including extended day services for up to 24 students delivered by the EEU in the amount of $820,276.80.
Educational services for up to 18 kindergarten students delivered by the EEU for the amount of $314,581.83.
and technical support and training to staff and services to students in identified classrooms within Seattle Public Schools in the amount of $70,383.
These services are to be provided in the form of the draft interagency agreements attached to the board action report.
The superintendent is authorized to make minor additions, deletions and modifications deemed necessary and to take any necessary actions to implement the contracts slash agreements.
I second the motion.
I would like to call on the committee chair of curriculum and instruction.
I am excited to share that this motion was discussed at the April 4 C&I committee meeting and was moved forward to the full board for introduction on April 20.
Is there any questions or comments on this item?
I see none.
Ms. Ritchie.
The vote.
Director Pinkham.
Aye.
Director Blanford.
Aye.
Director Burke.
Aye.
Director Geary.
Aye.
Director Harris.
Aye.
Director Peters.
Aye.
Director Patu.
Aye.
This motion has passed unanimously.
Now we are going into our introduction items.
Board self-evaluation.
The motion was discussed at the executive committee meeting on April 7, 2016 as well as the work session on April 7, 2016. The executive committee reviewed the motion and moved the item forward for consideration by the food board pending the work session happening on the same day in the evening.
Any questions?
Director Geary.
Okay we are introducing this at this point as you mentioned the board held a work session on April 7 to offer feedback on the board's SMART goals for 2015-16 and the evaluation instrument and rubric from 2014-15.
As many are aware we have four new board members and just becoming familiar with this instrument has taken us time and I would say that we are still in the process of becoming familiar with it and trying to see how it plays out.
We discussed carrying forward three of the SMART goals from 2014-15 with revisions to the goal and implementation plan language and maintaining the 2014-15 evaluation instrument and rubric.
I believe we are carrying forward four.
Yeah we are.
Yeah it's four not three.
Director Patu and I volunteered to revise the goals and implementation plans based on the feedback received.
Directors were provided additional opportunity for feedback prior to introduction so Director Patu and I we did meet and went over them with an eye to maintaining the goals that had been worked on before but making them more concrete in application to give the new board members an opportunity to work through the goal process in a short, since we have a shorter amount of time since this will be reviewed come November.
The goals are limited in number and scope due to the shortened evaluation cycle as I said because we will conduct our self-evaluation in November.
It is also, we will also be looking at the goals in September again with an eye to the fact that we will be considering whether or not to align our evaluation schedule to that of the superintendent and therefore in September we could look at introducing new goals that would run if we decide to do that through June.
And so this gives us an opportunity to do abbreviated goals with the idea that we will flesh out and make fuller goals for ourselves when we have a longer cycle to consider them in.
This item will be on the May 18 agenda for action.
Thank you.
Any questions?
Comments?
Director Burke.
Just a quick comment to thank Director Geary and Director Patu for taking this on.
I think we had a work session around this and for a new member of the school board just getting into it and trying to understand well how will this apply, how will we use this tool was a pretty significant thing so I appreciate the time that you took to do that and any ongoing guidance that you can provide us on how to make sure that we are keeping eyes on the prize during the next upcoming months.
Dr. Geary.
And along the same lines I think we need to give credit to the directors that preceded us who really did the heavy lifting in creating these goals and this is just an opportunity for us to learn from all of their work and have a chance to put it into practice in a way that will be manageable and more focused as we are in a learning mode.
But thank you for that work and I hope you three will be available to us to guide us in implementing them.
All right we are going to our second introduction items.
Department of Technology Services PTA 4 project loan from community schools funding the capital eligible program.
Can we hear from the Audit and Finance Chair?
All right that would be me.
Let's see.
Okay this came to the Audit and Finance Committee meeting on March 10. We reviewed the motion and moved it forward to the full board with a recommendation for approval.
Thank you.
Hi Carmen Ram chief information officer and one of the reasons that this was brought to the Audit and Finance Committee on March 10 and is now just being brought to the to the board was because we wanted to take the time to really lay out the spending plan and show how we would be utilizing this funding, which ones of the 23 different funding areas within the BTA IV levy that we would be utilizing this as we move forward.
So we've got a short PowerPoint presentation here to kind of go over that.
I'm assuming that you guys can see it up above there.
I know you also got copies of it.
So the thing that's really important to point out here is I'm going to be pointing here with my pointer and you guys can't see it so I apologize but is that within the BTA and within the levy structure in the state of Washington, levies for technology are not only used for modernization and projects they can also be used and they are used extensively for operational and maintenance support.
It's one of the only areas that can be done in.
So as a result of that we rely on a lot of the BTA IV levy for operations and support.
And the reason we want to point that out is because Historically within these levies even though they are six-year levies the funding for the technology has been front-loaded.
