Testing, testing, one, two, three. Testing, testing, one, two, three. Good afternoon. My name is Dina Griffiths, and I'm calling to order the Finance and Operations Committee today. I am joined by Ms. Ricardi and Mr. Pepper. We will first start with public comment, but I was just told that we do not have public comment, so we can move on to the minutes. May I have a motion to approve the minutes of April 7th Finance and Operations Committee meeting? I move to approve the minutes of the April 7th, 2026 Finance and Operations Committee. Second. Thank you very much. And it has been moved and seconded to approve the minutes of April 7th,
2026 Finance and Operations Committee. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. We will now move on to the consent agenda. May I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? So moved. Second. It has been moved and seconded to approve the consent agenda. And all those in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. We will now move on to our action items, starting with item 5.01, Support Services Contract Award for IFB 26-544 Woodgrove High School Bus Parking Expansion. Thank you.
Hi. Good afternoon. So this is an approved CIP project. This project includes extending the bus parking lot at Woodgrove High School to add 25 new bus spaces and approximately 30 passenger vehicle spaces. It will address a shortage that we have for bus parking in the western part of the county. Upon approval of this, the work would begin this summer. So we put the project out to bid. We received five bids, and we are recommending award to the low bidder. Thank you, Mr. Pasquarelli.
Thank you for that information. Is there any discussion about this expansion? No discussion? We will proceed to a vote. All those in favor, say aye. Chair, there wasn't a motion made yet. There's been no motion. Oh. Go ahead and make your mo-- I'd like to ask somebody to motion to approve. I move to approve item 5.01, contract award for IFB number 26-544, the Woodgrove High School bus parking expansion. Second. It has been so moved and seconded. We will proceed to a vote. All those in favor, say aye. Aye.
Aye. Aye. We will now move to our information items. Item 6.01, Business and Financial Services RFP R23-261 Fresh Produce Renewal, presented by Ms. Filla. Thank you. Thank you, and good evening. Before you this evening, I have three different contracts for renewal for our school nutrition program, with the first one being the fresh produce. This is the third of four renewals with Keaney Produce to provide produce for our school nutrition program from August 1, 2026 through July 31, 2027. If so
chosen, you can either move this forward as an action or a consent item for your next meeting, and I welcome any questions. Is there any discussion? Yes, Mr. Pepper. Thank you, Madam Chair. Do we know, in comparison with last year, how much the price has increased on some of these items? Under the budget impact, you'll see no change in pricing. That's really impressive. I'm just going to say that out loud. There's no change in pricing. Can I ask a follow-up question as well? Do we have any program in our schools that allows, perhaps in the vein of sustainability, something where students can grow their
own produce for usage in any of our school nutrition programs? I'm not aware, and Ms. Sampson is not here with us this evening, but that's a question I can bring back and answer, unless Ms. Willoughby wants to chime in. It's a question that comes up often. So I think what I could share, that Ms. Sampson would share, would be that we support school gardens. However, in terms of that being a supply for the cafeteria is not typically what is done. We do encourage the local vendors as well, perhaps anticipating maybe another follow-up question that comes up a
lot is farm to table. And so we also work with community farms to direct them to getting onto the federal contracts related to commodities as well as other cooperatives that we may engage with. Mm-hmm. Appreciate that. I can also add to that. We are working on an agreement with 4P Foods to do farm to table. They actually are the go-between between the farming community and us for getting those items here. I also believe that there's been some partnering with the school
nutrition program and Ms. Sipe, who's doing the sustainability program for us. She's also doing some work with the school nutrition program. Appreciate that. We live in a county that we still have parts that are primarily agricultural, so anything that we can do to support locals, to support sustainability, and support our students, having the opportunity to see where their food comes from is very important. Not that this relates to this contract, but I feel it was a good point to bring that up. So I appreciate you guys. Thank you, Mr. Pepper. Any other discussion?No.
