Sign Connecticut Banking Lease Template Easy

Industry sign banking connecticut lease template fast

LYNN STODDARD I'm going to go over the description of what we've developed here at DEEP for a program that can help you enter into performance contracting fairly easily. So I'm going to speed through this fairly quickly. Just slow me down if you have questions. I don't know how familiar you are with the concept, but essentially, performance contracting is grouping together lots of energy saving measures in multiple buildings -- your schools, maybe your town office building, your water treatment plant some with longer term savings and some with very short term savings, so that the average is a reasonable number maybe up to ten years or something and the actual savings are guaranteed by an energy company so that those guarantees on the energy savings pay for the initial costs of the project implementation. The concept has been around for decades; billions of dollars in the U.S., in federal programs and state and local government programs each year. And basically it's kind of, if you think of it -- you're taking dollars that are currently wasted through inefficient energy use and putting that into upgrades for your buildings. So you can stabilize your costs, you can get new systems in your buildings, you can kind of deal with some deferred maintenance and get a better sense of your energy load and get that under control. Typical measures are pretty much anything, but things with shorter paybacks like lighting, as well as longer paybacks like building envelope measures, insulation, and that kind of thing. Water savings are also usually included and a good potential opportunity. You can also add in things like renewable energy that may not have a great quick payback, but it's something that's important to your town and part of what you want to incorporate in your energy profile. So for towns, it's a great way to finance projects outside of your capital budgets and we can get into that a little bit more. Obviously it's reducing your operating costs for tax payers. As you know, buildings that are run more efficiently and have day lighting and things like that are healthier buildings and better learning environments for your school children, so that's a great benefit. And for you all - - I imagine most of you are facility managers - - it's taking away a lot of headaches of "how do I pay for these things that have really long paybacks and we have such budget constraints." A smattering of towns that have had some experience in performance contracting we have a couple folks in the room as well that we can tap into so that's kind of the general background. Now I'm going to focus on what we've done in Connecticut to develop a program to allow you to enter into this pretty easily, with a lot of the work done. Suffice it to say, we've developed our program based on legislation with lots of interagency cooperation and input, and we developed our program documents based on templates that were developed through years and years of national experience and performance contracting. So we kind of took these templates that have been used by other states across the country, imbedded by the U.S. Department of Energy, and then worked through them with Administrative Services, Construction Services at OPM, the Attorney General's office and so forth, and brought them into a Connecticut document that was approved by all of these agencies. Our program users for our performance contracting program are state agencies, including higher education universities and colleges, as well as towns. Our legislation says that municipalities may use our program, or you may develop a program on your own and use that. The K-12 schools are a very huge opportunity, as well as water treatment plants that you have office buildings and so on. Our goal was really giving -it can be a very complicated subject cause the savings are in the future but they're paying for the capital cost, and how does that all work, and it's really not - - you know, it's usually, kind of, viewed as an operating expense, not debt. So how does all that work with a performance guarantee and what not? We wanted to create a streamline process that was transparent, repeatable by different towns and agencies and basically gave you confidence as well as a consistent level playing field for vendors doing work in performance contracting in Connecticut. So our goals, you know, and particularly the Governor's budget, Secretary Ben Barnes, and our Commissioner Esty, were very interested in obviously reducing risk for state agencies and towns. So the payment for the energy measures is contingent on appropriation of funds. Sometimes these contracts go for a decade or so, so there's kind of a clause in there that we realize most government budgets are only a couple years and, if for some reason, your funds should not be appropriated for your energy bills, you're off the hook. The vendors' guaranteed energy savings have to be greater than the cost of the total project, all the energy measures their implementing, and if there's a shortfall. If a vendor doesn't meet their guarantee they actually cut a check to pay the difference. Those are very nice conceptually, but let's get into some of the details of what we've put together for you. Basically, four major areas of resources - - and I'll go through each of these to give you a sense. So first we have a prequalified vendor list. Who are these vendors? They're typically called ESCOs (Energy Savings Companies). In Connecticut they're called "Qualified Energy Service Providers." Essentially, we have twelve of these contractors on contract with DAS, so as you know, as a town, you can use those DAS contracts. They are