001(gentle theme music) Hi, good evening, and welcome to all those attending this evening's board meeting or watching later on demand. Earlier this evening, the board held... Oh, I wanted to note, I'm sorry, that all board members are in attendance and are joined by Dr. Hagerman and his cabinet. Earlier this evening, the board held a special meeting with our volunteer and liaison groups. Thank you to the leaders of the PT Council, CHILD, Friends of Music and the Arts, the Drug and Alcohol Task Force, and the Safe Coalition, and the Scarsdale Schools Education Foundation for either attending or sharing statements with us about their organization's important work this year. I have two important matters to address this evening. The first is that I am so pleased to report that the board unanimously selected Dr. Drew Patrick as
002Interim Superintendent for the 2022/2023 school year. Dr. Patrick is extremely well-qualified for this role. He is an educator and leader with over 20 years of experience. He has served as Scarsdale's Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources and Leadership Development since 2016. And before that, he was Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum Instruction and Assessment at the Bedford Central School District for eight years. He was also a distinguished science teacher, both at Bedford and Clarkstown High School South. Dr. Patrick has a doctorate in educational leadership from Manhattanville College where he received Manhattanville's Outstanding Leadership Award in 2018. He maintains many professional associations and is currently an instructor for the Future School Leaders Academy program. I encourage you to read the board's communication to the community or the press release issued last Thursday, to learn more about Dr. Patrick's professional
003qualifications. The board is confident that Dr. Patrick is the best individual to lead our schools at this time. We believe that he will provide important continuity for our students and schools in the year ahead. He possesses a deep knowledge of and true passion for education, along with leadership expertise, a collaborative nature and exceptional interpersonal and communication skills. He understands the culture and values of our schools and is dedicated to the success of all of our students, in addition to the members of our faculty and staff. He looks forward to working with the board and the community. As part of this evening's agenda, the board will vote to adopt a resolution appointing Dr. Patrick as interim. We will also provide an update on the search for a permanent superintendent. The other important matter this evening is
004assuring the community that the board and district are working with legal counsel and other appropriate advisors to resolve the current IRS payroll tax issue. We understand that the community seeks additional information on this issue and timely answers to its questions. I will add more context to the factual information shared at the March 30th Special Meeting and provide some further clarification. We do ask that the community understand that this is presently a matter requiring consultation with and advice from legal counsel, and therefore the board is still limited in what it can disclose. The board is committed to providing transparency and we will update the community as we are able. The primary issue before us is one of timing. To be clear, all tax payments were made in 2020. However, when keying in a quarter one deposit
005into the payment system, an error occurred resulting in part of the quarter one payment being paid late and thus a corresponding IRS Failure to Deposit Penalty was assessed. Moreover, a Q3 deposit was applied to Q2 and a Q4 deposit was applied to quarter three resulting in two further IRS Failure to Deposit Penalties being assessed in quarter three and quarter four respectively. In addition, because quarter two and quarter three had been paid fully at the time, the quarter three and quarter four misapplied deposits were made respectively, the quarter three and quarter four deposits were therefore deemed over payments in quarter two and quarter three. The penalties assessed in quarter one and quarter three totaled $861,320. I'm sorry, I messed that up, I'm sorry. $861,320. The penalty in quarter four totaled $448,316.81. Because of the IRS' penalty
006structure instead of being refunded to the district, the district's quarter three and quarter four tax payments, which had been misallocated and deemed overpayments in quarter two and quarter three were applied by the IRS to pay this $861,320 penalty. As a result, a tax shortfall of $843,558 occurred in quarter four. The district has already filed an abatement request and refund claim for the funds used by the IRS to pay the quarter one and quarter three penalties. The district has been advised verbally by the IRS Office of Appeals that the quarter four penalty may be abated when the quarter four taxes are satisfied. In addition, the IRS has also assessed a penalty of approximately $412,837 plus interest, pertaining to an unrelated error with respect to the district's filing of its quarter two 2021 payroll tax return. The
007district has already filed a request for abatement of this penalty. In June of 2021, the IRS sent the district a notice of intent to levy and notice of rights to a hearing. Over the next several months, district officials had several communications with the IRS regarding the clerical errors in an attempt to clarify what had occurred and to request abatement of all penalties. Despite verbal assurances by the IRS to district employees on several occasions that the IRS would not impose a lien on the district while it was cooperating in an effort to resolve the matter, a federal tax lien was filed by the IRS in October, 2021 in the amount of $1,309,118.34. Our attorneys are working towards getting this lien released. The board was informed about this situation on Friday, March 25th. We held an executive
008session with our tax attorneys from BSK on March 28th to discuss the legal consequences, including the potential likelihood of litigation, and disclosed the details of the situation to the public, and took action at the March 30th Special Meeting to authorize payment of the outstanding quarter four taxes. We held a special meeting on March 30th because we're required to take action by this date. In consultation with our auditors, we have confirmed that the $843,558 payment to the IRS for taxes that are due, not penalties or interest can be deferred and recorded as an account receivable in the general fund. It will simultaneously be recorded as an allowance against the accounts receivable in the government-wide financial statements, along with a footnote disclosure, providing more information for readers of the financial statements. To reiterate, the district has filed
