We love this evening. Welcome to the working session of the Wayne Township School Board. Let's all stand for Pledge of Allegiance, please. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.
And to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I'm going to take roll call and see who's present. Mr. Bowman? Present.
Susan Graves? Present. Karen Burke? Present. Michael Gordon? Present. Carmela Graham? Present. And Ben Whitefield? I'm here. I'm Sherry O'Day Marcot and everyone is is present except for Brandon Bowman. Thank you. Um the next
order of business is the adoption of the agendas for this evening. Could I please have a motion? I move for adoption of the agenda with flexibility. Thank you. Any comments or discussion? All in favor, say aye. Aye.
All opposed? Agenda has been adopted. Uh the next section that we're going to go to is recognition. Do we have a Oh, boo. I think you should throw it at me. It'd be fun. Yeah, this would be fun.
Yes, it would. Yes, if you're coming with me tonight. >> [laughter] >> It's so good to see all of you. We usually are sitting in the middle of the room around the table and we thought tonight is not the night for that. We
need to bring the chairs out and it's still not enough chairs. So, this is so exciting. Uh good to see all of you. When we said the pledge, I could hear the little voices saying the pledge. That just made my heart feel good. All right, tonight we're starting with the
Intercollegiate Broadcasting System National Champion. Now, I don't have on here, but Come on Khalise Sturdivant and is Khalise's teacher here? Well, let's see. Go ahead.
Let's start around our question to you. This says second place for sports reports in the Intercollegiate Broadcasting System national competition. Before Khalise tells us about that, uh Mr. Goins, if you'll tell us about this competition. This is a
national competition and Khalise um probably didn't have a choice, but I gave her the opportunity to do her sports report and with her creativity, she did a little differently and because
of it, she was recognized nationally as a second place award winner and we're just very proud of her. The risk versus the reward. Uh she was willing to step out of her comfort zone and because of that, she's been awarded second place in the country.
About this competition? Um basically, I just really looked into like how like networks like actual like big networks would do their sports and how like they would interview them in front of the screen where we would have
the grand name and then all the things that was sponsored by. So I took that and I interviewed one of our players after a football game and I also included their game. And then I included the rest of the school sports that were going on. So that's a piece you had to put together and submit. Yeah.
>> And that's how that is amazing. That's amazing. So what grade are you in? I'm a senior. And what's next? Um going to college. I haven't decided yet but But you're going. Well let's congratulate Colista Curtis.
Thank you so well done. What's going on? He's back. This time we are congratulating Monique Curtis. Um Indiana Association of School Broadcasters State Champion for video in depth. So Monique tell us about this what video
did you What is that? Um it was a video I made to go on to help. Um it was about Fox Lake which is an all black lake in Indiana and I basically made like a promotion video for them to have on their website. Now where is Fox Lake?
And go. I'm not allowed to go to the I'm not 21 to the convention or whatever. That's awesome. And you got what what first place? State State Champion. And what grade are you in? And what's next? I'm going to Ball State to pursue
justice social work. All right. You can write on little baby. For our next award uh Ken Patrick and Arzel and Gear Rudolph please join us. This department has been so busy. Um
But right now we have to congratulate the guard. Where are they? They are I think they're over here. They're over here. They might be over here. They're all excited. That's how dedicated they are to the school. Truly. We used to talk about
they got fourth place at the state finals. We talk about their performance. Yeah. Um so we've got uh we actually have three winter guards. Uh we have a cadet guard uh which is our youngest learners uh fifth grade through um eighth grade that Ms. Holcomb uh
actually directs. Uh then we have a regional A guard which is a little more advanced uh for some of our younger but still and older kids that are continuing to learn um about guard. Uh they placed uh uh eighth in the states and in the in
their region. Uh cadet guard gold rating by the way. Um and then um yeah our our most varsity guard um it's called open guard. Uh they competed uh throughout the states um and were awarded fourth place in Fort Wayne. Which is our highest uh
placements in uh quite a few years. So uh we're very excited about uh everything that they did. That's all the flags and the the rifles that you see uh like with the marching band but indoors where the weather's perfect. Okay. Second place winter percussion.
That's it. Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. How do you know? What? Yes. We want them if they're here. >> Winter percussion kids come on up. So the winter percussion students put a uh program together about five minutes of music and we we competed against other
schools. Um the short story is we were second at uh Indiana State Finals and we were okay with that. Yeah we we were pretty heated over that actually. So but but that was a really good thing.
Spring break practices uh were really really productive and after spring break we went to world championships where we were awarded second place at world championships. So we're a couple uh first things I guess the first thing is that the group that beat us at state finals we ended up
beating them at world championships. Uh I was saying you did not just beat them. We actually got crushed by them. Uh we had a couple firsts. Uh the percussion group has not uh been awarded a medal. We've not been in the top three as a percussion world championships
before. So that was a fabulous uh occasion to get that and celebrate. Um we scored a 96.975 which is as far as I can tell that's the highest score that we've ever received band winds percussion guard anybody.
