BOE Business Meeting 2026-3-16

001Good evening. I call this third budget study session to order and note that all board members are present along with Dr. Patrick and members of his cabinet except for Edgar McIntosh. Welcome to all those who have joined us this evening either in the audience or tuning in on our live stream or via Zoom. tonight after the budget study session there will be as usual two public comment sessions during our business meeting immediately following the budget study session anyone who wishes to make a comment can also email the board at Board of Ed at Scarsdale schools org the board welcomes your feedback throughout this budget process and with that I turn it over to Drew okay thank you very much Jim I appreciate it just pulling the slides up here so good evening everybody thank you

002for tuning in to budget study session number three whether you're here in person or watching online the primary goals for tonight's budget study session are to present the board with a proposed budget that falls within the tax cap and to participate in the ensuing board discussion I'd first like to offer why I think it's important to stay within the tax cap this year And while I'd like to be succinct, this is a matter that warrants a little bit longer explanation. I hope you'll bear with me. Much of this is drawn from the letter I sent to the community last week. Since its passage in 2011 and subsequent implementation, the Real Property Tax Levy Limit Bill has created an arbitrary ceiling on property tax levy increases to the lesser of 2% or the rate of inflation.

003While boards of education can present a budget to voters that exceeds the limit, This requires a 60% supermajority for approval. Scarsdale has put up budgets in excess of the cap twice since being signed into law, once defeated in 2013 and once supported in 2024. Staying within the cap the majority of the time has led to downward pressure on the budget and has forced difficult choices as expenditures have been growing faster than the tax levy cap allows. This scenario leaves us with really only three choices. reduce expenditures, use fund balance, and or ask the voters to override the tax cap. Looking back over the past 10 years, we've needed to make all three of these choices at various times. From 2015-16 to 2020-21, the approved budgets were below the tax levy cap by an average of

004$733,000, totaling $4.4 million over that time. While these budgets were carefully developed and scrutinized, they also resulted in reduced budget flexibility year over year. Then, as you know, COVID ushered in a period of extremely high inflation. With the allowable tax levy limit capped at 2%, our already reduced flexibility became something of a crisis. Eventually, the Board decided that they needed to adopt a budget over the cap and did so by 1.3 more... $34 million or 4.45% in the 2024-25 school year, which the community supported. However, even that budget resulted in cost reductions to offset the inflationary growth experienced in many areas of our operation. The current 2025-26 school budget was adopted at the tax cap and relied on planned use of reserves and expenditure reductions, principally the elimination of six faculty and staff positions, in

005order to reach the cap. Since the tax cap was implemented, budget approval rates statewide have steadily increased. However, a closer examination of the data suggests that the vast majority of defeated budgets are those that exceed the cap. For example, in the most recent budget vote in May of 2025, voters across the state approved 96.5% of school budgets. 654 passed and 24 were defeated. However, of the 24 districts that experienced a budget defeat, 17 were attempting to pierce their tax levy limit and therefore needed a supermajority 60% for approval. 25 districts were successful in their tax levy limit override attempt just as we were in 2024. Voter data suggests that budget growth in an amount at or around the 2% level has become normalized around the state, as voters are trained to think of the cap

006as normal. We must be cognizant of the impact of school taxes on our community and have to find a balance that maintains our exceptionally high quality of education and allows for innovation and improvement while minimizing the impact on our taxpaying community. Despite the fact that that balance is harder and harder to come by, the evidence suggests the cap is a tool to be used judiciously as an unsuccessful budget vote is a worst-case scenario and potentially devastating to our educational program. Finally, this year we are asking the community to not only support a budget, but also a $101 million bond referendum to make much needed capital improvements to aging buildings across our district. With all of this considered, I felt compelled to recommend a tax cap compliant budget. With that as background, we'll jump into our

007presentation, which will again begin with a review of the process. As I always state, the school budget provides the necessary financial resources to operate the school district and to help achieve the goals and objectives of the school district as set forth in our strategic plan. Our vision and mission, summarized here, are supported by our three strategic plan big ideas. collaborative future-oriented academic growth, educational environments that promote well-being, belonging, and resilience, and a commitment to inquiry, interdependence, and innovation. We carry out work toward those ideas through the organizational structure of our school district. The three spheres in this slide communicate the critical functions of our work with students and student learning situated in the center of it all. Importantly, our budget is structured to attend to all three areas of the organization with teaching and learning

008held up by the operational and student support functions. The Board of Education and community provide input and guidance for all of the work through governance and budgetary support. The blue boxes added to this slide represent the components of the budget we've presented in the previous two budget study sessions. And you've seen this slide countless times in the past. I'm sorry to show it again, but really it illustrates the backbone of our instructional program to support student learning and growth that this community is committed to over decades. These structures foster favorable student-teacher ratios, create smaller learning communities within a larger school setting, and allow students to express agency over their course of study. The resources directed toward this fundamental organization of our schools create the foundation that allows us to attend to the whole child while

009pursuing innovation and thoughtful adaptations to meet the needs of our learners. This is what we are desperately trying to preserve within the ever-tightening financial realities that we are facing. I want to emphasize that we've been thoughtful, principled, transparent, and responsible in our budget development process to date. Arriving at this budget has required difficult choices and we'll do our best to communicate as clearly as possible the rationale for these decisions. This district has a long history of investing in education, which has enabled program innovation and expansion to take place while maintaining outstanding educational outcomes. This community has shown a level of financial support that reflects the real cost and value of an exemplary public education, more so than in many other places. but that is frankly getting harder. While we act according to these guiding principles,

010the truth is not all of these things can be maximized simultaneously, so compromises are necessary. Tonight, we'll focus on those compromises, essentially, with knowing that we still have a few steps to go before the budget is adopted. After tonight's presentation next Monday, we'll have the budget forum in review, and then on April 13th, the board will hopefully be in position to adopt the 2026-27 budget. Okay, so moving forward toward our revised 2026-27 draft budget plan, I just want to remind us how we got here. We presented an initial budget plan on February 9th that had a $2.6 million gap between expenditures and assumed revenues. We entered that presentation knowing that before doing anything new or different, costs were predicted to increase in excess of the $5.9 million in additional allowable tax levy under the cap.

011We were anticipating $2.8 million increase in health insurance costs. $400,000 in additional Social Security and Medicare costs, payroll tax costs, salary and wage increases of $3 million, and contractual increases, including in student services, liability insurance, and vehicle maintenance of $1.1 million. Beyond these largest year-over-year increases, there are dozens of modest increases, often less than 2%, and even decreases in many other areas of the budget. Nonetheless, without doing anything new or different, we were projected to exceed our tax levy limit by $1.4 million just in these categories alone. Bringing a budget at or below the limit necessitated reductions from what we presented at the start of the process. So we presented a slightly revised plan at our last meeting on March 2nd that included the elimination of a contingency position from the proposed budget and modest

012reductions to contractual costs, benefit costs, tuition and BOCES costs, and equipment supplies and materials. That budget plan also included a small increase in assumed revenue of $120,000. Unfortunately, we still had, as you see in this slide, a $1.9 million gap to resolve. Here's that budget where we left off last meeting, and at that time we had a 3.9, we were projecting a 3.96% budget-to-budget increase, which translated to a 4.5% tax levy increase. That budget included a transfer from reserves, though lower than the current year, as well as the typical $1.1 million in assigned fund balance to help support the budget. The reductions we are presenting this evening cut across a range of expense areas, including staffing. I will remind the board and the community that 80% of our costs lie in staffing, in the people,

013because salary, wages, and benefits are our primary costs. As a school system, this makes sense and is typical in the sector. We've also made reductions in the benefits area, contractual area, as well as in supplies technology and the portion of our BOCES budget that supports software licenses. I will now turn it over, Megan, to review one of these sections, the staffing impacts. Thank you, Megan. Thank you, Drew. So I'd like to walk us through where we are with staffing in terms of additions and reductions. Our initial budget proposal included the addition of a special education teacher at the middle school. a math position at the high school, and two contingency positions to support potential changes in enrollment, particularly at the elementary level. Outside of staffing, we also included an increase in the contractual elementary social

014work through Scarsdale-Edmont Family Counseling. And these additions would have brought us to 669.7 total FTE, including all faculty and staff. So obviously, as Drew has shared, given the current financial context, we've made some changes to these proposed numbers around staffing. So first, we've removed the special education position at the middle school. So this removal will mean that we would not be moving ICT to seventh grade in English and math. Currently, next year's ICT program would remain the same as this year and include in sixth grade ICT in English, math, social studies, and science. And in seventh and eighth grade, we would have ICT in social studies and science. As we work through the end of the year, depending on our CSE enrollments, we will look to see if we could add English ICT in the

015seventh grade, but not in math. Math in seventh grade has two levels, which offers a differentiated approach, albeit not ICT. And so this may be a possibility as we get to better understand our students' needs at the end of the year. The removal of the math position is a second change from previous proposals you've seen. So despite not adding the new position, we would still be able to address the potential class size issues in geometry 422 and 423 by adding a section of each. As a way of accomplishing this, Scarcell High School would likely not offer computer science 912, which has seen declining numbers, and reduce personal finance by one or both sections. So pending New York State mandates, that will soon require all students receive personal finance units. So the high school has already

016been exploring how to embed this content into students' senior year history electives. And then finally, we'd be reducing the two contingency positions to one, which Drew mentioned. We continue to see our kindergarten enrollment be lower than anticipated. And when compared to past years, we believe that this removal will support the expected enrollment. We also, as I mentioned, had a proposed increase in elementary social work through Scarsdale-Edgmon Family Counseling, and this would be removed, and we would continue to maintain our current elementary social work staffing. Beyond removal of our proposed positions, we're also proposing reductions in our current staffing. So most of these positions would be through attrition, where someone has announced a retirement or a resignation, and we're not filling that position. So first, we would recommend we not fill an elementary E&L position after

017a retirement, and we'll work with our shared staffing, K-12, to cover the needs of our students. We currently have that model with our E&L staff, and this shift will require a closer look at student needs and our teachers' schedules. And in addition, at the elementary level, we'd be decreasing two elementary teachers through attrition or reassignment. In terms of our other staffing outside of our faculty, we also would not be filling one of our open clerical positions at Scarcell High School. The high school will be able to support this through technology related to attendance tracking and some shifting of responsibilities. In addition, we'll be abolishing one of the positions in a district-wide technology department. Again, this will involve some shifting of responsibilities within the department. And then finally, we would be reducing $250,000 in the AIDS

018budget line. This is approximately 10 positions, which will be gained through attrition. We have a lot of turnover in our teacher AIDS. And we would be looking at the general AIDS budget line, not the required special education AIDS, as those are governed through the CSE process. So this would bring us to 661.7 total staff, which is five below the actual 25-26 budget for staffing, and 3.7 FTE under what was budgeted for for 25-26. And then finally, just a last piece, we would, as many of you know, because we speak about it here at this table, our teachers engage in summer improvement work related to curriculum development every year. And we had made reductions in this area last year, which we had proposed to reinstate. we would move away from that proposal and have an additional

019reduction of 20%. And so all of this combined is $929,000, but just a little over $929,000 as our proposed reductions. Just to interrupt for a second, it seems like we're having issues with the live stream for folks at home. Well, the Zoom, I think, is okay. The audio was off. Now it's on for the Zoom link. Our IT staff is working on that. I don't know if the board wants to pause until that's done. Andre, could you send a parent square out directing people to the Zoom link? Okay. Thank you. So on Zoom, there's full audio? Yeah. Just to clarify, we typically mute. the Zoom audio because it can interfere with the live stream and what we direct people normally do is to watch the live stream and then mute the live stream to come

020on to public comment via Zoom those are sort of our ground rules but of course we can use Zoom in this case in lieu of the live stream but maybe Honore can send a quick parent square out with the Zoom link again to remind people they can watch it that way sure I guess livestream is just not what do people see when they go on to livestream just nothing just let us know when that you just let us know when that parent square goes out I'm putting you on the spot I'm sorry hopefully people are figuring out that the zoom is a backup the the meeting notice does include that livestream is back Okay. All right. Do you want to continue? Yeah, I think we should continue, if that's okay. Okay. So thank you, Megan,

021for presenting the staffing reductions. We'll get through all of this, and then we'll be able to come back to these things with questions. I'm going to turn the next set of reductions over to Andrew. Thank you, Drew. So as we commonly speak, 80% of our budget really is people and employee staffing benefits. Related to the staffing changes. We've also got benefit reductions a subtotal of that is about six hundred and seventy one thousand dollars The two major pieces of this reduction include a reduction our prescription drug benefit costs by about $320,000 that we anticipate based on our current year actuals. That's still going to have an increase year to year versus our current year projection of about 10%, which is the inflation number that our consultants feel is appropriate for the plan. And then we

022have $171,000 reduction related to our stop loss premium. Stop loss insurance is used to help us mitigate high cost claimants. claims for individuals over $300,000. Based on our current experience this year and the marketplace, we believe that an increase there of 15% rather than the 20% we previously expected is appropriate, so we've brought that down. There's additional ancillary benefits reductions based on the staffing changes and some tightening of some of the other budgetary items. The grand total, though, for benefits is $671,000 reduction. In the contractual area, the largest piece of this is the deferral of a 1.5 FTE increase in social workers, which was included in our proposed budget initially. This is something we'd like to do, but we think it's prudent for us to hold off on implementing that addition, so we've pulled that

023back out. and that is just under $160,000 worth of savings. The balance of the savings in this contractual line is related to contractual purchases through our technology department, in particular software and training related to that software. You'll see that in several of the other categories that I will continue with, technology plays a heavy role in some of the savings opportunities we were able to achieve this year, which are typically going to be one-time savings that will be, you know... recurring in the future years if we don't try to add them back. So in the supplies area, we've reduced some of our superintendent conferences. meal support where we typically include lunch for for our staff on superannuation conference days we've reduced some of our anticipated purchases for special ed supplies particularly around the testing of students

