had energy. Sorry, Leon. Let me know when you're ready. We're good. Let's do it. Take two. Call to order the operations committee meeting, April 11, 2025. So, roll call. Mrs. Rado, we are all here. All right. I think that all three. Can we get a motion to approve the agenda? I'll make a motion. Second. All right. approval of last month's minutes. Motion second. We'll share. So, a little bit of work of replacement, you know, stuff that's been going on. Uh, the replacement of the HVAC boards at McDonald went really well. Uh, very few hiccups, knock on wood. But uh we were able to pull 18 good boards out and repair all of the other units at the schools that were down and still have eight spares remaining. So that gives us some leeway to get down the road a little ways before we have to do it again. So thank you for that. It really went well and it made a lot of teachers happy that were dealing with rooms they had to manually make work for a while. Um, one thing that did go bad is the, uh, HVAC unit in the copy center at William Tennant High School. We did that internally. Um, saved us about $6,000. It was about a $4,000 job. To have someone else come in and do it would have been 10 plus thousand. So, that that was good. It was over 20 years old. It was failing. And they were trying to keep it moving. And I'm like, you're spending so many hours just trying to keep this moving and not doing other things. Let's just replace it. Um, and then I'm sure you've seen uh the signs out on the road for uh drivers. We've been getting some calls. So, that and the ones that are on the back of the bus. Hopefully that uh gets us some more drivers to start next year with. We have two really close to uh they're going to go for their two more get their test uh next week at some point. So, we do have some other retirements coming. They may come back, they may not. So that's still to be seen, but uh we're still moving forward on training new drivers. Um so that posted today. Karen, if you're not aware and didn't see, Karen uh announced her retirement as So it goes it went out on Centennial School District web page. It just it just popped this morning. It's there. Okay. I haven't looked past looking at the Yeah, I looked at I looked this morning. It's on our web page this morning. Okay. And then I'm not sure where else they'll advertise, but they normally do Indeed and all the other advertising places for that. So, but the application is open online for it'll be open for has to be 10 days. So, 10 working days. So, two weeks. It'll be open through this week and then next week and then through when we come back to spring break. I'm hoping when we come back on that Tuesday that I have some to look through and if if they're not sufficient and I don't think they're we don't think they're good, we'll keep it open for a little longer. Are we adver? Um there's a range. So we advertise the the range like we do with every other job. It is 80 something to 111. I don't know the bot the bottom's like 83 or 81 and the top is 111. So the mid makes that like 97 90 you know somewhere in there. the mid-range. It is not correct. But that's more it the mid the mid is probably 15 more or 17 more I think something like that. So and she her last date is June 30th. Yes. Yeah. So, uh, yeah, we she announced yesterday, so you probably to all the drivers and everything. So, that's Yeah, I understand. She, uh, struggled for a while with telling me she wanted to. She thought she, you know, she was just didn't want to, but it's I think it's the right thing for her. She's been stressing out about it the job for a while. So, she's she's happy again. She's smiling. I haven't seen her smile in weeks. Um, so hopefully we're getting drivers and we'll work through that process as we get applicants and hopefully we get some good ones. Um, yes and no. I mean, the ones we've been getting, we've got there are ones retiring. We have drivers retiring and Yep. And that some of that I'm not sure if that's age or that is something else but I'm you know and that's but I think I think that's something that we talk about offline I don't think that's something for this format why why drivers are going or what but I do talk to them you know and I I ask why and whether they share with what me the truth or not I don't know but I have to take their word so I think that's something we need to have an offline conversation about I don't think it's for this format the background in our what's going on but I have some thoughts on that also right let's move on okay uh we're still moving forward FCS classrooms we have to do some engineering this year so they have to be pushed off a little in the middle they're going to be pushed off till next summer not this summer uh parking lot RFP went out. The bids are back due back next week on the 16th and uh we'll hopefully open those and uh have some good returns and have some ideas what it's going to cost for log and then see if we can afford the additional William tenant parking lot in the back for this capital projects planning. So, here's one of the things if you didn't review that I've been working on. I have out seven years right now. Um, an estimate