Culpeper CountyBoard of Supervisors/

CulpeperCountySchool Board

Joint Meeting

Thursday, November 29, 2007 ~ 7 p.m.

CulpeperCountyHigh School Library

At 7 p.m., Mr. John Coates, chairman of the Board of Supervisors, welcomed everyone to the joint meeting of the Culpeper County Board of Supervisors and the Culpeper County School Board and thanked the School Board for hosting the meeting. He called the roll for the Culpeper County Board of Supervisors. Present were Mr. William Chase, Mr. Larry Aylor, Mr. John Coates, Mrs. Sue Hansohn, Mr. Steven Walker, Mr. Steven Nixon, Mr. Brad Rosenberger and Mr. Frank Bossio, CountyAdministrator. Also present was Mr. Tom Underwood, Board of Supervisors member elect, from the SalemDistrict.

Mrs. Elizabeth Hutchins, chairman of the School Board, also welcomed everyone and took roll for the school board. Present were Mr. George Dasher, Mrs. Elizabeth Hutchins, Mrs. Jennifer McCauley, Mr. Robert Beard, Mrs. Claudia Vento, Mrs. Leanne Jenkins and Dr. David Cox, CCPS Superintendent. Absent was Mr. Robert Jenkins. Also present were School Board members elect Russell Jenkins of the Catalpa District, Mrs. Anne Luckinbill of the Salem District and Mr. James Lee of the West Fairfax District.

Mrs. Hutchins said that going forward the meeting would be chaired by the two members who had worked on developing the agenda, Mr. Dasher and Mrs. Hansohn. Mr. Coates said it was appropriate to have those two lead the meeting.

Mr. Dasher explained that he and Mrs. Hansohn had met and talked about accomplishing goals of making this an informational meeting. He said there would be no decisions expected or made this evening, and that they hoped this would be an open and frank discussion around the issues of the costs needs of the school system. He said he hoped the boards could air issues and discuss them and the underlying details and leave with a better understanding. He said Mr. Hunter Spencer, Construction Projects Manager, would give a briefing on soft costs.

Mr. Dasher said the agenda needed to be approved and the process for conducting the meeting, scheduling future meetings and discussion topics should also be discussed. Mr. Dasher said there would be a 15 minute break at about 8:30 p.m. He said he had asked Marla McKenna, CCPS Public Information Officer, to take minutes of the meeting and that she would keep track of the discussion and note any questions that came up and that the minutes would be distributed to the entire group.

He said he hoped the headlines tomorrow would read, “Boards are working together.”

Mrs. Hansohn said she was glad to see the newly elected members participating at the meeting. She said they will see how complicated, detailed, sensitive and sometimes baffling these issues are. She’s hopeful that this interaction will be helpful when it comes to budgetary decisions. She said it is important for her board to see and understand the school board’s budgets and plans and goals. She said we need to roll up our sleeves and be a part of this. She said this year will be a critical year as far as funding goes and we will need to think out of the box. She hopes to have many more meetings. She said she believes it’s good to have someone like Mr. Dasher in charge to lead the discussions.

Mr. Beard noted that there were several “housekeeping” items to get on the record. The first was a formal motion to allow the members elect to speak and participate in the discussion, however, not to vote. Mrs. Hutchins said that she didn’t believe anyone would be voting on anything at this meeting. Mr. Dasher asked if everyone was in favor of participation for the newly elected members. All members indicated that they were. No one indicated they were opposed.

Mr. Beard said the School Board had designated Mrs. McKenna to take minutes for the school board, under the FOIA requirements, and he suggested that by agreement she could be designated to take minutes for both boards. Mr. Dasher indicated that was his intent. The boards agreed.

Mr. Beard noted that there was a request to add to item #4 a discussion of how the agendas are developed.

Mr. Nixon asked if the topics listed on the agenda under “Future Agenda Items” could be discussed this evening. Mr. Dasher said that as the topic of soft costs touches those discussion items, yes, but they may not be prepared with the materials that had been brought this evening to dive into the details. He said they could have a broad discussion.

Mrs. McCauley asked if the meeting could end by 10 p.m. and if the boards would move the tour of the high school to the end of the meeting. Mr. Dasher said the tour would take place following the discussion.

Mr. Dasher then said that he would conduct the meeting by recognizing the speaker and that he would try to split the time evenly between board members so that no one board dominated the discussion.

1. Discussion of soft costs

Mr. Dasher said it would be a benefit to take a snapshot of how we got to where we are and have a common understanding of the chronology. Mr. Spencer gave greetings to the two boards.