Um one of the judges awarded us a perfect score. The risk and the reward and that was definitely something that the judges mentioned in in what we were doing. So we're we're very excited about that. Um There's one other weird thing that kind of occurred to me just yesterday
uh and that is that this is the 25th year of winter percussion at Muncie Central. I know because I was here at the beginning. So the the 25th year is the silver anniversary and we won two silver medals. Anyway so very excited about the hard
work that all these students did. Um it's fun to get to you know I I try to do this but then when they respond so well to the you know the task at hand and the challenges that we put put together in front of them it makes it it just absolutely rewarding.
They they did a fabulous job. We're super excited. That is awesome. Um I I'd be remiss um the two young ladies I see Monique is Colista here? Monique who did you bring with you tonight? Mom. Awesome. I just wanted to
make recognize that you were here tonight. Yes you will have to speak. >> [laughter] >> Will give your name and grade. If you're a senior tell us what you're going to do. Um hi my name is Adrian. I'm a a senior. I do plan on attending college for music
production and yeah I do plan on attending Berkeley College of Music. Awesome. Yeah. Um my name is Dana and I'm a freshman. Okay. She's a freshman.
You can't be kidding tonight. Uh no. No what? You're here? I love it. Did someone come with you tonight? There she is. There she is. Well welcome. Thanks for coming. Right here. My name is Evan and I'm a freshman. I'm amazed. That is wonderful. Who came
with you tonight? Um my father. All right ahead. Right here. Come. Sorry. My name is listen to me. And you're a freshman. >> Wow. >> with you tonight? No I'm just here. Okay. Right here and behind you. Freshman.
Wow. Freshman can you tell me did someone come with you tonight? Okay. Right here. Freshman. I'm so glad you're here. All right. My name is Morgan and I'm an eighth grader. Oh wow. We both do it. Hi I'm just stunned.
That is amazing. That No think about what you know a year from now two years from now. I mean there's Yeah you got to keep it straight. >> [laughter] >> Who came with you tonight? >> My parents my brother. Welcome. Glad you came tonight.
I'm Ryan and I'm a senior. I am going to attend I am going to study psychology. And I will keep doing music as well. Awesome. Congratulations. Who came with you tonight? Uh my parents my mother right there and my father. Thanks for coming. All right go right
ahead. My name is John. Um I'm a junior. Thanks for coming. Right here. My name is Jayden and I'm a freshman and I came with my mother and my sister. Thanks for coming. All right go right Right here. Uh my name is Gray. I'm a junior and I came here with my mom.
Thanks Mom. All right Gray. Uh my name is Javier and I'm a sophomore. Hi. Um my is Aiden. I came here with both of my parents. What grade are you in, Aiden? Oh, I'm a sophomore. Oh, awesome. Where are your parents? Oh, I see. Thanks for coming.
All right, who do we have next? I'm Maddie. I'm a junior and I came There you go. Thanks for coming. Uh I'm Anna. I'm a junior and I drove myself. Okay. together. Wait. Wait.
All right. Congratulations. Okay. Great point. So, we have another group called our winter winds group and that is just like percussion and guard, but winds are brass and woodwind
players. This group was created by myself back in 2022. So, this is only our fifth year competing and we just brought home our third state championship. We did not go to world championships,
but I would like to say we went to one of the regionals WGI earlier this year. We won our class by beating last year's class champion and this year's class champion by about five points. So,
I would like to say we have done really, really well at world championships. We will we will try to get get on here in the next few years. So, I could not have done this without
these two. They really are the heart and soul of this program. LeJon Williams, assistant band director. He actually came up with the idea for the show and kind of put the whole story board together. And then the one that really kind of
made it all come to life with Ms. Hogan, another one of our band directors. Ms. Hogan is in charge of the whole visual program. So, I actually got to write the drill, but it really was because of her amazing ideas and like telling me I don't know what to do with
a lot of it. So, we're such a fantastic team and they're just master teachers for for all our kids. Do we have any gifts? Yes, we got lots of winter winds gifts out here. Almost time for the eighth grade to
leave. No, we're not. No, we're not. We're really proud of the kids that showed up here, but there was about 50 total in in the group that marched this winter. So,
just just the main thing it was a fantastic show called Dimensions of Art and it's really used to really fun, amazing music throughout. So, I think I caught a practice one day. Yeah. I popped in every so often. Yeah. Um we're going to
start here. Aiden. You got it. My name is Ash. I'm a junior. Came with my mom. Who's your mom? I'm Andre and I'm a sophomore and I came with my mom. Awesome. Nice to be here. You got it.
My name is Dorian. I'm a sophomore and I came with my sister and my Hello, my name is TJ. I came with my mom. What grade are you in, TJ? I'm a sophomore. Sophomore. What's your mom's name? Um I'm Ellie. I'm a freshman and I came with my dad.
I'm a sophomore and I came with my parents. I'm Elias. I'm a senior. I'm going to Butler University for music education. That's my hey. Um my name is Dagny. I'm a senior. I'm going to Michigan State
for music education. I came with my mom. Nice. Hi, my name is Andrew Stacia and I'm a freshman. I came with my Okay. My name is Emily. I'm a senior and I came with my What's coming next? Um I'm going to
Mississippi State for She's top 30 as well. >> Yeah. Who came with you? All right, you got to scoot in. Awesome. Keep rolling. See if we can Are we good? All right, everybody has to get in here. All right, get in.