Since this is an information item, we can have this go onto the consent agenda. Is everybody okay with that? Okay. Yes. Thank you. We can now move on to 6.02, Business and Financial Services RFP R23263, Ice Cream Renewal, presented by Ms. Villwock. Ice cream always gets a lot of attention. On the ice cream, I will start with Mr. Pepper. This does have a 3.76% increase over last year for the ice cream. I will share that some of the cost we
are trying to monitor related to fuel costs. As you know, fuel prices are going up and down, and vendors are concerned about delivery to our 100 schools, but right now this is for product, an increase of 3.76%, and our current contract is with Garber's Ice Cream. This also is the third of four renewal options with Garber, and once again, this can either move forward on your consent agenda or as an action item at your next meeting. Any discussion? Yes, Mr. Pepper. Thank you, Madam Chair. I know that ice cream is-- I have
two children who really like buying ice creams, although one can't because he's a kindergartner, but the other one really likes buying ice cream at school. I know that this is an à la carte item in our cafeterias. Will there be a price increase to correspond with the fact that the cost is also increasing? Each year as part of the budget process, when we're developing pricing for the following school year, we bring forward for the school board, included in the budget what the meal prices will increase by. We also look at the à la carte pricing, and Ms. Sampson could go in greater detail, but there's
various calculations looking at all the à la carte items that we have to determine what the appropriate adjustments should be for each year. Mm-hmm. So it's not necessarily just because we saw a price increase here. It's looking at a variety of factors, but we do take into account increasing à la carte as appropriate. Thank you, Ms. Willoughby. Ms. Ricardi? Yeah. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm not familiar with Garber's, just out of curiosity, are they a more local company? Are they regional, national? I believe Ms. Sampson did just walk in. Yeah. Hello. Not to put you on the spot. But I believe they're out of Winchester.
Winchester. Oh, okay. Yeah. They're out of Winchester. Okay, great. Thanks. I had a quick question. As far as the contract going up, have you seen in the past when gas prices fall, this is for a year, right? Have you seen them come down ever? Or are they going to, because we paid the higher price this year, are they going to just still go with that even if gas prices fall next year? As I shared, this is for product itself, okay? This is the cost of the ice cream. Ms. Sampson worked very hard with our vendors to get them to not increase costs because of fuel surcharges. So this is related to the product. So the prices that you see in the
attachment would be the prices we would pay for ice cream during the upcoming year. If a vendor sees a decrease in cost, there is always the option they can bill us less, just to throw that out there, but this is what we would budget for and plan on being the cost for ice cream for the next school year. Thank you. And did we have a question from Sam? No. Nope? Okay. All right. So with that, does everybody feel comfortable with the consent agenda for this item? Okay. Consent agenda for the item. Thank you so much. Now we'll move over to item 6.03,
Business and Financial Services, IFB 121331, Milk and Related Items Renewal. Thank you. Okay. Ms. Villwock. On the milk, we did see an average price increase of 2.33%, but keep in mind also, this contract's an escalating, deescalating, so the price can go up and down depending on the market, because it's always been that way with the milk bid. This is the last renewal on this, so we will be going out to bid next year. Right now, our current contract is with Dairy Made Dairy. This year, we did add some whole milk into the contract
for the upcoming year. We added that in. And once again, this item can either be moved forward on your consent agenda or action. And Ms. Sampson is here if you have any questions regarding this or the other contracts. Thank you so much, Ms. Villwock. Any questions? Any discussion? No. Okay. So if you guys feel comfortable, we can move it to the consent agenda. Thank you so much. We're moving quickly here. Item 6.04, Business and Financial Services RFP R19201, Vehicle Repair Services Renewal, and that will be presented by Ms. Villwock again.