We have spent that technology in the first three years with the understanding and the hope that the follow-on levies would be there to provide that funding.
When this levy was put together when we put together the funding package last year and presented it to the board at that time it was built on the premise that it would be a three-year funding package.
excuse me a three-year expense.
So if we look at the first graph here this is a summary of the entire $104.65 million.
What you can see is that if we are going to spend this in three years then we are going to get a lot of project work done because we are going to be spending out in the levy years approximately $30 million a year.
The bridge funding is for the remainder of FY16 it's from now until September and that provides us the opportunity to really start the planning to bring in the project management to get the requirements defined and to do a lot of the other preparation work so that we're not waiting until the funding comes in and then we're trying to do six months of really dedicated and well thought out process improvement and reengineering instead of trying to cram that into a couple months because everyone will be excited to get these things in place.
We can take the right amount of time, bring in the right resources, talk to the right groups around the district and make sure that we are reengineering the processes correctly.
And then we really start working on that in FY17, which is next year, which is what I call year zero, because it really isn't that first year of the levy yet, but because levy funding is collected throughout the year, property taxes, we are estimated to get about $9 million for technology in FY17.
And then the bulk of it obviously comes in FY18, 19, and 20. And you can see that if we have to stretch that out over six years, we really lose all of the funding for the major projects that we've got identified.
The point of sale system, the new budget system, the incredible increases in technology in our schools because more of it has to go toward operations and maintenance.
To pay the internet bill, to pay the software licensing bills, to pay the web bill and everything that we've got along there just to keep our systems running.
So if we go on to the next slide really quickly we broke this down for each one of the areas and so there's four per page but some of the projects would get more money because if you've got to stretch that operation out over six years they're going to get more money.
It doesn't mean that's a good thing it just means they're going to absorb more money.
So school technology services and support.
Everybody back there can see the little red light, sorry.
We know that we need to increase from 50 technicians.
Our goal is to increase to about 30 technicians.
We're not going to get to that level if we stretch this out over six years.
and but we are going to need to increase that support without a doubt.
So in this area we are probably going to be taking up approximately two and a quarter more million dollars.
And if you want me to I'll go through each one of these but you probably don't need me to unless you've got some questions.
If you look at the academic classroom instructional technology library support, what that is is that's the instructional technologist that works for Eric Caldwell.
These are the certified technology experts who are out in the field working with the teachers and the educators in the classroom on how to utilize that technology and apply it in the classroom.
And so you know they need to be funded for all six years.
And then the faculty staff, this is one, the faculty new technology, this is one where we're not cutting hardly any funding because the instructors and the educators in our district right now have such old technology that we have to get that replaced and so there's not a lot of difference in this area.
And then something that we put in this year and this is something that I utilized at the university where I was at that we called the academic software replacement and upgrade support.
That was something new we added to the levy and what that was was when we are going to Windows 10 or maybe Windows 12 down the road or whatever and the schools are saying but we don't have the funding to replace this piece of software in our biology lab.
It only runs on Windows 7. We would have funding to assist them in making those transitions.
And that in order to make this balance out really goes to zero and we are back to the situation we are at today which is not good and it's not good for our students and our academics.
other areas a huge hit to the new computers going into our labs and classrooms.
That's where we've got to absorb the funding and take it back so that we can pay all the other maintenance bills going out.
And then there's classroom audio visual and distance education.
And then if we go into more of our central business systems These are getting the most additional funding which is not what we want to have happen.
Our student information system, this isn't going to make Director Harris happy but you know that blue right there is our point of sale system.
You know that's the funding that's going to put our point of sale system in.
But instead we're paying the licensing bills and we're paying all the other things.
We've got to pay our software licenses and one of those is going to come up in the next board intro item.
Our business system is the same thing, our new budget and finance system and everything that are the blue items.
And then the administrative staff, we have a lot of administrative staff offices in the John Stanford Center.
They also need new technology.
They are going to have to absorb that out of their own budgets.
Web communications, data reporting, again all the project funding would be spread out over six years and would have to go toward operations and maintenance.
And then if we get into, point that way, if we get into our infrastructure, the local area networks, this again goes right back to the schools.
The local area network improvements are really out in the schools because we put in state-of-the-art wireless but a lot of the older schools have poor wiring in the walls, they don't have the hardwired and equipment into the comm rooms and things like that that they need is getting older.
So that requires a replacement out there.
Our disaster recovery and security And then I'll go on to this one which is our metropolitan area network.
That is the network that connects all of our schools together.
That is the fiber ring that runs throughout the city and goes through all of our schools and connects them together.
It is old, it is in a state of disrepair, it is far beyond end of life and so we really need to modernize that and in this model we don't.
Excuse me.
And then our telecommunications, our phone infrastructure the same way.