Next, we have Jeremiah Aaron. Jeremiah. He won this month's outstanding solo award at the jazz state finals. All right, tell us about you. Oh, okay. Okay.
I'm a senior. All right, get in this next. What's next? I'm going to Arizona State to study psychology. Nice. All right, so what did you do tonight? I got two pieces. Okay. Thanks for you. What were you Um
so, it was actually for a song called La Fiesta. So, it was it was totally Um and Mr. Willie, he had sent me this video of this dude playing like a crazy marimba solo and he was like, "Yo, we need to get you on this." So, I had to get on it.
I had to get on it. All right, one thing led to another. Yeah. Thanks for you. Something like that. I love it. Um did you get recognized? Uh yes. Yes, I've never like soloed or
improvised for this year. So, Yeah. That's impressive. I'd like to add I'd probably one of the best musicians we have in the entire school. During winter percussion, there was a couple judges that were like, "Hey, who
is he? I want to him to come to my school for music and whatnot." And just like super hard working, very dedicated, incredible musician, just really competitive with everything he does. So, Okay.
Yes. Forgive me for interrupting. As a department chair of performing arts, we have a young man who's going to enroll at the number one music school in the world. I was actually with him when he told me. I was like, "Wait a minute. Is that Cal
Berkeley?" No, Berkeley in Boston. The number one music school in the world. That is neat. And now it's for the management, Dr. Thugs. This This is actually kind of a long time coming.
This award. And it's it's more than just for for the trumpet section, but 4 years ago when I took over as director of bands and Mr. came on, I kind of told him I was like, "Hey, I'd like you to read about revitalize jazz program." We had
four kids in jazz class. To this day, we have 82. And that's that's just a lot of hard work. A lot of the team, Malcolm, Williams, myself just trying to make jazz like a thing again. And
he's done more than I could have ever asked for. For for jazz bands, you take a group one, you can qualify and try to qualify for state finals. Last year, we were two spots away from being in. And this year was our first
time ever in school history making state finals. So, that's a major accomplishment. So, I think 56 groups of the states tried and they only take nine. And we actually got in on the second highest score in the entire state. I think at state finals, they don't do
placements. They just name an honor band and then do awards. So, JT Jeremiah, he got a solo award, but then they do a best section award for each section. So, we were honored and privileged to have the best trumpet
section at jazz state finals. So, Um Fantastic. This is what I told you last year. You should be yourself again. That's a junior. This I don't know. Just Those the sectionals that just count
just doing like different things to get better like every day. So, yeah. That's awesome. By the way, is trumpet your primary instrument? No, I'm primarily a pianist. What's your primary instrument? French horn. Wow.
Okay. Wow. Okay. Who else from jazz band is here? The whole jazz band. The whole jazz band. Yeah, yeah. Andrew and JT, Esteban, Degnault, Ellis. A whole lot of work went into great jazz band with these guys. Um huge
improvement. Huge improvement. Thank you. Dr. Thugs, you students, we are so proud of you. Am I surprised at your success? Absolutely not. I know the talent that we have in
our district, the talent we have in you. I also understand by the crowd we have tonight, our parents who support you in that. I was a band mom. I know what the hours are. I know, you know, what the weekends
look like and all the food you make for the kids and the nice gifts that they have for you after every competition and just being there to support you. So, parents, kiddos, we have got to thank our parents tonight. Let's do that. I think that's everyone we have tonight.
On behalf of the board, we invite you to stay. We have a couple of reports that we would love to share with you. Everyone's laughing at me. But we know that you probably have plans tonight. This would be a great time to
take pictures at the festival if you didn't grab any. But again, you're welcome to stay stay and have a great evening. Thanks for coming. Move on along. Dr. Thugs, do we have any last time to have a comment tonight? No, we do not.
All right. Well, let's move on to new business with Mr. Van Lear and human resources. Thank you very much, Madam Vice President. Members of the board earlier, tonight you received human resources report A 3 for your review. And I would like to entertain any
questions you may have in this quarterly after approval of the report. Thank you, Madam President. I move for approval of human resources report schedule A 3. I second. We have a motion and a second. Is there
any comment or discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. All of you opposed say no. Nay. All right. That has been approved. Mr. Van Lear. >> Thank you, Madam President. Madam Vice President. Members of the board, with that I would like to invite Mrs. Angela
Brown to meet Dr. Thugs in the front of the room, please. >> [laughter] >> Mrs. Brown began her professional career in Wayne in 2006 teaching kindergarten at Chapel Wood Elementary. She served in this position until 2020 when she was hired as assistant principal at Chapel
Wood, which is a position she currently holds. Mrs. Brown has served as a member of the district women's leadership group, the Indiana Association of principals leading assistant principals cohort, the mouthful. And being Angela also serves on the Indiana Council for Exceptional Children and the Indiana
Association for the Gifted. She's led efforts at Chapel Wood to partner with nearly 50 community organizations, engineered the multi-tiered system of support, and pulled that school into the top five. Angela holds a Bachelor of Science degree from elementary education from
Indiana State University and a Master of Science in Educational Leadership from Purdue University. I would like to introduce Angela Brown as the next principal of Chapel Wood Elementary. Take a deep breath. It's been a couple of days. It's been a a busy busy day for her today.
