starting to go live. So, it should just take one more second here. Yeah, I see the notification. Thank you, Chris. Absolutely. Awesome. Aaron, we can start. Okay. Thank you.
Morning everyone. Last night's board meeting. part of last night's board meeting. A bunch of major things really for finance all at the same time. One of which is the presentation
of the of the proposed budget. So the proposed budget for 2026 went to the board last night for just again just for information. Then they would it'll be up for adoption at
the June 4th meeting couple of weeks. That'll be the adopted budget. as part of the adopted budget and you'll see on board docs. There were quite a few items last
night for us for finance in particular on board docs and some of that has to do with asurances meaning we have to the board has to assign asurances
that we are in compliance with ESA. A so every student under both ESSA and as a ESSA readdopted or reconfirmed ESCA so all of our title pieces and then
that's how we also confirm how we allocate state and local funds to all of our schools so that it's neutral as to title status. The next thing that we also add as far as the asurances go is
what's called maintenance of effort and it's maintenance of effort related to special education. So this under IDA special education rules the amount of money that we spent last year we
cannot spend any less than the amount we spent in the prior year. And if you look at our financial statements, you'll know that on instructional expenses only for
special education in the prior year, we spent, again, this is instruction only. We spent $47.1 million on special education. We receive $14 million in special
education funding from the state and then we receive less than that. Then under the single audit we have listed the amount of funds that we receive from IDA which is about half of
that about 7.2 million. So between the two sources 7.2 million 14.2 2 million. Oh, that about 21.4 million. We receive in dedicated special
education funding about 21.4 million, but in education expenditures alone, we're at 47.1 million. So, we always want to make sure that people are aware of the need the need to to have funds
set aside because like I said, we're required to to spend the same amount of funds that we did in the prior year. One of the big pieces there is it doesn't matter that we
couldn't hire people or if we have external sources or external uh contracts for special education. Instead, it is solely about the amount
of money that we spend in the prior year. And it's not clear to us that the amount of money could really go down. You would have to have a significant drop in the number of kiddos andor significant change in the
salary schedule for special education providers which obviously we don't have. So part of part of this uh IDA maintenance of effort is just that. So the board will sign that
document at the June 4th meeting. They'll sign ESA uh general asurances and then we also adopted have the or put forward the fee schedule for next year. So student fee schedule for
2526. The board must adopt that. The only entity that can adopt the fee schedule is the board. And then also then uh the rest of these uh all deal with the budget. And then
after that piece then we also had the internal monitoring report 2.3. 2.3 internal monitoring report deals with the budget itself. It's a very short monitoring report and it has to do
simply with um simply to do with what are the actual making sure that we are using assumptions valid assumptions
revenue estimates or pupil projections etc. So we have cred credible projections in 1A and then in 1B fail to uh we won't fail to separate capital and operational items. So
capital items which would include not only what we spend on the bond but also in other items that we spend. Then we have we won't you know we'll we'll make sure we share with everyone the planning assumptions for the district as a whole.
So all of our funds and then each school and operating unit for so our our school-based budgeting formula and then every fund as well. So,
most specifically, the bond redemption fund obviously is huge because we just went to the voters for a no tax increase ability to to issue debt. And so, the funds that we receive from that tax come
into the bond redemption fund. And then the capital projects fund is the fund that we use or the building fund is the fund that we use to then spend those proceeds. So, just wanted to give you just a brief highlight there. Certainly, I you know, if you
take a look at that over your free time well over the summer and feel free to give me a call if you have any questions on that. The other piece on 2.3 is the the board receives a budget and the
superintendent cannot reduce their budget. um must make sure that they have a governance budget in place which they do and so um we can't fail uh to to do that and then any of the other
conditions which in financial condition and activities policy. So in many ways then it just bumps right into 2.4 four which is the monitoring report that I want to walk you through.
