Anchorage School Board: 10/6/2026: School Board Work Session

To your feedback today and subsequent meetings. We're not making decisions tonight. We would ask for that approval later in November. So Mr. Anderson and his team will walk us through process today.

Okay, good evening. Um, so I'm joined here tonight. To my right, your left, are, uh, the Maintenance Director Carrie Shivers, Senior Director of Maintenance and Ops Rob Holland. To my left, your right, I've got Tom Finisef, the Senior Director of Capital Plans. And Larry Morris.

So today we'll be going through kind of an overview of the components of the CIP timelines, how we prioritize and select projects for bonds. And 2 weeks from now, we will go through a deeper dive on actual projects, a one-to-end list that would exceed, you know, well past probably what we would request for a bond, to give the board an idea of where the priorities in the district arise. So let me pull this up and we will get going.

And okay, so the Capital Improvement Plan, I believe all the board members have seen it. It is a 6-year document. We're required by the state to have one, but it's a living document. It really is. There's a lot of reasons why something we thought we would do 4 or 5 or 6 years from now, other emergent things happen, roofs caved in, whatever it could be that could happen, earthquakes.

There's always things that make the 6-year plan a guideline on the direction that we're headed. And we'll talk through a few things today to give you an idea of what emergent projects are, have popped up in the last year or so since the last CIP was boarded approved by the board.

So I'd like to walk you through what is the CIP, what are the components of it, and how our annual cycle works, and what the, the building lifecycle works. So you can get a better understanding of what we actually do all year round in this process. So the, the 6-year Capital Improvement Plan itself— if you don't have a hard copy of these, I, I can give you one. I've got plenty of extras. It's a very handy tool to have when you're looking at our district.

So it's broken down into what's— what our school facilities are made up of, where they are, when they were built, how big they are, and then it describes what our needs are in terms of capital improvements. And then what we're looking at today and over the next couple of months will be capital improvement recommendations, where we go from there. And then the last two sections of the capital improvement plan include the data that we derive these recommendations from.

So this is the, the annual cycle. So a lot of people just see us during the summer and we do construction, but this process is not only all year round. But to take a project from its conception to its completion is about a 3 to 4 year cycle. So at any given time, we're developing our CIP, we're developing next year's bond, and then we're prioritizing design and construction.

And then the last slide I want to talk about before I hand it off to Larry is the building lifecycle. We have various stages that buildings go through, and we break those into different year groups, 1 to 15 years and 17 to 30 years, and those represent the different components and where they age out. And at the bottom, that gold strip there shows where each one of our schools or type of school is in those stages of life. So if you look at that one, you've got elementary schools. We have some that are relatively new, but many that have components that are at Stage 3, 4, and 5.

And this is also laid out in deed requirements through the State of Alaska. So it's, it's not necessarily something we come up with ourselves, but something we file because of state statute. Now, the database that we use for this includes the things that Capital Plans works on and major improvements, and also gets input from maintenance for all the projects they have, like boiler replacements and things like that. So it's— it is a— it is a pretty good look at all of the different types of systems. If you want much more detail, let us know what you'd like.

We could set up a one-on-one and go through to show you how much more information we have. But it is— this is a good— this is a good way to look at different things. And we'll talk about why sometimes something in Stage 3, you would still want to do it because you're in Stage 4 or something else and you just roll those projects together into a bigger project.

So I'd like to turn it over to Larry. He's my planning and design supervisor who keeps his eyes on the future and, and looking out for what our future schools look like.

Thank you. On here is what we call a Facility Condition Index. What it is is the requirements, deferred requirements, deferred maintenance. There's a lot of different terms, but the idea is these are the costs that have to be done as a ratio of its replacement value. Obviously, if you're got everything that needs to be done is the same cost as replacing it, then you start looking at replacing.

However, most of them are down in the 10% or so area. But there is a couple of things I wanted to go over. What is in a— what a Facility Condition Index really is versus what it is not. First off on it, it is a way of taking a look at individual components of the building. We talk about HVAC, we talk about roofs, we talk about that, but it actually— the individual little component could be a boiler, could actually be a roof section.

It could be lighting or a light area. But this is a good way of knowing what type of condition you're in, uh, but it's based on age. A boiler is considered to have a 30-year life. So once that boiler gets to 30 years, it becomes a point of replacing. And if it's not replaced, then it becomes what's known as a deferred requirement, deferred maintenance.

And then another part of it is that under our FCI program, we actually can keep a running total for each building or for the district at large. All the way down through its— down to its individual components to see if they're past their lifespan, getting close to their lifespan, and what the total replacement value of those things are.