uh by year and project. And I kind of broke it in each year. What the average the average right now as I work through this comprehensive plan is $1.35 million a year additional above what our operating costs are. Um, if you look at some of those things, um, some have already went past when they should have been replaced. We're already deferred on them, but we're let that is on there. So, if you look over Willowdale, um, Yep. Second item. No, no, no. Where is it physically? It's in the back. So, they used the playground as the bus loop, right? It doesn't appear to be anything wrong with it. It's It's falling apart if you go and look at the cracks and things like that. And that's why, you know, it's it's once they start to go from like the winter that we had, they go pretty quickly. Yeah. Yep. all of a sudden start to go through like the front like the front of buses the buses are tough on it because of how heavy they are obviously and they turn on it. Yep. Just like the front of log. It was fine last last summer and all of a sudden we had those extreme colds and rain and ice and now there's potholes you can stand in that we had to fill. you know, they're a foot deep some of them and it just once No, we do not at the moment. There are cracks and it's starting to peel up and things like that. So, Mr. Woot, um [Music] the high school auditorium stage and PI repairs, yes, it's on for this coming year. They're what's the issue with them? Are they significantly bad? where they do the ride, they have a platform that they put up manually in the pit in the front of the stage. So there's a stage and then in the front there's a pit where all the audio visual is at. Well, they have to put a platform up that raises it about two and a half feet that's stable enough to put any orchestra on or any performance on to extend the stage. Um they do it multiple times a year. They've repaired it. they think it's pretty much original to the school and it's starting to fail and become a safety item like issue that they're just kind of keeping it moving along. And so one of the things is to replace that and it's a full structure and they still will have to put it up manually. The price of ones that go up and down uh mechanically electrically like $200,000. I'm like, we're not doing that for. So, what we have now is original and it's just starting to fail from agent use and the team over there has maintained it and kept it going for that many years and it's just to the point now where the structure of it failing and that's the answer. Yeah. So, it's been sanded so many times that they don't even know if they can sand it one more time. So they do get professionally redone, but when they do, they sand life. You know, they sand a small layer of the wood away. And every time they do it, it's original to the school, too. That that part of the building. They don't need to spend a lot of money a couple years. I I'll have to look back and see. But they do every so many years professionally sand them and refinish them. And then we refinish them every year by just putting a coating on, you know, buffing them and putting a coating on. Define. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't think it was a reinstall of a new floor. It was just a resurface from what Joe told me. Yeah. From what Joe told me, it was just a resurface. And the guy told us then there wasn't much life left in the floor. Yep. Same thing. Is starting to show and cup. And once they start cupping, that means the wood's so thin that it's not stable. I'm gonna tell you years it I'm just saying the age of it and we can't refinish them. These are the floors that we can't refinish again. They're going to sand right down through the top of the top layer into the base layer. keep going. They're old. That's original to that school. Also, my other question is that the very last one, HVAC control boards, is that 75,000 in addition to what was just spent. So, I put it on there for every year. Now, that's that can be fiscal year 26 can move out because we didn't spend 75 this year. I was preparing this before as that before this. So, we spent what we could this year. That's an addition to get every doing 2020. Is that what it is in 20? Yes. So, if you look at the fiscal year and the the idea of spreading this out obviously is so we don't have $4 million this year. And yeah, you know, and what happens is is historically if you let things go to failure, it only it costs you downtime number one that you can't control. norally cost you 12 to 15% more because of it usually causes other problems, especially roofing. If you let roofs go and they go too long, you're going to have a lot of other damage when they start leaking. So, this is a plan I'm working on. I want to take it out 10 years and I want to spread some things out if I can, but I wanted you to see it. So, you do they maintain the roots? Yes. So, what are they doing? maintain them year. So, they clean they clean them, they replace, you know, anything that's has a slight leak, we repair and and keep it running. Um, we haven't, but that's one of the options. I have a roof company coming out to do an eval on all of our roofs. They