To staff that are here, thank you so much for your support and for throughout the whole process. Um these decisions are not easy when we think about the work of the school principal.
Um and we believe we have made absolutely made the right choice. And so, is there anything you would like to say to the board? First off, I'd like to say thank you for this evening. Cabinet, thank you so much
as well. You made a dream come true today. I really appreciate it. Thanks. Thank you guys for being here. There's a lot of people that work behind the scenes this afternoon really fast I can tell. Family, I have my husband Mark here who teaches at Davis, my mom and
dad, my cousin Nick. Bo Brown >> [laughter] >> My nephews Bo and Lou, brother-in-law and sister-in-law, Sarah and Joe, and tons of family, friends, staff, and several former Chapelwood kindergarten
students. I am so thank you guys all for being here. Principals, thank you guys. It's definitely a dream come true. Awesome. Awesome. Congratulations. Congratulations. Again, you are welcome to stay.
So, come up with your remarks. Uh it's going to be a great time if you want to stick around for dinner and celebrate it uh with Angie and certainly understand if you can't. So, thanks for coming tonight. Thanks, Glenn. Bye. And it belongs to Dr. Samuels for our energy
savings response. Thank you, Madam President and members of the board. I felt that here is not for the kingdom of this world. Sir, correct. You do bring lots of great information. I would like to introduce a couple people here. Bob McKinney first
from Strata Line. So, they are owners rep and as the screen indicates, strategic partner for our energy savings work. We also have Kirk Schneider from Veregy here as the as support this evening.
So, really what we want to do, Bob and I, is really just talk a little bit at the May 11th board meeting. We'll bring an action item to you for the next round of the energy savings in MSD Wayne.
What we thought would be appropriate though is a quick review of the guaranteed energy savings statute and process. A very quick rundown of what we've already done. You know most of it, but it's it's a little powerful to see it all in one
place. And then just a little bit about what this this phase really is. So, that you have that information and can ask questions before that come before you on the 11th. Separately, we also on the 11th want to bring to you
just a little check-in on the performance of the guaranteed energy savings plans that we've already implemented across the district. So, it's a little bit of a preview, a little bit of a review, and then what's in this next phase and kind of how did we get to this
point? So, I'm going to turn over to Bob and I'll jump in at a couple points, but I think it's great information for you here this evening. Good evening. [clears throat] Good to see you all again. Good evening. Uh I am Bob McKinney for those of us who have not met. And I've had the privilege of
working through this school corporation for almost a decade. I originally engaged with Mr. Tackett who was CFO at the time and Dr. Butts. They came by our office to do show and tell on just what our energy savings,
how does it work? And it's been a couple years talking to us about their vision. And then in 2016, we had an opportunity to begin engineering their first phase of your energy savings. I don't need to recap the history for
you, but I was recently in a meeting with Dr. Suggs and Dr. Samuel uh reviewing the performance of your guaranteed energy savings contracts and and getting into the weeds a little bit. Dr. Suggs and Dr. Samuel asked some really good questions and
I feel like we were able to get Dr. Suggs up to speed and again, she asked some really wonderful questions to our group. And one of the things that came up in our conversation was the impact that your program has had on
your school district. And we walked back to the very beginning and if you guys had not chosen to make these investments as a board, your school corporation, we would currently be paying approximately $4 million more per year in gas and electricity expenses.
Which would be really hard to cover in your operations expense. So, congratulations on on making this investment and also congratulations on working with a team that helps it to be a transparent process. Veregy does a really nice job. Veregy
has done all phases of your projects of providing open book accounting and through their energy dashboard what really is happening with your energy projects. So, appreciate your commitment and it's been an honor to serve you all. Steve and I talked and we thought it
would be a good idea to really quickly highlight what is a guaranteed energy savings contract. It is a procurement method that can be complicated if the board and the stakeholders don't understand how to navigate it to the
school's best interest. So, it is a state authorized procurement form. And the savings are contractually guaranteed for the school corporation. So, those savings are are measured by
the contractor by Veregy and reported on an annual basis. And if the measured savings fall short, the contractor would need to work on behalf of the school corporation. So, they each project that you all have invested
in has outperformed the guarantee. The second piece of these projects, they're financially supported by reduced to reducing your energy costs and by avoided costs. So, each time
the energy entity, in your case formerly I I P and L, A P and I, they every time they raise your rate where you've made an investment, you're not paying that increased amount. You're not buying that energy. And so, those
are those avoided costs are what are very impactful. And that's that $4 million approximately per year you're not paying today. And then the third piece, touched on this a little bit, through the RFP process, um
every aspect of these projects is transparent. Most RFPs are fairly broad as the one we're going to put forth tonight. And that gives the the client the option to make the selections that are best for them. So, our clients had a seat at the table
in deciding which energy conservation measures to make based on the highest need of your other district. Those are the the three you know aspects of the guaranteed energy savings contract that you all have chosen to to invest in since 2017.