Yes. This is for our Transportation Department, and there is a mistake in here, and I want to draw to your attention. The following are services included in this contract. It says partway down on the bullet list, "Not included." These are the items that are included as examples of what the vehicle repair services are used for. We can use them for towing to our other location if we need to because they help us with windshield replacement, alignments, body work, and overflow work, things that our
transportation team may not be able to do, have the equipment to do, that could take an extended period of time as they're moving their fleet in and out for repairs and standard maintenance and upkeep. As you can see on the attachment, there are many vendors on this list. This list is created to meet the various needs within our Transportation Department and the maintenance of our fleet vehicles. Once again, this contract, there was no change in the hourly rates for the service, so the vendors held firm on the hourly rates for their services during the upcoming year, and this also could be
brought forward as consent at your next meeting or as an action item. Thank you, Mrs. Fullaw. Any questions or discussion here? Ms. Ricardi? Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for clarifying that, because the not part I had in my notes, I'm like, "This doesn't exactly add up." So thank you for clarifying. I'm good with this. Thanks. I also want to thank you for keeping some of these contracts at the same level, at the same cost. I understand we have fuel issues right now, so I want to thank you for your effort to keep us at the same levels. If there's no more discussion, this item will also go to
consent. Does everybody feel comfortable with that? So long as we can remove the "not." I'm sorry? As long as we remove the word "not," I'm- Oh, okay. Good. Thank you so much. And with that, we will move on to item 6.05, Business and Financial Services RFP Q558787 Petroleum Products Rental. Thank you. Ms. Fullaw. This contract was actually in a solicitation that is issued by the County of Loudoun, but they also include our usage for Loudoun County Public Schools and the Town of Leesburg when they are
doing that solicitation. There is better pricing strength in numbers, right? They like having our numbers on the books as far as what we purchase b-based on the number of sites we have. This is for heating fuel oil as well as diesel fuel, and there is an increase in the markup per gallon for the heating fuel oil, off-road sulfur diesel fuel, and diesel fuel for the generators. So this is the fuel that runs things attached to our schools. But contingent upon, right now, the contract is with the
county's legal team. Once that is completed, we are prepared to renew the contract for the petroleum products. We're bringing it before you this evening to get the process started, contingent upon contract approval. Thank you so much for the information. Any discussion? Mr. Pepper. Thank you, Madam Chair. I noticed when I'm looking at the bids for this, that there was another company that came in with a slightly lower bid than Valley Energy. Is there any particular reason that we chose Valley Energy?
You would need to look at a few things. You'd need to look at the total across all the products, the usage for all the entities, the ability to deliver, and meet our delivery requirements for multiple locations. So there's other things that went into this other than just lowest price. When you award an RFQ, it can be what's in the best interest of the organization and best meets your overall needs, with price only being one factor within the RFQ award. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you very much. Any other discussion on this item,
knowing full well that petroleum products are going up right now? Okay. So with that, we can send it over to consent unless anybody has an issue, and we'll just move on. Everybody's okay with that. We'll just move on to item 6.06, Business and Financial Services Budget Development. This item is being presented by Ms. Willoughby. Thank you. So continuing the discussion that we had, I think two meetings ago, regarding the budget development process. At the last meeting, I had shared how we were working on developing the agenda and the presentation
and activities related to the May 12th school board budget work session that is currently on schedule. So this is really just, I'm going to just punt it over to the committee to share additional feedback of information that we can incorporate into that work session. There was an interest of polling the school board of certain questions. And so, really just having a transparent discussion related to the feedback from this committee. And again, to incorporate it into that May 12th meeting. And in addition to the budget director, we also have a slew of budget staff, the
team members here ready to take copious notes to make sure we don't miss anything. Thank you, Ms. Willoughby. Any discussion? Yep. Ms. Ricardi. Thank you so much. I really appreciate the conversation around this, and I think that there's just so many really great opportunities, I think, in doing this. So have you all put together an agenda yet for that meeting, or are we still in the agenda development process? Still at a development process, but what I can share with you is what's been roughly drafted so far and what typically has happened is an update on just the process in general. And so the information that was shared at the committee
two meetings ago, a summarized version of that would be presented to the full board, just to get everyone on the same page. In addition to that, we plan on sharing information, as I've mentioned, since we're entering into this new era of budgeting with the county and the fiscal constraints that they have enacted, and that for the first time, we have a multi-year projection of revenue from the county. We're able to do something new and do a multi-year projection for our operating fund. So information related to
that will be presented to the board so that we won't just be talking about FY28, but also multiple years beyond that. Additionally, we have information to share related to an update on the FY27 budget that was adopted. You may recall that for any of the new investments that were included in that budget-When those items were presented to the school board, we had information related to the outcomes and how we were going to measure return on investment for those new items.