did a few roofs the other year. I believe it was Log Clinger and William Tennant. I I can't think of it off the top of my head. Is it a union roofer? No, they we actually still have the contract there. Some of those roofs are still under warranty with them. So, they're going to come out and do a free evaluation of our roof. Sure, they are. Well, part of that is because I want to put solar on them. Yeah. And I'm not putting solar on a 15y old roof is going to fail in five years. So, if you put solar on a roof, it will Well, that's part of that's part of the discussion I need to and I had that discussion with the roofing company. And so, when they come out, I'll be with them and I'll get more information. So, in order So, if the if the project is over a c I don't for sure. God bless you. It was not by choice. Yeah. My father passed away. Yeah. I just know that we do have a union. You know, we have a union clause. Yeah. For a certain amount of money. And um warranties are very tricky if you the normal the normal contract will say if somebody else goes on your roof to do any kind of work nullified your warranty. So this is a conjunction. I want to put both those people together and talk about roofing and solar install and how we best do that. Is there grant programs to do the solar? Yeah, they were all that and the bus grants were all withdrawn at the moment because of what's going on unfortunately. So, all of that is on hold. So, when is that solar idea coming up? It's as soon as I get more information on our roofs and we can take it forward for an actual plan and I I think we can do it. The other thing I want to talk to him about is do it in a phased approach. Hey, can we do weigh William 10, whatever roof is the worst, right? Needs the most work. Let's do that roof and do that solar system this year and let's do it over a four or five year period. You know, we should wait until things settle down and see where things are going. the program is up and running again because from what I understand a lot of the solar programs they pay for the put in. It's no cost. So, so there's two options. If we get the grants, we pay for the install and we pay for the upkeep and we do the maintenance. So, we would have to contract somebody in every year to maintain and upgrade those systems as they fail. The other option is what's called a power purchase agreement where the company installs the solar owns it for 25 years. They upgrade it. They maintain it. You do nothing with it. You just get a reduced rate. And I I think if you remember that reduced rate estimate was $500,000 a year for them to for us to be hands off and them maintain everything, which is the one I prefer. I think Yeah, you remember that before. And I think that would the payback on that was not that long, right? So yeah, we we put well into that 25 years. We put zero money into it. we just get a reduced rate for 25 years there. So to me that one makes the most sense otherwise we have to hire somebody to m maintain it and then we have to pay for it. The good thing about power purchase agreement if there's new technology comes out and it's more efficient. They'll come out and replace it because they make more money that way. But we still get our guaranteed three cents off per kilowatt hour. It doesn't change anything with us, but they maintain them, clean them, upgrade them for a 25 year period. So, that's all great. I can't move forward with that without knowing getting them together and knowing what roofs need some work so we can phase this in. We can't nail down a roofing company until we know how much a project is going to be because we do then we have to go out to bid for the roof. Correct. Yep. So, it's a multiple phase. So, when you find So, when you find out the name of the roofing company, would you let us know? Yeah, I have it in an email. I just can't think off the top of my head. I have all that just off the top of my head. I wanted to see what I'm kind of working on as well. I appreciate seeing the full projection list and and the way you're breaking it down over time is really helpful. I'm trying to f I'm trying really to phase it in so we're not spending $6 million in one year. You know, it it's a little easier to take when you have to have a small shop. So, And we're doing the same thing with our buses. And you'll see that here too. Sorry. 29. Anything you want to do after 29, I'm good. Listen, I'm gonna try this one more time and then I'll hear you. Um, so I would suggest anything you really want to do, do it after I leave so I don't have to be here. I don't like the way the next session's lame duck anyway. Just it's fine. Just write the checks. It's fine. You don't or it could be sooner. You might get lucky. Right. So, this is this is just a short snapshot of what our transportation department is projecting. Right. Can you see that? I just got these last year. Just got these two months ago. This number comes out to the same, which I think is crazy and can't be done, but this is a projection of what their hopes were. I just wanted you to see this, but I'm working on a breaking the plan down a little more. Um, I did do an average age of our