I'm going to quickly highlight what we've put up on the board here, your six phases that have been completed or almost completed to date. We're wrapping up some chiller replacements at NDAA University currently in your phase six.
First first project was in the top right picture, a solar field at the at the high school. It's located on the old golf driving range and two generators. Those generators work in conjunction with the solar
to attack the other portion of your bill. So, there's two two portions of an electricity bill, demand and kWh. And those generators reduce your demand. When they made this when your school made this investment, the demand charges
were just under $12 a kW, and today they're they're about $29 per kW. So, you you've avoided that that cost each year, which is which this year is a little over half a million dollars in demand savings alone. And your solar is
wiping out about a little over half a million dollars of other kWh savings annually. Phase two was a district-wide initiative that touched every building, and it ranged from solar to battery storage,
to new mechanical equipment, to retro-commissioning, which is a controls aspect to maximize operations of your facilities. That project reduces equally to phase one about $1.1 million
in electricity and gas savings. And then we received through that project about $2 million from the Treasury Department in a direct deposit, which was part of the the Inflation Reduction Act. We originally intended we expected to receive about
1.85 million, and I guess they didn't get your check to you on time, so they paid you guys interest. Unbeknownst to us, we knew it was late, and I didn't know they were going to give interest, so that was a nice surprise. >> Can I can I pause right there and talk
Mr. Samuel? We were so happy to hear about that and what that helped us do. Yeah, so if you remember, that was those dollars were a part of the conversation this September, October, November when we talked to the teachers. And really as we tried to get as creative as we
possibly could, brought that to the table, tried to be really transparent that we have these dollars. We think this it is one-time dollars, so we think it is very appropriate for one-time investment in in our in our team. So, that was
timely in a number of a number of ways cuz that check really arrived I think right right toward the end of August, right as that was was kind of going. So, really provided that opportunity for us to to invest in our people with those dollars as a direct result of of
our energy savings. So, one of those one of those rare win-win-wins that you're happy to take advantage of. I did want to say it was not direct deposited automatically. And until the really check came, it was the largest check I'd ever held in my hand.
Which I found a little strange, but we were happy to get it either way and turn it over before we could spend it. The weird thing was that was never considered. That bill was enacted. That was a gift. Does that make sense? You never get a gift, right? We all know that that's got to apply to
public. But those dollars were really helpful as you know negotiations was a challenge a year ago. These dollars showing up at time helped us get on the ball. Great. Phase three was your transportation
center. So, if not the transportation center itself, but the energy consuming aspect of it. So, your school district did a lot of forward planning. There's a lot of infrastructure you don't see. If the district were ever to move to electric buses, there's an infrastructure
underground in place to support that. There's a transformer that's that's ready to go. And then we do have a couple of chargers that were installed for testing purposes. But you see those solar arrays there that are covering your buses, those actually in addition to the
transportation center, they feed they feed your fire department headquarters building, the Grandfall facility, and Westlake Elementary School to offset their energy use. Within that project, Verity also
reduced the number of meters at Westlake Elementary School to lower demand charges. And then we planned for the reduction in your demand at several buildings, including the fire department, with the with the battery system that was installed to get you onto a lower
rate. And we just got approval within the last month from the utility company that you are now moved into a lower rate category on that facility. So, again kudos to you guys. It's just good planning and good execution all the way around. Some of these things take time, but
they do happen with with with good commitment. We do meet Verity's team, Stratoline, your facilities team, and Dr. Samuel every two weeks to just center on these projects, talk about what's coming up next, what's needed, so we can all stay ahead of it
and and make sure these things that you've been promised actually take place. In phase four, we did a large mechanical project. So, you you've got a lot of mechanical equipment in a school district like this. They they were kind of at the end of useful life. And so,
replacing that equipment and then commissioning it in an appropriate manner to make sure that we maximize savings going forward is a key. And then phases five and six just more of that, boiler replacements and chiller replacements.
So, we got together with with your facilities team um almost about a year ago, and Verity and Stratoline and Todd Hendricks toured your facilities.
A master plan was updated. Verity did a lot of a lot of work to to create a list with budgets and budgeted energy savings with Todd Hendricks, your director of facilities. And we shared all of that data with with
the facilities team and Dr. Samuel. And we started discussing the next round of energy savings projects based on that data. And this late winter and early spring we worked with Ice Miller,
Steve Jones, your attorney, to to put together this RFPs. We shared the information with them. We wanted to make sure it was written in a manner that that best reflected what we were trying to achieve from a technical standpoint. We wanted to protect you from a legal standpoint.