And so we'll give an update on that work that is ongoing. And then lastly, we're also developing, because we are entering this new era of budgeting, a strategic budget plan, and so an outline of what that looks like. So those are the main points which will take up a considerable amount of time just right there. There's already, I believe, placeholders have been placed on school board members' calendars for a June school board budget retreat where we can dive even deeper into all those items, but also then building
onto that, more information on the base budget, as has been discussed, and the return on investment of some of those base budget items. So, a lot of work ongoing to feed into that May 12th, which is really the official kickoff of that FY28 budget, then that June budget retreat, as well as we have proposed not just one fall budget work session with the school board, but actually two. So, adding an additional meeting with the school board before the SEON is presented in January.
Thank you for that. So, I know that we've all, I think, seen a couple of different presentations now on the actual process timeline. So, I think that's helpful. But I think, I don't know, I can't speak for everybody else, but as new people, I think we've got the process part down, I think, pretty well. So, I think from the last meeting, one of the deliverables I had promised were some draft questions for the survey. So I have that prepared. I will email that to you. My thought process on this is we're at a really interesting crossroads right now with our
financial reporting and with the ERP system coming into play. And I think one of the things from a board perspective that would be really helpful for us, at least for me, is being able to see that SEON document clearly broken down by departments. So by each department, and then within that, the programs, the services, the staffing, and the total cost of the programs that are run out of that department. So from board perspective, it's super transparent for the public and for all of us to really understand what
we're buying into. I think the cool thing about being able to redesign the SEON right now is that it gives you all also a roadmap in your ERP reporting requirements as you guys are building out the reporting structure for the ERP. And not that what we're asking for is the end-all be-all of the reporting requirements, but it certainly is, at least from a board perspective, a list of potential reporting requests that you could have developed in the ERP. I think it's all pretty standard too. I've spent a lot of time over the last two weeks since the last meeting, really
thinking about what that document would look like, how it could be designed, and I've actually crafted a draft of it that I'm going to share with Dr. Spence on Thursday, and then with you as well after that. And again, I think it's more just as a jumping-off point than it is a this is how it has to be. I don't have any pride of ownership around that part of it. But I think it's just easier to explain it if I can show it and show you all what I'm thinking. And then from there, I really hope this is a really collaborative effort, obviously, and then everybody on the board has a say in a piece of it.
But basically, it breaks down by all of the different departments, and then within it, all of the staffing for that department, all of the programs in that department, and the cost per student for those programs, so that we can really take a good look at what's happening from a financial perspective. And I'll leave it at that. I've got plenty more I could say about it, but that's the overarching goal. The SEON has a lot of really good information in it. It's just really, really hard to go through it in
a five-week period and fully understand the entire financial position of all the departments and all the programs that we're offering. And then as we enter into more challenging financial times, which at some point in time we're going to, because enrollment's declining and the county's already indicated that the revenue from the data centers is going to start slowing down, we'll just put it that way. We're going to have to start making more challenging decisions on the budget at some point. And so being able to see things
with more clarity, I think, is going to help everybody in that process. Plus, I think it's just a really good time also to start looking at programs and making sure that they're as efficient and effective as they possibly can be. So with that, I'll pass. Mr. Pepper. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Ms. Ricardi, for sharing your thoughts. Quite detailed. Yeah. And I'm going to come at it with a similar lens, but a slightly different perspective, and that is, having been through one budget process, and I think we say this to the public, but they don't really realize it. When you're a new board member, you start in January, you immediately get thrown to the wolves, and you get this big, thick budget book, and then a series of presentations. And for me, my biggest challenge in going through the budget was just,
I thought it was the SEON, but it was the presentations. And so it's just aligning those as we go through the budget that would be really helpful, because I know that as we try to get to the end and we're like, "Okay, we want to do this, but we need to cut from this part," it's... the ease of use of the two documents and finding the right place to go to get the exact numbers we need. And for me, it's really more about streamlining and making it easier, a little bit more digestible, perhaps, is where I would like to see things go in the budget process. And I too know that, and have said this,
