With one new member, a new name and a new regular meeting date, a city/school task force created to seek money-saving opportunities for both entities decided Monday which areas it will tackle first.

Councilman Tim Johnson, who took office earlier this month, now fills the seat vacated by outgoing Vice Mayor Charles Brown. He requested to be on the committee, which also includes Councilman Mike Duman and School Board members Linda Bouchard and Judith Brooks-Buck.

The body also has a new name — the City School Advisory Committee on Collaborative Fiscal Concerns.

It was created to explore money-saving options, with the idea of benefiting both the city and the school system. However, Bouchard revealed one of her concerns on Monday during the committee’s second meeting.

In the past, “We (the schools) kept saving money, and it would go to the city and we never saw it again,” she said.

However, near the end of the meeting, she seemed more confident that any savings realized would benefit the school system.

“I’m very excited about the attention that has been expressed by our new council members,” she said. “There seems to be a feeling that this is a new day.”

Duman also said he wants the committee to be a “non-adversarial forum.”

“I like the fact that we work as colleagues,” Brooks-Buck added. “All of what we do is in the best interest of the people we represent and the people who work for us.”

The committee set its regular meeting day and time as the second Monday of each month at 11 a.m. Its meetings so far have been in a first-floor conference room in City Hall, but that could change.

At the February meeting, Charlie Barksdale of the Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy is scheduled to present about a program known as energy performance contracting, which is allowed in Virginia law.

The program, which recently was used at the Western Tidewater Regional Jail, allows a government entity to agree with a contractor that the contractor will guarantee that the debt service on energy-saving improvements, such as new heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems, will be satisfied by the energy savings realized by the improvements.

If it does not, the contractor actually has to pay the difference, Duman said.

“It’s a no-brainer,” he added, saying that it would be, at worst, revenue-neutral.

For its March meeting, the group agreed to tackle health insurance and plans to invite a representative from Sentara to talk about the network’s insurance plan, which would require employees to use the Sentara network.

“If we can save 10 percent on our joint insurance, we’re talking about a $3 million savings,” Duman said.

Bouchard said she hoped any changes to the insurance plan for school employees would not cause the district to lose any competitive edge it might gain after salaries are adjusted.