And the last graph I put up here was just to show that in BEX IV with the current level that we are in right now the technology had $51 million, $51, $52 million.
And you divide that over three years you get $17 million a year.
So I use 51 million because it's easier math.
We have about $102 million, $104 million in BTA IV.
If we spread that over six years it's $17 million a year.
But what is that 17 million bias?
Well the 17 million that we had last year in FY15 is equivalent to a little over 10 million out here in FY23 if we've got to stretch that out.
And what 17 million buys us today looking at it in the other direction we would require, oh I knew I should have wore better glasses.
$27 million out here in FY23 in order to fund that same amount.
So it really does put us at a disadvantage and we don't have the same level of funding we actually have far less because of the time value of money.
So that's why the spending is condensed down to three years and that's why this bridge loan or this loan they are asking for of $2.5 million which the majority of it will go to the technology projects and as the bar reports a portion of it will also go to the debt reduction part of the other capital that is to pay off the computer leases for Queen Anne and Boren K-12 and a few of the other schools that have leases that we want to eliminate that debt.
Any questions from anyone on the board?
Director Blanford.
So that was a lot of information and I'm not sure how, if I'm going to phrase this question correctly but I'll try.
I'm concerned about, you've listed what I see as several opportunity costs and accelerating the spending.
rather than peanut buttering it over the time of the levy accelerating it or front loading it to the first part of the levy.
Right?
And the time value of money is a primary one because I see it's pretty easy to see on this chart that we need $27 million to do what we can do with $17 million in the first year if I understand what you said correctly.
Yeah and that goes over nine years because that goes back to the beginning of BEX IV all the way to the end of BTA IV.
So nine years instead of four years or instead of seven years.
Right.
But the premise that I made is correct.
The time value of money means we need a lot more money at the end of it than we would be able to, we would be able to buy a bigger basket in the earlier years than we would in the later years.
That's correct.
Are there other opportunity costs that are associated with us accelerating the spending beyond what you shared?
There's always opportunity costs but some of them that would come to mind is you know we've got a lot of old equipment out there and the sooner we can replace that old equipment you know the less technicians that we are going to need supporting that equipment because as you invest more in new technology you have less maintenance and repair and things like that going on.
The point of sale system is a huge improvement to the schools.
and the audit findings and the things that come out of that.
So those are the things that we've really got to invest our money in and the sooner we can get those investments made I think the better off we are.
But I'm coming at it from the other direction which is that spending the dollars earlier obviously we can buy a bigger basket with the dollars if they are spent earlier.
What other opportunity costs, meaning what other things, what other variables do we need to consider?
What things do we lose as a result of spending early rather than later?
I don't think we lose anything by spending earlier rather than later.
I think we're simply saying that you know we're not going to like the terminology you use peanut butter it out over the long range and as a result of that you know the follow on funding will pay the operations and maintenance costs and hopefully by investing in the new technology earlier we can reduce the operations and maintenance costs in the longer years and get more bang for our buck in the outer years too.
If I may, Stephen Nielsen, Deputy Superintendent, the other built-in assumption on this and this has been planned since its inception so this is not new nor is this unusual for our use of BTA levies is what Carmen said at the very beginning in that we run a six-year levy and we plan on rolling those over with the expenditures taking place in three years.
So the largest risk that we take which is the answer the question of what is our opportunity cost is that we are funding activities with the assumption that either the state fully funds this for basic ed and or voters continue to have the ability to support us through these levies and without one of those two or a combination of both we are at very very very large risk.
So that is the big risk in all of our minds nevertheless that is how we operate.
And is there an opportunity cost in buying given the fact that technology changes so quickly is there an opportunity cost in buying something early and then it becoming stale midway through the period?
Does that question make sense?
Well yeah I understand the question it kind of goes back to something I've heard years ago with regards to technology if you wait for state of the art you'll never buy because it's always changing so fast so I would think that you know the question you just asked would almost be a proponent for let's get something in there now because if we wait we are still going to be continually behind the curve and we are still going to be, there is always going to be something better the next year and the next year and the next year.
And the goal I think for us is to get the benefit into the schools and to get the equipment into the hands of the students that they need and get the point of sale system out there so that we are mitigating the problems that schools are facing.
If I can ask one more follow-up question it would be are there, it seems to me that other districts would be in a similar situation that we are not alone.
Are other districts actually trying to accelerate their spending for technology that you know of?
I am not sure if the word is accelerate their spending for technology.
We are accelerating the levy but other districts have had technology levies for many years.
Canton, Bellevue and some of the others in Mercer Island they've had technology levies for a long time so they're not accelerating it because they haven't been behind the curve like we have.
Oh okay.
So there are no other districts that you know of that I won't use the word accelerate but are taking similar action to the action that we're taking?