And so, you worked really closely with with Dr. Samuel and and Stratoline on putting that document together. And the overall desire is to continue to proactively maintain your master plan for energy um as assets are continuing
to age and as the utility company is continuing to raise its rates. We had a meeting till they settled, but we had a recent meeting with them where they indicated what the rate increases are going to mean to the school district on your on your rates that you pay. And in
short, you know, over the next 10 years, they expect your energy rates to double. And they also expect in the next 2 years to go up a little over 20%. And so, it's not sharing that with you to to cause fear because you're well ahead of
it and you're you're attacking these things. You've already offset a lot of your energy usage across the school district. But I did put together a graph that highlights for you if you stopped the plan you're on and just let things ride out without paying attention to how
you're replacing equipment and and without beating the utility company at their demand game. First things first, that green line which is the trend you've been on and it's the RFPs you've executed over time, you guys will save an additional almost
$16 million in utilities over the next That's That's a That's a 10-year period. It's not that long. And that's at the utility rate increases that your utility company told us they they wanted us to expect. So,
just a good indicator is how this RFP next stages can continue you guys on your master plan journey. Maybe too simple of a question, but I'll ask it anyway. Where are we with total cost of projects savings? Cuz obviously they pay for the projects to be done.
So, are we in the saving money or just this what we would have paid? Yes, so going back to 2017, your I can give you the total savings. Do you know that off the top of your head, Kurt or Steve? I don't, but I think that's a great question. When we come back on the
11th, I think that's something that we can be prepared to bring cuz it's great. Really great work. What was the cost of the project? What's the lifetime savings? Where does that put us overall? Yeah, I'll come up with statistics. Um Basically, let's not look at the cost.
You you know, we all this heard it's $11.30, now it's $28.40, 154% increase over the period we started, which is 12 years. More importantly, at the high school, your thing called demand, which is like how fast you go in a car in a month,
has gone from 33,400 kW for the whole year down to close to 16,000. So, it's down 50%. The high school kilowatt hours was 12 million, now it's like 5.5. I want to caution cuz I've been doing this for 22 years.
There's one major piece that we helped with as a as a group we getting together for over eight years every two weeks. There's a lot of deferred maintenance, boilers, chillers, cooling towers that you would have to pay for that were part of this project group
brought together as a team. The cost has never risen in any project we've done over 60 million bucks. That's it. Two important I want to share with you that there's energy savings and there's cost of products that were 30, 40 years old that were in this master
plan that have to change. I swear to that. Okay? But I think it's a question that the community 100% asked and said, "Okay, great. We're putting all these in, but we're going to save money, but Yeah. So, once this was on phase two was if you invested $26 million, you would
avoid $62 million over the over the 30-year period. That's why they did it. But understand, I'm just being cautious and hopefully not Some things are three-year payback, some they're 10, and some might might be 80 or 90, but you got to replace them because the
chillers. Right. Okay? That's what I'll share with that. There it is. We'll bring that information to it to the meeting. We'll break it down what what energy only and how is that performed and what was the way that it cost of a capital project like a chiller or boiler. So, I 100% agree. I think just being
able to answer the question is extremely important. Little backstory, your husband You were He was the principal at the handle when I do a project that's the old item. Can I ask you questions about the No, let me go on. Sorry. The only nice benefit though when
interesting is Whoop. You probably get like $4 million from the government. That make That's That's perfect [snorts] in the whole situation. The bottom of it is That's it. Sorry. I could um literally what you're seeing here is kind of the big pieces we're looking at,
but Bob has has alluded to this, but really it was we came together continue to try to look forward in the construction world, you know, 18 months out is sometimes not quite early enough. And so, conceptually and I think from the board
and the communities, all of the projects that we're approving at recent meetings are ones that have been in the works for a long time. And so, as we as we talked through what this includes, it'll be a great chance to just talk again about what does the
future hold in '27 and '28, '29, and beyond with what does that debt capacity look like in those years? And what does that reduced capacity mean for what we can bite off? And why do we have to be strategic
and prioritize some of these needs that are not very glamorous uh in the short run to make sure that we're managing our finances the best way possible on a number of levels. So, uh just a couple little pieces for context I think to help really frame where we're at. And as
as Bob said, it was how can we do this that gives us the flexibility We don't know which chiller's going to necessarily go out first. And how can we do it within the framework of all the great things we're already doing with energy savings. So, those are really the lenses that we put
to this as we sat down and tried to figure out um you know, what this guaranteed energy savings project might look like when we put it out on the streets. So, yeah, just to build on that and use the high-level aspects of the RFP that was published. Working with uh Steve
Jones, your your attorney, uh we provided them with the information of what was found and uh updated within your master plan. Um But it's an iterative process and we don't really know We know We're just talking tonight uh about Lindbergh's and and that I would
probably move that to your highest need, but two months ago I wouldn't have known that. And so, um Steve Jones did a really good job of A of understanding and kind of pushing this in that direction that you have to have flexibility in what you choose to do when you're able to do it based on
funds that are available. And so, um we certainly can't do all of these things in your next phase. Uh but as a group, we'll we'll work together to select which which are the best and then work with Barry-Wehmiller on putting together the the program for those and
then bring those uh forward to you via post contract when the time is right. Uh so again, chillers, uh retro-commissioning, um deficiencies. So, there's there's a lot of equipment that none of us see uh in your control system, actuators, dampers,
fan boxes, things that uh in our in our diligence Energy uh leading the charge there have noted and uh through retro-commissioning of those facilities and they're ready to be fixed when when there's funds available. Um And then alternative energies, it could
be solar, it could be your batteries, it could be more generators district-wide as your utilities continue to increase their rates, uh we're prepared to combat those rate increases with with energy investments. So, again, when funds are available and there's a a solution that makes most
sense, that that's what we recommend we deploy at that time. And then the obvious infrastructure improvements are going to be ongoing as as equipment ages out, it has to be replaced. And it's our opinion it should be replaced within this model of energy consuming items and we'll want to make sure they're done correctly.