Now remember that 2.4 four monitoring report as well as the quarterly financials. By definition, those are c these are quarterly reports. So this is quarterly report through March 31st and
we'll be aiming in the new year to speed up that timeline so that it it we're not into middle to late May, a month and a half or so beyond. But of course, we
need to make sure we've closed the books and and done all of the work uh necessary in order in order to um in order to put the monitoring together. So the PowerPoint that was
shared with the board last night, this is that and so just briefly walk you through this. As always, stop, ask questions. If um if I say something that that you didn't understand, feel free to
to jump to jump right in and and ask the question. As I said, this is a quarterly report. We have to do it. It looks at the reserves and the fund balance. It also looks at our cash policy, our cash position, our investments on liquidity,
making sure that we're paying things on time without significant uh late payments or late fees or any charges, that we are following our investment policy with an eye toward
liquidity, and that we're using the bonds in the method that was prescribed. by the voters, by LRPAC, and by the board. And of course, our audit and internal
controls. These are pieces that we've all walked through before, but these this is the difference in the in the different types of fund balances. The first two of those um are
restricted. the TABR and multi-year obligations, those are restricted because of the state constitution which requires us for multi-year obligations to have funds in in place to cover those multi-year
obligations. And then uh the bond redemption bond proceeds are subject to contract contract with our bond holders and also the agreement with the voters and then food service. Federal
regulations require that any funds in those food service fund remain reserved for the sole purpose of food service. In other words, none of these areas. So, for example, we can't take the bond redemption proceeds and we can't take
the bond proceeds and spend them in the general fund. So, we always want to point that out and we we try to reiterate that as at every point that we can because we're going to see some very high cash balances and people will say,
why aren't you spending that money on teacher pay or etc uh or on the classroom? And the fact is we can't because these areas the Taber and multi-year obligation is in cash. The
bond redemption and bond proceeds are cash and then any remaining balance in food service is also cash and we can't spend that on anything other than the purpose for which it was restricted. Then we have specific revenue. Um uh
specific revenue and specific revenue is then assigned to specific purposes and this is essentially the revenue is assigned to the purpose for which it was collected. So this includes grants. So
federal grants or state grants. We can only spend those funds on the purposes allowed underneath the grant. um base. So, the tuition that we charge and the C the CC cap. I don't know how why there's
so many C's in there, but the CCAP uh funds for our our little kiddos that those funds remain within base and can only be spent on base. We can't then take them out of base and then spend them on the general fund.
Same thing with pupil activities and athletics. Pupil fees. What we are collecting money for on the pupil fees is what it's spent on by the school. And then we also set aside funds for instructional materials, it
risk. That is why it's assigned. Then the definition reads like this. Unassigned balances are anything that are not restricted or assigned in our purpose. There are others but uh and we
are actually required uh to limit that unassigned fund balance to no less than 4% and no more than 8% of general fund revenue. So the board does have a policy
in place that our unassigned reserve, in other words, reserves that uh are there for unpredictable that sort of volatility, unpredictability of expenses, unpredictability of revenue. That that's
what we have it for. As you can see um that our unassigned fund balance as a percentage of that general fund revenue is forecasted and we forecasted to hit that 4% target and that's where we're
forecasted to end the year at $18.5 million. We of course need to monitor our cash position. This is done daily monitoring our investments and we we have outside
investment an outside investment company that assists us with that investment policy and the policy itself also says 2.4 Four also says that we need to ensure that
we're meeting that liquidity standard for 30 days uh forward of actual expenses. So we always be forward looking putting the district at financial risk by not having cash in
play. Here what you'll see is that we are substantially now over our cash position and our required cash position. And why is that? Well, if we look back at prior years,
this number here in February would be precariously close to this $40.1 million number. It would be very tight. And remember that this is uh restricted reserves. So it it it isn't
necessarily just uh unassigned. It doesn't necessarily talk specifically about restricted versus assigned versus unassigned. It has a different definition policy. But what happened is
the state passed a law or changed how we're distributed for our total program funding. Portion of which comes from the state and then a portion of which comes from property taxes. Historically up until this year we would have
received our state share one 12th. though in 12 equal payments and now instead we're receiving those payments in 1 nth increments. In other
words, we've already received a substantial amount of money more than we would have normally in his in historical terms. So, we're very happy about that. I think as we look at the higher and