Not that I'm aware of.
I don't know of any of them that have other six-year windows and are crunching it down to three.
I want to sort of start with a simplistic question which is just an interpretation on my part and please tell me if I get this correctly or not.
We are looking at the three-year versus the six-year implementation scenarios where the three-year we essentially front load some of these what we see as higher value investments.
in the remaining three years does that mean that we are going to see a budget drop and I guess are we going to become accustomed to these higher spend levels which will make it harder to operate in the subsequent three years?
Does that make sense?
It makes sense I understand what you are saying and right now in talking with Richard Best and Flip and the people putting together already starting to plan for the BTA V levy we recommend that that we are going to want to maintain a levy for technology at the level we have in BTA IV or higher but not necessarily as a result of this but to continue to you know put more computers into the hands of the students if a one-to-one program was in our future but some of this modernization if we can modernize the network if we can modernize the metropolitan area network those are infrequent costs you know that once we do the project then hopefully our maintenance costs will lower for the future to maintain these and we won't have to be replacing that technology again for 10 or 15 years but it doesn't mean something else isn't going to come along that we foresee that has to be done.
A couple of specific questions, do we have a sort of a district standard obsolescence cycle for our building hardware?
You can go with wish list and then reality.
That's the way we do it in our office.
The current benchmark we are using right now for replacing computers in the classrooms is around five to six years and the goal would be to get that down to four which is what we see for most one-to-one programs where students come in in the freshman year and they get a computer and it lasts through their senior year and things like that so we're trying to get that down to a four year refreshment cycle.
But right now we're at about five or six and when we went out with the current refresh that's going on right now we were at about seven years.
Okay and then following up Director Blanford's line of inquiry I think there's consideration for obsolescence cycles or technology changes where if we front load we may miss an opportunity to capitalize on something and I absolutely understand that you can't wait forever you have to make a decision and act on it.
I'm wondering if we see there's a time value of money factor but there's also a capital cost of technology that's diminishing year by year.
And I'm curious if that's a trend which is offsets the time value of money to the point where that becomes sort of a moot question especially for when I think of the student and classroom computing.
We need to be very deliberate about how we sort of stretch that money out and leverage it.
I think those are really fair questions.
I would point out that with projects like the point of sale system and projects like the new public budget and finance system within SAP if we go with that module or other ones.
The vast majority of the cost of those projects is not the product it's the labor and the consulting to put them in and those are not going down as you know those are going up 5-6% a year so the sooner you can handle that the better.
Yes laptop computers are going down you know $25 a year or something like that but we are down to right now where we are out doing an RFP for cloud book computers as with Microsoft's competition with the Chromebook to $250.
You are not going to see much of a reduction in those.
What you are going to see is next year for $250 you might get the next iteration of that product or a little bit better and it is simply a matter of you know how long do you want to walk to work before you invest in the car.
You know I mean it is pretty soon you have take the plunge and you've got to make the decision to move forward.
But a lot of what you see up here really is labor cost.
I've had a lot of people come to me over the years and say, well, you can get this product for free.
It's freeware.
Of course it's freeware, and it's open source.
But that's 10% of the cost of the project.
It's the labor, it's the consulting, it's all the in-house staff work and things like that to put it in place and then is there training available and support.
And one example that you gave there you know waiting for the next iteration.
We did that when we put wireless in the school and I'm really proud we did that.
When we first were moving forward with the school wireless project You know the bids were for 802.11n which for most people probably don't mean anything but that was the current standard for wireless.
And we chose to hold off a little bit and go out and re-bid to get 802.11ac which was state-of-the-art.
Nobody was putting in.
It was cutting edge.
We did that and we are reaping the benefits for it.
So it's kind of situations that we have to take on a case-by-case basis and decide is it better to wait or do we pull the trigger now.
Just to close I appreciate that level of deliberate thought because I think that's the way that when we are considering this we have to look at high-value projects that have high impact.
Probably my biggest point of concern is around the student and classroom computing modernization if that's something we should pace out more deliberately.
Director Harris.
You said something about a one-to-one model can you?
put that into a few sentences because that seems to have significant educational philosophy policy issues.
A one-to-one model is simply if it is the right thing for Seattle Public Schools I don't make that decision but a one-to-one model is each student getting a district provided computer we have a couple areas where there are one-to-one the flagship for our district is at the Cleveland STEM program at Cleveland high school where every student gets a computer when they come in.
And you know we have a district of 40% free and reduced lunch we have a district where we pride ourselves in promoting equity and when I'm out meeting with Parents when I'm out in the community a couple of weeks ago we met with CSEC and that's a lot about what you hear is you know the students who don't have access to the technology they don't have access to it at home.