And then all of the programs that Strata and Energy work on, preventive maintenance is a key piece that's included. Uh we really don't want these projects to impact your operations fund. We're going to work really hard to save money there. And so, we want to pre-fund through the debt side that your
preventive maintenance makes sure those those items are taken care of for the lifetime of the asset. So, all of those were captured in the RFP. So, when the time is right, we can we can select the ones that are best. In a perfect world where we can implement plans um and these chillers
cooperate with us, really we're we're kind of looking at pairing one of those secondaries with one of those elementaries each year over the next three years. So, we're we're really kind of look out a little bit further. They have to help by cooperating and lasting that that three
years for a couple of those. And then of course, you know, the things that behind the scenes you're going to replace a chiller, you've got a window. And it's basically late October until we get back from spring break. And so, that's another advantage of working with
partners like Barry-Wehmiller and Strata. We replaced chiller at BDU during the previous heating season and train right correct? Uh had some supply chain issues. Get pushing and pushing them.
Chillers arrived, but they weren't fully operational on day one or week one of school for that primary. So, They were seven weeks late. You had to put in a differentiation. We had to put in a temporary chiller. Some of the philosophy regarding the company called the partner.
We believe it straight up that cuz we kind of live in this district. And so, we put in a temporary chiller that was substantially cost $27,000. Did we charge the school? No. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but we want longevity and annuity for our
employees, the people. That's kind of the philosophy we built both thing around. But it never comes right. Due in November, February, right? Say for example, it's not there, but they want cooling. So, it's hard to go through the report. But say your high school, you got Barry
on the ends there almost as old as I am. Does that make sense? And you got fan motor boxes you can't get parts for. Those are big ticket items that will come back. Unfortunately, you'll have to you'll have to go to a little bit of a step pause time, okay? That's a good example, too. Uh
old Kirk that I happened to be on vacation as that played out. Came back. I saw Kirk and I said, "Hey, cuz I got a picture from from Todd Enders. He showed me the chillers and they were set in place." And I just said, "Thumbs up. Awesome. Glad they made it on time." And I came back and told Kirk, "Hey, the
chillers made it. Perfect timing." He goes, "Well," and I said, "It is." That just doesn't happen. We don't have problems like that that I don't know about that just get solved. And it's it's a good thing uh for for our you know, for our district that that that partnership
exists, but Um so, just real quick on the debt side and all that. Uh let Bob finish up here. When we get to next year, if you remember, we um last calendar year went through the process of authorizing $150 million
in debt. And we talked about that as really a 10-year investment at about $15 million a year. And we would begin uh using those dollars uh leveraging them in 2027. And so, just conceptually,
what we have budgeted and kind of how quickly does $15 million go in a district our size? We've estimated about 3 and 1/2 million for those secondary chillers. So, Lindbergh, Chapel Hill, ninth grade center, about a million and a half for
those elementary chillers. Uh that puts us at $5 million a year right there. We have 2 and 1/2 million that we use every year to support our maintenance operations fund. So, we're we're either replacing or fixing smaller capital
items across the district. Our technology um capital items and our transportation capital items. Uh That's about 2 and 1/2 million more. So, we're at seven. We buy buses out of debt. So, that's about 2 and 1/2 million
dollars a year. All of a sudden, we're at $10 million. And so, you know, there are a handful of other things that obviously stack up on there, but I think it really illustrates just as we move toward that, it's important that we do that. It does force us to try to be really
strategic and really look out and plan things. And we also have to get a little bit lucky on some of these uh pieces of equipment. So, um this conversation that we will continue, but it's a good opportunity to just revisit what does that plan look like in action
as we start to plan for these projects. So, in preparation for the preparation for the May 11th meeting, um Dr. Samuel will provide Have you provided the write-up at this time or you will do it personally? So, they have um our board actually been working tonight,
but um the file of of Bob's review of the response to the RFP is in there. It is 2 and 1/2 pages instead of 140, which is what we got the entire uh response from Energy is and that would know and
we'll talk about this next 2 weeks also, but Energy was the only respondent for for this project also. So, we we went ahead and we scored per section of the RFP and broke it down. We'll we'll speak in more detail to that at the May 11th meeting.
