Understanding
the Interagency Coordinating Board - ICB
by Ginny Gong, Director
Community Use of Public
Facilities Office
Greetings. I am pleased to have this opportunity to share
information on the mission of the Interagency Coordinating Board (ICB) for
Community Use of Public Facilities (CUPF) and the philosophy behind the
guidelines that are in effect for the sharing of space. The concept of sharing
space is a very complex one and does need to be explained.
The
ICB is comprised of 12 members: the
Chief Administrative Officer, Superintendent of Schools, President of the BOE,
Staff Director of the County Council, President of Montgomery College,
Commissioner from Park and Planning, 2 principal representatives, and four appointed
citizen representatives. The Board is
charged with making policy decisions related to the community's use of the
public facilities and CUPF, established in 1978, is responsible for
implementing the decisions. In addition
to providing access to schools, CUPF leases space for use of libraries, closed
schools, and other government buildings.
It is important to note that CUPF operates as an Enterprise Fund and is
supported totally by fees from community users.
(No tax dollars are used to support the community use program).
Centralized
Scheduling is implemented in all elementary, middle, and three pilot high
schools (Kennedy, Richard Montgomery, Paint Branch).
In these schools, all community use activities (including most PTA activities
and the schools own programs that include additional staff costs) are scheduled
by CUPF. Much of the impetus for
Centralized
Scheduling
came from the need to coordinate all use in schools after hours and concerns
that the rules for using county facilities did not seem to apply to
everyone. There is a perception in the
community that special arrangements are made if you "know the right
people". That is a perception that
must be corrected when schools are valuable resources paid for by all county
residents through their taxes. These
facilities belong to county residents and therefore must be accessible to them
when not being used by schools for their instructional programs. While 75% of county residents do not have
children in MCPS, their taxes are used to provide for building, operating, and
maintaining these facilities. The benefits of Centralized Scheduling are
already obvious in terms of conflict resolution and energy management. (we now have a picture of all activities taking place
throughout the county and are able to work with schools to limit energy costs
to only those areas of the facilities being used by the community).
The
general rules for community use have been in place for more than two
decades. What has
changed over the years has been aspects of implementation. With the use of technology, efforts to
streamline the process have improved accountability as well as addressed safety
and security concerns. Guidelines are
now being applied universally for all user groups.
We
realize that PTAs are non-profit organizations, but perhaps what is not
apparent is that 97% of our users are non-profits. Less than 3% are commercial users. As non-profits, they are all upset with costs
but the Board is convinced that everyone must contribute to wear and tear. Fees
had not been increased for 10 years.
This past July, we were forced to increase the fees slightly to cover
the increase in utility costs, supplies, wear and tear, and staff coverage to
MCPS. Most recently, the Interagency
Coordinating Board received a letter from the Board of Education, asking for
additional increases in reimbursements to MCPS.
As you can see, keeping facilities affordable and accessible is quite a
challenge.
We
certainly understand the closeness of the relationship between a PTA and the
school, and the feeling of "partnership " this evokes. However, we
also have a responsibility to ensure the rights of all county residents to use
these facilities, knowing that these same PTA members are often members of
other user groups as well.
There
are certain PTA activities that are so closely related to the educational
function of the K-12 academic program of the school that they are viewed as
school functions. These activities are
administratively booked by the school and held without cost to the PTA, e.g.
monthly PTA meetings. Other activities,
however, are much more similar to community activities, such as PTA fairs,
carnivals, and socials, and are expected to contribute to ICB's
quarterly reimbursements to MCPS for staff coverage, supplies, utility costs,
and wear and tear on schools. These activities are scheduled by CUPF.
PTA-sponsored
activities are given priority consideration (and special facility rates) and
are scheduled in advance of other public or non-profit functions. For example, if the PTA wanted to use
multiple rooms in the school for a fundraiser on the weekend, they would only
be charged for the cost of the worker's time, per hour and any additional
clean-up time after the event. At the
moment, it is $25.50 per hour (based on union negotiations and may change from
year to year). If extra workers are needed, they would be assessed at the same
rate. If another user wanted to use
multiple rooms, they would be charged for each room, each hour, in addition to
clean-up. This is a significant
difference. Everyone pays the start-up fee which is equal to 30 minutes of the
workers time - 15 minutes to open before the group arrives, 15 minutes to close
up after clean-up. The start-up fee is $12.00 presently.
To
take full advantage of this benefit, earlier planning is necessary. We
understand that PTAs are volunteer organizations and it is sometimes difficult
to coordinate the complex planning of some of these activities well in
advance. However, many of the organizers
of other activities that take place in our facilities face similar
obstacles. We need to give them as much
planning time and notice as possible so that their events can also be
successful. This is why we have the
"special PTA priority window".
The
major window for users to submit their requests is from July 15 - August 1.
During that time, about 4500 indoor use forms (does not include the numerous
requests for outdoor use) are submitted to this office for consideration of
programs that begin September 1 through March 31. PTAs have until August 15 to submit their
requests. Whatever they need, they would
get. The PTA programs are entered into the
computer and no users are scheduled for those days. Please keep in mind that users are contacting
us regularly asking for the status of their permits. We wait until after the August 15th deadline
before issuing permits to community groups.
Outdoor users are cancelled accordingly when PTAs inform us by August
15th.
Booking
the PTA functions in advance allows us to give these other groups an accurate
and timely picture of facility availability so that they can begin to develop
their programs. Of course we will still
serve PTAs that do not submit within this special window, but we cannot move or
cancel other users that followed proper procedures to secure facility space and
have already planned for their events.
These events also serve county residents and, in fact, many serve
Because
any change in procedure is difficult and can be confusing, especially for PTAs
who may be accustomed to special arrangements in the past, we have tried to be
sensitive to these concerns in our phasing in of Centralized Scheduling over
the past few years. Community activities
were cancelled to accommodate last minute PTA requests when possible. A
transition period was built in to help ease PTA representatives into the
routine of submitting requests to CUPF within specific timeframes. We are now three years into Centralized
Scheduling and are pleased to report that many PTAs have adjusted well to the
new system and are submitting timely requests.
In
the past, this office, unaware of an agreement between the school and the PTA,
would have issued a permit to a user only to find out days before the event (or
even the day before the event) that the PTA was expecting to use the
facility. No forms were ever submitted
to this office, just a verbal agreement between school and PTA. Everyone is negatively impacted by such last
minute information.
We
are confident that centralized scheduling will ultimately provide a win-win
solution for all parties involved. We
hope all PTA representatives will focus on scheduling their events early,
eliminating last minute conflicts. An
open invitation is extended to incoming PTA presidents to attend one of our
weekly Wednesday morning training sessions held in the CUPF office to better
understand the process. Call
240-777-2706 to register.
With
better planning on everyone's part, we hope that all users of public facilities
will experience success with their worthwhile endeavors to serve county
residents. My staff and I are always
willing to work with the PTA to discuss ways to improve the process.
Regards,
Ginny