And what it does also do, it keeps track of it from its original cost. And its original component. So what I have heard before and been said here, if the building has single-pane windows in it, then the FCI only looks at replacing it with another single-pane window. It does not make the upgrades for it, and it does not include the cost for making those upgrades. And what it is not and does not do— does not make adjustments for code changes.

Codes change every 3 years approximately, and every time we have a large earthquake in Alaska, California, Japan, some codes get changed a little more aggressively. After that, we get lessons learned of what works and what doesn't work. And so those get changed. But this is based on what the building was originally, how it was designed, and does not take into account any of those changes. Also, it does not make upgrades to components.

So again, like the single-pane window. But if you've got old cast iron boilers, it will only assume you're going to go back in with another cast iron boiler instead of a new high efficiency. And therefore, if you have a problem or you're doing a roof and you have very minimal insulation, to some extent very minimal, It does not take it up to the new codes of where you need to have an R-35 roof.

Also, it does not include things it doesn't have, like any changes in technology, the new things that we would like to have in it. It does not do that, and it doesn't capture those requirements or needs or desires to have.

So another one that comes into here is that if we're going to replace a roof, roof generally, some of our older roofs have a lifespan that they should be 20 years. Newer ones that we're putting in should have 30 years. They have an actual warranty for 30 years, which if we got 90-something facilities means we should be replacing a roof every 3 roofs every year, but we haven't been. But what it doesn't do is if it says a roof is done or at the end of its life, it does not necessarily say that the insulation is to the end of its life. And it doesn't say that any structural issues that may— that we may wish to do upgrades that are part of the roof structure.

It doesn't bring those in. And therefore, if we're going to pull the roof off, that's the time when you put more insulation in or you do the upgrades to the roof structure that adds more efficiency, also gives better lifespan for the building. And it's just a lot more— less expensive to do it then than to try and do it with at another time. And another one is like ceilings. We have ceilings similar to this, and if we're replacing HVAC distribution or lighting, when we have these ceilings taken apart, it also— code would require us to do upgrades on them to bring them up to current codes.

But at the same time, if we're got HVAC distribution that we're replacing and we've got these ceilings open, we may have other components or systems that are getting 3, 4, 5, 6 years away from them being needing to be upgraded. It does not account for that. So there are— it's a good place to start, but that's just it. It's just a starting point for making evaluations of facilities. And if we go to the next page, this is based a lot on DEED and actually industry standards for various types of component of systems that we have.

Now, our system that we have and are moving towards another one, is that we can actually break these down even further where we have like HVAC component or equipment. Under that could be heat generating, which would be like boilers, could be fans for ventilation. So all of these are even further able to be broken down, including down to its actual component level, it will actually tell us what boilers are— if we have different ages of boilers or types, it'll tell us which ones are at the end of their life, past the end of their life, or actually where they're at. And if you kind of do the math— and I won't do the math because I already did it— is that if you take all the HVAC and the roof that becomes almost 42% of the total systems for the building. So after that, it gets into smaller systems, but it doesn't mean they're less important.

And now I'll turn it over to Carrie to take a look at some other things that we look at.

Yes, thank you guys. Um, so what you have in front of you is a picture of Wendler Middle School, and this is one way that Maintenance works alongside our capital planning department to kind of help inform what it really looks like on the ground with our assets. So it's taking the items off of a spreadsheet and actually informing what are we seeing when it comes to this roof system over here at Windler Middle School. And even though this may not rank as high as some other roofs on their list or their spreadsheet, what you can see here is a visual depiction of all of the leaks over the last couple of years that we have had in our work order system. So this visual representation allows us to inform our capital planning team that let's look a little bit closer at Windler Middle School and prioritizing it despite what the facility condition index or something on a spreadsheet says, because obviously that roof is crying out for attention.

And the fact of the matter is this particular roof is so far gone it won't even hold a shingle anymore. So it really does need to be elevated and is not something that maybe would have been on their radar a few years ago. Hence why this 6-year plan is, is just a plan. So we're grateful for the opportunity to collaborate that way. And if you want to put it in perspective, I pulled Eagle River High School as well.

They have 4 leaks that are noted on the roof maintenance plan. So it is, it is pretty apparent when you pull all of them and start looking at them side by side. You have the maintenance records of everything that Cary's folks are doing on the roofs, but then you start looking at all of those things because, because you could tell that Wendler, it won't hold a nail now, so you're not going to put a new shingle when it starts leaking. So what's underneath that, that, that also is really close to being aged out, as Larry talked about. And so it's, it's not as simple as pushing a return button on a computer and it is the perfect number.

One to end on everything you should do for projects. It's really balancing, you know, as Larry talked about, you could have a 1950s building and it's still within code, even though it's not today's code. It's still within code until you open the ceiling and until you open the wall or the roof, and then you have to bring everything up to code that's in that building. And I know the board gets A lot of emails from people from ADA and the number of parking spaces that need to be in a building through these other things where someone says that's not current with today's code. But the reality is it is current with the time that that particular portion of the building was either renovated or built or something else.