We'd be glad to answer any questions the board has. Uh we'll also come back per per request with specifics on the financials of these projects. Um our recommendation at the next board meeting is going to be to select Energy
as their energy savings contractor on the next next round of our energy savings projects. Do you have questions on what we've discussed right now? How long is the contract or the proposal? So, really what they and and you can correct me where I'm mistaken here cuz I
think my fabulous point was they said we're going to identify which of those strategies we can afford and then that would be a little bit of contract negotiation. So, it would identify projects more than 10 years or whatever. Okay. It's projects. It's kind of
project to project based on funding. So, it'll be a finite project like doing two chillers or two schools of chillers and commissioning and that would be that contract. Thank you. Very good.
Thank you everybody. The first time ever in my history where I see two people policy first readings. Two of those tonight. Let's start with the four policy This is the full substance and alcohol testing for CDL license holders and
safety sensitive However, the our legal counsel did recommend moving this information back in policy from our existing guidelines based on recent state police audits by other school corporations. So, based on the audits of those
corporations, they've recommended we put this information back in the policy. Um what you'll see in this policy guidelines are testing guidelines for drugs and alcohol as well as our obligation to maintain information in commercial driver's license drug and alcohol clearinghouse.
So, we are Mr. I'm sorry for interrupting. Is it safe to say that much of this language is not brand new or moved from guidelines we used to have in place? But okay, great. Thank you.
So, we determine CDL license holders in the same sensitive positions to be anyone who drives a vehicle or equipment purchased or operated by Wayne Township. So, that's going to include bus drivers, bus mechanics, transportation administrator, school police,
maintenance positions, groundsworker, non-child nutrition employees who are delivering um nutrition standards so food driven meals. And do we still pick it up at the school side and deliver to the private school? Yeah, so we're still for the school um
for the Penn Street. My Chapel Glen um less less signs. Penn Street and Chapel Glen, yeah. the private school. Less less signs for the dental surgery. Yeah, I'm not sure.
So, we do have drivers who deliver meals there. Um and then those are in our transition so they're above our paraprofessionals who drive our students in the extended school program who are drivers. during the day now. So, those are the positions that we've identified that will be in this position as well. We um
we'll put some of our drivers and mechanics, these other um employee groups, those members of the employee group will be on a 3-year rotation for testing plus they're in they are also then are in the random testing pool and they could be
pulled at any time. Okay. So, uh I should address any questions you might have about school board policy 250. Okay. Let's then take a look at F 225, which is purchasing procedure and capital assets.
So, yes, this is huge. Yes, this is staying out of guidelines. Yes, but also though it does incorporate uh school board policy 250 fitting the us at our next uh policy. So, that won't be a policy.
It's in this policy now. Um so, we eliminated a whole policy but made one Um so, this puts into policy items that were again Dr. Samuel mentioned administrative guidelines. Um also added and with the advice from
the legal counsel of applying Indian statutes and the state board of accounts guideline. Okay? Few items I want to point out specifically, items um seven under public purchasing, it's on the second page.
Sets the amount of $150,000 as the threshold for obtaining bids for goods and supplies and this does align directly with state board of accounts guidelines. Um item 15, purchase order, um also under public purchasing section
and from the fifth page, states that any purchase over $10,000 must be approved by the school board. So, we questioned this with um Dr. Samuel and I along with Dr. Burke Burke and Amy Stahls several times on a call with um Amy Matthews and Carolyn
Werdon, our legal counsel, um and they affirmed that when you approve the docket, you are meeting the obligation of approving anything. So, it doesn't bring every individual um purchase for for that policy. You're approving all of the docket.
Said that it qualifies. And then under alternative purchasing and this is item three, purchasing organizations, um we removed the word services from the supplies and goods and put services in a separate section as item four. And this
is a statement of law and having section four then complies with the law and makes it consistent with the Indiana code. Um I'm happy to do my best to answer any questions you may have concerning school board policy F 225
and we'll lean heavily on Dr. Samuel most likely for your questions. So, Mr. Fessler, just as a summary, you said at the beginning a lot of this is, if not most, is the guideline coming over to the policy and what you just highlighted were the
changes. And I did want to point out that $10,000 being approved by the board, obviously I just wanted to draw your attention to that thing. We buy a lot of things that are $10,000 or more and then we don't put, you know, you don't always approve each one of them. That's why I wanted to highlight that approval of the docket
satisfies that requirement. The operations with financial policy. Any other questions for Um Dr. Samuel? Board information and comments. No, this is a busy week, busy time of year. I know I say that every time we
get together. Um but this week we we start to have a celebration uh coming uh as we recognize our That's next week, teachers. This week is Evening of Excellence for our students on Thursday evening. So,
um it's if you would like to join us, we would love to have you. Um I think our students and parents would be excited for you to be there. I will introduce you. So, want to give you uh a heads-up. It's a fairly long
presentation as we're honoring our seniors, their accomplishments. Um they'll be taking photos, but it's a very exciting evening. So, we're looking forward to that. That's all I have. Okay. Can I get a motion to adjourn on the
school I'll make a motion to adjourn the meeting. Second. We've had a motion and a second to adjourn meeting. Comments? Questions? All in favor say aye. Aye.
All those opposed say nay. Motion to adjourn has been approved. And 7:50 7:47. Thank you.