buses. So, we have 87 buses. The average age of them right now is 2015. And I in my opinion, we shouldn't operate a bus over 15 years for safety reasons and maintenance reasons and they start to become very expensive. So I put a 15-year idea on this just so you know where my basis of thought is here. Um the number of buses that we have over 15 years out of 87 is 19. So, if I look at the average cost of those, it's 133,000 and change per bus. So, to get up to 15, and I'm not saying this is what we're going to do, but I'm just putting numbers in there, it's $2.5 million to replace those 19 buses, which for the 19 that I had earmarked on our grant that we just were told the other last week that it was put on hold at the moment. So, what is the crossing guard that crossing guard vehicle? Um, yes. So, it's it's the one that's over there. That's a red truck that has the lights on it that they put out to just that. So, it's a object in the way and things like that the crossing guard uses. But this is not just buses. This is every this plan is everything in the district. So old maintenance trucks, um the backhoe, the skid steer, the things like that, you know, everything's on this, but I'm just looking at buses right now because I think the other things are minimal. There's very few of them and they're manageable. The number of buses we have that need to be replaced is is something that's of a larger scope. Yep. Just So, you know, we're working on I'm trying to project that also. Yeah. Thank you. In that spirit of looking out and projecting over five, 10 years, whatever it is, it's helpful. Where it says new new um replacement size nine, is that a vehicle? Regular car like an SUV. Yep. Yep. So, that is uh let me look at that one. 90 new nine. Oh, that's a van. That would be a van. And those are brand new ones that they would like to get to add to the additional with the Fords that we got last year that they have been so great to use. They love them. It's been made it so much easier. So that that would be a replacement. Those would be two additional vans, but there are ones we would get rid of in the following years. Why the difference in price? One's 90,000, one's 70,000. So, there is one out there right now for 70,000 that we noticed just like we had last year, but there's no other additional ones we can find. And I it's a leftover obviously. So, what we paid last year for one is 90. So, if we were able to get that one van, it would be $70,000, right? Instead of 90 because it's the last year left over. But all the new ones coming out, we expect will be in that $90,000 range. What are you doing with the vehicles that you're putting out of service? We trade them in if possible and if they're so bad they they get scrapped or sold, you know, they can be sold on, but a lot of the stuff is just going to get scrapped. Is there a lot of stuff sitting behind the building? Yes. That we're trying to get, you know, take care of that when we have time. There are five or six different things back there that need to be done. You're still sitt Yes. You know, somebody wanted to buy that and not me. God helped me, not me. Right. But there was a bus driver. Yeah. Who has to buy it because he does project. I don't know what they do. Yeah. So sell it to him while he was still wanting while it still is not a piece of rust on the ground. I think it is a piece of rust. It probably is. I don't know if it's worth it. So just so you know, that's we're we're looking at that and I want to come up with a more comprehensive breakdown because I think that's too many to replace each year. But it has to be something. It's a lot reasonable. Sure. So, I'm working on that. And again, leasing is just out of there. Yeah. It's way too expensive. Doesn't make any sense. Supposed to pay. Yeah. It's not. And then then with maintaining them, I don't know if we're allowed to maintain them because they're leased vehicles. There's also have mechanics have to send them back to their shop. So, there's a lot of legality with that that doesn't work out. Capital updates. I think these are all the same slides. We've I don't think anything's updated since last time. So you've seen these in different all the different meetings. I'll just move through those. Um so off to what get I would like you your approval to move to the board for approval or you know just for them to look at. So our second round of backho bids went out. You know the original one I I left it in there. The blue one is the original bid. So we were in that$1 120 to $140,000 range for a new backho. I just thought that was ridiculous. So, we did have three come back as you'll see at the bottom there. And the one I'm recommending fits in the profile I was looking for is just around 1,300 hours, a few years old. Um, in great shape. We looked at it. I sent someone over to look at it. And with the trade in, it comes back at $75,800. So, I would like uh see if we can move that forward to the board. How much does it cost to rent? Don't know. Yeah. But we use it enough that renting it would probably be time, you know, the time of going to get it and bring it back and different things like that. Yeah. But I mean, just what's the average lifespan? Is that even possible? Almost 28 years old, by the way. Almost 28 years old. It's just rusting and falling apart. The cab is falling apart. It's It's bad, right? I'm just wondering what we could expect to get out of the 18 probably 18 20 years. 