024for disabilities we've eliminated some furniture purchases at the middle school we've deferred some increases to the extra classroom activities at the high school to a future budget and maintain that funding level flat year over year. The subtotal for supplies is $88,750 of savings that we were able to obtain. In the technology line here, it's really our... our lease line through some creative use of technology device deployments as well as restructuring some of the longer term infrastructure updates that the technology department is going to do. We've been able to reduce that lease purchase line by $76,000. And then in the BOCES category, we are looking to eliminate the use of... Zoom for our typical meeting or virtual meeting platform and utilizing the Google Meets platform, which is already part of our fee for the Google suite

025that we use across the district. So we will maintain Zoom for some particular... Zoom webinar. We'll maintain that, like for board meetings and other large meetings, just not Zoom meeting. If you have a virtual meeting with any district employee next year, anticipate using Google Meets. And then in the BOCES area, also we have Smart Notebook. We anticipate producing Smart Notebook and the Schoolology support, both items that our technology department brought forward as possible savings based on our actual usage of those platforms. So in total, since budget study session number two, we've been able to reduce our budget by $1.985 million, and this now brings our budget to a tax cap-compliant budget year over year. So at the high level, you'll see our proposed budget now in the green column is $197,098,146. That is a $5.6

026million increase year over year, or 2.92%. Our other revenue sources continue to make up about 6.65% of the overall budget, and we are continuing to maintain the reduction in the use of reserves in this proposed budget. So we are showing a decrease of $250,000. That is namely the reduction in the use of the health insurance reserve, which we have talked about multiple times. including last fall as we looked at the long-range financial plan as we try to reduce our reliance on reserves and fund balance to balance our budget. Additionally, a small reduction of $90,900 for the one-time expenses around the bond for the current school year that we talked about last year that was anticipated to come back out in the following year. And the resulting tax levy is $181,731,441, or a $5.9 million increase

027year over year, and 3.37%. Again, this is a tax cap compliant budget at that number. This is just another way to highlight the numbers. So, again, the revised proposed budget as of this evening, $197,098,146. A budget-to-budget increase of $5,593,313. We are increasing our tax levy by $5,918,219, and we are at the property tax levy limit of $181,731,441. We are at the property tax cap, which means we will have a budget proposal, if it goes forward as presented this evening, that requires a 50% plus one vote majority to pass the budget. Included in here are projected tax rate increases for the town of Scarsdale and Mamaroneck. These are based on the current assessed value information that we had as of, I believe it was last Friday. Because of the equalization rate changes and assessed value changes,

028you'll see there's some rebalancing between Scarsdale and Mamaroneck. So the Scarsdale tax rate is projected to go up 2.99%, and the town of Mamaroneck's tax rate is projected to go down 4.17%. percent year over year. This next slide is just a demonstration of our recent history in terms of property, excuse me, in terms of budget to budget and property levy increases in the blue and red bars as well as the inflation rate, the CPI that's used for our tax cap calculation in the green line. And as you can see, in the most recent budget years, the CPI has gone significantly above what the budget required in order to support our program. I should say it differently. CPI was significantly above what we've asked our communities to support, namely in the 22, 23, 23, 24, and

029then even as late as 24, 25 as we had a tax cap override that budget year. Just refreshing the board's kind of view of the fund balance history. Overall, our fund balance right now, our projection is $20,916,226. You see the reserve categories at the end of the fiscal year projected for 2026. We will be updating this based on the final proposed budget to reflect. whatever the unassigned fund balance is at 4%, and we will adjust the health reserve accordingly as an offset. So you should anticipate that change. As you can see, there is a downward trend on the fund balance. That is the concern that many in our community have shared with us that we want to address, and we are trying to address that in our reduction in the reliance of the health reserve

030this year. We're trying to maintain that commitment to be more fiscally prudent in our use of fund balance reserves. and again this is another breakdown of how do we get to those balances in our projected fund balance and reserves so we started with our june 30th 2025 ending fund balance of 22 million 136 thousand sixty three dollars we add our projected revenue and and subtract our projected expenditures. You can see that our projected expenditures are larger than the anticipated revenues. Therefore, you should anticipate a decline in our fund balance, and that is the projected fund balance of $20,914,000. Actually, that number is off by a few dollars. We'll have to correct that slide. But at the bottom, you'll see the $20,916,226. That's our projected ending fund balance. apologize for that that error there I do

031make a footnote on this slide this I want to be very clear because we are in New York State public schools are capped at a 4% unassigned fund balance 4% of the subsequent years budget as we've revised our budget downward to be taxed tax cap compliant we have not gone back and reviewed the the unassigned fund balance in this we would anticipate bringing that down to match the 7 million 883 000 number i've got the footnote and the offset would be an increase in our health reserve if all else goes as planned I mentioned a moment ago that the tax, the budget proposal is at the tax cap. A reminder that the property tax cap is simply a measure by which we determine whether or not we need a simple majority, 50% plus one vote.

032or a supermajority of 60%. This year, the calculation takes into account CPI, which is currently above 2%, so it's capped at 2%, and then we include a tax-based growth factor, which is a reflection on the property values in our community and the growth of those over a period of time. We also have capital exclusions for debt service, as well as our school bus purchases, as well as for our transfer to capital projects. Those are exclusions to the cap. The broader cap calculation results in a tax levy limit of $181,731,441, or 3.37% increase year over year. In this next chart, there's not much variance this year, not many exemptions, but it still is important to go through. So our starting levy of the current school year, $175,813,222, is adjusted by the tax-based growth factor. It is

033then we remove the current year's capital exclusions. We multiply that resulting number by 2%, which is the cap, the lesser of CPI or 2%. We then add back our capital exclusions for the proposed budget, and we end up with our resulting tax levy limit of $181,731,441. This number was reported to the Comptroller's Office as of the March 1st deadline, and we will update that based on any changes that are required. This has not changed since our last budget study session, so I won't spend much time on it, but you can see our revenue projections here. The columns in... I'll call it peach on the top right side of the screen, reflects our projected revenue for next year. You can see that the property levy increases of $5.9 million is reflected there, as well as some

034adjustments to the other state aid categories and other revenue sources that we have. We also reflect the reductions in fund balance and the reduction in the use of the health reserve and the resulting... funds available for the budget are listed there. And then this next chart is a summary level view of many of the budget presentations we've given to you thus far. Again, in general support, which is more of the administrative and facilities maintenance part of the budget, you'll see an increase budget to budget of $773,452 versus budget study session two. Our general support has gone down $21,647. In the instructional area, you can see budget to budget increase of 1.949 million. Since our last budget study session, we've decreased that budget by 1.2 million dollars. That is inclusive of some of the technology spending

035that we mentioned earlier, as well as our school social worker proposal that we've backed off on. All of those types of things are in the instructional area. There's been no change to either transportation or community services. And then you can see the decreases for employee benefits and debt service being the adjustment to the lease that I mentioned a moment ago about technology devices. So again, using our median assessed homes of $1.32 million for Scarsdale and $1.971 from Amerinec. This 3.37% levy increase results in an estimated tax impact to those homeowners of $715 for the Scarsdale community members and a reduction of $1,116 for the Maranek portion of our community. Again, that's because of the assessed value changes and the equalization rate from New York State that helps us split the tax levy over the two

036communities. Thank you very much Andrew so just wrapping up we like to frame the budget accomplishments if you will through the lens of our strategic plan so in the area of learning the budget promotes a collaborative academic culture that nurtures critical and creative thinking by funding really the program that we described, the level of instruction through small class sizes at the elementary level, the house and team structure at the middle school, and the program of study at the high school, and ensuring that staffing levels are consistent with those expectations as best we can. The continued development of performance-based assessment aligned to our strategic plan priorities, authentic global opportunities with our partnerships through Global Learning and Round Square. and building, revising, and integrating our curriculum across levels and disciplines. In the area of living, this budget

037supports our students to develop the dispositions necessary to live well-balanced lives of meaning and contribution by promoting well-being and belonging through our curriculum and responsive classroom training. We continue to support that. supporting a variety of partnerships that we have with institutions and trainers and organizations and supporting the inquiry of community of inquiry and innovation CFII and also funding select arts and aesthetic programs with our relationships with art institutions visiting artists and so forth and then finally in the area of leading This is where we include a lot of the capital type work, but first it supports a reduction in the year-over-year dependence of reserves to offset rising health plan costs. You saw that, and Andrew talked about that. It replaces 12 gas-powered buses and continues our progress toward the deployment of EVs with a new

038EV minibus and an electric SUV that's used for student transportation. It will include the replacement of the gyms one and two gymnasium bleachers that have reached the end of their life and continues our replacement of end of life playground structures with Heathcote next up. then finally renovating of existing space at the high school to anticipate the arrival of our eight to one to life skills program they'll be there the fall of 2028 but we're budgeting next year for it to get the planning process off the ground so that we're ready in time for that And in closing, just again, a reminder, we always show this, we're here at budget study session number three on March 16th, and we have next Monday to look forward to, which is the budget forum and review, and then on

039April 13th, the Board of Education has the opportunity to make a decision on the budget and hopefully adopt it. And with that, we'll turn it over to the board for questions and discussion. Please, anyone, feel free to start. so I just would like to highlight I just have kind of a few comments last questions I just like to highlight something that Drew said to make sure I fully understand so we cannot keep our current program as it is right now for next year within the cap that's right right so reductions were made not only to the proposed ads but cuts were made to what we have currently in order to keep us within the cap for next year that's accurate okay then our tax levy is 92% of our budget are we the highest of

040our peer districts with regard to tax levy when I looked at the West Putt data collection from last year which was this current fiscal yes we were in the Westchester Putnam area we were the highest as a dependency on the community in which we the community we tax we were most dependent upon the tax levy because we get very little state aid right because state aid is based on the wealth of the district right in many cases basically okay thank you um and in terms of reduction of positions through attrition which we've kind of done for two you know this would be the second year we were doing that i believe yes that some may be efficient to downsize but others i think several may still be needed positions and that emptiness in those positions

041can cause additional pressure on current faculty and I know there's the idea to make do and see how it works for example with not adding the additional staffing but I just wanted to point that out I think it's very important for us to watch this at the board level if we move forward with this budget just to know you know how much pressure we're putting on the additional faculty without filling those positions over time I'm concerned a bit about the teacher aid hour reduction at the elementary school and then the no added social worker help at the smaller elementary schools because I remember when we went on our Heathcote tour for example and I believe they were one of the schools that wanted some more social work help One of the reasons was there are

042issues that come up at recess, ongoing issues, a social worker will help the kids work through it, that type of thing. Now we're not gonna have as many aides potentially at recess. I'm just giving examples at recess. So I would be curious to kind of watch that closely again if we go with this budget. That confluence of factors at the elementary level. In terms of math, You know we have received a written communication from the high school PTA and several emails from high school parents And I'm a high school parent as well, so I I know this issue Where there are extra large math classes I? I see I see it as beyond geometry right it's other classes beyond geometry that have that issue where there are 28 29 potentially 30 students in a class

043making, you know, someone who wrote to us actually made a really good point and they talked about office hours and I've heard this from other people as well, you know, we pride ourselves on having our teachers available for office hours in a very collegiate type setting and the students are encouraged to self-advocate and go seek help. And when there's so many students in a class and there's one teacher and it's challenging material, it's very difficult to get that access, you know, that we pride ourselves on. So I just would like to highlight that for us. Okay, and in terms of question is there I know that you mentioned Andrew in the discussion when you take you know and you reduce that that eight million in the unassigned fund balance to the four percent of the

044budget if we do with this current budget that would potentially that extra would be moved to the health reserve but I noticed the health reserve numbers and I know our health plan can be very volatile and we watch it year after year. And I noted after full year 2026, we're projected to be at 1.975 million in our health reserve. And I just wanted to know if you could walk me through a general plan to replenish that reserve. Because I don't love being under 2 million. Yeah. So. Any of our reserves really get funded either through excess revenues or cost savings throughout the budget. It doesn't have to be necessarily in health, but we hope that health savings could help us identify savings to fund that reserve. The other alternative is to budget a surplus, to

045actually burden the annual budget with a line item that says this is purposely for that. I don't think we're at that point at the moment. So it's our hope that our... Our fund balance generation will help us kind of restore some of the fund balance in general that we've seen erode over the last few years. And the only certain way that we can help contribute to that is by reducing the annual budget's reliance on that fund balance because that's a planned decision. When health costs come in high and we need to appropriate from the reserve to cover them, we need to do that. That's the purpose of that reserve. But it's the planned use of that that I think is what is certainly putting the burden on that reserve over the last several years in

046addition to high claims. Just to put a fine point out, when you're saying fund balance, you mean undesignated fund balance and reserves, just so everybody is aware of that. The $20.9 million in that slide, yeah. I'm categorizing it all together. How we classify it is what we ask the board support to increase or decrease the reserve accordingly. Do you anticipate that this budget will put even more additional pressure on our reserves? Absolutely. Yeah. As budgets become harder and harder to trim, there's less and less there to have savings, right? So if we're dealing with a budget that has ample cushion in it, we typically will find ways to save money in that budget and contribute to the reserves at the end of the year. cutting deep in this budget, I'd say. We think we can

047survive the school year with this budget. We think it's a prudent decision for this budget, but the things that allowed us to be flexible throughout the year are getting harder and harder to support. So we have to pull that fund balance usage number down because it's going to be harder and harder to replace it in our financials. Right. I remember even when I think I'd asked about the 1.1 million that we are allocating, you know, kind of year after year from our unassigned, you know, to kind of mitigate. the burden on the taxpayers, kind of have that going back into it. And I remember, Drew, you said we've been able to kind of replenish that every year. So this could potentially put pressure on our ability to replenish that and then thus include it and

048then just have that money. Absolutely. And beyond cost savings, there's also the revenue surpluses, right? So things like in recent years, we've had excess interest earnings, right? Well, we're in an interest rate environment where that's going to be falling, right? So we have to assume that we're not going to have that. revenue kind of outperformance that we had in the past so that that also contributes to the need for us to start to pull down the use of that fund balance and reserves and just to highlight another point on that as well just the contingency which I know I brought up at another meeting where the last time I think the last year when we took it down from two to one you needed two Right, so you had to find the money for the

