It’s bright and early ( well early anyway) on Wednesday morning and I hasten to prepare something for you before heading out even earlier tomorrow morning for that tough stint in New Orleans. I’ll be back in town Sunday night ( I hope)...

NON AGENDA ITEMS:

1.0  EPC: BOCES wiring crew continues to complete work on motion sensors in the elementary wing, and I have contacted Paul Yeager about pulling the wire for our computer project. That’ll be an additional $20,000, but it allows us to have certified work that BOCES installers want to see, and to have it done after hours in the late spring, so that we’re all set for a July install on the new network.

Also on EPC I met with Ernie Rookey on Monday and he has all of the paperwork that we need to file with State Ed to make all of our aid flow properly on these two projects. We reviewed the expenditures and found that it looks like we’ll actually have enough money to pay for all of the work done, including the extra $21,000 it cost us for prevailing wage for the BOCES wirers ( Mr. Piccolo’s concern). We even got an extra nice surprise ( we think it’s a mistake) when the leasing company informed us we had $37,000 still coming to us. We’re going to request it and see if their records are wrong or not. Worst that can happen is they give it to us and then decide they want it back later (at which point we’ll keep the interest we earn on it and return their check). Best case, we do $37,000 more work and draw aid on it at @$27,000, and THEN return the money if we need to.

Bottom line is - Ernie has all the paperwork to bring the EPC to a successful conclusion and will complete it for our signature.

2.0  Capital Project: I meet with Alan Kosoff and the folks from RAITN this afternoon to make certain we are all on the same page for this portion of the project. RAITN should handle all of the electronics and therefore this is one of the aspects of the project that we should be able to do “ ahead of time”, even without SED approval of all plans and specs. The actual GC work in the room itself, carpet, paint, etc.. may have to wait, but the ability to offer and receive coursework should be up and running by September.

In other capital project news there is both good and bad. The good first? We received a low bid on our BAN of 3.11% from Fleet Bank. This is the lowest rate the gal in Bernie Donegan’s office had ever seen! That means that as of February 25, we are borrowing $1.2 million at only a 3.11% interest rate. Gloria will work with Roy McMaster to maximize our earnings, but we should be able to earn at least 4.5 to 5% on that money while we await Albany’s approvals and begin the bidding process on work. Making a percent to a percent and a half arbitrage is GREAT! It will actually give us more money to work with in the long run.

Bad news? We may need that money to do anything close to what we want to in the project overall. Two glitches so far. A new regulation says you have to plan for run off from any roof or asphalt you build. There is additional cost in so doing. Also the bad news includes the diagnosis from the landscape architect that the tennis courts are beyond repair and need to be replaced. Mike Midey and I shared a conference call with Marshall Goff ( the landscape guy) on Friday and came up with the solution that we reduce the square footage of the tennis courts to allow us to avoid building a drainage structure for the roof. We will end up with two regulation size tennis courts ( ours are small) instead of the four we’ve got, and we will get to keep the full size of the parking lot and not have a mound of drainage system in the gym yard. Item Two: there is asbestos in the material under the gym floor. We’re not sure yet what we have to do about that, but it is never good to have asbestos in flooring material because it adds to the cost of removal. Alan is checking out our options and we will know more soon.

Bottom line? Just like with a renovation project around your house, it always takes longer and costs more than you imagined when you decided to do it, and you never get exactly what you thought you would for your money. When plans are fully prepared and cost estimates are finalized, I’ll ask Alan to give us an update at a BOE meeting. Right now the goal is to get the plans to Albany ASAP, by March 1, so we can try to get a start on this thing in 1999.

3.0  CBO Planning is underway! Mike Renne and Larry Driscoll will have Donna House on board this spring as a consultant to make sure we attend to details. The three of them will meet with Kate Cooper of Waterloo and Gloria Mincer from us this coming Tuesday afternoon to get the ball rolling. The three superintendents will plan to meet with the implementation team every two weeks until we’re ready to turn the key. Larry will be coming here to meet with Gloria and Bonnie and me on March 3rd at 3 p.m. to answer their personnel type questions about becoming BOCES employees.

All of us met last week, and once the sparks flew between Randy and Jerry for a few minutes over the anal retentiveness of the Seneca Falls Board and the coverage of that in the local press, we were able to get down to business and try to approach making this work out in a positive way for everyone involved. I’m comfortable that we will succeed.

4.0  CBO/ Secondary Office implications: We don’t have any actual floor plans to show you yet, but I have asked Mike Midey and Terry Mays to draw some up which would move the secondary and guidance offices downstairs to the space being vacated by the business office. The attached copy of this week’s paycheck memo explains to everyone involved that we are looking at this as an option to create additional classroom space for the two new positions in the budget. The upshot is that we would move Mary Jennings and Tina to the old tax/current wellness room ( and move that to the new gym OT/PT space when the renovation addition is complete), and move Mike and Dave and Marcy downstairs to the combination transportation and business office area. We won’t progress much further with planning and rumor control until we show you what it would look like, but we need David and Mike and Terry to come to some conclusions about that first. Probably early March meeting? That way, if it’s a go, Terry can get Mike Barry started on the tax room/wellness room in April and we can make that move first. I think it makes great sense and allows us to re-utilize space efficiently.

All this FYI by way of short-circuiting Bev Steele’s inevitable phone call to me and maybe some of you about this as soon as Sandy gets her paycheck memo tomorrow.