remained elevated interest rates, if you read about or heard about the Treasury option this week, the bond market is not reacting favorably to to some of the
policies that are in place, which is pushing the yields on the Treasury much higher than anticipated. And you might also have heard that Moody's downgraded the US government. They were the last
one to downgrade and downgrading uh so that now the US government is US treasuries are no longer considered a AAA investment which is going to have significant impact on the federal
government and its ability to borrow funds at at better rates. The flip side of this and in attempting to find a silver lining is that the
district's fund balance or the additional cash balance is being invested at higher interest rates and so that has done done well for our interest earnings. Then of course monitoring
accounts payables and receivables and we are we are in compliance with our accounts payable and receivables policy our monitoring of bonds and our borrowing of course we remain compliance
there and both tracking of the MLO. So the presentation that you all had related to MLO figures into this. So, um, that we know that we're tracking that. Um, also audit compliance. Just a
heads up here is that we'll be going out for an RFP for audit services. It doesn't mean we're changing auditors. It just means with policy, we we need to go out every once in a while to to to get
an RFP done for audit services. Doesn't mean we would change. It just means we're going how it's and and we'll get bids and bids for services. There's nothing that requires us to change auditors. Just simply um requires us to
have an RFP and competitive RFP process. And then we also of course put out the quarterly financial statements which are posted online. And I don't think there's really much in the way
to to mention what I would say in and I have this in in words so apologize for this for just one second but in within the 2.4 for monitoring report.
Now I look at this on a a whole page that what you'll see again much of this is reiterates what's in the presentation. The big difference is really now the info that we're putting out surrounding the bond. And
so in January we issued bonds. We issued $171 million of PAR, which means we still have 658.4 million remaining to issue. And
then as part of that issuance of the 171.6 million, we generated premium. There were costs associated with that which got us to a fairly round number 185 million.
In the end, it's not exactly 185 million because um they withhold a little bit more uh to the cost fund than they need to. And then once all of the underwriters and other costs of issuing the bonds. Once all of those are paid,
then we're issued a remaining refund of any of those amounts. And it was a really small refund, but in essentially we have $185 million. And you can see that we're even having uh this issuance which was
in late January, January 28th. From January 28th until March 31st, we generated $1.4 million of interest. And so those interest costs will also be retained in the capital projects fund
and will be spent on capital projects. And specifically, it will assist in paying for the new ERP system that we will start implementing beginning early July.
We distributed the required funds to the charter schools, the promised funds to the charter schools of 12.4 million. And then we have in the report itself, we have and are showing actuals and
encumbered balances through March 31st. And I think what you could imagine is because we closed in Jan late January uh that that we have yet to to significantly encumber
um or get projects, you know, where they're spending a lot of money. Right now, as of March, we were at $3 million. You might also imagine that we'll be doing the bulk of spending over the summers once kiddos are out of school
and and gives us an opportunity to do the work whether it be capital improvements or could be other types of purchases or IT pieces that need to happen within buildings and that would occur over the
summer. So anticipate that that is going to increase significantly as we look at the June monitoring report and we close out as we close out June. Let me see that is what we needed
to share with you. So just being able to um just show again uh compliance with with being able to issue 2.4 knowing that we've shared 2.4 4 with you knowing that we've uh told the board that we are
in compliance with all pieces of 2.4 and um and then uh just a little bit about the budget. And so that's what I have. So I want to stop there before we turn this over to Brenda and just see if there are
any questions. Kelly, I'm expecting, you know, tons and tons of questions. Put me on the spot, sir. Do not go quiet into this. Good night. You know, take advantage. I did have one question. You
You know me too well, sir. Um I did have one question regarding the um special education funds. So, just doing the math on that one. 26 million. Is is that budgeted for? Do we have
it? I mean, obviously we spent it, but I just wanted to double check that. Yep. And so, as part of the monitoring or as part of the asurances within in the document that that uh Lori's board
president will sign is we then say that we have that we have budgeted all $40 million. Okay, got it. So our
our maintenance of effort is 40 million but as I shared with you we spend well above our maintenance of effort requirement in just instructional expenses alone. We're at 47 million in
in 2324. So we're well above that that maintenance of effort requirement. Right. Okay. I my biggest concern was that um we did have the funding. I know we're we're we're spending it. We've got it. We're meeting the requirement there,
but um we're only getting about half that money from other sources. Yep. Yeah. And then really just showing that that 26 million is budgeted as far as local only. It's the coming from local service sources. So Okay.
