Um I think um to me the difference is things like you said like a fire hydrant. If the fire department wants the fire hydrant here that's where I'm going to put it. Exactly right. Um for me more of the issues are the massing what the building looks like. you know, well, the shape and size of the windows, but not to not smallest, not to the smallest detail because windows only come in certain sizes. You had to eek it for the energy code, you had to make all the windows a little smaller, you know, whatever. We don't want to be dealing with that because if they would have presented the first windows to us the first time, we would have said they were okay, right? So um but it's yeah it's like those things on the the elevations say the plan and elevations the massing that when um a lay person can look at the drawings and say oh these are different why are they different versus yes I went on site and I said yeah these are different but other people didn't notice them right but there should be a level of change where people can notice without me saying, "Look at right here.
So, if I may clarify, uh, this is where if we could go to the chart. Sure. Because when you look and see, we we have this planned out for 2 years for FY25 and into FY26. When you look at the funds that are available out of those accounts that you listed, those are the primary revolving accounts that we have available to us. We are reducing our available balance of all those funds by 27%. Okay, starting. So yes, there it is the balance that every organization, a school district, municipality has to do. It's no different than hearing what the mayor is saying about the fact that as she released her budget book, they are not using stabilization or free cash for FY26. We are using planning to use for FY26 $2.2 million of ex of reserves already available to us. We're reducing the funds we have available to us in the neighborh 27% from what we're starting 25 with to what it is that we're projecting to use for FY26.
Um, next item on the agenda is the approval of minutes. If board members can please just um, take a look. I do need a motion for the minutes. Dr. Herrian move that move that the Cheshire Board of Education approved the minutes from the showcase and business meetings held on March 20th, 2025. Second was calling in second. Any corrections necessary? No. Okay. All those in favor of the minutes as is unanimous. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Any correspondence, sir? Um, I am not in possession of any correspondence. Great. Thank you. And we move on. Dr. Solen, superintendent report. Thank you very much. Uh, couple of quick updates. The school construction is motoring along. Uh kudos again to Mr. Salamini for uploading some great video footage of the schools. At this point, basically where we are is that uh a lot of the underground utilities have been installed.
So, it comes out to about 14.8% of our student population. So, as you can see, we're not a small group. We serve a lot of students. And just to highlight the students that we are serving, there is a continuum in special education of supports and services. And it starts in the general education classroom where we have students who don't need any classroom support. We have students who are in general education but they have the support of an instructional aid in their classrooms. We have students in general education classrooms with co-eing pairs where there's a general education teacher and a special education teacher who work together collaboratively to provide instruction. We have our mild moderate SDC classrooms which are students who are in our mild moderate criteria and who are working towards a diploma. We have our our moderate severe SDC classrooms with students working towards an alt pathway diploma and I'll talk a little bit about that in a couple of minutes.
But enough about the seniors. We had ASB interviews for all of the students who are returning or joining us next year. It was very fun interviewing everyone, but also different because I wasn't the one getting interviewed. I was the one interviewing them. So, it was kind of different. But all of them did such an amazing job and I can't wait to see the great things they will do next year. And of course, there are many things happening at Aba Valley High School and I want to thank you all for your continued support. We couldn't give our students any of these amazing opportunities without you guys. And thank you for your time and have an amazing night and don't forget some of the pride is contagious. [Applause] Thank you. So, I'm going to take a couple things out of order here so that the students can just stay for a little bit longer.
But the approximate cost that they provided in a formula was on a $1 million home, a constituent will be paying around $300 more a year in taxes, which we know is paid quarterly. Um, so it's around $75 more a quarter here. Most homes in Clifton are less than this with the average home price around $575,000. Um, and the median annual Clifton tax bill around $9,336. 2% of that is around $190 a year in the median on the average. So that's at 4750 a quarter. So that's kind of in the middle. Um I I mean as an educator I feel that that's a small price to pay to meet the district goals and to bide our Clifton students with the best education possible. I mean I won't read it back to you. Read it at the beginning of the meeting. The board's mission, philosophy, and goals are all clearly stated.
All right, we have a recommendation as a motion. So move second. All in favor? I thank you. Consider policy 48420, law enforcement relations. This will be a first reading. Yeah. So here um again first reading uh there and it is a essential uh policy. Um so we currently do not have this at least in its detail that is within this draft. So, um, basic pieces with this policy are the just the desire to work, um, and cooperate with law enforcement, um, but but certainly do that within federal and state constitution protections for students and working with with families and parents and guardians as well um, throughout that process. So, so is that drafted using ISBA? It is taken from an ISP sample policy.