049two for the second contingency. So this in this budget. We have one contingency position Which again can put ultimately put pressure on our fund balance So I just want to say kind of you know I remember years ago I was on the League of Women Voters and this was in the years when we were budgeting under the cap we used to ask the district and the board are you budgeting or is the tax cap affecting how you budget are you budgeting to the cap and I know it was a pressure but at the time there was you know the response was no we're just you know budgeting to what our needs are and I find it it's interesting now to be at this point and to be on the board and to see the budgets

050you know that's last year this year we're literally at the cap so yes the tax cap has a large you know, influence over how we're budgeting. And it's not necessarily, I know it's a guardrail, and I know that's extremely meaningful as a taxpayer and for our community and for us, for our fiduciary duty to be very careful and thoughtful about how we use our resources and how we tax our community to support the schools. But I just really want to highlight, you know, so the community knows my view, that I understand the importance of the guardrail, but I do find it to be a very arbitrary calculation. that is putting really undue pressure and it's very difficult. But I do see that we have a bond this year and we are asking the community to

051vote in general as well. So I agree that it's not the time to go over the cap, but I'm concerned. I'm concerned about our fund balance more than anything, honestly. kind of pull from that somehow or put pressure on it. So I just want to share my thoughts on that. Thank you, Andrew. And I should say congratulations for getting us to a tax-compliant budget. However, you know, this doesn't feel celebratory, right? As you and Drew have explained so well, the pressures our budgets have been feeling, especially the last few years, because of the tax cap. Facing headwinds such as inflation and the growth of benefits expenses. I especially appreciate you the email that you sent to the community Explaining our very difficult budget situation Which it was both informative and honest and I really hope

052everybody read it in full. We have received as a board feedback expressing some justifiable questions and concerns about some of the decisions that we're making in this budget to get to a tax cap compliant budget. I understand those. We are at the point now where I don't think we can say that the tax cap isn't. really affecting what we can deliver to our students. I think we've been dreading this day for now many years. It's been predicted to be here for over 10 years, and we're here. I really hope the community sees that. Whether it's this math edition, which I would love to do, and I think everybody here would love to do. I also have similar concerns about the AIDS. not having those hours, you know, the technology hardware procurement, I assume that's the

053Chromebooks that just last meeting we were talking about how, you know, we need to update those Chromebooks at the high school level responding to AI. And, you know, if we can't do those things for our students, you know, on some level, you know, I don't want to say we're failing, but, you know, we're doing the best we can given these constraints. But I hope the community can see, you know, instead of focusing on, you know, this thing that they want, that they're not getting this budget or that thing, you know, that we can really have an open and honest conversation about the tax cap generally, you know, that that is a pressure that... you know, is arbitrary as Leah said. I think there's a lot of misinformation in the community that people think it's illegal

054to go over the tax cap. It is not illegal. It's a very valid tool we could use and, you know, given that we do spend you know, most of our budget is funded by tax levy, you know, more than any other district around. We're going to face this pressure, you know, maybe sooner than other districts, but they're all feeling it too. You know, being on the board of West Putt, we talk with other board members all the time, and every district around is. you know as you all know uh facing these same decisions that we're facing you know maybe we're facing them a little bit sooner because you know we're in the position we are in in terms of um our tax levy but they're making reductions in staff they're you know all of those

055things But there is no political will in Albany to make changes to the tax cap. I brought it up recently when I was on a call with Drew with one of our local legislators, and they were just very honest. They understand our situation, but in Albany, this is not going to change. So we have to, as a community, decide that we're going to, you know, if we want to do all these things that make Scarsdale Scarsdale. that we're gonna have to go over the cap I'm not suggesting that it be today but it's something that I think that our community has to really understand for future budgets Susie can I just I just want to make one point that we might not have made clear with respect to the high school request for Chromebooks that

056is in the budget it's the same amount yeah we would be foregoing We'd be basically taking a refresh of technology that would be scheduled for the elementary level and assigning some of that to the high school to meet this need. Okay. So it's a judgment about where the need is greater. Devices will still be available but less new at the elementary school and getting those new devices for the high school humanities as per their request. Thank you for clarifying that. No, that's my fault for not being more specific. And thank you and everybody who's thinking as creatively as possible on how we can deliver the best education given our constraints with the budget. I appreciate that. Thank you. I just want to start by first thanking you, Andrew, and Drew, for the hard work. I

057think from the start, the board talked about trying to be tax cap compliant, and at our last meeting, I think we were about $2 million away from that. I wasn't sure how you were going to get there, and I appreciate the hard work that must have gone into coming up with these suggestions. It's certainly not. easy to come up with them and as a board member it's sad to hear but understandable that to be compliant with the tax cap this is where we had to go but I appreciate your efforts and I also appreciate my fellow board members comments I think they have a lot of sentiments that I agree with I did want to ask a question Megan or maybe Eric about the if you could just remind me of what the program is

058now for seventh grade I think you mentioned since we wouldn't be doing the ad for ICT what those students do there sure so Last year was the first year we offered options for ICT in the parallel houses for English and math in sixth grade only. Seventh and eighth grade have what you would call the traditional parallel program that's been in place for quite a number of years, which is science and social studies have ICT options, and then there are small section 12 to 1 classes for math and English. There's also an academic support period in all three grades. You don't have to take every single one of those classes to be in those programs. The program is based around the strengths and needs of each individual student. There are a few students who are in

059an LRC and some of the ICTs. There are ones that are in regular level math, but the 12 to 1 in English, it really is dependent on those. factors for the students. So seventh and eighth grade will remain the traditional parallel program that's been in place for quite a while now. And as we can hopefully next year expand that through seventh and eighth grade with the additional choices of ICT and the two other subjects. I appreciate exactly how you frame that. That was what I was trying to understand. So there is a program in place, and there is, you know, we're just looking to expand the ICT, so. Correct. Taking the suggested ICT position out of the budget will not. reduce the program but it will not the students who have now experienced the ICT

060in English and math will make a choice between the regular level and the 12 to 1 parallel class for the seventh grade which is the decision they used to make from fifth and to sixth grade but now they're making it sixth and seventh grade there is a different feel to that because it is the middle school they've already experienced that type of support so it's not something that we would want to do but certainly something that's needed Thank you. And Megan, I think Leah had touched upon this, but the teacher aid hour reduction. So how do you see that playing out? Where would you see those aids? You said not in the mandated. Right. So our aids operate in a variety of ways through lunch supervision, arrival, dismissal. They're in the classroom. So I think

061it's really looking holistically at where these may not be. ten individuals it may be time over their day so a reduction a reduction in hours for one particular aid might be and you know an hour less on a particular day because we don't need them for the dismissal so really asking our buildings to look at all of our processes all of our procedures and where we can find those those areas to make reduction so it's less about an individual and more more about potentially just Overall, decreasing those. Okay. I was wondering, too, if it was going to impact potentially arrival and dismissal because I know those times have often needed some extra support. And then, you know, we've heard, obviously, a lot from the community this weekend about sort of the math change. I would

062encourage us to next year, you know, look, I mean, I won't be on the board next year, but for the board and the administration to look at, you know, a little bit more of the numbers, the class sizes, what might be causing students to want to take the number of math classes that they're taking. Are we adding electives in other areas? Do we have... pre-requirements for areas that prohibit students, for example, you know, I believe, and my high school students can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe you need to take the intro to engineering class to take AT entrepreneurship. I don't think there's as many business classes. in the high school. I think AT stats, we see a lot of students that are going to school, to universities for business, and so that's

063an opportunity for them to get some of those classes in. So I think there's a lot of classes that fall under those categories. Maybe there's other areas to explore electives in the future, or perhaps to look more closely at the numbers about what happens in September. versus in February when students may drop down levels. And maybe there's some classes that historically have students dropping down into certain levels. Maybe there's cushions to be built in in September in some of those classes that have more historic drops. I just think there could be some analysis and perhaps creative thinking that might help alleviate the situation there. But I appreciate all the work that's gone into putting this budget together. Thank you. Sort of piggybacking on Amber and some of the others, I guess my question is focusing

064for a moment on the math, the removal of that one position. One of the documents, and I can't remember because there were a lot of them, that Drew had written describing modifying the financial course. doing some sort of internal rethinking. to solve the problem of the overcrowding. And I think it's really important, at least my impression is that we're not saying by removing this position that means we can't solve the problem. It just means it's going to have to be solved in another way, which I really appreciated because I didn't really think about it that way. And I think the community has to perhaps appreciate that this is... This is early in the decision-making that we now have, you know, half a year to figure out how to do better in terms of access, having

065students have access to teachers. We've created this common lunch, which gives people more free time to do things. There may be other creative solutions. So I think it's really important that it's not a black-and-white situation. Okay, we're X-ing that out, so therefore every kid will still be in. classes that are higher. That may be somewhat true, but it doesn't necessarily have to be true. And I guess I'm asking whether, you know... all of you agree that, you know, this is now we've got some issues that we need to take a deeper dive into and that we, in fact, do have time to do that. Doesn't mean we wouldn't want to have that extra math class, but if people are not signing up, for example, for a particular class that's gone down in popularity and we

066remove that, but it solves the problem. I think that may be a creative solution. So I guess that's my message is that I'm still not assuming that these topics are not going to be solvable. It's just going to take a little more manipulation or more creativity. So for that, I really thank you. I still feel like optimistic about it personally. Yeah, I think just from the perspective of a student for the math teacher, during my four years in high school, I've definitely seen that there have been many pressure points in the math department when it comes to dropping and when it comes to class sizes. I don't think it's limited to geometry. I think just last year I saw for the 11th honors to the 11th low honors, definitely that is another pressure point that

067many students will face. And I think it goes to say that... Like, yes, we could make more sections to alleviate the fact that there are so many students in a classroom, but I do think we are already getting to the point where we're stretching teachers too thin. Because one, like Ms. Dembitzer mentioned, we do have office hours, but I think also we see that even if a teacher from a higher level goes down to the lower level to teach a section, in ninth and tenth grade you have one teacher teaching, I believe, three classes. And not only that, I think one of the best things about the math department that I've seen is that many of these teachers that will teach core math classes will then go on to teach electives like linear algebra or

068computer science or digital logic and design. And I think you get into an issue where not only are these teachers getting more core classes, but they're also... they still have those electives. And I don't think a solution for that would be just arbitrarily cutting the electives. And at the same time, I don't think you can replace a lot of the teachers that do teach digital logic and design, for example, with just an arbitrary math teacher, because definitely that's a specialized math course. And so thank you so much for the presentation. And I know all of these decisions are so difficult to make, especially at this stage of the game. But I do think that, like everyone has been saying, when it comes to the math teacher, I would say that, to me, that is one

069of the biggest areas for reevaluation. wanted to say thank you for this great presentation and I can really tell all the work you guys are doing to make this both like a balanced thing about the students but also financially conscious bond I kind of want to reiterate what honest is saying from like the high school perspective obviously this math teacher is a really important topic I know that friends of mine after seeing the email from dr. Patrick came to me We're asking all kinds of questions about it. I also have a question for Assistant Superintendent Troy. How did you, so I remember at the last meeting, one of the big emphases was, emphases, sorry. One of the topics of discussion was like the 28 person AT physics class or all the big classes. How did

070you decide specifically to do the geometry classes to have those be the ones with the extra sections? So I think geometry, that's just an example. In talking and working with Mr. Bonamo's team, it's really going to be for them to see where those pressure points are. So we're saying geometry now, but if really the numbers are a precalc, then it's a shift in that direction. So I don't think those are examples of the courses, but I think they're really going to be looking at the numbers and where students are, where they're signing up, and make some adjustments that way. I don't know, Mr. Bonama, if you wanted to, if there's anything else to add to that or no. Okay, thank you. And again, I mean, obviously I really understand the pressure to want to create

071a budget that goes into the tax cap, but from the high school student perspective, that is definitely our biggest point of concern. Yes, so I also really appreciate that from the very beginning of this budget process the district has made tax cap compliance sort of the goal of this budget. I agree with other board members, you know, the tax cap really created this. that it's not necessarily the way we want to deliver the quality education program many in the community wants, but at the same time, there's significant portions of the community who are more sensitive to financial pressure. So while it is a difficult trade-off, I think I appreciate this judicious distinction. you know, the approach to the budget. I just want to add quickly to the sort of the high school curriculum discussion. From

072the fall education report, we see significant increases in AP exams taken, and now we're seeing increased numbers of students taking more than one math classes. So there seemed to be some sort of almost like a macro trend. I think this is an example of how like the budget process is really like an opportunity and a tool kind of for us to review and analyze some of these. student behavior, course choices. So I really appreciate all the deliberation. So I guess after, I really appreciate how this budget, like... minimizes any impact any negative impact on student learning although there were very significant reductions in headcount it seems like there's a lot of optimization like moving around that were built in to to minimize any sort of program cuts so I appreciate that but given sort of

073these trends in these increases right in math courses or AP exams. I just hope like after the budget there will be continued work maybe to dig into this and see or anticipate any future needs. Thank you. Yeah, just a quick response on that couple of thoughts to your last point There is ongoing conversation about those things and they don't always match up to the budget cycle and maybe unfortunately maybe fortunately I'm not sure some of the decisions made under the pressure of the budget Hold the potential to not be the best decision sometimes because of the the clock or the timeline But appreciate that and yes and I do want to be blunt I I think just human nature we have a tendency to want to put our best foot forward and present that we

074think we can do this and but I am conscious that the budget is a plan and there are a lot of there's a lot of devil in the details that's in front of us whether it's the AIDS whether it's what happens two math enrollments given the lack of addition of this position things like that that we will have to report back to you I think as somebody mentioned before Aliyah maybe we'll have to report back to you how it you know how it's going if this becomes the adopted budget and to me this one this year this one this time around feels more difficult just to be honest about that thank you Drew for that and Andrew for this budget and I also just wanted to thank all of the the principals and department chairs

075I know the past few weeks have not been easy trying to come up with with these cuts and it's it's it's disappoint it's hurt it's hard hearing the students say please give us this math teacher and not being able to give it to them at this point But we hear you and we know it is a need and I'm hopeful that we can meet that need in the near future. I just don't know if the reality is going to be this year, which is a hard thing to look at you and say, because I would love to give it to you and to give it to the high school, because I know the pressure points we're now putting on the administration. So thank you for that. One thing that I didn't really think about was