And then um on the the bond monies um looks like um you're getting pretty good response. Does it look and feel like we are going to raise as much as expected?
Yes. So we we will issue in tranches over the life of the project. So anywhere between six and eight years. Okay. And we expect our next issuance to be at the end of 27 or early
28. So hopefully by then the bond market settle down a little bit which will allow us allow us to reenter the market. But we're good right now as far as issuing bonds. We won't we won't go back and issue additional bonds until late 27
early 28. Got it. And then based on this, we're seeing that the ERP implementation and Thornton High School are first up. Yeah, those really were um those were really ones where they got off the ground. Now, I will say on Thornton High
School, uh so all of these projects are first up. They just will happen over time. So, this fiber optics work, all this cabling work um is going to be happening over the next two summers. The ERP implementation will
kick off. We have uh $5.5 million of furniture replacement for certain schools and obviously we're not doing all schools all at one time. Then the nutrition the central food warehouse I think we have a new name for
it nutrition I don't remember so nutrition services center so it'll be the nutrition services center is budgeted in this initial trunch and then we've got some roofing work that
will happen and as you can imagine those are uh prioritized u roofing projects these are prioritized interior wall and other uh safety uh projects that will occur. But I think what you're seeing here,
Kelly, is is we have multiple teams involved in spending this money uh from from electrical critical systems to our you know certain parts of business
services with LED lighting and the HVAC systems to working on the roofs to all of our IT inbuilding cell connectivity, the video monitoring intercom systems to updating the fire alarm
system. So, I think we have multiple teams um so that we're we're doing what what we can to to spend the funds in approximate order that we've we've told Delac.
Okay. And then two last questions. one is um assuming that all of these projects that do meet the threshold for doing competitive bids are being handled by Miss McKe's department. Yes. So, uh, that is probably one of the biggest ones
right here as far as this two and a half million and we're now over that in incumbrances is and and she announced yesterday there have been some additional signings and and closings on
contracts, but these are owner reps, these are architects, other professionals as well as as getting started on projects, but yes, all of those are going through through Brenda's group. And so because
of this and the increased workload, then then Brenda has a bond uh senior buyer as well as someone to help with bond agreements. So we have we have additional what you would call
contract bond employees. I mean, they work for us. we hired them, but their positions last for the length of the bond to support the bond. So, yes, that that work's going through Brenda and her team. Excellent. Um, and then my last
question is is regarding the nutrition services and the central food warehouse. Is is there documentation out there somewhere with how that is going to look throughout the district? I mean, you have a variety of um methodologies for
serving lunch and breakfast to students. I mean, there's some schools that have warming kitchens. You have, you know, food, there's things that where food is brought in. And I'm just curious how that central food warehouse is going to look as it's rolled out to all of the schools within the district. I don't
have that information, but we can we can get it to you. Okay. Mainly selfish, just curiosity killed Kelly. Um but just trying to understand that that's a very large shift in the mentality for the district and I'm just trying to understand how
that is going to look. Yep. So a lot of a lot of you know having this kitchen and this warehouse be also be a from scratch kitchen. And so this and then being in
having a distribution network to get those that um that same day food u then back to all of our kitchens. So uh but we will we'll make sure and uh get something for you. Excellent. Does the district already
have um land or space to facilitate that warehouse or is that included in that budget? That that's included in the budget. Got it. Awesome. other fact members, don't let me steal all the thunder. Please um do ask your questions
and thanks Aaron and um team. I appreciate the info. Okay, so now we're going to circle back with Brenda on a couple of follow-up questions that you had. And Brenda, I don't know if you want to share your screen or if you have information or
or Kelly um Venus James, if you want to ask your questions directly of Brenda or we can go that route as well. And then I'll stop sharing my screen maybe. Good morning everybody. Brenda McGee, director of supply chain management. Um,
just a couple of things to start off with. Let me piggyback off what Aaron finished off with on the bond. Um, yes, we hit the ground running. We being uh the purchasing department hit the ground running.