Do you see how this is different?" Then then I I don't think that's, you know, if I if I need to spell it out, see how this comes a little bit further than that. Yeah. Then I I So we could say it as it's visible to a reasonable person. Yeah. Create a reasonable person standard which is province town. But so I think are we agreeing it comes to the whole so this is from all this conversation I'm hearing is when we get IFC we should ask for a write up of what change and that should come to the board. What's an IFC? Uh sorry issue for construction drawings. I don't know if we need it automated for every time that happens. I think we just need to make it part of our decisions that our in our decision we just say you know at the time of construction our rule whatever rule that we have needs to be followed and if these things are happening we're trusting the applicant that if you're doing these 10 things plus whatever two more that we're going to add you're going to come back to us I don't know if we need it every single time there's a construction permit pulled I don't know if we need to like double check everything we just need to trust the applicant that you're going to follow the rules If you see these changes, you're going to come back.
So here's the confusion. I just want to you can help me understand. So, in the budget for this fiscal year, there was a request for 1,714,846 for transportation out of local funds, but in the revolving account for transportation, there's a million dollars. So you're asking for local funds of a,700,000 but in that revolving account is a million dollar. So I guess to me and this is just you know as a a person who looks at numbers I'm seeing you asking for an amount a million7 and then holding on to a million in a revolving account. So, as a taxpayer, I'm going, you know, yeah, I want to give the children and the teachers everything they need, everything. But there's still this money that why are you asking for it when there's already money that has been generated somehow for transportation by ch transportation? So, if you're asking for the 1.7, you receive that in the budget from local funds.
We're laying concrete right now at both locations uh to fill out the foundation and create the floor. Uh next month, believe it or not, we'll be having steel delivered and we'll start erecting the actual uh structure, the actual uh skeleton of the building by the end of the summer. It'll look close to the school is there. So, it's really exciting uh how quick the outside goes up. Then there's a lot of time and energy spent on the inside. The other um update that I want to provide is that uh we're excited I say we as a a member of the YMCA board of directors that uh we've made a purchase of the church across the street from uh uh Norton School and so that will you know take time and be renovated but uh I'm the new we on the Cheshire Board of Ed side of things is helpful that uh hopeful that you know we can use that space for parking in the uh fall of 2026 when we're demoing the existing Norton building.
And then we have a small subset of students who will earn a certificate of completion at the end of their time with us. So, we have students with a wide variety of needs that we serve every single day. Last year, we held 5,980 IEPs in our district. About 3,400 of them were held at the high schools, about 1,800 of them held at junior highs, and close to 700 of them were held at our alternative campuses, which includes everything from Hope to Oxford and CBA and Gilbert. So we are busy all of the time. So I want to take a minute and talk about some of the initiatives that we have been working on for the past couple of years in SYS which are really the focus and the drive for everything that we do. So a few years ago we developed what we called an IEP audit.
Um, we're going to we're going to do some recognitions on some presentations. TA, you want me to have everybody come up here that's on the list? Everybody? Um, actually board members. No, I want to call up the names. Oh, you're welcome to call this group first. Okay. All right. So, if Melissa Estrada, Wendy Johnson, Amber Oh, boy, that's a tough one. Mox. Yeah. Megan Salbury, Marina Torres can all come up to the front. front and center. Come on, don't be shy. Yeah, if the board would join in front. Okay, you guys come over here for right now. We're gonna we're gonna talk about you anywhere I want to stand. You're the honore. Not behind me. Amber, you nobody will ever see you. So, as the board is coming up, I want to just um share that we have made the decision that we do these outstanding representation of our district values.
None of those are attainable without the facilities, programs, and staff to make these goals happen. And none of those are possible without the budget to do so. In short, levying taxes every year by 2% should be a no-brainer for all constituents who care about education, and not doing so will set any further prog progress back and make opening this new school an exercise in futility. Uh, respectfully submitted myself, Cynthia, along with Richards. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, [Applause] Mr. Rose. Is there anyone else in the virtual? There is no one else. Again, motion to close. Virtual second. The other person didn't dial back in. So, okay. Motion to close. Virtual. Did I hear something? I didn't hear. Commissioner Brunak, motion to close. Who seconded? Commissioner Mahia. Thank you. Okay, we're back to uh our live in person uh public recognition. Anyone else would like to approach our table here and address us?
