Emporia school board member Angie Schreiber encapsulated an energy plan that had been a topic at seven previous board meetings before members voted unanimously to proceed with the project already under contract with Custom Energy Solutions of Overland Park.
A portion of the plan involving artificial turf for a combination football and soccer field and a track around it had come under scrutiny when the president of an artificial turf company said his company could save the district from $200,000 to $400,000 after the district already had accepted bids for the entire energy project. The bids were gathered independently by Custom Energy Solutions, under a special exemption granted by the state legislature for such projects.
"I really felt like as a board member I wanted to say something to my fellow board members and also to anyone here and to the public tonight," Schreiber said before beginning a PowerPoint presentation dealing with the energy-savings plan as a whole. "... I do want to stress that shis is my viewpoint."
The presentation illustrated different types of funds within the district's budget, such as general fund, Title I, special education, bond and interest, and capital outlay funds.
"And it looks sometimes like we have all of this money and, oh, if you just don't do this project, you can do this. But unfortunately we can't move capital outlay into Title I and we can't move capital outlay into general fund," she said, mentioning several account "buckets" that can be spent only for its designated purpose. "All of those buckets have to stand alone and they have to do specific things."
While the money in capital outlay cannot be spent directly on something else, like salaries and school supplies, the savings from the energy improvements should free up funds that could be used for other expenditures.
Schreiber said the board chose Custom Energy to conduct the audit, gather bids, and oversee the project primarily because the company did not sell specific brands.
"We felt like we were getting a company that was going to go out and look at everything," Schreiber said. "And the other th ing we were looking at was guaranteed savings."
Custom Energy has guaranteed it will save the district $7 million over a 20-year period, "which equals about $250,000 per year, and that is a guarantee," she said.
All of the schools will have low-flow plumbing, light improvements, and sensor controls over lighting and climate control equipment. All schools also will gt new light fixtures and lights.
"So, there are going to be upgrades in every building," she said.
Villlage, William Allen White, Walnut, Mary Herbert and Maynard will have drop ceilings and retrofit lighting installed; windows at Lowther North and South Intermediate Schools will be replaced.
Boilers and new HVAC equipment are in the plan for Lowther North and South and Emporia High School, as well as roofing, which is scheduled to begin next summer at Walnut School.
"I've had a lot of people say you're spending a lot of money just for a practice field. ... Well, it's a classroom also," she said.
Physical education and band classes use the field, as do other groups at the high school. EHS junior varsity and freshman teams and Emporia Middle School athletes use the field for their games, as do community recreation teams and junior varsity and varsity soccer.
"And finally we get to the $42,000 a year savings because we're not going to water grass, we're not going to mow grass, and we don't have to prepare it for field use every year," Schreiber said. "I'm saying here tonight that we shouldn't change course, because I believe that ... our overall planning is good. ... And we have an obligation to the contract we signed with Custom Energy."
Schreiber then mentioned ATG, the Andover company that said it could do the project for considerably less money.
She listed several school districts that were not satisfied in their dealings with ATG, beginning with the Andover district.
"They went to court over contract bidding with ATG," Schreiber said. "We got an unsolicited e-mail from Iola that they had to fire ATG. And if you want to know about bidding wars, you can find out what Wichita went through with ATG."
"Maybe we will always have open, competitive bidding or whatever, but this time, today, we should stay where we are and go forward with the energy projects as they are," she said.
Board president Mike Crouch offered time to anyone from the audience who wanted to speak about the project. No one came forward, and the matter opened for board discussion.
Member Mike Helbert said that he believed it was important to be straightforward.
"We are continually asking the public to believe there are not going to be any maintenance (costs)," Helbert said. "We already know we're going to have to replace the field in 12 years for $350,000. ... That needs to be said."
He added that the public has been telling board members the past few weeks that they are not necessarily disputing the energy project itself, but the absence of the usual open bidding process.
"I'm not in any way attempting to impugn the integrity of Custom Energy. I think they've done a fine job," Helbert said. "I do think the way they performed their duties was proper. ... But I think for us to toss out things and criticize anybody who is upset with the way the whole thing came down, I think is wrong from our perspective and I think the voting public, right or wrong, believes that the best way to safeguard public funds is through the competitive bidding process. .. And I will be the first one to admit this is not the way we handled it."
He said that Custom Energy had entered the contract with the district in good faith.
"And I believe they performed in good faith, and consequently I think we have an obligation to continue on with that contract."
Koby Kampschroeder, representing Custom Energy, said it was important to member that his company has responsibilities to produce the guaranteed savings, complete without any change orders. The bidding, taken through Custom Energy, was done in the manner set down by the Kansas legislature, and the plans were scrutinized by the energy division of the Kansas Corporation Commission.
"We did have a bidding process," Kampschroeder said.
Four qualified companies looked at the bid package, came to Emporia to evaluate the project, worked on technical plans and, ultimately, three of them submitted bids. All were within $50,000 of each other, Kampschroeder said.