Uh, even we were ready to rock and roll even before the bond passed. We had solicitations on the street uh with the qualifying phrase on every solicitation that was related to bond that those would be
um could be withdrawn if the bond didn't pass and legal approved that language so that we could go ahead and put those on the street to get ahead of the game. Um typically we don't do that until we know we have funding but they wanted to be proactive. So, um, the Thornton High
School, we did three RFPs for Thornton High School. We did an owner's rep, then we did the architect and engineer, and then we did the contract uh contractor, the CMGC, the general contractor. Um, it was felt by the district that we needed
an owner's rep on this project due to the size and scope of the project and trying to keep it running full boore. U, that was one of the major ones. um those are all awarded and in place and working through um from now from our
CNFD department. So contracts are now in place for all of that work. Um we also did the smaller projects um that were on spelled out for what we called summer of 25 uh projects. So we did competitive
solicitations on all of those. Um and last but not least, we did um solicitations for the nutrition nutrition services center as it's now going to be named. Um Kelly, to your question concerning the change in
philosophy, that will be a a major change. Um the plan as I know it right now is that building is being done in two phases. We're going to start first with the warehouse portion so that we can get deliveries direct to the
warehouse because as we stand right now um our prime vendor for food is delivering to all of our sites which is an increase in the case cost on our food. So by having the warehouse up and running um that portion will have immediate
savings with uh reduced case cost and food and we can get that distribution out to the schools. And then once that is up and running as I understand it then we'll start moving into the kitchen side of it. And then um I'm sure there
will be more information as Erin said um Sarah I'm sure has that all planned and plotted out but that will be a major change. So right now my team is working on already summer of 2026 projects with
major solicitations on the streets uh for all of the projects that were spelled out for the summer of 2026. So yes, all of those projects are running through the purchasing department depending on their cost and all of that stuff. So just kind of wanted to give
you a brief update to piggyback off what Erin shared with you on bond. Um super helpful. Any questions on that portion of it? I I'm I'm sorry. I do have one um just because I don't know the answer to
the question. I'm not a contractor or construction person, but what does an owner's rep do? So, an owner's rep kind of sets in and it's kind of a a a stop gap between the architect and the general contractor
because the size of this project for Thornton is so large and will cover the um whole bond period, the 5-year period because of the way we're doing Thornton. um they're just basically a help to our
CNFD department to be the go-between and and try to solve daily problems and all that stuff so it doesn't come back onto um um the team to try to keep that project up and running. So basically
they're just um working on our behalf to work with the architect and engineers and contractors to keep the project going. Are they given authority to make decisions or do those still run through the district? Um, most of those decisions still run through the
district. I don't know how much decision making they're given. Um, that would be a Margie and a Peter question. Um, but um any financial decision decisions absolutely have to run through the district day-to-day operations like
let's move this retaining wall here or whatever. I believe they have the the authority to do that, but I don't want to speak out of turn there. So, um, sounds like they just more or less the knowledge base that you need so that you have it on staff. Okay. Correct. Okay.
Okay. Awesome. So, that's my update on bond just to piggyback off what Erin was sharing with you. And then I noticed, Kelly, that you had put questions in. So we had selected I believe six or seven um different solicitations five I guess
it is that you wanted to look at and you made some comments. So on the last sheet um of the um 2425 fact in our workbook. I tried to answer some of your questions Kelly. So just kind of going through
there on the Allegro pipe. Yes, we paid for that because we own the building and it was not on Algro. This was a problem relative to something about our building. So, it wasn't a special request from Allegro to fix something. Let's say to give them
more water or whatever. So, this was a fix that we had to do. That's the pertinent piece that I was looking for. Thank you, ma'am. Okay. And then the award went to AD Miller. Mechanical prime was the title of the solicitation.