It's just once you start making changes and improvements, now you have to bring everything up to modern-day code. And that, that's something that, that it took me a bit to really appreciate how that changes the dynamic of why our projects look like they're going to start small and become much bigger.

Okay, this is under the heading of emergent needs. If you take a look on the left-hand side, this is a letter/flyer that we received from the muni just approximately 2 years ago, a little over that, during the infamous Snowmageddon, in which they actually had roofs throughout the city that actually, due to weight of snow, they were collapsing. None of ours at the school district had any collapses, but due to this, it became apparent that we needed to try and identify and see if we have these type of roofs that are mentioned, the top-hung parallel chord, uh, with, uh, gang nail plates on them. So We hired a structural engineer to first review through our drawings and as-builts to see if we had them, because these were ones that were done just prior to 1990 and when these came about. So we had them first go through our buildings, one, to see if we had major renovations or they were built during this time, or additions.

And then after they made the list of the ones to take a look at, then they actually went out there and both maintenance and capital planning worked with the engineers to make sure they were able to get above ceilings to take a look at these and then come up with what ones— roof systems actually have these same problems. That are mentioned in this flyer. And what we ended up with is that after it all came down, we had 3 facilities with these same issues. Uh, one was Chinook Elementary School for their '82 addition, which over this last summer we actually took that '82 addition and have it demolished. Um, Tudor Elementary School has 4 rooms on one section of one of their additions.

It is not a danger. We just need to make sure we keep the snow loads when we get heavy snow, keep them shoveled off. But, and then the last one is the library at Wendler Middle School and that sloped roof there. And again, uh, the recommendation from the engineer was to just keep the snow off down to under 20 pounds per square foot. And so that will make sure it's still safe until we in fact have a plan to upgrade or whatever we're going to do to bring it up to structural stability so that we don't have this problem and we don't have to main— keep putting— sending money to keep someone shoveling the roofs off.

So those are the ones that we got, and Carrie has some other ones that are emergent that have come up here recently. Yes, thank you, Larry. So, um, like I said, we really enjoy the opportunity to collaborate with our capital planning department and look at what they see on their 6-year CIP and bring forth more information from the field. And, and try to find a way where we can benefit mutually between existing projects or things that they already have planned. We participate in their plan reviews.

We assist as subject matter experts in commissioning and throughout the project as well. So here are some of the projects that have come up in the last year that we'd like to prioritize either through our major maintenance funds or in collaboration with capital planning. You can see there's a little bit of overlap, such as Windler Middle School where I I told you about all the roof leaks, and then they have the structural concern that they're addressing. So it's a good opportunity for us to work together and take care of that school. And the cost benefit of doing a large project like that all at one time is certainly something we consider.

Tudor Elementary School— you'll see that there on a couple, um, bullet points. They've got the secure vestibule that's happening. They also have the roof trusses that they're going to be addressing. Well, we also have what we know is an underground break from one of the roof drains that is not allowing that roof to drained properly, resulting in even more leaks. So we like to advocate at that time that they would also address that, or allow us to partner with them on getting that fixed along with their project.

One example of an asset that is supposed to last 30 years is the boilers at Klatt Elementary School. We had just a couple years ago where those boilers did quit on us and it was very hard to source parts and we actually ended up having to close the school for a couple of days. Those boilers on paper should be still alive and kicking for the next couple of years, but we know that they're at the end of their life and that sourcing parts is really challenging. And so the probability of that school not having heat is more realistic. And so we want to elevate that priority and put that on the radar a little bit higher, even though on paper it doesn't look like it needs to be so.

That's why those are there. Willowcrest, we know that they have really shallow waistlines there that tend to freeze when we get those cold snaps. And when waistlines freeze, you have a school full of 300 students and staff that can't use the restroom. And that can— that also can shut down a school. So looking at heat trace or some sort of solution there to be able to keep those waistlines flowing and the school open.

We are also aware of a couple of other boilers. Those are our big things. We like to keep it heated. We like to keep it comfortable. That keeps things from freezing up.

So those are more of our high priority when it comes to— from the maintenance perspective. So you'll see purchasing warehouse is also due for a boiler. We're advocating for that one pretty heavily. And there's going to be a lot of talk about Bartlett High School. I added the gym bleacher replacement as something we should prioritize prior to the actual full renewal, Bartlett, because they are well beyond their useful life.