And so you know through the city's digital equity program where we're trying to make sure that homes have broadband access and through programs that we can do again if it's right for the curriculum and the funding to provide those services it's like providing a textbook.
Dr. Geary.
I guess the part that is concerning to me is I do understand some of these front-loading costs to get the benefit of them over time but if a worst-case scenario came into effect then we would have to find the money to feed those orange lines and all of a sudden technology I guess that's the piece that is concerning to me.
If we can't continue to keep it funded then we will start having to pull money out of education, other education areas.
And programs.
And it just sort of terrifies me that we are not putting away, this doesn't seem to have any type of rainy day plan embedded in it.
a legitimate concern.
This is why McCleary matters and we have figured out a way in Seattle and it's worth noting that the way we run our levies is very unusual.
No other district in the state does it the way we do and that is because we have such a strong tax base and strong voter approval here.
So the terrifying part is what happens if the legislature changes the levy structure That said, I look at it as a terrifying opportunity and I say that with dead certainty in that we are able to then say to our stakeholders, our voters, our legislators, this is how you have to continue funding in some manner in order to maintain basic education.
The other thing that I would say that is worth noting here is that this plan does not mean that we would overspend the amount that the BTA has approved.
It is just a matter of beginning the work before we meet collections.
And if I may I would, and we have talked about this at the audit and finance committee, we do have the cash flow so there is not a challenge there.
So the Two major assumptions are that we would be able to collect revenue from levy sources in the future as we do now and or we get state funding and we live within our budget.
Dr. Peters.
My colleagues have asked a lot of really good questions and some of which were on my list as well so I will just focus on the fact that we are heading towards some pretty turbulent waters financially.
Superintendent Nyland mentioned these at the beginning of the meeting and beginning with fiscal year 2017 I believe.
So, knowing that, I mean knowing that we are headed towards a potential levy clip which is reducing our levy funding by $25 million, the per pupil inflator was not adjusted so we will, or was adjusted and we will lose $6 million.
Is there a risk of front-loading this kind of funds knowing that we are heading into this sort of fiscal environment?
The levy CLIF applies to the general maintenance and operations levy.
It does not apply to either BEX or BTA.
Okay.
And the calculations for those collections are completely different.
Okay.
So this particular source of funding would not be influenced by those issues?
Under current law that is correct.
Okay.
Director Geary.
Along those same lines I see that we have parsed out the money coming from different sources going to different things but are there things that will be impacted by the levy cliff that we could legitimately spend some of this money on backfilling even though we don't do it now or is it by the nature of what these things are they don't cross over?
There is some crossover in the use of BTA funds and the easiest way to think about it is what do other districts do?
For example, if you are another district that does not have a BTA type levy and you are running your technology off of your maintenance and operations levy then there are of course some crossovers.
There are also complete restrictions around capital funds.
So you cannot transfer capital funds to the general fund.
So those restrictions apply here.
Technology has to fit within certain parameters as described in current law.
That said, however, there are some pieces of what we do that are funded through the BTA levy that could be funded through a regular EPO levy if we didn't have a BTA levy.
It just certainly wouldn't be at that volume.
Is that clear or not?
That's clear I'm just wondering are there things that were, I get all the jargon wrong, are there things that were funding, are we funding some technology out of the money that is going to be disappearing that we could backfill in?
No.
Okay.
Director Harris.
Deputy Superintendent you said under quote current law I think four times.
given the fact that our negligent friends in Olympia are doing gymnastics with school funding and recalibrating if you will current ways of doing business or at least bringing those up for discussion.
Knowing you don't have a crystal ball but also knowing you've got 30 years of watching what's going on down in Olympia, do you see our friends in Olympia changing the levee structures in the next couple of years?
I do and I want to be very clear it's a very very good question.
The levy structure that has been anticipated to change is based upon the McCleary decision and the levy structure in question based on McCleary are EP&O levies.
The McCleary decision will cause some kind of action or not in Olympia There is nothing in the McCleary decision, and this is the key point to your question, that references capital levies or technology levies.
They are separate and apart from any legal standing that the court is holding to the legislature.
So, that said, one could project, and it is simply a projection, that BTA levies, capital levies, etc. or bond issues are outside of that parameter.
Now also my opinion and it is simply me speaking from my experience in Olympia and here is there is a political reality and an optical issue that it wouldn't strike me as wise for the legislature to take that on until they fully address the McCleary issue because they would just make matters worse.
And most of them want to get reelected.
Dr. Pinkham.
I definitely thank you for providing this information.
I just kind of want to get some clarification here as far as when it says something here as far as it being an interest-free loan.
How does that work out as far as we take money from one pot and then put it in another and what's happening, what would have collected there if that money stayed and we're not reimbursing in a sense at full rate.
Is this something common that we do?
Well, the way this works is it's technically an inter-fund loan.