076the office hours comment. And so... And I know we have heard from parents in the past, and as we're looking at budget, if there's a way to maybe find a few teachers to expand the math center to after school. I know parents have advocated for that. Students have advocated for that. If that could alleviate some of the pressure office hours on the teachers, I don't know if that's a reality, but just something that... i didn't take into account with the with the high class enrollment and what that does to the faculty could you know it might be a possibility and just throwing that out there um and i think it would be helpful you know all of these little cuts here and there to continue to update us on the impact that's felt so that

077we can then share that with the community because the reality is if we're going to continue to give this quality education that we want to give i don't know if we can continue to have budgets that are at the tax cap. And that's just like the world we live in at this point. So I just wanted... to thank you for that and thank all of the administrators that are working hard to to make this work this year the other thing that i'm struggling with with is i think one of the things that makes the high school so special and so unique are all of the electives and i think you know when you're looking at a child's transcript seeing those different course offerings are really really can give it make a child stand out or

078show their passions or their interests and so that's another thing i'm grappling with the possibility of maybe pulling back on that financial literacy course that this year had 52 students enrolled in, and I looked it up this afternoon. And so I just, as we problem solve, I know you guys will keep that in mind, but it is something that our community should know that this is the give and take when we stay below or at the tax cap. Okay, everyone's spoken. I agree with a lot of what people have said. And just to add my thanks for the work that's been done, and I know it's been a lot. And, you know, it's been thankless work in a sense because we're really just looking to cut things that we don't want to cut. So nobody

079wants to do that work. Nobody feels great about doing that work. It had to be done, and it's been done, and we appreciate that it's been done thoughtfully. And, you know, with care taken to build in alternative ways of thinking and to sort of mitigate the cuts, you know, because that's what we're looking at. I do think this is a new reality. It doesn't feel that new to me because I've been in this position now for four years and every year, even when we went over the cap, it was difficult. every year there were things we had to consider cutting that people didn't want to have cut many times we didn't cut them sometimes we did but every year it's been difficult i think it's been getting more and more difficult this year really shows

080it i think in a way the tax cap is designed to do that it doesn't keep up with inflation it doesn't keep up with rising health care costs it doesn't keep up with other built-in costs that never that never seem to diminished but only seem to increase year to year so as that dynamic uh sort of confronts itself of the two percent cap a little bit more than two percent but more or less and the rising costs it's going to be every year a challenge to have a budget that doesn't result in significant cuts to keep it at the tax cap and i'm not trying to be a downer about that i'm just i think saying what is the reality only only a political will can change that I think I don't think anything we

081sitting around the table can do can change that other than to ask the community to accept a budget above the tax cap is my prediction that's how you know I see this potentially going I know people will be upset that I'm even saying that but again I think it's it's the nature of the fiscal reality that we're in and don't see that changing so thanks again for that appreciate that all the work Thank you everyone. I appreciate it. Thank you, Amber. Okay, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Okay, that motion passes and we are adjourned. And let me just give, if you just give me a moment, I have to open my talking points for this. But before I do, shall we take a five-minute wellness break? Yeah? Ten minutes? All

082right, let's do that. Good evening. I'd like to call this meeting to order and note that all board members are present. We are joined by Superintendent Dr. Patrick and members of his administrative cabinet, except for Edgar McIntosh, who's traveling. Welcome to those joining us this evening, either in the audience or tuning in on the live stream or via Zoom. Earlier this evening, after an executive session, the board held our third and final budget study session. I'd like to thank those who have provided feedback so far on the budget process, and we are truly appreciative of the community's engagement. I'd also like to thank Dr. Patrick, Assistant Superintendent Andrew Lennon, Assistant Superintendent Megan Troy, and all the other members of the cabinet and all the district's employees as well who have thought long and hard about

083the budget for 2026-27 school year. As we heard during the budget study session, the reality of our mandated tax cap along with rising costs that are beyond our control has forced us to make some difficult choices and we'll continue to do so. We thank Dr. Patrick and his staff for approaching these hard decisions. in the spirit of striking a balance favoring the preservation of our educational program and its student-oriented focus. On a somewhat lighter note, in recognition of holidays coming up this week, I'd like to wish everyone a happy St. Patrick's Day and a joyous Eid al-Fitr for those who celebrate. Okay. Thank you very much, Jim. Good evening. I want to add my welcome to everybody those in the audience and those watching virtually And I want to say I appreciate the gratitude you

084expressed Jim And sort of right back at you I don't think people see how many questions the board asks and they're good. It's important I mean that I've really that wasn't supposed to be a joke Maybe it's the sign of the late of the day, but the questions really do help make the process better and be more coherent and transparent and get to hopefully better outcomes, in this case in a not optimal situation at all. But those conversations and inquiries and the questions that are asked really are essential and the board puts in hours and hours and hours and hours and hours not just at events but but in thinking about this and conversing with us about what it is that we're trying to accomplish so I want to express that gratitude back back to

085you all and that's sort of a theme of my opening remarks tonight on the agenda later this evening is a draft bond resolution that the board will be considering for adoption and I just wanted to pause at the beginning of this meeting and take the opportunity to express my gratitude to a number of individuals first and foremost this guy to my right Andrew Lennon who's Come come in here in his first few years on the job had a tax cap override an auditorium bond million other things new financial system the list is long and we'll talk more about that later this this spring, but That's a start with Andrew But the process that led us here really to tonight's agenda items really started 18 months ago with the articulation of a framework for decision-making From

086the outset, the Board and administration committed to a transparent and inclusive process with stakeholder engagement and response to that engagement ongoing throughout. We developed a superb team of experts who've been excellent partners throughout, several of whom are in the audience tonight. That group includes the team at BBS, Ken, Kevin, Fred, Mike, Nikki, and Tracy. The team at ARIS, Paul and Jonathan, thank you. Our bond counsel, Dan Birmingham, who's here tonight. Stephen and Ed from J.C. Broderick. for their support in the secret process alex locasio who you heard from a couple meetings ago from capital markets advisor in that group worked along with our own experts our remarkable facilities team led by nick ferraro in the audience john antonecelli luis magalhaes and again those guys supported by by andrew so i appreciate all of you thank

087you for this and dan of course dan pettigrew our council yeah i feel like he's just there all the time. So yes, thank you, Dan Pettigo. A critically important early step in our process was to develop a clear set of priorities. This took place collaboratively with the Multi-Stakeholder Capital Project Steering Committee with representation from all of our school communities and the community at large. That group committed an incredible amount of time over the course of nine meetings to develop knowledge and understanding of our program, buildings, and infrastructure and reach consensus on four broad categories of projects. the committee agreed the bond must include projects that address vital infrastructure needs the construction of newer renovation of existing essential learning spaces air conditioning projects that have a positive impact on the learning environment in all seven schools

088and field projects that address access and playability for our student athletes and community members to help promote wellness and well-being and their members around this table bob leah anish who were part of that capital project steering committee as well so thank thank you The community demonstrated significant engagement in the process by showing up at events and Board of Ed meetings, completing surveys, and sending in questions of their own. You, the Board of Ed, took in an incredible volume of information, digested it, asked probing and clarifying questions, and worked through five versions of the plan before reaching a thoughtful conclusion that has resulted in a capital program that delivers value for the investment. I express my thanks to each and every one of you around this table for your participation in this and now the hard

089work begins assuming the board adopts the resolution tonight I just want to announce to the community that we'll be hosting three town hall style bond information sessions the first would be held on Tuesday April 21st here in the high school in the auditorium at 7 p.m. the second is scheduled for Monday May 4th at 7 p.m. at Fox Meadow Elementary School and the third on Wednesday May 6th at 7 p.m. at Edgewood Elementary School we expect to give tours of the two elementary schools in advance of the meeting starting at 630 and we'll push all of this information out in communications in the near future but I just wanted to use this opportunity to share that and tonight I also just acknowledge what Jim said and wish everyone a happy holiday for Eid al-Fitr and

090Nowruz the Persian New Year taking place on the 20th that is also a superintendents conference day so the schools will be closed for students but our staff will be working on assessment focusing on the star assessment at the elementary level and the secondary faculty will be working with Jay McTighe, a national expert in performance tasks and assessments. So we're looking forward to that. And with that, I turn it back to you, Jim. Okay, thank you, Drew. I think we have some board member reports. Bob, do you want to start? Yeah, sure. So I have two reports, two committees that I attended in the last week. One is SAY, who I keep forgetting what it stands for, but it's Scarsdale Action for Youth. I have to keep reminding myself. We meet monthly, and the mission is

091to empower youth and families to make safe and healthy decisions. So some of the topics we talked about, just to kind of summarize quickly, is people in April should be looking for a campaign which is being called Wait to Gate. And the goal is to discourage drinking at our athletic events in the high school. The gate meaning tailgating, and yes, it's an issue, unfortunately. And so you'll be getting some material which talks about the importance of trying to not have guests and parents drinking at the... some of the athletic events. On another note, on March 14th, the Scarsdale Family Counting Gala will be honoring Wendy McMillan for her service to say she is really great and has done some amazing work. So I'm very happy and well-earned reward for her, and they're going to honor

092her on that evening tomorrow. At the high school, the week before St. Patrick's Day is historically Ditch Day, which I wasn't aware of. And yes, people, we were talking about that and Principal Bonamo will be sending out a note discouraging that, but you can look forward to hearing about that coming up. One of the things that has historically occurred in the school is a survey on substance use. And again, parents should be looking for, they're going to be rolling out this spring the findings of that for everyone to understand what the status of use of substances within the different schools are. The other committee that I'm on is the PTC. Technology Committee and it's an opportunity for the PTC Tech group to meet with. Jeanne Crowley and William Wang. It was really a great conversation,

093really taking a deep dive into the use of AI and people's feelings about that. It's a really bright group of people who are very involved professionally in this area, so it was very interesting for me to hear about how engaged the community is and how... how much Jeannie and William are listening and trying to be as responsive as possible to parent concerns. Some of the things that we talked about had to do with data security as well as AI and that we're currently developing in the process of doing a technology plan and a survey will be going out. that all parents and kids in high school and the community should be encouraged to take because it really it is important for the community to share their perspective on that so thank you okay thank you

094uh laura do you have a report thank you jim on saturday february 28th bob and i attended the scar still chinese association's lunar new year celebration Also in attendance are Mayor Justin Arrest, Deputy Mayor Dara Gruenberg, Village Trustee Jeremy Wise, and also representatives from New York Assemblymember Amy Paulin's office and the Scarsdale Public Library. The event drew more than 300 attendees from local communities, students in the Mandarin program, local businesses, and other community groups. The program featured lively performances, cultural presentations, games, crafts, and delicious food. It was a beautiful event to celebrate culture and build community. We thank the Scar Steele Chinese Association and their dozens of volunteers for making this event possible. Efforts like these contribute to stronger community engagement and are deeply appreciated. Thank you, Laura. Colleen, did you have something? Thank you,

095Jim. On Thursday, March 12th, Laura, Bob, Amber, and I attended the Scarcell High School Muslim Club's annual Ramadan Iftar dinner held in partnership with Edgemont High School's All Means All Committee. The event took place at Edgemont High School and was very well attended. Iftar is the evening meal that breaks the daily fast during Ramadan at sunset. It is a time for community, spiritual reflection, gratitude, and celebration. Families from both communities brought their favorite dishes to share as they gathered to break the fast together. We would like to thank the High School Muslim Club for inviting us to be part of such a meaningful evening and for the warm hospitality and, of course, the delicious food. Thank you Any other board reports other than student reports because if not, I'm going to report briefly On the

096two by two meeting this was on March 3rd Drew Colleen and I met with Mayor Justin Harris deputy mayor Dara Grunberg and village manager Alex Marshall For a quarterly two by two meeting. I'm gonna give a very high level summary without getting into too much detail just for the interest of time anyone wants to know more detail please send me an email so we discussed among other things the village pool project and the timing of that and when the construction would occur for that we discussed the immigration enforcement general order that the mayor's office uh when the village is issued actually i think it comes to the police department we reviewed generally the requirement that the police department is going to require or does require a judicial warrant to detain a person for immigration enforcement

097um we also talked a little bit about our protocols here um in this kind of situation um we discussed a um you know uh concert uh to commemorate uh the united states 250th uh i guess anniversary and scarsdale's 325th anniversary uh that's in the works um not much to report on that other than it's being planned um we did discuss the common circles uh installation and thoughts about how that could be made available to be visited by the public we discussed the future of the a school building that's very much not subject to concrete plans at this time we're still using it and for the foreseeable future i think we will be using it by we i mean the school the district freightway collaboration the village wants to move forward is moving forward with plans

098uh we have a liaison uh susie who is working uh will be working uh with the village uh in connection with that as it goes forward um and so i'm sure we'll be hearing about that over time we discussed the capital bond project timeline which you're going to see more of later this meeting and we discussed the turf practice fields and the work that's being done in connection with that which will be used by village residents as well as you know Scarsdale district students and finally we discussed the steam judging project I think we're still waiting for approval to proceed with that but there is also I think it was mentioned a public library outdoor project that's going to be going on a renovation project this summer so that's it at a high level for

099for our two by two and with that the student board members have any reports This past Friday and Saturday, the Scarsdale High School Drama Club hosted an excellent production of Puffs, or Seven Increasingly Eventful Years at a Certain School of Magic and Magic. We hope everyone had the pleasure of attending. Also this past Friday, the Math Department hosted their annual Pi Day celebration. Math teachers and students conducted math independent studies presented during classes, whether they be math-related or not, about subjects such as encryption, game theory, and more. During lunch, there was a sale of pizza and various baked goods, with the most notable baked good obviously being pie. On March 6th, I had the opportunity of attending the school government house meeting. This is the first meeting with our new school government for the 2026-2027

100school year, and they did an absolutely amazing job. At this meeting, we discussed feedback on the community lunch program, now having gone through a full winter season. I think most of the students expressed that even with community lunch in place, the Learning Commons and cafeteria haven't felt very full, and students still have a good way of... finding seats and feeling comfortable in those spaces. We also discussed that the amount of food being bought by students has decreased and we think that's like a correlation to now students having more time to go out during this period and we brainstormed some ways that we could get students purchasing more items again. Also at this meeting the government led a discussion on peer-led learning in the April which is a program where students can request teachers to lead

101a class about a topic of their choice with the school government member giving us a demonstration to what a class might look like and really encouraging students to take advantage of this amazing unique opportunity thank you okay thank you and with that we have cabinet updates section four of the agenda indeed and we'll start with Megan and then go to Andrew so we've already wanted to give a quick update on our hiring process for a number of positions we've already started our process for hiring faculty across the district there are a number of teacher positions that are open due to retirements and an assistant principal both at the middle school and at Heathcote So all of our positions have been posted and advertised and applications are coming in. I participated in a local job fair

102through Long Island University last week, and then this weekend on Saturday will be joined by some of my fellow administrators at a virtual job fair. So meeting a number of candidates. We anticipate screening resumes and conducting interviews in the upcoming weeks. The middle school and Heathcode, our process for hiring assistant principals will involve more stakeholders, including parents at that level, as we identify. the next candidates for the position. Mr. Coughlin and Ms. Stile will be leading those searches at the building level. And just as a quick review and overview of our hiring process, in all of our searches we involve committees to both review resumes and to be on the interview committee. All of our committee members will engage in unconscious bias training prior to sitting on an interview. And the faculty hiring committees typically

103include members of the grade level or the department and other administrators. After the building principal has identified a final candidate through the process, I meet with them, as does Drew. And then we make a final recommendation to all of you for an appointment at a Board of Education meeting. So hopefully in the spring months, you'll be seeing those names and faces on the agenda as they sit nervously in the audience. And while it's always sad to see people leave, It's exciting as new people come into the community and we're in a place to welcome them. So that's where we are. Thank you. Any questions for Megan? Okay, and Andrew has a couple of updates. A couple of updates. So I'm extremely happy to announce that we've finally received our first Type C EV school bus.