Now you can still sit in them, they're structurally fine, but it is a 50/50 chance on whether or not those bleachers are going to actually open, and once you get them open, if they're actually going to close. So they are, they're old and they need some love. We can work with capital planning in conjunction with them to replace the bleachers, and then when when they go to do their renewal, it'll just be one of the items that is not a part of their scope of work because it's already been completed. So it's something that we're considering very strongly. Northstar Elementary School has an entire wall of windows and doors that is kind of a modular construction.

So if you think of a kind of a— I don't want to say a mobile home, but in that sort of essence that has been at the end of its useful life, and it is not as sturdy and secure as it, as it should be. So removing that and replacing that storefront is definitely higher on our priority list. We've got Tarmigan Elementary School, another boiler. We replaced boiler number 1 just a couple of years ago, but boiler number 2 of the same vintage is on its last leg, and that is when one boiler goes down, it's good to have the second boiler as a backup. So that is higher on our priority list.

And then Ravenwood Elementary School is due for a well pump replacement. We've replaced the well pumps at the other schools of the same vintage already, and we ended up having to do that when they failed, which impacted the school community. So we'd like to do is— we know that Ravenwood is of that same vintage and is likely, um, going to need replaced soon. We'd like to do it before it fails and has an impact on the community.

And on all of these, if you look at Carrie's list of emergent projects in the major maintenance area that we need to do, it's a little bit under $18 million. There's more stuff that doesn't include every work order, every— everything else in it. And it's really going down each one of those saying, should this be incorporated as part of a capital plans project, or should this be major maintenance where you use a major maintenance grant or FEMA money or whatever we can get to do it. So again, I know some of you have friends in the construction industry that will wonder why this one project looks like we're doing more than they think we should do. And it's really that— it's that merging of all of the different age brackets and life cycles for the systems, and then trying to look at the major maintenance stuff that maintenance works on, that it's also been underfunded, unfortunately, for quite a while, because that's general fund money usually.

It's trying to figure out what's the best way to get those projects where we keep our facilities ready to stay open all year. So it's not as clean as looking at one thing, and someone might be an expert at that one thing, but they may not understand all the things underneath the roof or behind the walls or the HVAC and everything else. So if you have any questions, we're always willing to do one-on-ones and answer details. But we'll be talking in more details again in, in 2 weeks.

So I wanted to hang out a little bit on deferred maintenance versus bond debt from fiscal year '10.

Some of you have seen something very close to this, and I don't know about the 2 newest board members if we briefed this yet, but when you look at back in fiscal year '10, '10 through about '12, there was still a boom and there was plenty of money in Alaska. And so bonds are being passed at a, at a pretty consistent rate. We're actually still building schools, improving them, and then money started getting tight. So when you look at what the deferred maintenance was in fiscal year '10, it was the equivalent of $183 million in buying power of today's money. And obviously that has jumped to almost $1.5 billion now.

So we lost the glide path we had in '10, '11, and '12, and we really haven't been able to recapture it. Then, then you look at the bond debt. So in 2015, in April of 2015, the assembly legislature passed a state bond debt moratorium, and they on purpose backdated it to January so it wouldn't cover any 2015 bonds for state bond debt reimbursement.

So that had been coming for a couple years though. So in, in 2015, when all of a sudden it went from 60 or 70% of every project on a bond was paid for by the state overnight it became 100%. So there was a concerted effort, um, really from the, the community, the boards over the years to try to make sure that we stayed under what we were paying off for the next bond. And as you can imagine, from 2015, trying to keep the same dollar amount for the next 10 years, the buying power of that same dollar amount simply isn't there. So that's how you see this huge spike in deferred maintenance that happened.

And it was consistently intentionally bonding for less than what you're paying off so you could lower the total bond debt. And we really— we did. It's almost half of what it was back in 2010. I do want to point out one unique twist that just happened this past year. If you look at FY25, you'll see that for the first time in 10 years plus, that line actually took an angle to the right and it slowed down the rate at which we were increasing deferred maintenance.

And that's purely because we closed Abbott Loop. We were going to demo Ursa Major. Well, we are going to demo Ursa Major because we got a federal grant that was a 90/10 match, so we only had to pay 10% of the match for Ursa Major's rebuild, and the rest is paid by the, the federal government. And then of course closing Campbell. So those 3 schools are the equivalent of $50 million less in deferred maintenance, and I am not implying that we could close enough schools to get rid of deferred maintenance, because that's not possible.

So hopefully that, that is not what you got out of my comments. But it is true that there's a— there's only a couple of things you can do to get to lower your deferred maintenance. One of those is to give back properties that aren't needed to the municipality. And Campbell's an example of that. It's still going to be used for something within the community.

It just won't be an ASD function, and that building will stay hopefully for years. In Abbott Loops, there's still emails bouncing around. The board has seen them. We'll see what the community and the municipality work out as to whether we demo that building or whether it's repurposed. And, and, you know, that's up to the city to, to determine disposition, but that dip is really clear, and you can see that does have an impact by $50 million on our total deferred maintenance.