So, if you look at the notice of award that's in there, you'll see that it went to AD Miller and the mechanical prime was the title of the solicitation. I I went back and looked after you after I saw your answers. I I figured out my my boo boo. Thank you. No problem. And then
we didn't do interviews in this. We always build that into a schedule in our what we call our milestone schedule as we lay out how we're going to do the solicitation. But um depending on how the evaluation scores come out, we decide whether an interview with any of
the vendors um is needed and we did not do any interviews. So I'm not sure where you saw the one bidder was interviewed, but we did not do any interviews on the Allegro P pipe project. We we'll call that a blonde moment on that one as
well. I'm not sure where I saw it either. So awesome. Okay, so moving down your list, um translation bid. Um one vendor could potentially provide services, but the problem is we have 55
schools and parent teacher conferences are typically uh scheduled at the same time and we have to have enough interpreters, translators to cover all of those sites during those time frames. Also, some agencies do not provide
certain languages. Um, so we need to get a whole broad field of uh translators to cover both all of the uh needs that we have potentially at a one-time frame and then to make sure that we have the language
that we need. So we do award to multiple vendors uh both companies and individuals um so that we have plenty of coverage for those events that take a lot of
people and time that go on a one-time basis. Gotcha. Okay. That it just that was one of the largest contracts that we reviewed was like wow. Um, so just was curious as to the reason behind that. So, thank you for that. I want to say
and because I used to do this bid, now I have another person do this bid, but um, I want to say we probably have over 20 or 30 people that we contract with for translation services and some vendors will provide people to translate and
some people only provide translation of documents. So, we need both of those services. So, we have to do multiple awards. Okay. Okay. Uh, live streaming for the athletic services that was put out to bid on bidnet formally. So, we did put
it out for bid. Um, I did get questions from another vendor. Um, but they did not respond. So, we only had the one response from Huddle. Um, can't remember what their parent company name is. Yeah. But it was formally solicited on
Bidenet. Um, Huddle provided the document that said that they're a sole source. I don't ever take the vendor's word for that. So, the document is kind of like, okay, so you say. Okay, gotcha. Um, so we
always, you know, try to be as as competitive as we can. Just for your information, I did reach out to the other vendor that had asked the questions and apparently based on our responses to the questions, they decided that they didn't have the capability to
do what we were asking. So, basically, this is putting cameras at our athletic um stadiums and in our high schools so that they can um to start with just film all of the events. That film is used for sharing
with coaches from other districts, etc. Plus, kiddos can create Huddle accounts so that they can take components of those live streams and um use them for their own scouting purposes or
going out to other people. So, it's a very strange project. Um Huddle's a very difficult vendor to work with. We were hoping that somebody else would respond, but they didn't. So, it's been a very interesting project to say the least.
Um, that's that's interesting. They they've been difficult to work with. Um, yes. Oh, that's that's hard to hear, especially since they were the only ones who bid. So, you kind of put in a corner, but at the same time, it did look like they were footing quite a fair
fair share of the bill, right, with putting all the cameras in the stadiums and such. But, Right. Interesting. Okay. Yes. So, that was live streaming. Um and then I think your last three questions kind of just or four whatever it is I
think they all kind of go together. So um when we are based on district policy um for the construction side of the house anything over $100,000 um has to have some type of competition.