104So on Thursday morning, myself, the transportation leadership team, and our really talented mechanic staff from the village, who are on the right-hand side of this picture, we're excited to get a... a test drive and and receive the the first ev bus in our fleet you can see the unique numbering there ev bus number 100 that's that means it's the first one um so uh In this picture, Mark, William, Robbins, Nadia, and all the maintenance staff, we really took quite a bit of time to meet with the dealer, go through. You can see in the next couple of photos. It is very much like a normal school bus and then very much not at all like a normal school bus. And you can see on the right-hand side, the mechanic staff were so amazed where the

105typical large diesel or gasoline engine was housed. very different things than they're used to seeing, including six pumps for coolant for cooling the batteries, which I guess that's an interesting thing for the mechanics because I guess we don't typically have six coolant pumps in a normal vehicle. But it was really exciting. It was very quiet, and we did take it for a test drive. And then the dealer plates came off because we still have to register a vehicle just like everybody else. So the bus will not be on the road until sometime later this week. We will be scheduling it to circulate through our fleet so we can make sure that we. We get drivers trained. It is different than driving a normal school bus. The regenerative charging and the stopping and braking is all

106a little bit different, so we want drivers to take their time using this before it gets really rolled out into a single route permanently. But the team is very excited to see how this all works. to to kind of preempt a future question we did install two temporary level two chargers uh one at quaker ridge and one at the high school here in somewhat discreet maybe not um locations um they will they're programmed they are going to be electrified later this week in time for us to use those for charging we've also worked out some tentative plans with the village and they're charging by the the sanitation facility if we need some supplemental charging until our highland fleet chargers get installed sometime in probably early july over the bus compound so it's really exciting development

107and hopefully students will see them throughout the the district on their run from time to time as we take other vehicles off as we typically do for DOT inspections and whatnot. So that was a really nice highlight for last week. In addition to last week, we had some bid openings. So on the agenda this evening, Resolution 9.06 and 9.07 has the award of contracts for our high school turf practice field, which was included in the 25-26 budget. The bids came back for the site work, and DeRosa Sports Construction is a very reputable firm. was highly recommended in some of the follow-up conversations we had so their contracts awarded 9.06 and then we utilized some cooperative bidding to negotiate pricing around the turf carpeting and infill that we thought was in the best interest of the

108district. We successfully negotiated a 12-year warranty on this practice turf, which we thought was going to be unattainable when we started this process, and a very favorable pricing. So the carpet and the installation of that and the infill will be by a turf, which will match the surface that is on Butler Field right now. So that was an important safety thing for us as students warm up on this practice field and then move over to Butler Field. While it will be newer, they'll have very similar services there. So I want to thank BBS and ARIS who also both helped us with the vetting of those contractors and making sure that we got really favorable pricing. So that project is off to a really great start. We're hoping to have that completed before graduation. So certainly

109the site will be cleaned up and we've got them in the schedule to install that sometime in May. that's a big exciting development there and the last thing is just a please pay attention and fill out the food service survey that went out through several different communication streams including dr patrick's communication and several the the elementary principles the food service committee has spent the years really Getting to the finer details of what makes our current program what it is today and how we got there Also what some of the changes that might be required if we were to become part of the National School Lunch Program one of the benefits of that is as you all may remember is the New York State universal free meals would We'd have to be part of the National

110School and Program to get those. So this survey will inform the recommendation from that committee. It is not a perfect survey. We've struggled as a committee really making sure that it is both informative and balanced. And we found that to be quite challenging. There is some bias into it, but it's bias based in some part because of the conditions in our elementary schools and how we do remote service and some of our wants and needs as a district. So we acknowledge its imperfect nature, but the information that we hope to gather from it will be informative to both the program as it exists today and should we make a change to the National School Launch Program. So please keep an eye out for that and fill it out as soon as possible. Thank you. That's

111very true. thanks for those updates Andrew could you just share a little bit about the the material that a turf will be using for the practice field yes it is it is a synthetic material commonly you know known as artificial turf. It doesn't look like it used to be, where, you know, an outdoor carpet, basically. It is a plastic fiber. The fiber that A-Turf has certified in their manufacturing process is a PFAS-free product. We've included, actually, in the... earlier this evening we adjusted the agenda to include that certification memo on the resolution 9.07 so anyone who wants to read that certification it's available there the infill that we're using is a three pound sand three pound virgin EPDM rubber which is consistent with what was put on Butler Field. When Butler Field was resurfaced, there

112was an extensive kind of review of info materials there. And we concluded that there has been no new scientific kind of information that would warrant a change from that surface. So we maintained that info material for that project. Thank you. And thank you for posting that material. Thank you, and it was interesting to hear about the installation because that was formerly known as the Dust Bowl and it's a heavily used practice field as many people know and it was just dirt. So thank you for that. And then in terms of the EV bus, that's very exciting. It looks very cool. I just wanted to call the community's attention. Drew and Andrew were at the League of Women Voters of Scarsdale information session on the budget earlier today and you had a very full... conversation moment

113on EV busing and where we stand and where our peer districts stand and what this you know this is all kind of well yes because we want to be a sustainable district you know and to do things that are environmentally friendly for the future but also it's part of a larger mandate for the state And anyway, you had a very full discussion about it, so I would love to refer people. I think the League taped their session and looked specifically at the EV bus conversation because I found that very helpful. Thank you. Anyone else? Thanks, Jim. Okay, thank you. So with that, we'll move on to Section 5 of the agenda. hearing from those present and I'll read the public comment preamble members of the public are cordially invited to speak on district related items

114or other non-personnel related matters during two separate public comment periods when it is your turn to speak please state your name address and if you are speaking on behalf of an organization for those commenting remotely please mute the live stream voice turn on your camera and then unmute yourself Comments should be kept as brief as possible. Speakers will be asked to conclude their remarks after four minutes and will be given a verbal cue at the three minute mark. If at this point a speaker has additional comments, they may send them in writing to the board via email at boardofed.scarsdaleschools.org. The public comment period is reserved for comments only. The board will not engage in dialogue. The board reserves the right to respond to comments and questions at its discretion, either during response to public comment

115or at a later time and place. response to public comment will take place after the first and second public comment periods and with that does anyone in the audience wish to make a comment at this time my name is Erica Rublin and I'm speaking on behalf of the high school PTA executive committee and budget study chair we thank dr. Patrick mr. Lennon and others in the administration and the Board of Education for your hard work thus far on the proposed budget for the 26-27 school year we thank you for your thoughtful discussion and questions around the additional math full-time FTE position at the high school as you continue to refine the proposed budget we would like to share our thoughts we recognize the pressures on budget planning that the district has been under in recent

116years and continue this year we acknowledge that with high inflation declining reserves and low levels of state aid budgeting has been difficult we are also sensitive to the upcoming capital projects bond and its related expenses as well as a village pool project While we understand these physical pressures we respectfully request that the district reconsider the deferral of the math FTE position for the high school We are concerned about its impact on the student experience as a district administration has noted class sizes are averaging over 25 students in 14 math classes and over 28 students in all 80 physics classes The high school has allowed students to drop down a math level mid-year, and as a result, certain math classes currently exceed targeted capacity. Sufficient staffing is required to maintain the flexibility in scheduling, which ensures

117that students are learning at the appropriate level. In the past few years, enrollment in additional math classes has also increased significantly, and in order to continue to meet this demand and offer our students choices in math, the additional math FTE is needed. We believe that like the class size caps at the elementary level, high school class size targets should not be bent or stretched. We respectfully want to stress that large classes impact both the classroom experience and the teacher's abilities to provide attention to students during office hours, which are a cornerstone of the high school's unique tutorial model. We are concerned that we are now seeing the cumulative effect of incremental changes in math staffing. Last year, the initial proposed budget included an additional .5 math position, but that addition was ultimately removed and a

118.5 math FTE position was eliminated. A math teacher at the high school currently has a reduced class load to cover part of the head computer teacher position. This reduced load is necessary to cover that position, which has not been restored. Taken together, these have created additional pressures on math class sizes. Class size, appropriate level of instruction, and choice in academic schedule are fundamental Scarsdale values. We would like to emphasize that our budget should reflect these values, and our view is that we are now at an inflection point where staying under the tax cap may have a direct impact on our students' experience. We acknowledge the challenges of developing the proposed budget and understand difficult decisions have to be made. However, we believe the community will ultimately support resources that preserve the quality of our students'

119education, particularly in core subject areas. We as the PTA will do the work to educate our community and to encourage our community to support an appropriate bond. Okay. Anyone else in the live audience wish to make a public comment at this time? Dr. Darlene LaFrancois-Haber? 255 Nelson Road. Giant plastic petroleum-based impervious artificial turf fields are costly and an environmental nightmare, toxic for humans and devastating for our environment. Playability is important. We should have our cake and eat it too. So we got to get some smart engineers out there and do some drainage management. Our pervious grass fields can be re-engineered and we can add fields. Engineers can work with the challenging changes to our landscape from global warming and extreme weather, which is causing flooding, and avoid AT, which will only exacerbate these climate crisis

120impacts. AT installation is not consistent with the district sustainability initiative. This initiative was launched as part of a worldwide effort to save the environment with three objectives. Student adult education, environmentally aware behavior, and environmentally sound institutional practices. the rfp for the charfield charfield study set out priorities objectives which should not consider this initiative deprioritizing the health and safety of our children community and environment at large even at advocates were stunned by the installation proposal at the middle school the high school at field also overlooks our district's objections When it comes to AT, there's no safe amount. One group of AT toxins the USAPH says there's no safe level for is PFAS. And AT fields that claim to be PFAS-free are not. In April 2024, the finalized legally enforceable drinking water regulations for six PFAS chemicals,

121dramatically lowering the recommended levels, citing scientific evidence of serious health impacts at drinking water levels close to zero, measured in parts per trillion, single-digit numbers. While we have been ridding our houses of Teflon in period and underwear, New York State has followed suit to multiple states in this country and pursued comprehensive initiatives to phase out forever chemicals from consumer products. We had an apparel ban go in next year, a carpet ban starting the first of this following year. The law mandates manufacturers to initiate recycling programs. We're trying to cut greenhouse gas emissions 165,000 tons per year from AT in New York State. Beyond the state, the American Academy of Pediatrics, a branch of the U.S. Health and Human Health Services called ATSDR, and Mount Sinai's group all have issued warnings to the public and physicians

122regarding PFAS and AT, where we as physicians are advised to screen at-risk children for various malignant, inflammatory, and endocrinologic harms known to result from PFAS. Maybe I should be handing out my business card here. Mount Sinai labels AT installation as short-sighted, advising natural grass fields as the safest option. There's a myriad long list of known carcinogens and neurotoxins beyond PFAS, including polycystic aromeric hydrocarbons, lead zinc, and black carbon found in almost all infilled materials examined, including virgin rubber. I'm just going to make a simple plea. With the microplastics, with the chemicals, I'm just going to quote Todd Forrest from the New York Botanical Gardens last year. Do no harm. He's made a plea to our community because he's part of the Bronx River watershed just downstream from us. What you're putting on our fields and

123in our district is affecting everyone. It's not just your six-year-olds you're sending out to the turf to play and get poisoned. It's everybody. It's our earth. Please. Please put a moratorium on installation and take it out of the bond. Anyone else in the live audience have a public comment? Madeline Eppenstein, 18 Orton Reef Road. Dr. Patrick Ward, superintendents. There are many officials here. Thank you for this opportunity. I'm going to cut this short. Dr. Patrick cites as a reason to support our official turf. As though this is an acceptable so-called compromise, playability, insufficient capacity, holistic management. You state further that the district's recommendations reflect a, quote, compromise in attempting to solve these issues. And I quote, at this point in time, there does not seem to be a way to realistically solve for playability and

124capacity without some addition of synthetic turf. We must acknowledge that there are potential human health concerns associated with the components used to manufacture AT. Yet compromise is a term you've chosen, not the community. But this compromise is one-sided and compromise is meaningless when it causes harm. You and the village alone have set the terms for the community regarding the losers. There are children and their health and the environment. we live in. Compromise is a term used to express harm, such as to cause impairment, as Dr. LeFrancois Haber just attested. It is used in the medical context to describe harm from disease. And that is what AT in its field does. It causes harm. It compromises our human health and safety and that of our children, your students. And at the same time, it harms our