Mr. Anderson, um, could you maybe just expand on, um, just because I've seen a couple emails alluding to the fact that maybe the, the board could determine that the Abbott Loop building in particular, or any building really, that's deemed excess, uh, should or can and will be demoed before it's returned to municipal hands and management. That's not my understanding. Is there any reason why that would be the case?

We— you, the board, doesn't determine disposition. The mayor's office has let us know that because it has such a high deferred maintenance, it doesn't have a fire suppression system, the fire marshal waiver Certainly, it's complicated to repurpose that building, and they're focusing on repurposing Campbell. They believe that, that we should demo it. Could something change in the next 4 to 6 weeks in discussions with the Assembly? It, it could, but we would have no influence on that, nor have I seen anything to indicate that Abbott Loop would remain.

As a functional building. The path that we have discussed with the mayor's team was demolition in spring. I just want to clarify, you said Campbell and then Abbott Loop. We were talking just about Abbott Loop just then. Oh, I may, I may have just stated that incorrectly.

Campbell, they've already made it clear. Campbell, they've had community meetings for repurposing. There's been no indication that that building would be demoed at all. Okay. Um, that it would only be repurposed to serve community needs.

But I, I haven't heard of, of any effort on the assembly or the mayor's office for Abbott Loop other than demo at this point. Understood. And I—. That's my understanding as well. I just, um, I had heard maybe that the— there was some assumption, uh, municipal stakeholders, that the board was the driving factor in that.

Not the municipality. And it's my understanding the municipal administration has the final say on that. And I, I have been talking to their, uh, point person, um, that, that thought Abbott Loop might be a good candidate, and I have handed them off to the municipality to look at, uh, the other facility that, that might also be a good option and a much cheaper option for them. And just to chime in, this is tied to the non-action memorandum that is on today's board packet and also tied to the press release that the mayor's Office recently unveiled, which really characterizes the transfer of 3 properties as a package, the 3 being Campbell, Abbott Loop, and the West Park parcel, which is a whole other side conversation. But the point is, is that the mayor's office has expressed a desire for ASD to demolish Abbott Loop because the vision from the municipalities then would be to redevelop that land for housing, and in exchange we would provide West Park, and the mayor has committed that all proceeds would come to ASD.

Again, separate topic, but it's important that we, um, recognize these three properties as a package that's being discussed between the Assembly, eventually the school board, and the mayor's office. And the Assembly is also briefing their resolution tonight, um, that's kind of moving in parallel with our non-action item. Um, the latest information I got was that they may not talk too much about it but request a special work session to talk about this package of three. And certainly the resolution that would give ASD the proceeds as the mayor intends for the sale of that property. So it might be that if they get delayed in their process, that, that, you know, maybe this board memo stays non-action 2 board meetings in a row.

We'll just have to see what happens at the assembly and try to keep a parallel path so everybody knows what they're voting for. Um, at the night where both get approved. And thank you, Mr. Anderson, Dr. Bryan. I didn't mean to derail our current trajectory. I just wanted to clarify since it came up, um, who ultimately would decide if a property gets— or a building gets demoed prior to change in management authority.

Thank you.

Okay, this is kind of how we try to balance what needs we have with projects. And we've gone through a little bit looking at components, the FCI, emergent needs, things like that. But not all deferred requirements are equal. And board members have heard me say this, those that have been around for a while have heard me say it in ad nauseam that first you protect your people, next you protect the structure, then you would enhance educational delivery, and then you look for operational cost savings. And some of those come along.

There is some, uh, examples of it. Life safety, Obviously structural. We also have our SVU projects for increasing security, also structural. We like to keep the buildings standing when they should. And then protecting the facility.

We get into things. This is where our roofs— leaking roofs can cause a lot more damage to a building Besides the fact that it can also be a detriment to education, having buckets in classrooms for the leaks to be caught in, that becomes a distraction. But there are also things in there, again, keeping the building warm, keeping it ventilated.

Educational improvements.

Some of those are getting the newer, more appropriate technology for students. It could be making sure that under educational adequacy that the spaces that are in the building, one, meet the educational requirements and both in size but also in what's included in them.

So, and then cost savings. A lot of this ends up being energy efficiencies. Usually just doing an energy efficiency project has very poor return unless it's ones that are— that we actually look by doing a cost-benefit analysis that they can be within a year to 2 years. Those are rare. Most of them have very long, but it's when you're doing a major maintenance or renovation, that's when you start looking at getting those in there.

And I will bring up, and we have talked about Bartlett before, and when I came up to talk about the Master Plan and the supplemental educational specifications. Bartlett, between utilities and work orders just for doing repairs for leaks and various other things, they were running about— and still running about— $2 million a year.

