Public School Capital Construction Assistance Board Meeting Minutes Vision

Public School Capital Construction Assistance Board Meeting Minutes
Vision
All students in Colorado will become educated and productive citizens
capable of succeeding in a global society, in the workforce, and in life.
Goals
Every student, every step of the way
Read by
third grade
Start strong
Meet or
exceed standards
Date & Time:
Graduate
ready
Location:
th
550 Village Rd., Iris Room
Breckenridge, CO 80424
July 29 , 2015
1:00 p.m.
Capital Construction Assistance Board Members
Lyndon Burnett – Chair
David Tadlock – Vice Chair
Cyndi Wright
Tim Reed
Denise Pearson
Ken Haptonstall
Matt Throop
Karl Berg
Kathy Gebhardt
I.
Call to Order – 1:12 p.m.
II.
Pledge of Allegiance – in the absence of a flag, the Pledge of Allegiance was foregone.
III.
Roll Call – Lyndon Burnett, Karl Berg, Kathy Gebhardt, Ken Haptonstall, Denise Pearson, Tim Reed (arrived late),
David Tadlock, Matt Throop, Cyndi Wright. CDE Staff Attendees: Scott Newell, Anna Fitzer
IV.
Approve Agenda
The CCAB Chair called for a motion to approve the agenda:
• So moved by Cyndi Wright;
• Matt Throop 2nd the motion;
• Scott Newell proposed an amendment to the agenda, adding an Action Item to Approve the Proposed Rule
Changes to the Capital Construction Guideline Rules as item eight on the agenda;
• Kathy Gebhardt moved to approved the amended agenda;
• Matt Throop 2nd the motion;
• Motion to approve the amended agenda carried unanimously.
V.
Approve Previous Minutes from the May 19th & 20th, 2015 CCAB Meeting
The CCAB Chair called for a motion to approve the minutes:
• So moved by Denise Pearson;
• Cyndi Wright 2nd the motion;
• Denise Pearson proposed changes to correct the names of two school presenters listed in the minutes;
• Motion to approve the minutes as amended carried unanimously.
VI.
Board Report
Lyndon Burnett announced that he had attended the Greeley/Evans Prairie Heights Middle School ribbon cutting. He
remarked on the beauty of the facility, and shared with the CCAB an exchange he had with one of the middle school’s
teachers while touring the school: the teacher, who wished to express her gratitude for the BEST grant funding, had
related that over the past seven years of teaching at the school, an issue that had weighed on her and her fellow
faculty members had been the lack of appropriate lighting in classrooms; she explained that the previous facility had
not had any windows, and lighting had been a continuous struggle. The new facility, complete with windows in every
classroom, would now meet those needs and provide students and teachers with an exceptional learning environment.
Scott Newell also added that State Representative Dave Young had attended the ribbon cutting, as did a representative
from the office of U.S. Senator Michael Bennett.
VII.
Director’s Report
Scott Newell notified the CCAB of five upcoming ribbon cuttings: Moffat 2 Pre-Kindergarten-12 school on the 7th of
August, Montezuma Cortez High School on the 14th, Creede Consolidated on the 15th, South Conejos on the 21st, and
Aspen Community Charter School on the 18th of September.
Mr. Newell informed the CCAB that he would be traveling to New Mexico with Dustin Guerin to meet with the state’s
Public School Facilities Authority, the entity which handles the state’s school facility needs including facility
assessments, in preparation of the RFP issuance.
He explained the need to delay the August 26th CCAB meeting until September 2nd in order to hold a public hearing on
the proposed rule changes to the Capital Construction Guidelines. He discussed the timeline for the hearing and the
statutory timeline for submitting the changes.
Mr. Newell apprised the CCAB of potential issues related to escalation costs on the Fort Morgan project. He explained
the Division’s present position was to deny the use of grant reserves because the project already included an
additional $2.2 million in the budget specifically to cover those types of costs. He further explained the project budget
was currently built upon having all those reserve dollars awarded and further discussions would be taking place with
the school district’s project team to address escalation or keep it within the original budget. Mr. Newell explained that
the project may elect to bring the request for grant reserve funds to the CCAB in the near future.
CCAB Member Tim Reed arrived to the meeting at 1:30 p.m.
Mr. Newell discussed the potential purchase of tablets for future CCAB meetings to save on the cost of the annual
project summary books. The CCAB discussed with Mr. Newell the merits of the tablets versus the use of printed books.