125environment. The Scarsdale Forum's January 25th report explains the realities of AT fields. And I quote, the village already has two impervious AT turf rec fields at Butler Track and Field, where turf needed to be replaced in 2020, and at Dean Field, installed merely two years or so ago. Both AT installations already have significant drainage issues with poor no drainage causing pooling, prolonged saturation of water runoff areas after storms. Field study consultant CHA proposes more turf fields but also provides cost comparisons where grass turf, well maintained, is exponentially less costly than installation of new AT fields. Meanwhile, the cost of initial construction alone of AT fields will will be millions of dollars more than the care of organically maintained natural turf also at requires removal and replacement every 8 to 10 or 12 years incurring costs

126similar to that of initial installation on a recurrent basis this is not the so-called compromise the community never signed up for nor that the community is willing to accept thank you anybody else in the live audience wish to make a public comment at this time Hi, my name is Michael Levinson. I live at 16 Coraline Road. I'm not as knowledgeable as the people who spoke before me about the topic of artificial turf, but I'm very, very concerned about the use of... inorganic material that is treated with chemicals for surfaces that our children are going to play on. And I'm also concerned that Mount Sinai School of Medicine strongly discourages the installation of artificial turf. So I wonder which consultants were consulted that. We believe more than Mount Sinai School of Medicine. And I would add,

127as a local real estate agent, I can tell you that so many people, young families who continue to move into Scarsdale increasingly care more and more about things like microplastics, the installation of whole house water. Anyone else in the live audience wish to make a public comment at this time? I think with that we're going to go over to Zoom. There are no hands raised at this time. let's give it a few more seconds give people a chance to raise their hand now is the time if you're on zoom to raise your hand if you want to make a public comment so we will close the first public comment period and move on to section 7 written communications and that's you Colleen oh wait before we do that there is a follow-up to public comment

128I can always forget that one 601 do we have follow-up to public comment just a couple of I just want to say a couple of factual matters the just to be Andrew referred to it but on tonight's agenda just to confirm the actions the board is to take in the consent agenda relate to the small turf field artificial turf field at the high school today like currently that's separate from the bond conversation which proposes a turf field at the middle school that the board is not making decisions on exactly what that is or what that would be made of now they're not those decisions wouldn't come before the board for at least two years 2028 I think is the design phase and just a clarification that presently Butler is the only field in the district

129that's synthetic the Dean field is a grass field I appreciate people's comments Right, and the Turfield work, that was approved as part of the budget last year, wasn't it? A year ago. Oh, okay. Just to be clear. The budget vote last May to fund this year's budget. Which was voted on by the entire community. Yep. So, with that, we can move on to written communications. Thank you, Jim. Please note that the Board of Education email is also viewed by the superintendent and district clerk. Open meetings law requires all board deliberations that may lead to action or policy changes to occur in public. Therefore, your written communications and emails will be reported at an upcoming public board meeting. board member will respond at their earlier earliest convenience a formal response requires that you include your full

130name address and if you are writing on behalf of an organization in the communication more detailed information regarding written communications received by the Board of Education may be found in today's meeting agenda located in board docs on the Starseals schools district website And I just wanted to remind everyone that the communications that we are reporting on are all the emails we received up until Friday. So any emails that came over the weekend or today will be reported on at the next board meeting. So since our March 2nd meeting, we have received 10 emails on district matters and four emails on board matters, meetings, board highlights, and invitations. Okay, thank you Colleen. We now are at section 8 of the agenda, the consent agenda. And I will read the preamble. The board may conduct some of

131its business using a consent agenda in an effort to achieve greater efficiency at board meetings. The consent agenda condenses some of the routine business of the Board of Education into a single motion. The consent agenda is prepared by the superintendent of schools in consultation with the president and or the vice president of the board. Items are selected for the consent agenda when the offices of the board and the superintendent believe there is no controversy regarding them. The items on the consent agenda will have the same background material as ordinary items on the board agenda. If any member of the board feels that any item on the consent agenda requires discussion prior to action, that board member may remove that item from the consent agenda merely by requesting the same at the meeting. The exempted item

132then moves to the regular agenda. However, all non-exempted items would be moved, seconded, and voted upon without discussion in order to provide greater efficiency to conducting the routine items of business of the school district. And with that, I believe it is Laura who is doing the consent agenda this evening. Thanks, Jim. So there are nine items on this evening's consent agenda. Item 9.01, minutes, budget study session number two and business meeting, March 2nd, 2026. 9.02, personnel certified. 9.03, personnel non-certified. 9.04, civil service holiday calendar, 2026 to 27. 9.05, recent plant envelope bid award. 2024 to 25 budget capital projects. 9.06, SHS Turfield Sidework, bid recommendation. 9.07, SHS Turfield Installation, bid recommendation. 9.08, Southern Westchester BOCES Cooperative bid. 9.09, accept consent agenda. Yes, I move that the board adopt the consent agenda Thank you. Is there

133a second? Okay. Thank you Susie any discussion all those in favor. Please say aye aye That motion passes and we are on to section 10 information items Back to you, Andrew. Okay, thanks. And, Andrew, okay if I turn it over to you to introduce the secret determination. So on the February 9th board agenda, the board directed the administration and our consultants to move forward with a major step for the bond process, which is the secret process. So I invite Steve Muller and Ed McGuire from our colleagues at J.C. Broderick to the podium to answer any questions and talk us through the next step in the process. And apparently you get two microphones at that podium. Yes, I love that. So, Steve, why don't you take us through what happened over the last 30-day window and

134the agenda items that are on the agenda, which is Part 1, 2, and 3 of the SECRA for the Board's deliberation. Okay, certainly. Good evening, everyone, and thank you again for allowing me to attend. My name is Steve Muller. I'm a professional geologist and director at J.C. Broderick, and I prepared the SECRA determination for the bond project. What's transpired over the last 30 days is we made, I made, a determination that the scope of work that the bond entails is a Type 1 action under SECRA. Now, we discussed that last week, as for some, last meeting, for some of the reasons why. And the, and that included the preparation of a Part 1. of an environmental assessment form that was attached to a cover letter that requested the Board of Education to be the lead

135agency in this Type 1 determination. That 30-day period sunsetted, and the Board of Education is, in fact, the lead agency. In addition to that... a type, sorry, a part two and part three of the environmental assessment forms were completed. They were provided to the board as a draft. And under, as a result of some comments, there were some changes made. And the documents were considered final as of this morning. And I believe they are available for tonight. Is that correct? Okay. Anyone have any questions at this point? I have some questions, but I don't know if you want to finish what you're saying. I can wait until the end. No, I think that's the general overview. Okay. All right. Great. Thank you. Thank you. So, you know, there were some revisions to that Part 1

136filing, and I wanted to just ask a couple questions to make sure that I understand everything. So, obviously, we've been looking at these potential plans for two of our buildings. Edgewood and Fox Meadow for quite a while. We understand there are older buildings that they've been around for over 100 years. Could you just explain a little bit about why these additions won't significantly alter the historical character of those buildings? Certainly. You have three buildings in the district that are eligible for historic status. Two of them are getting the building additions. Now, as an eligible building, any work that is done at that building will have to go through a review process from the New York State Office of Historic Preservation. Understanding that BBS, your architect, will be designing the facade, the structure itself, to be

137in character with the building. And those plans will have to be presented in front of the historical review board. They will be essentially certifying that the building will be in character. Therefore, at the end of the proposed action, when the building is finally built, there will be no conflict with the historical status. Makes sense. It does. So it sounds like you're confident that these will not, that they will maintain. Correct. Great. Thank you. I think my next question relates to, I believe in the Part 1 filing, you changed it to indicate that there are new runoff sources and drainage structures. And our Part 3. says there's no modification of drainage patterns so i'm hoping you can explain a little bit about how this stormwater design of these buildings will or will not prevent drainage impacts

138okay great question it starts with the fact that the project encompasses work in seven different buildings okay One of those buildings is the high school. The high school, as you know, is in a 100-year floodplain, a 500-year floodplain. And because one building is within that floodplain, I had to acknowledge that fact in the form. Now, the work that's being done... where you're going to get a swale and you're getting drainage improvements for the artificial turf field, right? And when you have a building, you will have gutters and leaders that will go into a dry well, so you're diverting that water. That's what the modification is in that description. None of those are taking place within the floodplain area, i.e., the high school. So the question itself is designed to influence a drainage change that would

139cause flooding because that area is already prone to flooding. Groundwater is less than three feet or you have a creek or you're within the floodplain. So therefore a modification at say the field at the middle school will not alter that. flooding potential because it's not physically located in high school. Great, thank you. And it sounds like in general your analysis supports a negative declaration, which we have on the agenda later this evening? Absolutely. Great, thank you very much. You're welcome. Yes? I just have one follow-up question to the turf field at the middle school, but there is a brook there, a body of water next to it on Catherine Road. Right, however, it was not significant enough where it's classified under the state regulation or state DEC thank you so I'll just clarify the next

140step that I think the board has to take so parts one two and three as long as as well as the attachments for the full environmental assessment form are part of the information session agenda item The recommendation from J.C. Broderick includes the SECRA resolution that's item 11.01 in the action items. These SECRA forms will get attached to that as supporting documentation if the board chooses to move forward with resolution 11.01 this evening. Thank you. Thank you all very much. Appreciate it. So the next major step is our bond resolution. Dan Birmingham, our district's bond counsel, is here to help. He helped draft the bond resolution for us based on the scope of work that's been outlined by the team thus far. And we just wanted to give the board an opportunity to ask Dan if

141they've got any questions about the resolution, which is item 11.02 on the agenda this evening. Good evening. Would you like me to walk through some of the resolution we have in front of us? Yeah, tonight the board's being asked to consider a resolution that does two things. It places a bond proposition before the voters at the annual district meeting and election, and it also directs the district clerk to put those bond propositions in your typical annual notice. Annual district meeting and so the bond proposition if you have it before you essentially asked the voters for three things The first thing it asks the voters to do is to construct the project as conceived by this board with the assistance of BBS and that's in paragraph a if you have it there kind of Describes in

142the bond proposition generally what the project is all about We don't drill down to the smallest doorknob. You know, there's not enough space for that. That's all set forth in the BBS plan That's paragraph A, and it sets forth a not-to-exceed amount of that $101,707,875 amount. The board and the district can spend no more on this project than that. Paragraph B authorizes the voters would authorize a tax to be levied in installments as determined by the Board of Education. In other words, how are we going to pay that $101 million back? We're going to be issuing a tax for that. and that's levied in installments, which means you don't levy the tax in the 26-27 school year. You do that in installments over time. And because it's being done over time in installments, that leads

143us to paragraph C. which is also, again, all this is in the same proposition. Paragraph C authorizes the issuance of bonds so that you can issue a series of bonds and no more in the aggregate of $101 million and change. So that's what the proposition does. You've got two forms of the proposition before you, the long form and the short form. The long form is a bit more wordier than the short form. Both of those forms will appear and I think that's in the next item under 11.03 which would be the notice, but both forms are going to be in the notice. Of course the short form will appear on the ballot. And I would like to say that this resolution is really the first step. There will be a subsequent resolution that the board

144would consider should the proposition pass. That would be another bond resolution, which the board is not able to adopt now because the voters haven't approved the proposition. And that bond resolution will go into certain details as far as the district pledging its faith and credit for the repayment of the bonds. The bond resolution would also delegate to the board president the power to determine what to sell. bonds or notes, short-term notes, and when to sell them. Obviously, it wouldn't be prudent to borrow all $101 million at one time and start paying interest on all of that, when certainly you don't need to borrow the whole $101 million. And of course, the Board President would rely on your experts through Andrew's office, your financial advisor, as to what gets borrowed and how much. And again, but

145that's in the second resolution that the Board would consider should this pass on May 19th. And I'd be happy to answer any process questions or any other questions you might have with respect to this resolution. I have a question. You said the board president would have the ability to decide the form in which the money would be raised, I guess whether it be a bond or some other alternative. But at what time? Would that discretion be exercised? Yeah, that would be, again, that's part of the second resolution that would be adopted after May 19th. But that would really depend on your construction cash flow. For instance, you know, your construction projects, it's a large project, so certainly you're not going to borrow everything at once. And initially you'd probably, and again, this is your financial

146advisor, Capital Marks advisors would be in the best position along with Andrew to determine this, but they would advise the board president, okay, right now. we're in the beginnings we might need some soft costs to be paid you might do a one-year bond anticipation note which is a short-term borrowing that usually goes out for about a year but can go shorter and sometimes those notes are renewed as you your project continues you might need to borrow more money and you might do a second bond anticipation note but eventually those bond anticipation notes are rolled into long-term bonds so the board president would really be relying on his or her you know experts through Andrew's office to determine when to do that but it is the board president's discretion when to do that and that's a

147power that's always delegated to the board president that's nothing unusual So the board as a whole doesn't make that decision? No, and there's some practical reasons for that as well. When bond anticipation notes or bonds are sold, they're sold on a particular day, usually around 11 o'clock in the morning. And the way they go out, they have to be sold publicly, and capital markets advisors would hold a bond or note sale. And at that point, an award is made after the advice is given by your... financial advisor, they'd say, okay, this rate that you got for this is pretty much in the range of where we're seeing other rates today. And if the board were to make that decision at 11 o'clock, you'd have to convene a board meeting to do that. So the local

148finance law, which is a part of New York State statute, allows boards of education, town boards, county legislatures to delegate those powers to the chief fiscal officer of the district, which of course, in this case, is the board president for school district. And it's written in such a way that it's whoever the board president is at the time has that discretion, not any particular board president. The board president at the time of the sale. Yeah. Yes. It's fluid. It's fluid, yes, yes. And, in fact, over a multiyear project, you could have two or three or more different individuals holding the position of board president making those decisions. But it's the board president in office at the time the bonds or notes are sold. Thank you. Sure. Yes. Thank you for the explanation and interesting to

149hear the answers about the... the board president's role. I'm just wondering, we had some public comment earlier this evening about artificial turf, and I think we discussed, Drew maybe or Andrew mentioned that this isn't something we would be installing until 2028. If we wanted to change the material that we were installing at that time, is that allowed under this if it's still? artificial we don't have to pick exactly what the material is at this point well it again the bond propositions i'll probably defer to your your construction professionals on that but the bond proposition itself refers to the bbs plan okay and to the extent is that mentioned in the plan It is. So, yeah, you'd probably want to be wary of deviating in any significant amount from what the BPS plan looks, you know,