Crouch said he believed the state set up the private bidding so energy savings companies could back their guarantees.
"If they're going to guarantee those savings, they have to know that they're working with companies that can actually provide those savings so they don't have to pay a check back to us," Crouch said.
Board member Brent Windsor said that the board did its own reference checks of the companies, ATG, which asked to bid using its Ram Turf product after the contrats were awarded, and McConnell, the company awarded the bid to install FieldTurf. He said that of nine responses, seven mentioned problem areas.
"And I believe two to three were never resolved and ended up very unsatisfied with the work that was done," Windsor said.
If the local project bidding had been advertised in the traditional way, the board might have accepted the lowest bidder, he said.
"I think I'd much rather have a good quality contractor, somebody we can stand behind," Windsor said. "I just feel like the process we went through, in my opinion, was the correct way to handle it."
Helbert said that ATG is irrelevant on the project.
"I don't know how the rest of you feel," he said. "They're not here. We've been played. I think not only we've been played, the public's been played."
Board member Glen Strickland said he did not believe that the news media or the board had done a good job in educating the public about the issues.
Crouch asked if there was a motion regarding the project.
"If there is no motion, that means we just continue with the project as planned," Crouch said, pausing for a response. "Seeing no motion, then we will move on."
The board met for 10 minutes in executive session to discuss a personnel matter and took action on its return, voting unanimously to accept an unspecified report from a hearing officer and uphold the suspension recommended by the hearing officer.
The board met again in executive session to discuss negotiations and took no action.
On other matters, the board:
-- approved a proclamation declaring Nov. 15 through 21 as American Education Week.
-- adopted a proclamation declaring Nov. 15 through 21 as American Education Week.
-- chose Glen Strickland as a delegate to represent the district at the Kansas Association of School Boards Delegate Assembly on Dec. 5.
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Posted by FarmRaised (anonymous) on November 12, 2009 at 8:38 a.m. (Suggest removal)
"A portion of the plan involving artificial turf for a combination football and soccer field and a track around it had come under scrutiny when the president of an artificial turf company said his company could save the district from $200,000 to $400,000 after the district already had accepted bids for the entire energy project."
I believe it came under scrutiny before that, it became a huge issue and major cause of concern for tax payers as soon as we found out about it. The money that could have been saved using a different company was just the icing on the cake.
Posted by giggles (anonymous) on November 12, 2009 at 11:02 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Do Capital Outlay monies stipulate they must be spent, or can we save them or choose not to spend them until it is deemed necessary? If we can save them, then I think that is a HUGE point to be made. Don't spend money you don't need to and don't actually have.
Posted by schooler (anonymous) on November 12, 2009 at 12:24 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Captial outlay monies can be carried over from year to year. They don't need to be spent by the end of each fiscal year. We have teachers who don't have classrooms, buildings in need of repair, etc. This is a lot of money to spend, even if a couple hundred students are going to use it. I truly wish we would have opened back up the bidding process or set priorities a little different. In a perfect world, artificial turf would be nice, but I think we have other items that could be fixed or built first. I truly hope this doesn't come back to bite us later, but I've learned to follow my gut and my gut feeling isn't good!
Posted by giggles (anonymous) on November 12, 2009 at 12:25 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Thank you schooler for the info. I am burning about the fact that it will have to be replaced in 12 years but with take more than twice that to pay for.
Posted by reddog (anonymous) on November 12, 2009 at 12:42 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Will Rogers said, "government investigations have always contributed more to our amusement than they have to our knowledge."
Posted by reddog (anonymous) on November 12, 2009 at 12:58 p.m. (Suggest removal)
We should support our National, State, and Local governments, but not in the same style that they are used to. Peter Drucker said, "If a government commission had worked on the horse, you would have had the first horse that could operate its knee in both directions. The only trouble is it couldn't stand up."
Posted by methusla (anonymous) on November 12, 2009 at 1:45 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Seems to me that having to replace an artificial turf field every 12 years is not the same promise of a field that would last 20 or more years. Does that mean that every 12 years it will cost another $1.6 million dollars and every 12 years ongoing, people that figures to be an average cost of $133,333.3333 per year, just to satisfy the whims of a certain few, who want it ?
Does it actually cost $ 133, 333.333 per year to maintain a grass field ?
But it would seem that this is the typical " double talk ", " bait and switch " and false promises of most politicians, no matter what board, commission or post they are elected to .
What will these " taxpayer rapists " want next year, the next year, the next year and the next year ! Mark my words, once this spending for what is unneeded and unnecessary starts and it has started, it will get more difficult to reign in or stop the longer it goes on !
Posted by methusla (anonymous) on November 12, 2009 at 3:04 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Has all of the school board members looked at, studied and comprenended the possible health hazards of artificial ?
FYI, http://www.omaha.com/article/20091105/NE...
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