all listed on our web sites and they're very large companies that can do an analysis and audit of your energy needs, the design of the measures, put up a performance guarantee and implement and commission the measures and follow with measurement and verification and all that. So they're kind of a one stop shop. Any sub-bidding under that, for mechanical work or whatever, they handle through that contract. So you would engage with one of these twelve QESPs on our contract and they would take you through the entire contract. The second thing we've done is a large set of standardized contract documents. So really, kind of figuring out how the energy savings match with the financing, and how do you set a baseline; how do you measure energy savings; who's responsible for maintenance of various pieces of equipment along the way. All of this is laid out in these contract documents. Obviously it's not the specifics, but it's a template that kind of leaves the spaces for the details about your project. These contract documents also are posted on our web site. All of the twelve vendors on contract with us must conform with all of these contracts we've developed. They've all been pre-approved by the Attorney General's Office. So for towns, that should give you a level of comfort that the AG has signed off on all these contracts. For state agencies, it means that we don't have to go back to the AG's office for signature for each project. We've already gotten signature and the details are filled in for the buildings and the energy measures for each project, but we basically - - the whole thing has been blessed. So that's huge, and took basically all of last summer; hundreds of hours of work with the AG's office. So we're hoping that that gives you some kind of comfort in these documents. Some of the major things about them - - they lock the energy companies into fixed costs and pricing. So obviously, it's not the scope for your project, but they're locked into their percent markups and margins on the project that they can't stray from. Basically, it gives you and RFP of "how do you select one of these twelve for your project," that's all spelled out. And we have a number of contacts already who've done that for projects already going through those stages. The investment grade audit is all spelled out and that's basically a very detailed engineering analysis looking at all your schools and buildings and spelling out whatever - - 80, 100, 150 energy measures - - what the projected savings will be, what the company is willing to guarantee on that, and then when you put them all together, kind of the package of how long this project will take to finance through the savings. So the standard documents are key and should be a huge help to you. Another piece of support we provided is technical support. We have technical support both on the energy side and the financing side. On the energy side we have a new program manager working here at DEEP who's just on board. His name is Matt Cohen and he's there to kind of walk you through the RFP process, maybe come look at your buildings to see if you might have a viable project, answer questions - - Matt and I are teaming on this, so we're here to help you. The utilities - - you'll meet Dave McIntosh in a few minutes - - we're working very closely with them as partners. As you know, they have incentive programs that give dollars for a lot of the energy retrofits which Dave will talk about. So they're part of the team looking at these projected savings that the company will propose to you, and what you can get from incentive funds to buy down the overall cost of the project. Another piece of support we have for energy expertise - - many towns will look at these investment grade audits and just feel that they don't have the capacity or the capability to understand them and to analyze them, which is understandable; they're complicated. So we have a pool of vendors which are often called Owners Reps that will soon be on contract with the efficiency fund and a certain number of dollars will be allocated to you - - basically, free consultant, on your behalf, to look at the energy saving measures, the performance guarantees, the MNV plan and all that. So between me and Matt, Dave and his team at both utilities and this third - - the pool of vendors that will be really your personal consultant for parts of the project - - you've got a lot of assistance with the energy expertise. The financing is another part that runs parallel with the energy. The Clean Energy Finance and Investment Authority which used to be called The Clean Energy Fund, has hired a new director of institutional programs, his name is Andy Bridges, and he's there to help you with the financial piece. So this is very important to our Commissioner as we put this program together. We were ready to launch it and he said, "Who's going to help towns with the financing because this might be pretty complicated?" And so we partnered with CEFIA because they're our new green bank in Connecticut and that's part of their mission. And so Andy is available to help you connect with banks and entities that are used to financing these types of projects. Eventually we will be working on kind of an RFP with CEFIA so that you'll be able to select from a group of prequalified banks and institutions, and perhaps some revolving fund, eventually, through CEFIA. But at this point, they're there to help you with the financing. In addition, the Treasurer's Office put together kind of a model tax exempt lease which is usually how these are financed, and those documents are on our web site. So again, another kind of document that's prepared that might help you with the financing part. So that's a lot of information. I'm