All right, Madam Clerk, we have got quorum.

We're going to call this meeting to order.

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And Madam Chair, all members of the committee are in attendance today, and you do have a quorum.

All right, Madam Clerk, thank you so much.

Um, we're gonna move right on into public comment period, and then our first presentation.

Public comment is now open.

Is there anyone present who wishes to address this committee regarding items not on today's agenda?

Madam Chair, seeing none and no one signed up to speak virtually before the 10 a.m.

Batman, the public comment period, it's now closed and back to the committee.

All right, committee members, we're gonna roll through the we're gonna do what's called a rocket docket today.

If anybody of you have ever um been in a cross for the General Assembly, because it is snowing, I'm gonna try to get us on out of here in under an hour.

It's blizzarding now.

Um we've got our first update from um from RPS, and I see our wonderful new COO in the house.

Hello, welcome.

Um, to talk about the maintenance part of the facilities and maintenance planning report.

Good afternoon.

Uh, my name is Patrick Harrell.

Uh, I'm the chief operating officer for Richmond Public Schools, and I was asked to speak a little bit about our facilities planning.

Um, I'm not sure.

Is this does this advance the slide?

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Um, okay, so three things that we were asked to discuss today.

We wanted to talk about the facilities condition assessment overview, the capital improvement project overview that we have, and an overview of our maintenance work and the progress that we've been making there.

So to begin, I want to start with the facilities condition assessment.

As you all know, uh, about a year and a half ago, we considered uh completed a comprehensive assessment of our current facilities.

For every one of those facilities, we had an outside firm go through, look at the useful life, the current lifespan, and estimate what the large projects were that we would need to be completed.

Um, when that was completed in 2024, they identified uh about seven million dollars in urgent capital needs for that year, and then they projected likely deferred maintenance costs into the future.

For this year, they identified over thirty-six million dollars.

The following year it was almost 40 million dollars.

And so you can see all of the ways that the deferred maintenance that we have experienced has been catching up to us.

The other thing that I wanted to point out from this slide is that there is, even though the funding for our capital projects comes from a different ultimate source than our operating budget, the two are very connected.

Because for every time we do not get money to do a large capital project, imagine, for example, on a wet day like today, if we have not been able to update a roof from capital money, today that leads to more leaks in that roof, which comes from operational dollars.

So even though they are two distinct pools of money, I think one way that we think a lot about it is every time we can't do a large capital project, we know that that is going to increase the pressure on our operational dollars for the ongoing maintenance that we have overall.

Is your um is your CIP threshold $150,000 or more?

Or what's the CIP?

What's the dollar amount that differentiates CIP versus operating?

You mean when we can account for something as a capital improvement project versus to my knowledge, we haven't identified a strict line.

The way I've interpreted is because the capital dollars come from the city based on debt obligations, we should be using that toward long-term projects.

So a project that could last 10, 15 years or more rather than a repair, which doesn't guarantee that long-term lifespan.

But I've I've not seen at a specific articulation of a dollar threshold.

As it relates to capital improvement plan annual budgeting, we put forward, as you all know, a little over a $10 million request to the city.

But knowing that we were expecting to receive closer to $2.5 million on this slide, I have what our most highly prioritized items are based on a combination of assessments that is a combination of the highest and most urgent needs, the highest cost to our operational budget for the items if we do not replace them, as well as what we're seeing in terms of enrollment trends.

Although, frankly, because we don't have enormous money for new construction, we end up having to pretty aggressively triage the highest need and highest impact items.

The second slide gives additional, if we were to get more than two and a half million dollars, some of the additional projects that we would be interested in using additional money beyond the two and a half million dollars for.

Ultimately, of course, this is part of the budgeting process and is certainly not yet finalized, but want to do it at least share our initial thinking.

The last piece that I wanted to share with you was our 10-year roofing schedule, maintenance schedule.

I think one of the things to point out that you will see very quickly is this is an unrealistic roof replacement schedule.

I'll point you, for example, to Armstrong High School.

Replacing that roof alone is over three and a half million dollars.

And if we are to expect two and a half million dollars per year for the next several years, there is no year during which we would be able to replace the Armstrong roof.