5.0  Drug Survey results will be made public to all of Seneca County on Wednesday March 31st at the Waterloo Holiday Inn. Please mark your calendars and plan to attend at 7 pm. We will be inviting key Romulus citizenry, as will each school district, to try to create an air of community mindedness in addressing the problem. I will ask Mike to share the Romulus results with you at the March 23rd meeting in preparation for this and in order to draw some press coverage. He will also be updating SDM on our local results 3/11. They will be invited to be part of the 3/31 session as well as the local town boards, clergy and any others you may suggest representing our community.

6.0  Four County School Boards Legislative Breakfast is 2/27 at 8:30 at the Geneva Ramada. As many of us as can be there should be. So far it’s Norm, Cornelia and me. Numbers in attendance are meant to indicate to the legislators the importance of the issues for us. Excellent article in last night’s FLTimes on the front page about distrusting the governor’s numbers now that the legislature plans to use conference committees, because the governor can and will ( he did last year) then veto what the legislature approves by line item if he doesn’t like it or if the total amount exceeds his self-imposed limits. In other words, there is real danger that we might not get what he has proposed much less what the legislature may or may not add, and that we will not know the final number to use in time for the State wide vote date. These are issues worth raising to our representatives. Copy of that article is enclosed FYI.

7.0  Niceties: Always worth sharing. Please see email message from Liz Larzelere and letter from Sherry Burrows.

8.0  New Orleans: Holly, Mia and I leave the house at 6 a.m. tomorrow morning for the airport. Steve Uebbing and Lori Leenay meet us there and we spend the day in cramped little seats flying to the Mississippi delta. Our presentation is at 8 a.m. Sunday morning, and the Manaseri’s fly back at 11:00 to get Charlie to school the next day. Enclosed is a copy of the page from the program featuring our presentation. Not everyday you see the RCS superintendent involved in a national conference presentation. Feels good to me...hope it does to you, too.

9.0  Tardiness: I may be running late on Tuesday night as Charlie is competing in the Fay’s drug quiz and we’re trying to transport him so there’s enough room in the school car for all the kids without his wheelchair taking up space. Please forgive if I’m not right there at 7:30.

AGENDA ITEMS:

1.0  Routine is.

2.0  Calendar discussion. I enclose for you a draft of the calendar being proposed at BOCES for next year. We try to agree on central dates around major vacations, and then to work toward the limits of what our individual contracts provide for. We are no longer exclusive holders of a 186 day calendar, so it’s actually getting easier! Barb and Mike and I have reviewed this draft and we still need to get agreement from the RFA on a start date, but we think this makes sense. The only significant change for Romulus from the rest of the region would be the addition of a parent-teacher conference day on November 10 as we have our noon to 8 pm arrangement and usually try to do that right at the end of the first quarter. We didn’t think it was wise to do that on a Friday night, and we didn’t think it was wise to mess with Veteran’s Day itself from a community relations standpoint. After you express anything you wish about this proposal, I’ll go the RFA on the start date, and come back to you after the next CSO meeting for actual approval ( just in case the region shifts for some reason to a different approach - the CSO’s usually take two to three months playing with this before they give up trying to agree).

3.0  CONRAIL lawsuit settlement is in and we owe them $9,412.85. I’d like approval to pay the bill ( not a lot of choice here), even though our tax certiorari money is tied up until April in a CD. We’ll overdraw an account line temporarily and transfer money after the CD comes due.

4.0  Draft One Budget Revisions. This should be the major focus of the meeting. I will plan to bring the laptop and Infocus machine to the meeting to help you play with numbers live, rather than inundate you with different versions on paper. You have your list of potential areas of reduction, and I’m including herewith a justification for the truck and white building replacement via Terry Mays and a brief synopsis of the school car situation from Tina. My read is to start playing with the special ed numbers first and some revenue fudging, and then hold tight on staffing until next time. A $50,000 drop in special ed still leaves us budgeting $80,000 more than we’re currently spending at BOCES this year. That with a nudge of $30,000 on revenue based on interfund transfer for debt and receipt of $10,000 of Title III money would bring us to a 4.81% expenditure increase and a 3.01% anticipated tax levy increase based on the governor’s numbers. That’s still too high a local expenditure increase if the governor gets his way on limiting us to 120% of the cost of living, and would require a 2/3 vote. But it IS in the neighborhood of where you wanted to be this year in terms of tax levy, and we still have another draft to go...

Let’s try to have a live discussion of suggestions you want us to take in the way of reducing expenditures and I’ll translate that into a second draft proposal for you for next time. We may also want to look at that line item budget more closely for suggestions.

5.0   SDM Update: Enclosed are copies of the minutes of the most recent meeting. Note that parental involvement in all aspects of our school is something that group would like to address. PTA, Parent Connection, Parenting Classes, Middle Level and REAP Project involvement are all items they would like to place on the table for discussion. Could get interesting....

6.0  Barb and Mike will update you on their areas, and we hope to be able to make an appointment of a certified speech teacher as a long term sub for Amy Perry’s maternity leave, if we have an affirmation of interest on the part of a young man we interviewed earlier this week in time for Tuesday night. If not, we’ll hold that item.

There - that should get us through ‘til March and the Lobbying season. See you Tuesday night!

CM/CM

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2/17/99   CONFIDENTIAL   1

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