just going to tell you kind of the first step, if you're interested, is obviously educating your town on this. We're here to help you do that if you need help. If you have volunteers on a clean Energy Task Force of some sort - - your facilities directors, finance folks, purchasing folks, Board of Education - - are all critical. So just to be blunt, we realize that many towns are telling us the most difficult thing might be getting the Board of Education to talk to the rest of the town. And, you know, you have different budgets and processes and all that. I will say that the opportunities are in the schools, but also in your offices and waste water treatment plants, so I would strongly encourage you to look at this as a town wide opportunity of bridging Board of Ed facilities with other municipal facilities. So kind of that - - building support in your town. You know, there may be a significant amount of education involved there, and again, Matt and I are happy to come out and talk with town council Board of Ed folks to help you understand the program. In addition, we put together a video that's on our web site. I'll give you the URL at the end. The City of Stamford and the Town of East Hartford, among others, have had various successful performance contracts prior to the State program and we interviewed them and did like a five minute video that has Mike Walsh, the finance director from East Hartford, and Tim Bockus is the public works guy, and their counterparts in Stamford, walking you through the project, showing you: This is what we did in the schools; here's a pool cover we put on. All the things that they did in their performance contract - - how they financed it, how they worked together. So I would encourage you to look at that quick video on our web site and it's something you can also use with your town council and folks in town to explain what performance contracting is and what some of the opportunities are. The second thing you should be doing to prepare or think about a project is: Begin to identify potential facilities. So what are your buildings with very high utility bills? Where are there recurring maintenance issues? Things you haven't upgraded or gotten to upgrade recently; comfort complaints; poor performance, if you have them, on Energy Star and can kind of view performance against similar buildings. I'm sure you know what those opportunities are. So kind of getting your mind around where those are in your town and then pulling together some of the data - - the energy data over the past few years. Once you have three years of energy data together and kind of a description of your systems and some of the opportunities you see and maybe some of the wishes - - you'd like to incorporate solar or geothermal, or something like that - - then you'll be ready to actually engage with some of these twelve contractors we have on contract to do this kind of work. I have some more detailed slides on the process, but I'm going to keep it simpler right now. We can get into that if you have questions. But essentially, at this point, I think the biggest thing you need is to understand where the opportunities are in your town and get some buy-in around- - this is a good thing to do that would help us do some retrofits through future savings. At that point, since we've done the RFP and we have these vendors on contract and we've done really all the contract work, it's pretty simple for you to tap into - - to issue an RFP, which again, we have a template - - get three or more of them to respond and say: Here's kind of the scope of a project we could put together for you. It's pretty minimal time on your part to do that, and it will give you a sense of: okay, this is how the vendors are responding about opportunities they see in our town and how big a project might look. How long the term of a project, and so on, what buildings it might cover. And then you can move through the stages of the investment - - choosing one and doing the investment grade audit and what not. I won't kid you that over the long term the project will require management and attention, certainly, by your staff, and DEEP involvement, but we've got a lot of folks, as I mentioned, to help you along the way. I mentioned we have four projects started already - - The City of Bristol - - and they are, I think, their last set of interviews was last night, so they are about to select one of the twelve vendors. They issued an RFP and did some interviewing and review of their responses, so then they'll be moving on to doing the investment grade audit. If you know folks there you can talk to them. The Department of Corrections, Department of Motor Vehicles, and Connecticut Valley Hospital, have initiated selecting one of those twelve vendors to do a project. We know there's a lot of interest in towns. We're excited that Matt, the program manager, is on board now, so we've got greater capacity to serve you and work with you on this. So please feel free to contact me or Matt. I imagine these slides will be available, Keith, for the attendees? Okay. So here it is, our contact information, and the web site - - the DEEP web site "Lead by Example" has all of our performance contracting programs. So it's got the list of the twelve vendors and their contact information. It's got all the contract documents. It's got the videos I spoke about from Stamford and East Hartford and pretty much anything you need. It's not - - we haven't had a chance to make it super user friendly yet; it's kind of like a library with all the information. So please do call us if you're interested and say, "I'm interested. Can you help me get started? What documents do I need to work with in the beginning?" We'd be delighted to do that.