um 100,000 to 250. Um the department can do their own thing, but they have to document it and they have to get at least three bids. Over 250 absolutely has to come to the purchasing department to handle the solicitation. Um
so once we start an RFP process, whoever is what we call the project manager or running that selects their evaluation committee. Um, typically that committee we ask to be three to five people cuz we don't um typically want an even number
on a committee, but we'll take it if we have to. Um, on those large projects that we did for Thornton and the nutrition services warehouse, the committees were uh comprised of about 10 members I believe it was and those had
members from learning services and other departments were part of that solicitation. So it depends on the complexity of the solicitation who we want as players but the uh typically the project manager whether it be on the
CNFD side or perhaps the IT side or nutrition services does their solicitations. They get to make up who is going to be on that evaluation committee. So they're the they they are the ones that decide who they want on their
committee. Um in an RFP process, the beauty of the RFP, which is request for proposal, by the way, um the beauty of the RFP process is typically price can be a factor, but it doesn't have to be
the major factor of an RFP. That being said, some people um still want it to be weighted with points higher, but they can also take the experience and everything else
that's uh spelled out in the response to the RFP and and weight those on points. Uh based on what we've been doing with bond and all that, um Chris has determined that he wants pricing to
be at least 35 points of every RFP. So going forward, we will have that on the CNFD for bond things. The pricing will be well actually it's not just bond, it'll be on everything for right now. um that kind of swings back and forth
depending on who's making those decisions. So, but in an RFP process, pricing is a component thereof, but does not have to be the major component. And when you look at that as an evaluation
committee, we give them some criteria typically to base their decisions on, but um we don't want to tell them how to score their response to pricing because
um they can look at it and say, "Well, that $1.4 $4 million is the lowest price proposal, but another everybody else is above two million or even higher. So, what did the 1.4 million guy miss? So,
you have to take all of that into consideration as you're doing um as you're scoring. So, that's part of their their task as they're scoring is to read the responses to the proposal. Did they answer it? Do they have the the
team that can get the work done? And is that then reflected in their cost? Because maybe that 1.4 they didn't get half of what we expect them to do. Okay. Um that that's that's helpful. I
appreciate that. Um I I do understand costs are are at play here. Of course, we're trying to be fiscally minded, so I get that. Um the last question that I had that I did not ask um was when you are doing this whole
scoring process and everybody does their rankings and they give the total points is the decision made based purely on the highest scoring vendor um or is there other factors included in that? Typically we want to award to the
highest scoring vendor. That would be our mode and then depending on the project again uh will depend on whether we do interviews and then add add that score to their score to see
if it changes because if if there's something that the committee didn't get from the response or they feel like they want some answers and we try to make sure that we're giving the same questions to all the vendors but if we need clarifications there and all that.
Sometimes an interview is needed. We did do interviews on the major bond projects, Thornton, excuse me, and the nutrition services center. Um, so that can play into the score as well, but that would be ideally what you would
want to do is award to that high high score. Okay. Gotcha. I I just as we were looking through the contracts, I mean contracts, I saw several points at which the vendors were separated by like half
a point. Um and in some cases the price seemed to kind of skew that half a point whereas the vend other vendors scored higher in the other sections. So just trying to kind of understand the methodology there and and make sure it's you're getting the most bang for your
buck, if you will. Correct. Correct. That's what we're trying to do. Okay. Venus, James, guys, I think um I think one of you had some other questions when we last chatted, unless maybe Miss Brenda answered them for you, but please jump in here.
Yeah, I think I just had one of one question on there that I think your response answered. So, okay, great. Thank you. Good, too. Excellent. Um the only other I had one
other question just as I was looking through the monitoring report for this um for our additional work that we have to do today. Do we have a total count or possibly off the top of your head or just a rough guesstimate of um bids that you did for this last for this
monitoring period? We we put it in the report last time and I think it's a good so for 2425 just a raw number. Mhm. Um so in numbering of bids I am up
to 47. Okay. Wow guys are busy. Yes the bond is making us all a little crazy. can understand that lots to do. Yes. So, just strictly
based on solicitation numbers, like I said, we're up to 47. Okay. Excellent. Thank you for that. And along those lines, um it looks like the language used last time was uh 34 35 formal solicitations
in FY23 and additional informal solicitations. Correct. There are informal ones, James. Um I don't have a count on that. So like I said that that per district policy between 100 and 250 I think is the the
dollar amounts. Yeah. Um the department can run their own informal solicitation, but they're required to get at least three bids. So, we typically don't keep track of that other than when they send um the request for a contract like we
got one this morning for something. I can't remember what it is. Um where they did their own bid because they could uh we asked for that documentation to support that they actually did the work. Okay. No, that's okay. I just want to make sure that language would apply to
you. Yes. So, I I I do not have that number. That's thanks. Okay, great. So, uh, we are finished with the meeting and then we'll jump into we're finished with the public portion of the meeting. So, we can stop
recording, please. All right, I'll end that stream now.