18 20 years. Cool. It's the same almost. It's the same exact model we have now, just a newer one. And this I mean looking at the original cost if we were up at like 145 126,000. Yeah. To be down to 75 is pretty great. So, thank you for digging back into it. And the other problem with renting is if we need it at three in the morning to load salt, are we just going to rent it for months at a time and leave it sit there? You know, we don't know when that that's going to happen. And that's one of the biggest things we use tobacco for is to load all the trucks. Yeah. With salt and things like that. So, but I can look into that for sure. And I that doesn't sound like an outlandish request, especially if the thing lasts 18 years. I mean, it's not And I believe there's I talked to Tom this morning for an update that there's money set aside in the budget last this this fiscal year still for vehicles or equipment outside of buses and it's like $140,000. I just didn't want to spend it all in one place. No, that's great. I mean, I don't have a problem with putting that forward, but yeah. So, here's Southampton Day's transportation and the cost is pretty much the same. I'd like your recommendation on if this is what we want to do. Um, it's pretty much the same proposals as last year, give or take a few dollars. They donated back the last three years, four years I look, was 3,000 of that, and they're willing to do that again. But I'd like your recommendation if that's what you would like to take forward to the board. The cost to the district is 4,000 minus the 3,000. Yes. So, it would be a,000. Yep. 1300, 1350 bucks to do that. 15 buses and they always have a maintenance truck standing by in case something happens to them. Right. I mean, yeah, I don't have a problem. We went back four years and it was three grand all four years. So, I mean, if that's Yeah, that's standard then. That's fine. All right. I'll move it forward. So Fran's here be this is this is a it projector project they're working on. I if you want to explain that Fran. Yeah. This is to replace. This is their last Was it the last phase? We did all the other schools. So, somebody gave a bid of 85,000. Yes. And somebody else was 26,000. Were they goldplated? Right. Theirs had to be. Look at the installation difference. They doubled installation. So that to me says they didn't want the job. Yeah, that's why they were not. So they gave a high estimate because they just didn't want it. Um the only question I just just for my edification in the uh um contract in the bid it says prevailing wage and it has the prevail the list of wages. So, does that mean that we pay for a wage whatever it says on that chart, not what they put into their contract? I just don't know how that works. They have that the company has Okay. They have to pay that into and that's into that. Okay. One one of the other Does that fall under responsible contractors also? I don't know who that is. I think it I think it's 300,000. How much? I think it's 300. Yeah. 300,000. So that would anything over 300 is requires responsible contractor. So that one is under it, right? We have a warranty. And one of the thoughts on this is if we they have these in stock right now. If we move and hold it for a few months and the tariffs actually hold, this could be double. You know, it could be 30 40% more. We don't know that. We don't know that for sure. Tariffs are already in place, aren't they? But they could pull them back. You know what I mean? Yeah. They don't know what they're doing. They held some of them. So, right now they're in place. You know what country these come from? I'm sure they're probably China or at least parts of them. 125% right now. 50%. Well, we talked to we talked to the company that that won the bid and they honoring that price. Okay. Do they have it here now? I guess they have. They must have something or they're in transit or something. What the goal is on the board for the 22nd, get approved in on the 23rd and they're going to deliver to us and we're going to store our installations October. So, are we gonna What I'm asking you is are we hit because the tariffs are in effect right now. That's good. By doing it now by moving that's what I'm asking. Is it the equipment already in the United States or does it still have to be shipped? I'm assuming it's in the US. Well, it doesn't matter. Okay. Yeah, I think that makes sense. Finish the project off. I just decide what they're doing with the terms. Yeah, they're clown shoe people. They don't know. Did you just clown shoe people don't know what make numbers up? It's 4,000% today. Cuckoo. Sure. Sure. Any questions? Countries already. Anything? Are we Are we good to move that ahead? Yes. Yay. Yeah. Yeah, I'm good with that. Are we good? We're done. Yep. Awesome. Ajourn. All right. Ajourn. I agree. Thank you. Okay. Right. Even better. We can talk. I guess What am I going to do?