And when— and we're in the middle of design, in fact getting ready to move into 65% design for the various phases. Our goal on this is to reduce maintenance component and the utilities so that we're somewhere between $600,000 and $750,000 a year. So there is $1.25 to $1.4 million of operational savings that we intend to gain. So all over Bartlett, we've got structural, We have roofs, we have educational spaces that are very old and doesn't work real well. And then operational cost savings, that's kind of the, the grand slam of doing a project.

So, you know, Bartlett, Bartlett's also a good example of something we're working behind the scenes right now, and it still needs to develop. Um, I know for our two newer board members, uh, Tom and I went to DC a few years back and we got a federal grant for 90%. We had to pay 10%, 90% of the cost to completely rebuild a school. So it's the cheapest replacement renovation you could ever get if we get this. About two weeks ago, the OL DCC team left and they inspected Government Hill, Mountain View, Bartlett, Bartlett and the other schools on base.

Their final report will be out in February, and at least right now, depending on, on how the report comes out, our intent is certainly to go back to DC in May and try to prioritize Bartlett, which is in the $80+ million range for a total renovation. And I mean, you— it would be certainly a win for Anchorage taxpayers in the district, if we're fortunate. And we will give you updates. We'll give you an update when we get the February reports, and we'll let you know that, that we plan on going back to DC. You know, the, the one thing about a grant like that is you do have to commit upfront before you accept it that you'll pay the 10%.

So I just thought I would raise that. You can't do the IOU.

We— it's— but for 10% for the total project of an $80+ million renovation, it is the best game in town for us in the Capital Plans Department.

So I just wanted to show this was last April's bond. It was about $80 million, just shy. Most of it was safety and security. There were a couple things like student nutrition. That, that wasn't a school school.

We also had Lake Otis on there because when we approved the bond, that building was, was still going to remain Lake Otis Elementary. Everyone saw the Ivan Moore brief or surveys afterwards where the top things that caused people to vote down our bond was their own personal financial insecurity. It was right after the property tax notices went out. There were some people within the community upset about other things like Lake Otis or Campbell or whatever, but it— but, but those were small groups of people. And so I did this next slide.

One, I was curious, and I think the board will, will be interested in seeing this. And this is how close from 2009 to 2026 bonds pass or fail. There are a couple of years where they passed by 57 or 58%, which on the national level would be considered a blowout if you were talking about a national level election. But frankly, we pass or don't pass a bond based off about 2%. So as we talk about our bond strategy and you can see the dollar amounts that, that were successful, So from my perspective, from my team's perspective, we know that $59 million is really just under $30 million because of state bond debt reimbursement.

I don't think the Anchorage public really does understand that. So we know that in communications, we, we certainly have to do better at making sure they understand that piece of it. But the other thing, the subconscious thing that kind of hits you as you look at this is it's pretty true that somewhere in that $60 to sometimes $80 million range, people seem comfortable with that number for school bonds, assuming we pick the right projects and we, um, we communicate well and we get in front of the public. Um, and that's regardless of whether there was state bond reimbursement or not. It's a dollar amount.

And so when we get When we get closer next week, we'll talk about this again. We'll have the Ivan Moore survey out on the streets. We'll have that data coming back. We'll get input that will help inform the board over what is that dollar amount that we're comfortable with, because next week we'll— or next 2 weeks from now, we'll bring a list of schools that will, will exceed what that dollar amount would be. So the board is comfortable with our methodology for prioritizing our methodology for— as Dr. Bryant said, his focus this year is safety and security.

So we're not going to see, uh, a recommendation unless the, the board obviously could always amend. You are going to see a focus on safety and security of our facilities and, and our, our personnel. So, um, but this was kind of eye-opening for me. All of us in the room— well, most of us in the room— we remember the April '22 bond. That was when we decided that we were going to go for 2-year bonds, and it worked.

It worked in April 2020, and we said, we're not coming back next year. We're going to take a bond holiday, and we're going to on purpose make this $82 million cover 2 years. Hypothetically, it did. It was a good idea. But the muni decided not to go along with it, where they take 1 year and we take 1 year.

They wanted to keep with their smaller bonds by department for lots of other reasons and do bonds every year. And when we increased up to $111 million in '22, it really— even then, if you look at it, it's 49.2%. It wasn't far off, but those are the discussions I think we need to have, whether it's a Finance Committee meeting, whether it's here at work sessions, is where Where do you feel comfortable? And is there information that we have time to research and provide instead of last minute right before the vote? I need to know something that will help me vote.

If I have time, our team can pull data together, but I suspect some of the comfort zone requirements are going to take research time, and that doesn't typically do well in a public meeting. Let us help you because we're, we're all in on coming up with a project that works.