And our cash that we have is held by King County and that's by statute.
So we are investing our public resources, the cash that we have that Director Peters and the other members of the Audit and Finance Committee review on a monthly basis or as a part of our regular cash reconciliation is managed in a very conservative manner.
So I'm now going to do this from a memory point and I know that I will be wrong.
That said, I'm close.
And we are getting a return of about eight-tenths or so percent on our investments in the King County investment pool.
It may be less than that now or slightly different than that.
It is not a substantial amount of money.
And said differently, the cost of inflation is higher than what we're getting in return.
by a substantial amount.
So you are looking at that to kind of counterbalance what we would have collected in interest if we kept it there we are picking up in value.
Dr. Burke.
This is probably a little bit larger scope than what we are discussing so I will try to keep it brief.
There's technology has a lot of dollars associated with it and I understand within the levy we have to we have an obligation to the voting community to put it in the proper allocation categories.
What concerns me is that the choices we make based on those categories I'll put an example in place I visited a school which is space impacted.
And they were describing the different scenarios they had to you know to restructure the school or to accommodate the additional growth.
And the one of the questions was can you reconstitute the classrooms and restructure it in a way that you can put more kids in the same space.
And the feedback that I had gotten was well there's a cost to do that.
And it's primarily a technology and infrastructure cost.
for you know overhead, Wi-Fi, AV, I'm not exactly sure what it was so this is very kind of theoretical but because that cost was, there was no cost center where that would be viable the school was directed that they would most likely have to according to board guidance before they could reconstitute any of their classrooms they would have to lose space for before and aftercare or pre-k.
And so my concern is are there small amounts of this that we can apply to some of our space impacted or capacity impacted schools or are we prohibited from doing that?
So let me try to answer that like this.
I'm going to, Richard was back there and the other night I was.
I see this.
The way I would answer that is to say, that's a complicated question and at the macro level the answer is no.
And I would prefer to leave it at that and perhaps a greater discussion at audit and finance.
And if we want to go there we can.
I'm certainly not trying to avoid it.
But the space issues and what that means are mostly related to BEX kinds of things rather than BTA.
So that's why I'd like to just hold it at that point because it's a separate topic.
And I say that of course willing to answer if that is of your pleasure.
Superintendent Nyland.
I want to back up a while.
I need a picture, a map here I guess.
So the monies that we are currently running out of came from the last BEX levy and they are spent over three years.
The money that we are now spending, want to spend, forward spend I guess a little bit, are three years of the BTA six-year levy.
When the technology money runs out three years from now we will be offering to the voters another BEX levy and we will have as part of that technology so I mean essentially we've got technology on a three-year renewable cycle.
So I don't know that the No man's life is safe when the legislature is in session so I understand.
But it is business as usual for what we have been doing for many many years.
Thanks to voter approval the per year basis for this three-year chunk that we have coming up is bigger than the per year basis of technology that we have that's expiring.
So the real issue here in my mind is not about all of that future stuff.
It is out there and it is a little bit scary.
As Stephen indicated I don't think that our capital levies will be at risk to McCleary.
They've got to solve regular levies.
They've got to solve salaries.
They've got to solve revenue.
They don't have time to worry about capital levies.
So I think for me the issue is how much of the three years funding do we want to put into this interest free loan to allow a jumpstart on getting some of this important work started.
which I think is a great idea as long as we don't go crazy over it and spend too much too soon and not be able to make it through the three-year commitment that we have out there.
And we are not spending anything in the first couple of years on the bridge loan that wouldn't get spent later.
It's not a matter of because we spent this we don't have money later it's simply a matter of moving the schedules up a little bit on some of these very very critical projects that we've all been you know talking about for at least the over two years that I've been here.
Director Geary.
So then when does the bridge loan get paid back in that scheme?
In this scheme we are looking at about if you look at The first two blue columns there they add up to about $9 million and that's how much money we anticipate that I've been told that the technology levy would take in FY17 so by the end of FY17 which is where the bar says it has to be repaid we would be repaying that because we would take the loan in FY16 this year we'd get $9 million in FY17 we'd spend 7.4 and we'd have enough to repay the loan.
Bar in FY16 the 1.49 million that is essentially what we are looking at allocating the not to exceed amount in this transfer for so that gives a little bit of headroom.
Is that correct?
There's two things in the loan that's being asked for and they're itemized out in the loan and it's not all here okay.
The 1.49 million goes to the technology portion.
There's another .5 million as I mentioned earlier that goes to pay off the leases on the computers as part of the debt mitigation and then The bar went in at 2.5 million in case there were other things that we could get our technicians into the schools quicker as we are trying to ramp up our technicians.
The sooner that we can start putting new computers in the schools for the teachers the educators the better so if we can accelerate any of that.
So I looked at that as kind of a reserve pot there.