I'm very concerned, maybe not as much next year, but in the next however many years, the budget situation that we may find ourselves in as a school system. And so making sure that it's easy for us to make the tough choices is probably the best way to put it as we go forward, is something that is very important to me. I'm very eager to see where we land on May 12th. I'm eager to see how we start, because I think knowing where we're coming from will help really drive a lot of discussion this summer. It'll help drive our discussion at our planned June retreat as we craft our priorities for FY28, which is crazy for me to say in my head,
because we're in 26 right now. But, so I'm looking forward to that, and I'd rather use that as a launching off point. I'm also in the part of I don't know what I don't know. Right? And so I think that that's really helpful. And so I'll leave it at that, and Ms. Griffiths, I'll give you a chance to discuss. Thank you very much to my colleagues. I appreciate doing things a little bit differently. I have always mentioned everybody's different. Everybody looks at the budget differently. I'm more so taking out the investments, looking at that, and keeping them separate from the departments. But, I appreciate
working with Ms. Riccardi's ideas as far as I believe you mentioned that you would have-- It's investments/programs, correct? Yeah, and I think the thing that I had to wrap my head around, when you say investments, you're really meaning programs. Yeah. So I think that's going to be key for us to make sure we're all using the same language for the same things, but yeah. Yes, and thank you so much for clearing that up because some of these programs that we have brought on are investments in our students, and that's why I use that particular word.
Me personally, I'd like to see them broken out, where I can digest them better. I'll use Mr. Pepper's word. And that's where I am. So anything we can do to take a dive, and take a look and see what works for us and what doesn't, where money should be going. Maybe some programs are just not viable, and putting all the money towards them will not work in the end. That's where I would be looking at, for some of the programs, enrollment, to see if it's worth what we're putting money out for as an investment
or a program. So, that's where we're to a great start. We'll look out for Ms. Riccardi's information, and we can hopefully have that discussion at the next meeting. My intention is to take this feedback and incorporate them into the May 12th school board budget work session. So just to clarify, versus necessarily bringing it back here. If I may, I'll just add that the team has actively been working on the feedback that we have received so far. The aligning the book with the presentations is already ongoing. We've realized that the final budget book,
which is a little more prescribed to meet best practices related to the awards programs, can be something that's different than the SEON, which we are really beginning to look at that as being more of the working document. So having the SEON be the exact same as the final is something that we are already working to adjust and providing that additional level of detail, because again, I can't emphasize enough the new era of budgeting that we are entering, and that it is not just going to be about
trying to prioritize what new investments to go in, but what we are able to continue to support going forward. So having those programs and that additional information is actively being worked on. Well, thank you very much, Ms. Willoughby. Is there any other discussion on this subject? Oh, Ms. Riccardi. Yeah, I just wanted to add, too, I think one of the great things, too, about the new design is it would be really great to start seeing year over year trends as well in that document so that we can check and see how we're doing on those various investments.
In particular, looking at the staffing and making sure that we're fully staffing to the best of our ability, especially our schools that have significant staffing needs. So that's another piece of this, too. But like I said, I'm a little bit of an overachiever on this because I just get really excited about being able to do this because there's a lot of benefit to it. And I understand that you all have requirements in order to meet your awards needs, but I took those into consideration, too, when I drafted this and pulled this together. So I think it meets the same needs that you're looking
for as well. It just provides the information, I think, in a much more transparent way so that people can really dive into the numbers, and it allows us to provide a lot more oversight, as is our job. So I'm looking forward to working with you guys on this. Thanks. Thank you. And I also wanted to point out some programs are looking to expand. They're not new investments or programs. They are programs we might want to expand on. So-I really think we have to take a look at that. They might expand to other schools.
We have to make sure that we would have the enrollment and the room at other schools to expand some of these programs. So I think there's a lot involved, a lot goes with it when we're doing the budget. And I know it's not an easy task, so I thank you very much, and I look forward to the collaboration. Thank you very much. And is there any more discussion? How about new business? Does anybody have any new business? Okay. And with that, we will adjourn for today. Thank you.