Community Benefits Plan (CBP)

Community Benefits Plan (CBP) for St. Maries.

1.0 Community Labor Engagement

In rural North Idaho communities, the schools are often the community centers for the towns. St. Maries School District is no different. The schools are used for community meetings, clubs and athletic teams, plays, concerts, and after-school programs such as Twenty-first Century Extended Learning Classrooms. The proposed upgrades will not only provide a safe and healthy environment for the students during the school day but also the community that uses the facilities during evenings and weekends. Use of wood products from local industry will also benefit the local economy.

McKinstry is the largest and most influential union employer in the mechanical industry. We can effectively manage the labor relations and productivity issues and create innovative project approaches that maximize productivity and minimize risks. Since McKinstry’s inception in 1960, we have enjoyed a relationship with Local 32 Plumbers & Pipefitters and have added locals for sheet metal, fire sprinkler, electrical, data, carpentry, and sound and communication. These relationships span Washington, Montana, Idaho, and Oregon. In 2010, McKinstry banked the largest volume of employment hours with Local 32. We are solvent and current with our dues.

McKinstry will engage the following professionals:

·       Local 73: E WA & ID Electrical Workers

·       Local 121: OR & S ID District Council of Laborers

·       Local 348: E WA & N ID Laborers

·       Local 370: E WA & ID Operating Engineers

Through these relationships, McKinstry has developed partnerships to ensure apprenticeship participation goals are a priority and that we can influence utilization goals. Per McKinstry’s contract agreements, there are specific Journeymen/Apprentice ratios in place that already ensure apprentice training and growth opportunities and some of these agreements also allow some flexibility to increase these ratios on specific projects. As a company, McKinstry averages a Journeyman/Apprentice ratio of 3:1 (or 25%) and often exceed that ratio.

2.0 Education through Design.

Additional features such as domestic hot water incorporation to the heating hot water system, possible 'solar ready' integration, teaching and learning video display, and real time energy consumption/production data display by system type will make the system innovative. The goal is to create student and community engagement with the technology implemented at the school. It will be important to not only show energy use reduction and carbon emission reduction data but also to include life cycle cost comparison data that includes maintenance savings, emergency repair cost avoidance and other fiscal benefits of the system. This will help the community understand how taxpayer dollars will be saved and re-allocated to educational programs.

Animated graphical displays will be created to demonstrate to the community how the heat pump technology works and can be incorporated into the technical curriculum at the district. Real time energy consumption, and solar energy production will be provided on a graphical display for students. The overall goal is to generate excitement amongst students by utilizing a visual tool to help explain how the system works. Ultimately, students will understand how they can affect the energy consumption of the building through their actions.

Key Local Organizations

The following key stakeholders and organizations have committed through writing to be engaged with this project or will be engaged as the project continues.

St. Maries Chamber of Commerce

The improvement of school facilities will improve the quality of education, which directly relates to the vitality and financial well-being of the community. Quality education improved the economy. In return for these benefits, the St. Maries Chamber of Commerce will promote district events and activities that encourage community participation.

Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ)

St. Maries airshed has some existing issues with residential woodsmoke, particulates from the wood products industry, and wildfire smoke. The DEQ has worked with the district in the past to help protect students, faculty, and staff from air quality issues. This grant allows the district to strength environmental education in general, and support programs surrounding environmental air quality that the DEQ has already partnered with the district on. The DEQ is committed to providing input on infrastructure changes that may improve indoor air quality in the district’s facilities.

Timber Plus

Timber Plus is the regional economic development council for Benewah County, Idaho. The council is committed to supporting the district by providing expertise to help ensure the health, quality, and success of the project.

Benewah Community Hospital (BCH)

The district is partnered with BCH in the Certified Nursing Assistant (CAN) program, as well as job shadowing in other areas. The BCH will benefit from this grant as they believe the students in their programs should have access to a safe and healthy environment as they learn and eventually join the workforce.

St. Maries Gazette Record

As the project nears completion, the district will work with St. Maries Gazette Record to publish meaningful content, including stories and advertisements, that celebrate the success of the project and educate the community.