150in states. Now, having said that, the Board of Education, according to certain commissioners' decisions, does have a certain amount of leeway. So that might be a case-by-case matter that we could discuss at that time. Thank you. Sure. And just to be clear, construction of that wouldn't happen until 31. It's at the end, Phase 5. I just want to thank Dan for his ability to be here this evening. And you won't see much of Dan, but I have to tell you that whenever the phone rings, Dan answers the phone, and he's very helpful in helping us work through some of the issues that may come up with bonds. So, Dan, thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Thanks, Dan. Andrew, you're on a roll. I'm going to share this time. I just said. Megan

151will do the introduction. Yeah, I'll start. So if you recall, we recently performed an RFP for a healthcare consultant and awarded the contract to Risk Strategies, now also known as Gehring Group. So if you hear those two, we're sort of using them interchangeably for now. The team was scheduled, the larger team was scheduled to be here this evening to highlight the work they've already engaged in and talk about the future work, unfortunately, due to weather. Well, they're trapped in Florida, which is probably a nicer place than here tonight, but they had their flights canceled, so they were unable to be present this evening. However, we are really happy and thrilled to welcome a local member of the team, Michael Frank, who will walk us through the transition process that's already well underway and answer any

152questions that the board may have. And before he starts, I'll just say from my office and HR, the real responsiveness of the group and the team has already been impressive. I'll turn it over to you. You're welcome. Thank you. Nice to meet everyone. Thank you for appointing us as your advisor. Also, you know, good luck to all of you. I know you're... Going into your fourth hour, so I'm trying not to be more than maybe 45 minutes. No, I'm just kidding. This will be, I'll make this a very fast presentation, and then we can go to Q&A, and since many of you know me and I'm local, I can always come back. If we look at the slides, I'll give you a brief introduction, talk about the transition process and the areas that we're going

153to focus on. Next slide. Risk strategies. Risk strategies was recently acquired by Brown and Brown. So we're 23,000 employees strong. One of our biggest acquisitions at Risk Strategies was the Gehring Group. Gehring is an employee benefits advisor, 25 plus years in the industry. They specialize in the government sector. With our merger with Brown and Brown, the Gehring Group is actually driving the strategy nationwide for the Brown and Brown team. Our organization is focused on all types of organizations, single employer, multi-employer, collective bargaining unit, municipalities. We specialize in municipalities because it kind of has a combination of there's the government sector of it, there's always going to be the collective bargaining sector of it. We're a publicly traded company. We're the fourth largest broker by revenue when you think of. organizations internationally. Next slide please. Our

154team, I'm not going to go through the whole team, we assign about six to seven people on each account including an actuary which is myself, studying benefits, studying everything from the analytics to wellness. We have clinical people on staff, we also have attorneys on staff that if any issues come up on benefits we're your partner. Next slide. In our transition, we started in January doing some preliminary work. So from January through today, really through the end of March, our goal is to... pretty much make connection with all the carriers, start looking at your data, you know, just trying to get a lay of the land to really understand everything that's going on. Because you're a self-funded plan, there's certain compliance requirements that you need, so we're there to kind of help you, you know, deal

155with that, you know, and we're here for you to lean on us, and we're going to be very blunt and direct about strategies going forward. We also sat down and reviewed your... preliminary budget so the numbers that Andrew was presenting are numbers that we've looked at. Next slide. So really starting now but we're kind of digging into it really for the rest of the year we're going to be looking every ways to optimize cost for your plan. Some of it's going to be plan design some of it's going to be looking at vendors and you have a lot of vendors. healthcare as easy as it is, you know, two words, healthcare, there's so many parties involved. So our goal is to kind of de-engineer it a little bit and figure out how we can, you

156know, strip out, you know. that's unnecessary in the program to help you to meet your budgets. And I don't include negotiations, analyzing plan designs, you know, as needed, if needed, you know, discussions with collective bargaining units just to get input from all parties to kind of move everything forward. Next slide. Here's just a list of your vendors. For medical, you'll see Stop Loss since you're self-funded. In case you have a catastrophic claim, you can buy reinsurance to kind of protect from those catastrophic claims. You have multiple pharmacy plans for pre-'65 retirees and active versus post-'65. And then you have other benefits and other administrators. So our goal is to try to streamline some of that process for you maximize what you can get out of your vendors next slide areas of focus you know one

157of the areas that we kicked off recently is the employee advocacy I mean more when I say kicked off it started last week we've already had 16 inquiries interestingly enough half of those inquiries regarding your out of network benefits we've been focusing on benchmarking Risk Strategies has a lot of relationships and a lot of clients in the local market. You know, health care is always local, so we work with local employers, local municipalities in Westchester, Putnam, Dutchess, all the way up to the top of the states in Rochester and Buffalo to all over Long Island. And we're very familiar with BOCES contracts and collective bargaining. And then there's a lot of these consortium plans that you've mentioned, Mark. So we work very closely with NYSHIP. We provide advisory services to Putnam North and Westchester's consortium

158and Swiss Chip, which is the Southern Westchester's consortium. So we're pretty much in the know what the others are doing. So, you know, you're in a very good marketplace because a lot of the Westchester officials are very good about collaborating. I've seen it firsthand since I've worked with a dozen of them. And, you know, you're very open about what you're good at and what you're not good at. You guys are always good about being able to pick up a phone call and call Edgemont or White Plains or Pelham or Port Chester or whoever in the community just to kind of get a sense what, you know, the Joneses are doing, or in this case what the other districts are doing. We also work with villages and other municipalities that all deal with collecting. The focus

159areas, we're going to look at, you know, benchmarking, you know, looking at your experience, you're large enough that you're self-funded. So trying to look at your population and help you make decisions. We'll be doing some audits. We'll be looking at eligibility. You have special things about enrollment. We put up their QE process. That's really a qualified life event. So think about somebody has a really nice event happen in their family. They have a baby. Within 30 days of that baby being born or after the baby being born that baby needs to be added on to the plan That's referred to as a qualified life event. So we just highlight those things that you know Sometimes there's inefficiencies that aren't being done. So our job is to kind of make sure your plan is staying involved

160and then our goal is just to try to Last but not least If you looked at a prior slide, we don't need to go back to it. You had a lot of different effective dates with your vendors. So we're trying to figure out strategic ways to line all the vendors up and also have it easier for your budgeting process next year because it's always hard to budget when you've got 10 different effective dates with 12 different vendors. So getting people more aligned makes things a little easier. Next slide. This is just a snapshot of some of the things that we do. We do in-person training, virtual training. you pretty much would come back, we'll look at your data, we'll look at your population and say, these might be areas that you may focus on. You

161may have your own initiatives that you want to have implemented. So it's really a collaborative exercise. And we call it, you pretty much have a whiteboard. You're running out of battery. I guess, is that a sign of you're trying to shut me down? Next slide. This is just a marketing piece that, in a nutshell, is the advocacy program that your people are already starting to call into. which is terrific. Next slide. And I tried to keep it under five minutes so that way you can ask whatever questions you have. I'm happy to help and respond to whatever. Well, you kept it under 45 minutes. We appreciate that. I don't have any questions, but I'm really excited to see some of the results of your work. I think this is a great overview of just where

162we are, what we're doing, and your plan for the next, you know, three to six months. So, really, welcome. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thank you for the presentation. I wanted to first highlight the importance of the employee advocacy, and I wanted to express my appreciation, even though I know that's just started. I know it takes work off Megan's plate. Right, so I appreciate that. I have a question about, were you part of an evaluation yet for our district in terms of what makes sense financially for us, self-insured versus the Empire Plan, for example, or consortium? Is that something that you'll be doing? That is something we will do as part of the analysis. We do that for a lot of clients. You're always benchmarking collective bargaining-wise against the NYSHIP plan, and sometimes

163it might be because you're in Westchester, the Swiss chip plan, or... or even the Putnam Northern Westchester plan. So we will definitely look at that. We will give you advice about, you know, fully insured versus self-funding. We'll, you know, point to you where vendors are important. You buy stop loss, so we'll give you advice on, you know, how much reinsurance you should consider. And reinsurance is your way of buying insurance to mitigate, you know, catastrophic exposure. So that is my job as the actuary on the program is to do that. Thank you. I'll also add that Michael is pinch hitting this evening. I just want to remind that. So Dustin, one of his colleagues that was supposed to be here, has already started to do some of that benchmarking work. He did do a comparison

164for the Empire Plan, the NYSHIP plan, and we are still favorable compared to that. He also started to look at some of the plan design details between our plan and the NYSHIP plan, which I'm not able to articulate quite. well enough at the moment but we've started some of that work and certainly Mike will be involved in some of the cost analysis of that going forward. Yeah, a key piece is you're self-funded so you don't have certain mandated benefits so you have the ability to design your plan. So that'll be part of it and you know recognizing what's going to be different from NYSHIP versus what makes sense. Michael thank you very much for being here thank you for having me thank you for you know retaining us as your partner and good luck for

165the rest of the night yeah thank you take care um so where does that take us to next the draft board meeting calendar okay I think what we last met the there were some questions about if the annual organizational meeting in July which can now be held later in July due to a recently passed law what impact would there potentially be both on the business of the school district but also on the leadership the board and we reached out to honor I reached out to counsel on board's behalf and we shared those answers with the board but essentially we can manage it and the current board officers would technically remain until new board officers were elected I think those were some of the big the big ones so I think it's probably important to choose

166a or get closer to choosing an organizational date for the organizational Yeah, can someone remind me what was the date we were thinking about? It was the 6th. We were thinking about July 15th. July 15th? July 15th, yeah. Okay, what do people think about July 15th? I thought we thought it was okay before, but... Fine with me. Yeah. I don't think, I mean, you know, Bob and Amber, it's not going to be your meeting, but you are part of our group right now. So I think you count to the, you know, consensus, you know, for what it's worth. So does anyone have an issue with this? Are you okay with that? Yes, I'm fine with that. I threw it out there as a starting conversation. However, I don't want to be, you know, things are

167very up and down. I know we also have student board members, but I don't know if any date in July we'll work with them given all of the summer activities that our student board members usually participate in. I don't know that our current student board members would excuse them last year. So I believe we invited you to that meeting in July. But we set forth the expectation that it was optional. Right, okay. I couldn't remember what we did. And if you couldn't. that's fine same with the August meeting right okay that's right okay then yeah I mean that works for me but if other boy if another date works better for other board members I'm happy to do that earlier I think I think what sorry I was just gonna say I think it's totally

168fine you know I don't know that we should always wait two weeks every year it's just to put that out there but if it doesn't have like a major impact on the district functioning this year I think it's totally fine to do but I wouldn't necessarily always do that because I do think there is an importance to kind of seeding our new board members and you know having a full board kind of in office okay so should we just say that July 15th is going to be the date of the organizational meeting for purposes of budget everyone's in support of that great I think now time of day I think it would be 9 a.m. okay so we'll update that both the graphic and list view for Nick it'll be action at the next meeting

169is that right yeah thank you honor a is a wizard with those calendars that just take a moment to thank her she does a lot of thinking and working on that and one of the many details that she helps the board with and me with so thank you yeah that's that's great thanks so much on rate for that and we now on to the next item which is the nomination for a position on the BOCES board for southern Westchester I think I might have that one. I'm not really sure what exactly to say about that other than we have been asked to nominate, in essence, a potential candidate for membership on the Southern Westchester BOCES board. That is Nan Mead, who is, I believe, in the audience. Yes, there she is. Hello, Nan. We met

170with Nan. in executive session and discussed you know her background I believe the board generally was of the view that we were supportive of this is that correct yes okay so I think I don't know if there's a lot more to say if people want to say more about it and now that we're in public setting I don't know there's that much to say about it Nan had you know very strong credentials and I think had been recruited to put her name in the ring for this position so we you know It's up to us, I think, as a constituent district within BOCES to do the nomination. Absolutely. I think I just want to add we had the opportunity to ask Nan questions and to hear her thoughts about her potential role as a trustee

171on the Southwest BOCES board. She indicated an openness to any advocacy that we might have for her. So I think it makes sense. There is a vacancy right now. There's two incumbents running for two positions and then one open position with no incumbent running. think it makes sense to for us to nominate her as our her home district since she is a Scarsdale resident and just to be clear on process that nomination would be transmitted by honorary to the clerk of southern Westchester BOCES and then Nan and the other candidates would be part of the annual meeting that you play a role in to consider the BOCES budget and board seats and you take action of that in in April that would come back later as a action item tonight number 11.0 okay that's good

172and we can move on to a gift proposal for Edgewood so we have two two gifts tonight that exceed $1,000 thus they're at information item the first is for the Edgewood school funding a fifth grade field trip to the Statue of Liberty National Monument in Ellis Island Immigration Museum totaling $1,827 with gratitude to the Edgewood PTA. And the second is a Quaker Ridge gift proposal for $1,252 for first grade field trip and transportation to Greenberg Nature Center. And there's backup in both of those items for the board. And if the board is supportive, it would come back as an action item in the next board meeting. Any questions on those two gifts? i think we're okay there um so we move on to action item section 11 of the agenda i believe the first one

173is the second resolution uh that's susie thank you jim i move that the board accept the following resolution resolve that the board of education adopts the attached secra resolution for the 2026 capital projects bond is there a second Leah, thank you. All those in favor, please. Actually, I wanted to add an item for discussion. Oh, okay. I just wanted to note that earlier that we had the opportunity to review the environmental assessment form, parts one, two, and three, and that we had the opportunity to ask the consultant this evening questions about both the historic resources and the stormwater management, and that we've had the opportunity to take a hard look at those items. So based on the information in record and the consultant's professional analysis, I think we're able to take action tonight on the

174negative declaration under SIGRA. So I just wanted to state that for the record. Thank you. Okay. So remind me where we were because I was thrown off. I need the motion to. Did I ask if all those in favor? All those in favor, please say aye. aye okay that motion passes and now we're up to the bond proposition resolution that is Amber thanks Jim I move that the board adopt the following resolve that the board of education adopts the attached resolution for the bond proposition to be presented to qualified voters at the annual district meeting and election on Tuesday May 19th 2026 as presented okay thank you is there a second for that Okay, thank you, Susie. I think before you have the vote, does anyone have any comment on this? Anyone want to have