Any questions or discussion? Hearing none, we will bring that back at the meeting. Uh next time is consider corporation administration address change. Why are we doing that? So if you haven't noticed, we have a new building. Um this is just a formality to get the official corporation address changed from the 1000 Fairview to 3 West Athenian Drive. Um, we have to file this with the school accountability office who then sends it on to the board of ed to be approved for the DOE. So, I recommend that approval. Move approval. Second. All in favor? Okay. Thank you. Uh, three. So, is it three Athenian Drive or three West Athenian Drive? Because like the high school is just one Athenian Drive. Yeah. Yes. I saw the west in there. We found that they are synonymous with each other. Okay. Are we going to change the high school to one west at the end?
I just don't see it's hard to give us the bullet point list of what change and that goes on the website with records or I just I don't think that's a big ask. Well, it does. Um I'm somewhere in between here. I think there are some things like this does not need to come back where the fire hydrant goes does not need to come back to the planning board again, right? Like I don't care. Fire department wants it. Move it. Right? I think other things that um are also of a level like when when um the Asher came back to us with changes, you know, there were I mean if you have to you have to know what degree of change you're looking for because you're if you're co pointing out every change, it's it's probably going to be the whole facade. you know, this this this corner board changed, that window size changed, this window slid over a little bit here.
I I guess I'm seeing every year there's like $4 million left in revolving accounts and I'm hearing you say you're reclassifying it or taking money from there. Um, I did ask the mayor to look back over the last couple of years and I was very proud that she didn't charge me $25 an hour for information. Um, and I found out that there's always like in circuit breaker and I understood your point of view which is you kind of pay it forward. Are you close to your question? I need to to finish this. So that there's always over a million dollars in circuit breaker for the last three years in the revolving account. There's always been $800,000 in this bed revolving account for the last three years. There's been $500,000 in the school choice revolving account for the last three years. And in transportation, we've gone from 261,000 to 723,000 to over a million dollars in the revolving account.
Uh so that would be a tremendous benefit for us and um you know Vin and myself are working closely with Mark uh Mark Per and Doug Leven from the Y to see what we can do toward that end. So, uh, that's that's good news, a nice development for us. Um, the budget update, I think most of you were here at the 6:00 show and, uh, if you weren't, that's available on the, uh, website, uh, the town website, and we'll put the link up on our website tomorrow. Uh, basically uh, the town council had asked me to present what our budget would look like with a $2.2 million reduction. I've shared a lot of information with the board and the community, very detailed information about uh what a draft would look like. I can't say that it's finalized because ultimately you guys have the authority to make that decision.
It's done in the first quarter of the school year and it's an opportunity for the junior highs and the high schools the feeder pattern to come together and they actually sit down in groups and analyze every student's schedule, every student's IEP and they have criteria that they're looking for when they do this. They want to make sure that what's written into the IEP matches the way that the student is scheduled. They're looking to see if students are given the right sequence of classes. they're not repeating things. They're on track to graduate. And it's been a really, really helpful tool for sites to really look at their own practices and procedures. So, the site analyzes their data that comes out of the IEP audit and then they actually present to us what they find. And through this data analysis, they look at their practices and they identify a key area that they want to focus on for that school year, which is why we do this work in first quarter so that they have the rest of the year to focus on whatever it is that they've identified through reflection is the area of growth they want to focus on for that year.
I usually call them living our values awards. And on the morning of March 1st, I re received a call from Mariana Torres. Um I could tell by the call that she was shook up and that there was something going on. It was shortly after 7:00 a.m. She along with several other staff members were arriving on this property for a community vision event co-hosted by the Lions Club representing our values of dignity, community authenticity, and service. All of these individuals jumped into action to support a car accident victim. They selflessly did whatever was needed. And while we talked about them last board meeting because many people were aware, today we wanted to formally thank them and honor and recognize their unwavering commitment to all of our district values. In this situation, they certainly highlighted the importance of service and community, no matter the need or situation.
Okay. Oh, I feel like I'm too short, like I have to lay across the table. Oh, thank you. Hi, I'm Donna Papwitch. I'm the mayor of Donnerville and I'm here because every month we present certificates to our citizens of the month, people who have really gone out of their way and have made a difference to make Clifton better. And we are presenting these certificates to uh people who have made a huge difference and they're also huge personalities and in one of them cases quite a huge huge dog. So we'd like to present these to Mark Jenaro and Chewy. and it says, "For your outstanding contributions to the city of Clifton and service to the children always with many thanks for all your work in the Clifton public schools, for going above and beyond for our children, and with Chewy, our emotional support animal and therapy dog who offers comfort, companionship, and emotional support.