So that's a great segue into where we go from here and what the way ahead is. So we're going to come back to you on the 20th of October with that. But in between them, we're going to try to set up some one-on-one meetings so you can answer all your specific questions. About the bond and the CIP. And then we're going to come back to you again in the beginning of November as an introduction of the bond and the CIP, and then we'll be looking for approval of that bond and CIP, uh, at that second meeting in November.

And then from there it goes on to the assembly and eventually makes its way to ballots.

So those were the slides we prepared. Obviously, this is an on-the-edge-of-your-seat topic. We have not had as much discussion as some topics, but if there's something we can answer, we are more than happy to. And if there's something that you think is missing that you want to see in the next 2 weeks, you don't have to tell us tonight, but just send me an email. Um, let us know what you're hoping that we bring to the, to the next time we meet.

Thank you, Mr. Anderson. For our record, uh, Member Blakeslee joined us at approximately 4:08 PM. Member Higgins joined us at approximately 4:28 PM. Uh, we will go to Member Lessans, then Member Blakeslee. Um, thanks.

Maybe this is just a, like, a bit of a technical question, and comparing the list of emergent needs with looking at the April 2026 bond project Um, CLAT appears in both. So are the boiler— the emergent boiler issues were not the items that were the CLAT items on the April bond? These are new emergent issues?

That is correct. That is correct. The boilers are a new emergent issue. Okay. And then I believe, but I'm trying to review in my mind, that we have identified a path forward to deal with the Ursa Major demolition and hazardous materials.

So that is, we won't be seeing that again. We've authorized funding through a separate source. I would like to say no. If the regulations were to change tomorrow in some dramatic way, we probably would be coming back to talk to you, and it might at that point be talking to you about whether it gets rebuilt, right? I mean, if something completely unexpected were to happen, But we don't currently— there's no path that we can see where that would be a reality yet.

Okay. And then maybe this is just a follow-up for a little bit more information about past years. In 2009 and 2011, this is before maybe Member Higgins was on the board, I don't know, before most of us were here. It looks like ASD used to put multiple bond packages, and we shifted to sort of one, one ring to rule them all. Yeah, so what was happening?

That was about the time I came on to the district in 2011. What was happening was people— and we know this is true on all bonds— people in certain parts of town are more than willing to vote for a bond for their part of town. And when you start breaking bonds out, it, it made it risky where someone would say, well, I'm still going to support AST, but not that, that part of AST. And so we, we decided to go ahead and do this, which is ensure that we have projects in a priority that makes sense across the entire Anchorage bowl. So you can attract the largest number of voters to be in support.

Um, and that really has been the logic we have followed since then. It's been brought up a couple times. Should we do rough bonds? Should we do other types of bonds? And, and, you know, it's always, it's always certainly something you could talk about.

I think what I'm most concerned about is is how many people in Anchorage know that a $60 million bond is really $30 million. And I don't know how— well, I, I know how we're going to communicate this year, but I think our success rate for higher bonds depends on them understanding that and feeling as if they had the confidence that— some know that still the appropriation has to exist, even The statute says that they'll pay it. The legislature and the governor still have to appropriate every year. So I think that's, you know, it was unfortunate last year, but I do know from some of the survey comments that people, a lot of people really didn't understand that piece. If I can just share one remark, I mean, I feel like I can't think about our capital projects without about in my mind being back in Juneau with Member Wilson, looking at pictures of during, like, in the wake of one of the snowpocalypses, of all of the leaky roofs.

They were all leaking all at the same time. And it was astounding to just receive that inundation, literally. But, you know, with a focus on safety and security, I think that it's important, has been important to me, and it continues to be important in my mind that we're talking about student learning conditions, and I don't think we want students to learn to count 20 by counting the buckets of water in their hallways or the drips into the buckets. There are better ways to teach math than drippy. And to clarify, we consider roofs a safety issue, right?

Because it— the entire envelope opens up when water starts pouring down walls and through light fixtures and I mean, no, no one's comfortable in a room with water coming out of a light fixture saying, yeah, that looks about right. So we consider roofs to help secure the rest of the infrastructure under the building, under that. That's an important clarification. I guess maybe the one other thing I was thinking about is that I've dabbled a tiny bit into HVAC systems, and there is, there does seem to be good research that when students breathe better air, there are correlations between improved learning outcomes and healthier, safer, you know, functioning building systems. Yeah.

So just food for thought as we move forward.

Thank you. Yeah, thank you for this, and I appreciate more information about our capital projects after the one-on-one meeting I already had with many of you. So this is just additional extra knowledge. This is great. My question for now, and then I'll save the rest of them for one-on-one meetings potentially.

