if there's no further business then I move that we move to adjournment and our next meeting will be when will our next meeting be are we we're not meeting this month again right so it'll be the September meeting September 1st all right great we'll see everybody then thank Thank you so much.

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