Mr. Spencer said that at the end of August 2005 that we developed a soft cost estimate for the new high school project. It was done at a point when the architect informed us that the construction estimate for the new high school was “$44 million and change.”He said we had approximately $53 million available. He said we had to look more seriously at what was involved from a soft cost standpoint. He explained that soft costs include engineering, surveying, testing, architectural fees, permit fees -- everything except the building itself. He added that soft costs are also everything you put inside the building that would fall out if you turned it upside down. At that point, the soft costs estimate totaled $8,945,000, which added to the estimated cost of the building, totaled $52,945,000, which was just under the $53 million project budget.

On Dec. 2, 2005 the construction bids came in. The lowest bid, submitted by Howard Shockey, was $47 million and change, approximately $3.1 million over the original estimate. As directed, Shockey had submitted some deductive alternates: $3.1 million by not building the auditorium, $3.1 million by not building the athletic stadium and sports fields, and a smaller deduct by not finishing an interior portion of the building.

On Jan. 2, 2006, Mr. Spencer recommended to the superintendent that the school division accept the deduct of $3.1 million and not buildout the sports fields at that time. He said he began negotiating with the contractor to come up with additional cost saving measures on the project. The School Oversight Committee then recommended to both boards (school board and supervisors) to construct the building fully as designed.

In March 2006, the Board of Supervisors appropriated $47,139,000 to fund the construction contract with Howard Shockey. At that same time, the Board of Supervisors appropriated $499,999 to put toward soft costs.

Mr. Spencer said that in March 2006, the $53 million project had $5,861,000 to cover all the soft costsexpenses of the project, which was substantially short from the$8,945,000 estimate. The construction began that March and,at this time,management of the available funds also began. Mr. Spencer said he updated the school board regularly and came up with additional reductions and revisions to manage the shortfall. On Oct. 22, he presented a revised budget that anticipated a little more than $7 million needed for opening, about $721,000 more than we had available. In order to make final purchases, the school board requested from the Board of Supervisors a final appropriation. $5.145 millionwas appropriated in November 2007.

On Nov. 26, 2007 Mr. Spencer presented to the School Board another revised budget reflecting the full appropriation as well as some funding that could be redirected from the construction contract, as well as some additional cost reducing ideas. The budget has a surplus of $544,000. To get here, he said, the school division worked a number of angles to open the building at less cost.

Mr. Spencer said that current plans to reduce costs include looking at leaving 12 classrooms unfurnished; using existing furniture wherever possible; splitting the existing equipment inventory, for example, cutting the amount in half by splitting up science lab equipment; moving 100 cafeteria seats from CCHS to the new EVHS cafeteria; not furnishing one of two marketing classrooms; not furnishing one of two business classrooms; reducing seating from 30 to 26 per classroom; furnishing teacher work stations to reflect the number of individuals on staff when the school opens; limiting media center purchases and computer purchases to serve only the number of students who will attend when the school opens, i.e. not purchasing for the 1,500 that will be there in the future; and leasing computers rather than purchasing them. He said that in making those choices he was able to present a new soft cost estimate that showed $3,118,373 saved from the original estimate. He added that there has been some redirection of funds from the construction contract (contingency) to help offset some of the soft costs funding needs, a total of about $250,000.

Mr. Spencer said that the school division has looked at the costs “room by room”to assist with estimating and budgeting. He said the anticipated costs to open as of November 2007 are $2.8 million for furnishings and equipment.

Mr. Dasher said it’s important to look at where programs of study are affecting the furnishings and classroom setups.

Mrs. Hansohn asked if this is really the time that the school division should be starting new programs when the county might not have the money to fully fund existing programs. She said they’re wonderful programs and suggested partnering with GermannaCommunity College to reduce costs. She said this may not be the year to do it.

Mr. Spencer said that $650,000 was the original estimate for launching the new career and technical programs. He said that cost is now down to just $273,331.

Mrs. Hansohn said these programs will affect the operational budget as well. Mr. Walker said it appears that Mr. Spencer has accomplished what he said he would do, making the budget work by using the soft costs. He thanked Mr. Spencer for staying on budget. He then asked what moving the purchase of computers from the CIP to lease programs would mean. Mr. Spencer said that it is a growing trend to move computers from a purchase program to a lease purchase program. He said it would allow the school division to acquire “a larger chunk,” and that when you open two buildings your technology expenses are going to jump. He said this is one way of moving some money around. Mr. Walker asked how long a lease-purchase would increase costs on an annual basis. Mr. Spencer said he is looking at a number of options, based on number of lease years, and using the money the state allocates for computer purchases to lease them.