175any comment on this? This is the capital project. This is when we're making our comments, correct? I'm sorry, what? Sorry, I forgot we are commenting on this one. No, no, I don't have any comments. You keep saying no, but I mean, we can just move on with the whole thing, but this is our chance to sort of, you know, yes. I have a comment, Amber. all right before we vote on bond I just wanted to make us a brief statement because Scarcell has always taken pride in supporting the students and maintaining a school system that families value for more than 200 years our community has understood that investing in education is an investment in our future As a board member, I recognize that asking the residents to support a $101 million bond is significant. However,

176it is also necessary. Our buildings are aging, many systems are reaching their end of their useful life, and several spaces no longer meet the needs of our students. Addressing issues such as outdated HVAC systems, overcrowded school buildings, and aging learning spaces is essential to maintaining the high standard of education Scarsdale is known for. Our schools are one of the primary reasons families choose to move to Scarsdale and they remain central to the strength of our community and our property values. The bond allows us to modernize our facilities, better support our students, and ensure that future generations continue to benefit from the exceptional education our district provides. For these reasons, I strongly support this bond and believe it represents an important investment in both our students and the long-term vitality of the Scarsdale community. Thank you,

177Colleen. Anyone else? Bob, yeah? Sure. As both a school board member and Scarsdale community resident that is an empty nester, I have viewed the proposed bond through both lenses and want to confirm that I believe the proposed bond represents an appropriate balance between my fiscal responsibility and my commitment to support the school district in providing an education for all students that is inclusive and demonstrates vision for what our youth will require to enter the adult world. with the skills to be successful in whatever avenue they pursue. This balance was not easy or simple to achieve, but I am confident it acknowledges the community's priorities as well as being consistent with the strategic plan the district has embarked on. Thank you. Thank you, Bob. Leah? Thank you, Jim. The schools are the crown jewel of our

178community. They are central to Scarsdale's identity. They unite us, enhancing our lives in so many ways. We must invest in our schools over time, and this is one such moment, as there is need and significant debt is rolling off in 2027-2028. Buildings that were built 100 years ago such as Fox Meadow, Edgewood and even Scarsdale High School were not set up and designed for teaching and learning as is currently taking place in public education. I strongly believe that the proposed improvements which will touch all seven of our schools will make an incredible impact on teaching and learning and the education and development of the whole child. I'd like to comment specifically on how I view the Scarsdale School's approach to educating and enriching the whole child. The whole child is not just a phrase used

179in an empty way. It is a very real effort and experience cultivated within our school community. Educating the whole child is more than just offering a required math class. Rather, it's inspiring and nurturing the passions and interests of our students. The realization of this concept empowers our students by giving them the tools and support needed to develop the myriad facets of their character, bringing them joy, learning, and edification in ways beyond rote memorization and studying for a test. I strongly believe in this concept, and I believe that the crux of this bond is about furthering this essential school community value. This bond focuses on enhancing the spatial experience of several of our buildings, creating classrooms, libraries, multi-use spaces that are current, engaging, and collaborative. It focuses on repairing and rejuvenating the fields where our students

180play and learn, where they become good teammates, where they learn to win or lose, and to be stronger physically and mentally. This bond will provide dignified spaces for nuanced support services, now essential to public education and student well-being. This bond will touch several of our libraries at Fox Meadow, Heathcote, Scarsdale Middle School, and Scarsdale High School, improving and renovating hubs of student learning and collaborative work. Further, this bond adds air conditioning to our largest spaces, which will allow our students to use and enjoy a space throughout the school year and summer, fostering and furthering the development of the whole child in a healthier, cool, safer space. The process of building this bond made me realize, internalize, that we are creating, visioning, not just for this moment, but for the future of our community. I take

181that responsibility very seriously, preserving the schools not only for our current students, but protecting and enhancing our spaces and grounds for future generations, for the future children of Scarsdale. appreciate the work of the district and its partners my fellow board members and especially the engagement of our incredible community we are a Scarsdale we are leaders in public education I'm proud to vote yes on the bond resolution to preserve our schools not just for us but for the future non-civi thank you very much Laura The quality of our physical learning spaces is central to student experiences. As our buildings get older, there are a large amount of much needed improvements that we must address. These needs have been documented by the building condition surveys and validated by multiple rounds of reviews. Needs such as AC in

182gyms and large spaces are necessitated by the warmer climate and passionately advocated for by students and parents repeatedly. There are also many other projects that didn't make the cut and were not included in this scope. I believe the proposed bond scope strikes the right balance between needs and affordability. I'd like to highlight the fact that the incremental tax impact on households from this proposed bond is made more manageable by the anticipated reduction in debt service. This fact in itself also reminds us that this community has continuously supported the schools, and it's our responsibility to do that. The process that brought us to this proposed bond scope has been deliberate, transparent, and inclusive. Multiple perspectives were carefully considered, and members of the community, as well as many constituent groups, spoke not only for their own needs,

183but also for the broader good of the district. In that sense, The process itself is an exercise of our school value of non-CB Not only for oneself, but for service of others So I also support the bound Thank You Laura Susie Thank You Jim My support of this bond proposal hasn't changed since voting to confirm the bond scope at the January 12th meeting I enthusiastically support the proposed capital projects bond because it is a necessary and responsible investment in our district's future and to continue the Scarsdale tradition of excellence in education. Many of our school buildings are aging and require significant upgrades to ensure they remain safe, reliable, and efficient learning environments. And I appreciate the thoughtful, thorough process we have engaged in together as a community on this work. The scope of work upholds

184strongly held values in Scarsdale as articulated in our strategic plan of learning, living, and leading, allowing us to preserve class sizes at the elementary level, for example, as well as further developing student-centered community spaces throughout our schools. This bond responds to the fact that the way we teach and learn has evolved and will continue to evolve to meet the changing needs of our students. Students and educators require flexible, modern spaces that support collaboration, hands-on learning, and the effective integration of new technology. This scope of work also addresses the growing importance of student mental health and wellness by providing environments that are supportive, inclusive, and responsive to students' social and emotional needs. This bond also provides for air conditioning in most of our classrooms and large spaces, an expectation in our modern world. so much so

185that there is now a New York State law regarding a maximum allowable temperature in any school classroom. These capital improvements will support how our children learn, play, and experience joy and connection, whether it's, for example, in the high school little theater or competing out on our athletic fields. I appreciate that this bond addresses the priority needs at every school and that the bond process has been thoughtful, data-driven, and responsive to the feedback of the community. We hear it all the time that people choose to live here in Scarsdale because of the quality of our schools. And the strong enrollment data supports that sentiment because when student populations are declining in many other areas, ours continues to rise. Enrollment projections show growth that will place additional demands on our facilities if we do not plan proactively.

186To meet these challenges requires an investment, and the level of investment here is significant, something I don't take lightly. However, this bond is an investment not only in buildings, but in educational quality, student well-being, and the long-term strength of the Scarsdale community. And I believe that best sets our students up to be successful and grow into responsible citizens in this uncertain and ever-evolving world. Yes, thank you. Susie and Amber? Thank you, Jim. Community feedback for this bond has been clear and constructive. Most residents agree that continued investments in our school is necessary. Where opinions have differed is not whether or not to invest, but on how to do so responsibly. Comments we received show a thoughtful community focused on fiscal discipline, prioritization, and fairness. Residents asked for clarity around costs, careful project scoping, and reassurance

187that investments address core needs such as safety, infrastructure, and long-term reliability. These are expectations of good stewardship stewardship not objections to progress this bond reflects those values it prioritizes essential building systems health and safety improvements and facilities that support high quality education today while preparing for the future Choices were made some needs deferred and discipline is evident and this plan The data show residents are engaged cost conscious and forward-looking This bond meets that moment, a measured investment shaped by community input and focused on protecting what makes our schools exceptional while preparing for what comes next. For these reasons, I support the 2026 Capital Projects Bond as a responsible step forward for our schools and, most importantly, for our students. Okay, thank you very much, Amber. And I didn't give you, student board members, fair warning

188that you would be expected to... you know, say something about the bond at this meeting. So it's totally okay if you don't want to or don't have anything prepared to say, but if you do want to have something, by all means, you know, please feel free to speak your mind. No, of course, of course. Thank you. I think one thing I've really appreciated is even from the beginning when we talk about the capital projects and steering committee and in all of our discussions here in the past few months. I think one of the most important things for me is that as we've talked about the priority of education, all of us in the community have consistently put the students at the forefront of those discussions. And so I know, and I think I can speak

189on behalf of my peers, that we are very, very appreciative of that. And so when I think about the various bond projects, whether it be the spatial advancements in the elementary schools or the renovations in the high school's 3D art room or even the new turf fields we've added, I know clearly that the bond is supporting us academically, artistically, and even athletically. And so I know, in contrast to most of you who have spoken, we cannot support the bond with our vote. We do support it with everything else we have. Thank you. And honestly, this is going to sound really similar to what Anish is saying, but when I look at the bond, I can tell that every decision was made extremely thoughtfully and really with the student in mind. And coming from a student,

190thank you so much for all of that. Thank you to everyone who works on this bond. And I think I totally support it. Yeah, maybe with my voice more than my vote, but thank you. Thanks very much for that appreciate those comments and I just wanted to add my own perspective I believe this capital bond project is an important milestone for the district I believe we as a board recognize that this is a significant investment we are making in the future of our district and we are confident that this investment at this time is the right step to ensure the continued vitality and exceptional student experience for which Scarsdale schools are well known. I am personally thankful for all the work that has been done to date by community volunteers, school district personnel, and our

191professional advisors. I am personally proud of what we have, as a board and as a district, have been able to do here so far. but there is still a lot of work left to do in terms of educating the public and gathering support for the bond ultimately i am confident that the scarsdale community will assess this project with an open mind and in good faith as they have done so far and i look forward to a favorable community vote in may thank you and with that all those in favor please say aye aye that motion carries and we are up to 11.03 resolution and public notice for public hearing regarding the budget I think this is you Bob it's a lot of writing here sorry I move that the board accept the following resolve that

192the board adopts the following resolution as presented in the attached legal notice to be published Yeah, to be published four times prior to the annual district meeting and election on May 19th, 2026. Okay, thank you, Bob. Is there a second? Thank you, Laura. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. That motion carries, and we are now on to the nomination of the Southern Westchester BOCES position. I believe that is Laura. i move that the board adopt the following resolved that the scarsdale board of education officially presents its nomination for nan eileen mead to serve on the southern westchester boces board of trustees for a three-year term beginning july 1st 2026 through june 30th 2029 as presented Okay. Thank you, Laura. Is there a second? Thank you, Susie. All those in favor, please say aye.

193Aye. That motion carries. We are now on to section 12 of the agenda, which is gifts. I believe the first one is Leah. Thank you. I move that the board adopt the following resolution. Resolve that the board accepts with thanks the gift of $836 for a fourth grade field trip to Phillipsburg Manor through the historic Hudson Valley as presented in the attached letters. Thank you, Leah. Is there a second? Thank You Amber all those in favor please say aye that motion carries with thanks gift proposal to Greenacres school I believe is Amber Thank You Jim I move that the board adopt the following resolve that the board accepts with thanks the gift of $22,279 for field trips for the entire 2025-2026 school year as presented in the attached letters to Greenacres school Okay, thank you.

194Amber, is there a second for that? Thank you, Leah. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Okay, that motion carries with thanks. We have another gift proposal to Green Acres School, and I believe that is Susie. Thank you, Jim. I move that the board accept the following resolution. Resolved that the board accepts with thanks the donation of a memorial bench in loving memory of Nancy Kloster, devoted art teacher at Green Acres Elementary School for over three decades, as presented in the attached letters. Thank you, Susie. Is there a second for that? Thank you, Laura. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Okay, that motion carries with thanks. And we are now to Section 13, public comment. Is there anyone in the audience live who wishes to make a public comment at this time?

195Hello again. Michael Levinson, 16 Corlin Road. I just wanted to thank you for asking the question of the attorney in response to the comments about the... turf I think that's a it was a very good question and it's something if I don't you know I don't know enough about the process of how this is going to proceed but if there's any power from the board or from anywhere in the community to actually dig a little further into that I think that could be really useful and probably a lay you know assuage a lot of people's concerns and Susie, you mentioned something, you said something that made me think of something else that I had read about the turf, which was about the maximum temperature level, which I'm sure is relating to indoor facilities. But something

196I read about turf is that there's more instances of injuries because the turf gets extremely hot and there have been and this came from a friend of mine so this is a bit of hearsay but that there have been lawsuits around the country over this because of increased injuries and that's something that I think is also important to just Take a breath and think about for a second. So for whatever it's worth Thank you very much for the question And I hope that if there's any ability to look further into it that the board would consider, you know doing whatever they can Thank you so much. Okay, anyone else wish to make a public comment in live audience? So let's go to zoom There are no hands raised and zoom So are there people on

197Zoom? Yes, there are, but none of them have their hands raised. Okay, well, anyone on Zoom, if you wish to make a public comment, now is the time to raise your hand. We'll give that a few seconds. Yes. Okay, I think we can move on from that. All right, great. Is there a follow-up to public comment? A wrap-up item? Is there anything for us to talk about there? All right, so we'll post the secret stuff onto the bond website. And that brings us to meeting dates for the coming month. Thank you, Jim. So our next meeting is Monday, March 23rd, with a special meeting executive session at 5.30 if needed in this room, then followed by the budget forum and business meeting at 6.30 in this room. On Monday, April 13th, we have a meeting

198with a designated group at 5 p.m. in the high school learning commons, followed by a special meeting executive session if needed at 6 p.m. in this room. followed by the education report business meeting and we will adopt the budget at 6 30 in this room on tuesday april 21st we have a special meeting um the suspect bosey's vote at 9 00 a.m so i can't even speak anymore but um in this room and on monday april 27th uh special meeting executive session if needed at 6 30 in this room Okay, great. Would someone like to make a motion to adjourn this business meeting? Susie, is there a second? Amber? Okay. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. The motion carries. We are adjourned.