Thank you.
Our next introduction item one-year agreement extension with PCMG for Microsoft enrollment for education solutions.
Can we hear from the operations chair?
Operations committee met on the 21st of April and heard this item and moved forward to the board for approval.
Thank you.
Any questions?
Carmen Ramigan chief information officer.
This is the bar is to pay our annual licensing for all of our suite of Microsoft products and just really quickly that includes our office professional for our 30,000 plus computers on campus, office pro plus for home use so students can download a multiple copy of this and that's been a real that we have heard from the students on that.
Our enterprise version of all of our windows operating systems so we are getting everything to Windows 10. Our support servers, our Windows servers, our SharePoint environment that we are really now taking off gangbusters to improve collaboration.
It allows us to utilize all of the Office 365 suite of tools but it doesn't mean we have to go to those.
Our exchange email is all part of this and then IT Academy which allows our staff and our students to get online free Microsoft training so that's all included in this at the cost of about $10 a computer per year and that's a pretty good deal.
Director Burke.
I wanted to say thanks for some of the dialogue that we've been able to have on this so far.
Pricing looks pretty good, you're getting a great deal on visual studio based on what we had to pay for it.
Let's see so just to clarify this is essentially a license umbrella and when you go into the breakdown of what's provided there's a certain quantity of each unit of each item with a unit price.
Are we Funded based on actual or we Do we provide them an estimate of what our consumption is and that's what makes our total spend.
We are totally licensed based on the number of employees that we have.
And there is a ratio of you know so much cost for the number of full-time educators we have so much and you divide that by three for the number of part-time educators and administrative staff and it adds up to what Microsoft charges their reseller.
And then what we do is we go out with an RFP and get this bid so that the resellers then who are adding on their 1 or 2 or 3% or whatever that they add on it's usually very minimal to negotiate this contract to manage the contract and everything and to provide us the licensing and the media and that's where the RFP comes in and again we can utilize it on as many computers as we want.
it's strictly the cost that we pay is based on the number of employees that we have.
And so if we go to a one-to-one program, if we want to give everybody in the district two computers instead of one, it's still part of the contract agreement.
That's great and so then is that a one-time thing or if our staffing level or our student level changes do they re-norm it?
We do a true up.
Annually or quarterly?
I believe it's annual, yeah.
Thank you.
Director Pinkham.
I believe I heard you mention the IT Academy, is that part of the license and how much of the cost is that for this part because you can get to the IT Academy through the Seattle Public Library.
Yeah it's all or nothing so these are all included.
It's kind of like you know you get the full meal deal here.
And I know the costs are broken down on some of the sheets there where it talks about what the unit price is that they charge per license.
The IT Academy though is I think pretty minimal on there.
I'd have to look through really quickly and see which one that is.
I'm just curious because University of Washington pulled out of that portion.
Okay for a total of $1,200 or $1,300 and we do utilize it extensively because a lot of in the classes and it's one of the things coming from higher ed one of the things that our business department of the college of business told us was that they had a lot of students coming in that didn't have the Microsoft skills that they needed and so it was very important to provide these resources at the K-12 level so that they had access to Excel training and different things and it also provides my staff training through server training and things like that so all that's included.
Okay move on to our next introduction BEX IV final acceptance for public works contract P5054 with Elliott construction for demolition work at Hazel Wolf K8 at Pinehurst phase 1. Operations?
This item was also heard on the 21st and moved forward to the board for approval.
Thank you.
Yes Richard Best, Director of Capital Projects and Planning for Seattle Public Schools.
As I've made you aware previously your approval for final acceptance is required for us to file closeout paperwork to the various state agencies.
Iliad Construction has completed the work associated with the phase 1 site preparation for the Hazel Wolf K-8 Project site this work included the demolition of the existing building, some hazardous material abatement, and then installation of geothermal wells.
We did issue a change order and went from 36 wells to 72 wells on that site so we literally doubled The amount of wells that was initially anticipated that was approved in change order two.
I'll draw your attention to that because it was a significant amount.
And you do have the final closeout document and the summary sheet in your board package.
Any questions that I can answer surrounding this?
Seeing no questions I'm going to move on to the next item.
PTA 3 program project underspent transfer to the Lashawiee Roof project budget operations.
Again we were busy on the 21st of April we had several items and this was one of them and we moved it forward to the board for approval.
Thank you.
I'm sorry.
I get caught up and forget this one was actually for consideration because if I remember correctly we didn't have completed documents.
We didn't have the bids opened at the time we discussed this.
So we are asking for the board's approval to transfer $900,000 of BTA III underspend to the Leschi re-roof project.
We are replacing the entire roof.
This project contemplates replacing the entire roof and this amount of funding is required for us to do that.