Mr. Dasher said that $983,000 was the original computer cost estimate. He said that it could be $200,000 to $300,000 per year, estimated, for the leasing. Mr. Spencer said we might use surplus money to buy down the lease. Mr. Walker said we never have “surplus.” Mr. Dasher said it’s $300,000, he thought, that the state gave us this year for computers.Dr. Cox confirmed that the state funding for Culpeper’s school technology purposes is about $280,000 this year.

Mrs. Jenkins said she’s pleased we’re looking at leases, but that there are tradeoffs and that it’s a commitment. She said we’re looking at a multi-year commitment and it’s all going into these two schools and that she’s concerned about the equipment needs for the rest of the schools. She said she’s also concerned about the quality of products that we’re getting. She said it’s good for the community as a whole to sit down and decide what we want to do. She said that the staff is under pressure to equip the buildings; however, she questioned if we would put things of lesser quality in the buildings because they are cheaper. She said we will have to replace things that aren’t adequate. Mrs. Jenkins asked that we weigh the pros and cons.

Mr. Nixon asked how many years the lease would extend. Mr. Spencer said the RFP (request for proposal) would include all of the options, including purchasing the computers at the conclusion. Mr. Dasher said we hired two consultants and that the general feeling was previously that the “technology crank” turns every two years, making equipment rapidly obsolete. He said the consultants indicated that the obsolescence trend is slowing down. We were told that most processing power now happens primarily in the server and that work stations will likely be a fair risk. Mr. Dasher said the significance of the trend is that the leasing option may be a way to take some bucks out of the soft cost problem. Mrs. Vento said that the Savannah College of Art only owns one piece of equipment and they lease the rest.

Mr. Chase asked for the definition of media center. Mr. Spencer answered that when he and Mr. Chase attended school a media center was called the library. Mr. Chase asked about the cost for storage room shelving and where this shelving was located. He wanted to know if there was a facilities building. Mr. Spencer said there was no activity building at the new high school site. It was determined that Mr. Chase was asking about the activity building on the CCHS/CMS campus near the bus yard. Mr. Chase said that building wasn’t on any project sheet that the Board of Supervisors had seen. Mr. Spencer said that the building was the first part of the new maintenance facility and that it was a CIP item. Mr. Dasher said the CIP discussion can be returned to, as part of that discussion.

Mrs. McCauley asked if CISCO will be used anywhere at the school other than for career and technical classes. Mr. Spencer said CISCO is a class that is currently taught at CCHS. Mrs. Hansohn said CISCO is offered as a class at GermannaCommunity College and that we could partner with GCC and not offer the classeshere. She said Germanna also has a state of the art nursing class and that we could partner with Germanna to save these costs.

Mr. Dasher said the programs of study will be a whole evening of discussion. Mrs. McCauley indicated that she would like to look at the costs associated with each program.

Mr. Dasher said that the second page of Mr. Spencer’s handout should give the boards an idea of what has been done to reduce costs and he noted that there will come a day when the school has 1,500 students and we will need furnishings for those kids.

Mrs. Hansohn said that she had read an article in the newspaper indicating that juniors weren’t happy about the coming split and that perhaps keeping next year’s seniors at CCHS would also reduce soft costs.

Mrs. Jenkins said these needs aren’t going away. She said we’re simply deferring the expenses. She said it’s going to be a concern and asked where the funds will come from when they are needed. Mrs. Hansohn said there’s a question as to whether those costs should be CIP or operational. Mr. Dasher said that clearly the day is coming when we will have to fill the rest of the building and we do need to get an answer for that. Mrs. Hansohn agreed that the two boards should determine when that is. Mrs. Jenkins said she thinks sometimes the community has a short memory as a whole and people will think we’ve already done those things and people forget those little things. Mrs. Hansohn said that is why we need to plan.

Mr. Spencer said the soft cost picture for YowellElementary Schoolisn’t far enough along to understand in as great a detail as the high school. He said at the last meeting, we were $838,000 off being able to fund the soft costs. He’s currently talking to elementary school principals, asking what furnishings we may be able transfer to YES, perhaps one classroom of furniture from each school to help defray costs.

Mrs. Hansohn wanted to know when Mr. Spencer will have a better idea of the soft costs for YES. He replied that he’s working on purchase orders and that we would like to be in the same position for YES in January that we are currently in with the high school.

Mr. Beard asked if we are lucky enough to be able to realize the savings on the high school, would we use that money to offset the shortfall on the elementary school. Mr. Spencer said we could put the funds to other good uses.

Mr. Spencer said we were previously $1.5 or $1.6 million short. Mr. Dasher said it would be difficult to commit the high school savings to another school before the high school is open due to unforeseen circumstances. He said the money could still be needed for the high school project.