Valley Vista Care Corporation

The Valley Vista Care Corporation is partnered with the district in offering the Certified Nursing Associate program for students. Indoor Air Quality and meaningful ways to make a difference in people's lives as that relates to their health and well-being could be incorporated into this program.

Job Quality and Workforce

For 62 years McKinstry has been designing and executing high performing projects for private and public sector owners with stated goals to integrate local, small and/or socio-economically disadvantaged business participation. These labor requirements have been successfully met by partnering with pre-qualified subcontracting partners, as well as providing mentoring and training to under-utilized businesses that were unfamiliar with the installation, owner, and/or application of specific products or services. As a company with a heavy trades-base, McKinstry understands the importance of creating jobs in the local community and the value it brings to St. Maries School District being seen as a “good neighbor”. The team assigned to this project is well versed in navigating Davis-Bacon labor standards as well as the local vs. federal standards

of prevailing wage, apprenticeship hours reporting, and other reporting standards. Offering full support and educational tools to navigate these requirements has added many possibilities for local involvement.

McKinstry has a lot of experience in navigating government requirements such as prevailing wage and reporting apprenticeship hours. The internal team responsible for putting together this application as well as the running the project, once awarded, is the McKinstry Essention Energy Team that deal in ESCO and Energy as a Service type contracts. McKinstry will negotiate a Project Labor Agreement (PLA) for construction activity, pledges to remain neutral during any union organizing campaigns, and intends to permit union recognition through card check (as opposed to requiring union elections). McKinstry also pledges to allow union organizers access to appropriate onsite non-work places, such as lunch rooms. McKinstry will provide workers with ability to organize, bargain collectively, and participate through labor organizations of their choosing. The company will also work with responsible employers and have an effective plan to minimize risk of labor disputes or disruptions.

3.0 Diversity, Inclusion, Equity, Access.

St. Maries and McKinstry believe that promotes excellence. Both organizations are committed to recruiting and retaining professionals that are qualified. St Maries and McKinstry is committed to working and finishing local businesses and professionals.

McKinstry’s commitment is consistent with their recognition that it is the outstanding people within this project and McKinstry at large who have always been the source of strength. McKinstry recognizes that seeking local professionals and local businesses is an integral component of the continuing quest for organizational excellence. This commitment to Equal Employment Opportunity is made equally as a social responsibility and as an economic and business necessity.

McKinstry is proud to partner on this project and serve the community. This includes investment in impactful programs throughout the district such as CTE – career technical education – for 7^th and 8^th graders. Through this project, additional dollars can be freed up from the building and maintenance plan and used to reinvest and build on successes and strengthen programs for the students and community.

McKinstry will support competitive wages and benefits, benchmarked to the industry average for the Idaho. Workforce education and training will be provided through: Labor-Management Training Partnerships, paid on-the-job training, registered apprenticeships, covering costs and paid time for professional development and continuing education. In addition, McKinstry will ensure that workers are engaged in the design and implementation of workplace safety and health plans.

 

In addition, McKinstry has a strong history of providing many different learning opportunities to students where students can speak to business leads about apprenticeships, having engineers and trade members present to classes and help educate students about the work happening at their school and the overall industry, holding mock interviews to help students prepare for jobs or internships and providing student internships. McKinstry will extend these opportunities to the students of St. Marie’s School district.

4.0 Justice

All five of the schools included in this project are located in DACs. Three of these schools are located in rural areas. 

The district will benefit from lower maintenance and energy costs combined with healthier learning environments. This project will serve as a showcase to the community encouraging similar investments. The district will show support to local industries through the use of clean, green biomass fuels that will save the district operational dollars while supporting local businesses. There are also educational opportunities through technical curriculum to have students learn how shared heat/cooling systems work, the environmental benefits of waste biomass fuels and how these systems support the local community.

Goal: Deployment of clean energy, including renewable community energy projects. Action: McKinstry will track energy usage quarterly.

Goal: Increased technical assistance and community engagement of disadvantaged communities.

Action: McKinstry will confirm that 1 publication is released by the local newspaper regarding the district's new clean energy strategies.

Goal: Increased participation in good job training programs that target participation from disadvantaged communities.

Action: Based on anticipated work to be contracted during budget period 2, identify all potential MWBDE contractors in the area and introduce them to the McKinstry Scale-Up mentoring program