When you're—. You mentioned before and multiple times in the past that the projects that we do have these like 3 to 4 year cycles between conception and completion. Can you like, I guess, just describe how emergent these needs are and the ones, whatever gets on this list for a potential bond, how quickly those projects happen, and if it's truly— when, when Wendler Middle School's roof cannot hold another shingle, what, how long are these projects likely to take before they actually get executed? Because those feel like very emergent needs. But then if we're talking about a 3 to 4 year timeline and many other projects that are sort of underway, what's, what's How quickly do these projects take place?

Because they do feel—. When you look at emergent priorities, there's emergent projects and then there's critical priorities. You can always break it out into more than one phase. You could start design sooner rather than later and get to where you can execute pretty quickly. But anytime there's a bond and you don't know until April if it's passed, you certainly are looking at the year after that.

Would be the earliest. And then it's that priority component. It doesn't— we have roofs all the time that we don't finish the whole thing in 1 year. That would not be unusual.

And then I—. Oh, sorry, go ahead, go ahead. You go and then I'll go. Yeah, I was just going to answer a little bit more too. So in the timeframe between us bringing this forward and really prioritizing it with capital planning and them doing the design, We work as maintenance to keep the facility open for students.

And so you'll see catch basins throughout the school, which are the tarps with the tube that go into the bucket. We're constantly cleaning up and mitigating and doing everything that we can. Now, one of the things that's unique about Windler is that it wouldn't have been 3 to 5 years for Windler. It was actually further down on the CIP, so it could have been it could have been 5 to 10 years before it even became a design. But because we collaborate and we're able to share this information, we're able to bring it up faster and have that roof hopefully addressed within that 3— about 3-year timeframe from when it gets put on a bond.

Some of the other items we are able to address quicker through grant funds or major maintenance funds when it comes to a single boiler replacement, for example, or a well pump that needs to be replaced. Supplies water to the entire school. Those things are of a size and stature that maintenance can handle through our major maintenance department, and we can act very quickly on those. It can be weeks and we can have that taken care of. Boilers, of course, are longer lead, and that can take a couple of months.

But certainly we're— we have a capacity to a certain point. And then do you have flexibility within the planning process so that, let's say, something that might not feel quite as emergent. You have the window of a couple of years before it needs to actually be executed, right? You're, you're in the process of completing that project, but then something changes, right? Conditions change, something happens, the roof collapses, or it's about to collapse, or some, something that makes it even more urgent.

Do you have the flexibility in your planning model to be able to then quickly reprioritize those projects?

Well, we certainly have in the past. Um, you know, when the earthquake happened, we had a bond passed that did not include Greening and Eagle River Elementary, but we were able to get the wording modified to make sure that we could do that. We have major maintenance dollars that, um, you know, the state— we did pretty well this year compared to the last 7 years. You know, there's a lot of discussions in Juneau about, you know, whether major maintenance grant dollars actually become the larger amount of money that gets pushed out to districts, knowing that across the state, I think it's now become common knowledge that there are schools with birds flying through the classroom, especially outside of Anchorage, with boilers in standing water and I think over the last couple sessions there were so many briefings. So it— but it depends on money, of course.

Right now oil's really doing well. I think it would— I think most people are somewhat optimistic for this legislative session. And when, when that gets increased, you, you can do an awful lot with it very quickly. You know, Chugiak Elementary septic system. We get quite a few schools on well water and septic still.

I don't know how many board members are aware of that, but it, it failed to the point that we had to have tanker trucks come in every single week last year and pump out septic. And because we had major maintenance dollars, we were able to actually get that project done this summer. So while they're still working on it, actually, but it will get done shortly, so. There's a lot of projects that never make it to a bond because we— it's more emergent than something that can wait, and that's where we try to focus our major maintenance dollars. Okay, thank you.

That's it.

Oh, yeah, the Bartlett is a concern to me because I remember 2000 it was the top priority. I visited it, I saw the buckets, I saw where the temperature varied between rooms. I—. And, and the amount of damage it's doing to the electrical system, to the—. To the—.

All the growth of all kind of things behind the walls. And with the water, it's just got to be dramatic. I have not gone in there and looked again 5 years later, but I have a pretty good idea what it must be like. And so I am concerned about that delay. I understand the—.

Getting a chance to get the money from the federal government is a major motivator, but I am concerned about the timeframe on that. And we're talking now about safety and health for the kids. And this is, you know, 2000 to 2006. That's a long time without any progress at all. So that's, that's a big concern.

I'll just comment on the, on the part about why people vote no. I think if you go out there, you're going to find everybody out there a different reason. Number one reason from those who are anti-tax, anti-public education, it's always going to be the same. We don't want to spend more money. We don't want to spend it.

I had to listen to that in a community council meeting.