Today's 2pm Lake County Board workshop meeting will discuss several issues and need clarity.
The Board is being asked to approve a $2.6-million land purchase with incomplete justification data, and they are being given incomplete justification data on the cost of a proposed wellness clinic system (3 clinics).
I found from my reading of the items and some supporting documents:
- Item 2.01 - Purchase of two pre-fab toilet buildings for $72,000 ($36,000 each) - This request for approval is for two buildings from a firm in Washington STATE. The purchasing manager avoids any description why she did not get local bids to build these buildings, but instead wants to piggyback on another County (Leon) purchase order to buy buildings from the left coast. WHY? Wasn't there any attempt to see if local contractors could build the needed buildings at a price competitive to the stated cost of $36,000?
- Item 2.02 - This is for an inter-local agreement to be discussed by the County attorney, but there are no explanatory attachments or overview or discussion of the purpose. WHY NO transparency on this issue?
- The School Board staff still do not disclose material items by explaining the fiscal impact dollars in the top level agenda document.
- Item 2.03 - Alonso property purchase for $2.6-million: Thus you don't know, unless you went to Board Docs and opened the supporting documents that the "Alonso" property purchase item was to approve a purchase of land in the Clermont area for $2.6-million.
- The agreement says that the deal should be approved by Nov. 15th. I hate to tell you, but that was two weeks ago.
- And, you would have NO CLUE what the land was to be used for, because it was not described anywhere. Once again, the staff is presenting spending justification documents for Board approval without clearly explaining budget impact, any history of the project, or mentioning dates when it was discussed before the Board and what decisions were made. (I believe this was discussed at earlier meetings, but maybe it was in a consent agenda?). By reading between the lines, I think this is land slated for a new South County maintenance yard, but that is not disclosed.
- Additionally, a SEPARATE agenda item talks about a wellness program update (see below) and mentions that a South County wellness clinic building might be constructed on this land (not really clear). Thus, the stated purpose of this land may be for a maintenance facility, but apparently they bought more land than was needed, thus there is room for the clinic building and related parking, and the justification for the wellness clinic does not mention the cost of the land. Thus the maintenance capital budget is being charged for the wellness clinic land? This purchase of land for $2.6-million is discussed in an attached contract which specifies that there should be two appraisals of the property to meet State regulations that the District is not overpaying. However, the appraisals are not mentioned or attached, so from the existing documentation, we don't know if the District even got the appraisals to verify the land value.
- Wellness Update - Item 2.06: Another agenda item is a Wellness Program update:
-The actual update memo is not understandable, and mixes and matches data without clearly explaining the values used or the justification process which was probably provided by the vendor. Perhaps the staff believed they can explain this verbally, but the document should be a complete, understandable package, and it is not.
-One of the several documents includes lots of justification cost data, then mentions at the end that the cost of the three recommended buildings (AND THE LAND mentioned above) were not included.
- The stand alone prefab clinic buildings would cost an additional $125,000 each, but they are not in the analysis, nor is the value of the land. This is distorting the cost justification and is not an acceptable method. The Board should NOT consider approving the wellness program until a complete justification analysis is provided that shows cost of buildings, land, and operating costs for each future year.
- Why are stand alone prefab clinic buildings being discussed where there are many vacant buildings around, AND the prefab units will result in most of the cost going to out of county vendors. Why is there no process described for going to bid to let local contractors have a chance at doing the construction, or local building owners to make a pitch to lease existing buildings that may fit the purpose needed. The School Board needs to start thinking locally (liek Jimmy Conner would say!).
- Nor, apparently, have they budgeted anywhere for the utilities, etc that we could see (they might be included in a cost per visit calculation?).
- There does not seem to be any explanation of what happens if the clinic costs more in total than the predicted savings in the justification. The Board should NOT approve this plan without a clear, WRITTEN policy or description of what costs or coverages will be reduced if the predicted savings do not materialize. Right now, if the wellness program clinic costs exceed current promised costs by $1-million, where will the funds come from? No approval should be granted without a WRITTEN policy requiring quarterly fiscal analysis and adjustments of coverages to ensure the predicted costs savings materialize.
- Fortunately, this is an update, not a request for approval, so the Board should kickback the package until the above issues are addressed.
Conclusion: The Board's credibility is at stake here if they accept incomplete justification descriptions and don't ensure staff addresses the above issues.
PS: I could have missed one or two of the items above during all the reading, but I read the documents twice and didn't see the items I recommend should be addressed. The staff needs to ensure the Board decisions have credibility by providing complete packages to justify approvals and leave out items needed by the public to understand the issues.
Vance Jochim