As a facility standpoint I made a note to the operations committee members that it is a good practice to replace an entire roof if you can, if you have the funding available.
our facilities department has made us aware that they have problems throughout the entire roof on this school.
The roof was installed in 1988 that was a question that came up in the facilities committee or excuse me in the operations committee.
And the initial budget for this project was for significant repairs to approximately 25% of the roof.
That was also a question that came up.
The 2006 facilities condition assessment report was utilized for the BTA III levy which was passed in 2010. This being the completion of really in 2016 being the final year of the BTA III levy using an older document to project when you are going to need to replace a roof or to make significant repairs to a roof.
is problematic and so we are coming to the board to say we need to replace the entire roof and we need this funding transfer and you have funds available in your BTA III underspend.
Any questions?
Thank you.
Moving right along.
BEX III and BEX IV award construction contract K5064 to Bates Roofing LLC for Lashaw Elementary school re-roof.
Operations.
This one was heard on the 17th of March and moved forward for consideration.
And again this was moved forward consideration because we had not bid the project.
This will replace the roof at Leschi Elementary School.
We will be awarding the contract to Bates Roofing.
We are also recommending that the board approve alternates 1, 2, and 3. They are to replace the low slope flat roof with a three-ply SPS modified.
The steep slope is an asphalt shingle roof.
They are to add a vapor barrier underneath the entire roofing system.
And then they are to, the last alternate three was to use plywood in lieu of orientated strand
Director Blanford.
I'll just note that the operations committee learned all that it needs to know about roofing and not doing partial roofs in the future so it was a great opportunity for us to acquire new skills.
Any more comments, questions?
Okay moving right along.
BEX IV and PTA IV award architecture and engineering service contract P1436 to Bozzetti Architects for modernization of Lincoln High School.
Operations?
April 21 the committee heard this and moved it forward to the board for approval.
Yes we are recommending that the school board approve the agreement with the SETI architects in the amount of $6,705,588.
I do note that the recommended motion says plus Washington state sales tax.
Washington state sales tax is not on top of that amount so I will have that notation struck from the bar.
This is for a professional service, you do not pay sales tax on professional services.
I will also note because the operations committee asked that I bring this to the board's attention, we did enter into an agreement with Bassetti architects to begin this work after they were selected last fall of 2015 to begin work so that we could be in a position to to bring this contract to the board.
We had them doing some site investigations on existing building systems.
In addition we had them begin their master planning effort and we formed the SDAC committee to begin to look at the building design so we could begin to prepare some cost estimates.
So you see an initial contract and it is in your board action report documents for $233,481 And then we amended that contract so that the city architects could help us with the general contractor construction management process, do some value analysis of their concept design.
That amended amount was $49,447.
The contract that we are entering with Bassetti, we are looking at a construction value of $54,033,000 for the maximum allowable construction contract for when the work is performed at Lincoln High School.
the amount is consistent with the aggregate of the BEX IV and BTA IV capital levies.
Any questions?
Director Harris.
Mr. Best, I don't know if you were here during public testimony when a pretty significant allegation of a conflict of interest was raised regarding the Bassetti architects.
No I wasn't here I did not hear that.
Okay.
Associate Superintendent Herndon were you and can you address that because we want to give respect to concerns that come up.
I'll have to go back and listen to the specific allegation but I mean we watch pretty closely our conflicts of interest so I would be surprised if there was but I'll go back and we can get back to you either on Friday memo or by the next board meeting.
Or if you could have a conversation with Mr. Jackins who brought that forward and report back I'd be very grateful.
Sure.
Thank you.
Just to help you out on the focus, the specific question was are any of the Bassetti employees, the architectural firm employees currently connected to the landmarks board?
That's the question.
Connected to the landmarks?
Yeah.
Not at this time that I'm aware of but I could ask Bassetti architects.
Okay great thank you.
Any more questions?
Director Burke.
The value of this contract basically 6.7 million is more than 10% of the total build cost.
Is that fairly typical in terms of architectural expense as compared to total budget?
It seems a little high.
No, this is actually, when you look at the modernization, if this was a new project, Director Burke, this would be a little high.
But given that this is a modernization, it's a modernization of a historic structure, this is not high.
And I will say that both the Office of Fiscal Management and the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instructions provide guidelines to public agencies about architectural engineering our fee structure is in accordance with those guidelines.
And most architectural firms are aware of those guidelines and so this fee structure is in accordance with that.
There is some additional cost for GCCM work when you use that approach because in lieu of one or two bid packages you are doing multiple bid packages and so there is added work to the architect but that is calculated in this fee.
Any more questions?
Okay the board is now immediately recessing the regular board meeting into executive session to evaluate the performance of a public employee and discuss potential litigation which is scheduled for 30 minutes with an anticipated end time of depending on what the 30 minutes when we get in there.