They asked which tablet the Division had in mind, and discussed the other options available on the market; the
discussion included consideration of cost benefits and best use of funds. The CCAB agreed the purchase of tablets
could have long-term cost savings.
VIII.
Action Item: Approve the Proposed Rules Changes to the Capital Construction Guidelines Rules
The CCAB Chair introduced the proposed rules and called for a motion to approve the changes:
• So moved by David Tadlock;
• Ken Haptonstall 2nd the motion;
• Scott Newell discussed the changes to the Capital Construction Guidelines, noting the additions to incorporated
by reference, and outlined the timeline for approving the changes and holding the public hearing;
• The CCAB discussed the changes to the incorporated by reference, and verified that it is a requirement to include
the edition years for documents and standards incorporated in the rules;
• Motion to approve the proposed rule changes was carried unanimously.
IX.
Discussion Items
a) Statewide Facility Assessment Update
Scott Newell reviewed the timeline for the issuance of the RFP, which he said is still on track to be issued in
September with notice to proceed in December. He described for the CCAB the criteria questions, outside of
Uniformat, which the assessors will use to supplement Uniformat when assessing school facility conditions. He
gave a brief overview of the subcommittee meeting on July 9th, in which the criteria questions were reviewed and
revised as deemed necessary; the final proposed versions of which were included in today’s meeting packet for
the CCAB to review. CCAB member Tim Reed, who also attended the subcommittee meeting, added that a good
variety of industry professionals had been present; he briefly recounted the dialogue and the live updates to the
questions as the discussion had taken place. Mr. Newell continued to apprise the CCAB of the preparatory work
the Division was undertaking, including their research on current software and facility management platforms. In
addition to this, he said, another component of the project would be to add the ability to use data points derived
from the supplemental criteria questions to assign a cost-association to the data in order to better identify costs
and needs for school facilities. He also added that one of the goals of the new system would allow for the ability to
update and adjust the assessment in the program as needed. The CCAB discussed the questions which had been
deleted from the assessment, asking why certain questions had been removed; CCAB member Tim Reed stated
that it was primarily a consolidation of questions which appeared on separate line items, rather than strict
deletion. In addition to this, Scott Newell said that some questions were deleted after it was ascertained the data
gathered did not provide any meaningful information, noting that the subcommittee had asked themselves “are
we using the information collected by this question, and if we’re not, is anyone going to?” while reviewing the
questionnaire; for example, regarding a deleted question which asked if weeds were under control, Mr. Newell
explained that it was unlikely anyone would ever call and ask for a report on the number of schools which had
weeds. Thus in the interest of ensuring the most useful data is obtained in the assessment, questions such as this
were deleted, consolidated, or revised. Mr. Newell continued with his description of the assessment updates: he
explained that the Division had gone through and assigned the statutory requirement to each criteria question,
identifying the deficiency as 1) health and safety issues, 2) overcrowding, 3) technology, or 4) other. Additionally,
the structure of questions had been updated to resolve any conflicting information resulting from questions which
were too general: previously the assessment had asked about the condition of a facility’s roof overall, for example,
which left no room for the assessment to identify any deficiencies which may have been present in a particular
roof section. The updated assessment would resolve these issues by allowing for individual roof section
assessments.
b) FY15-16 BEST Grant Applicant Survey Results
Public attendee Kirk Banghart with Moffat 2 school district, upon exiting the meeting, quickly announced and extended an
invitation to the CCAB to attend Moffat 2’s ribbon cutting on the 7th of August.
Scott Newell gave a brief overview of the respondent counts to the BEST Grant Applicant Survey, which was sent
out to all applicants who participated in the 2015-16 grant cycle, and the results. He noted multiple responses
which focused on the need to adjust the application format for a more user-friendly process and which noted that
the amount of information being asked was burdensome for smaller projects. The CCAB discussed the software
program used for the application process and avenues for improving it. The CCAB also discussed survey responses
regarding transparency and how best to create a more transparent environment during the grading and voting of
projects at the annual meetings; one potential method was to hold open discussion amongst board members
immediately following individual applicant presentations. The CCAB remarked on the quality of applications and
the impact it has on their ability to fully understand projects and make need-based decisions. Scott Newell said
that the Division would work on including questions in the application which would help provide the CCAB with
better information and provide a better understanding of applicants’ particular situations with regard to the match
and financing. The CCAB discussed different procedural changes to the process, and discussed lifting the limit of
two presenters per project and increasing the time limit for presentations from 2 minutes to 3 minutes.
c) Review School District and BOCES Matching Criteria and Weighting
Scott Newell explained that the CCAB had asked to review the formula used to assign school district matches on
grant projects and to re-evaluate the weights assigned to each criteria before for the match percentage for each
school is recalculated in November. The CCAB would discuss the weights and the Division would run numbers with
any proposed adjustments. Mr. Newell reminded the CCAB the subcommittee had weighted unreserved general
fund balance and remaining bond capacity at 25% each because at the time the subcommittee believed it was
reflective of actual financial capacity, while the other criteria points reflected demography. In light of the move
from financed projects to cash only grants, the conversation has changed: many grant requests are smaller in
scope and budget, and may not merit going to the voters for bonds. Thus, in order to reflect the current nature of
the grant’s funding, the CCAB would adjust weights to provide match calculations which better represent school
needs. The CCAB noted that PPAV (per pupil assessed valuation) and remaining bond capacity are not always
representative of the school’s actual funding capacity because these valuations are often artificially inflated due to
business industry in the district; for example, a district in which oil and natural gas operations reside but in which
the residential population is small and lower-income, the value of the oil and gas industry drives up the calculated
property value, making it appear that a district has a much higher bond capacity than its taxpayers can actually
afford. As such, the CCAB asked to lower these weights while increasing demographic criteria such as Free and
Reduced lunch. Mr. Newell asked the CCAB to outline several variations of weight adjustments for the Division to
model so the CCAB could see how the adjustments would affect match percentages. In addition to the discussion,
the CCAB asked how the weights affected Charter schools; Mr. Newell explained the calculations were used as a
starting point for charter match percentage, in addition to 12 other statutory criteria which adjusted the starting
point up or down. Continuing the discussion on weights, the CCAB proposed several adjustments for the Division
to model. The CCAB asked if it was possible to determine assessed valuation based on residential factors alone and
exclude business industry from the calculation. Mr. Newell said that information is determined by the county
assessor, but that he could include a question in the waiver application to support applicants who felt their match
was artificially increased due to their district’s business industry. The CCAB agreed on several iterations of match
adjustments for the Division to model, and elected to resume the conversation at the next CCAB meeting.
d) CCAB Legislative Platform
CCAB Chair began the discussion on the legislative platform, acknowledging that he has not gotten much traction
on raising the COP cap in the various discussions he has held with legislative members and the Governor’s office.
The CCAB noted that DPS had been able to pull operating monies out of the state trust funds, and that using this
example may aid in pressing for the COP cap increase. Because CDE is the top funded agency in the state and
routinely has large budget requests for other programs, the CCAB discussed the implication this has on BEST’s
ability to ask for additional funds, competing with the agency’s. The CCAB Chair said the main topic should center
on the ability of the BEST grant to be self-sustaining and remind the legislature that the program does not pose
any risk to the state’s general fund. The CCAB also discussed the statewide facility assessment program, saying
that because the Division is an expanding, well-run organization more autonomy would aid the CCAB in acquiring
additional funding for schools. Mr. Newell said that the CCAB should consider reaching out to the State Treasurer’s
office in order to investigate avenues to restructure COPs and better leverage the grant’s funding. The CCAB closed
the discussion, requesting a subcommittee meeting be held on the 2nd of September to further discuss the
legislative agenda.
X.
Future Meetings
• September 2nd, 2015 – 1:00 p.m. Location: 201 E. Colfax Avenue, Room 101, Denver, CO 80203
• September 23rd, 2015 – 1:00 p.m. Location: 201 E. Colfax Avenue, Room 101, Denver, CO 80203
• October 28th, 2015 – 1:00 p.m. Location: 201 E. Colfax Avenue, Room 101, Denver, CO 80203
XI.
Public Comment
The CCAB Chair asked if anyone was signed up for public comment, or if anyone from the public would like to speak;
there were none.
XII.
Adjournment
The CCAB Chair called for a motion to adjourn:
• So moved by Kathy Gebhardt;
• Cyndi Wright 2nd the motion;
• Motion to adjourn carried unanimously;
• Meeting adjourned 3:22 p.m.