009for an abatement of these quarter one and quarter three penalties. And if successful, the penalties will be abated, which will result in the $843,550 tax payment becoming an overpayment that can be refunded. This issue does not impact the 2022/2023 budget, and the district is seeking a full refund and abatement of all assessed penalties. And if successful, payment of these penalties will not be owed. The exact timing and outcome of such refunds are uncertain. Again, the district has filed for an abatement of these Q1, quarter one and quarter three penalties. And if successful, the penalties will be abated and interest will be adjusted resulting in an approximate $861,320 refund to the district, which can then be applied to the receivable. In concert with the district, our auditors and the IRS, corrective measures and additional internal controls
010have been instituted to ensure these errors do not occur again. The board has also called an audit of the district's payroll tax processes, including a review of internal controls with the district's administration and further investigation into this matter. We acknowledge that the community has the right to answers and we will continue to update the community as and when additional factional details become available. But for now we cannot comment or elaborate further because of the legal implications. Thank you very much. Dr. Hagerman. Thank you, Karen, for those announcements and that clarification. I'd also like to welcome everyone tonight. Thank you for joining us virtually or in person for tonight's business meeting to become more informed about our most significant work. First and foremost, I would also like to join in on the congratulations for our very
011own, Drew Patrick, who has graciously accepted the interim superintendent position for next school year, which will be formally voted on as Karen said, a little later this evening. I would personally like to echo all the qualities and characteristics that Karen also outlined in her words. There is no doubt that Drew is absolutely the right person for this job next year, and we're all thrilled about that. In that vein, Drew and I have already started working closely together on timelines, processes, and other logistics to ensure that this transition is as smooth and seamless as possible. So there're some other announcements around personnel issues also tonight, but I'm gonna not steal Drew's thunder and allow him to speak about those later as part of the personnel report. To shift gears a little bit to our students, I'd
012like to talk about in kindergarten through fifth grade, this year's Young Writers' Workshop was celebrated by over 275 participants on March 25th at Greenacres. This year's keynote speaker was Dan Gutman author of "My Weird School" series. This year's workshop featured a new intro to Young Writers' Workshop for second graders, which gave them the opportunity to participate in a mini session with Dan Gutman as a way to introduce them to the wonders of Young Writers' Workshop so that they may fully participate in the event next year. Also at Edgewood, fourth graders just completed a multidisciplinary March Madness... Sorry, March Animal Madness project, which involved classroom music, art, library, and technology as an integrated study. Students learned about biomes, habitats and animals, and created short videos about their animals to share. The animals competed in brackets to
013see which animal would reign supreme. The announcement of the championship winning animals was made by ESPN personality, Andrew Gundling. Meanwhile, at the middle school, the school is celebrating neurodiversity and autism awareness during the month of April. Today, during an extended keystone, students at Scarsdale Middle School watched the Disney short movie, "Float", and talked about spectrum of neurodiversity and how it impacts fellow students and the damage that bullying or making fun of students with differences can cause. Neurodiversity will be discussed during keystone each day of this week. Also at the middle school, we have orchestra teacher, Dan Matthew Rutchen who was featured as a speaker at the American String Teachers Association Conference, where he presented about creativity and composition, and also presented his research on multistyle string music educators. And finally, at the high school we
014had several of our student artists' work has been selected for the 2022 Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, including honorable mentions in painting, photography and fashion design. The full list of winners is available in school-based publications, but I would like to personally congratulate all these students. I also wanna mention that the high school drama club returned to the stage with a live audience with their spring comedy, "Clue!", on March 25th and 26th, to which they received rave reviews. Coming up. The week of April 18th through 22nd will be the first week of peer-led learning at the high school. Students have volunteered to teach either a full or half period lesson on anything that excites them. The goal is to empower students to share their interests with each other and to show off what makes each one
015of them special. This will be an exciting new endeavor at the high school that we hope lives long into the future. On more generalized district matters, I'm also happy to announce that the sound system on Butler Field is finally in and fully functioning. We look forward to many future games and events that will benefit from enhanced and focused announcements, music and other forms of appropriate event amplification. I would like to, again, acknowledge and thank Maroon and White for their gift that allowed this project to come to fruition, array, our architects, and other folks who were involved in making sure that this was effectively implemented on Butler Field as part of the larger of course, field remodel project. And lastly, as we continue to recognize the diversity within our community it's important to note that in
016the next few weeks there will be three major religious holidays to recognize including Ramadan, April 2nd through May 1st, Passover, April 15th through the 22nd, and of course, Easter Sunday on April 17th. Another highly anticipated week for our schools of course, is spring break, which takes place next week. And in that, towards that end, it is my hope that all of our students, faculty and families find some time for self-care, relaxation and rejuvenation. And with that, Karen- Thanks so much. I'll turn it back to you. Thank you, Thomas. Do any board members have reports at this time before we move on? Okay. Thank you. Thanks Karen. I have a quick update from this Scarsdale Safe Coalition. This year's community book read will be taking place over the next few weeks. The book will be "Believing:
017Our Thirty-Year Journey "to End Gender Violence," by Anita hill. In addition to the book read, the Safe Coalition will be hosting a virtual event with Ms. Hill on April 19th at 7:30 PM. Those who wish to attend can either join via Zoom or attend at the Scarsdale Library. Ms. Hill will be attending virtually and will have a 45 minute in-person in-conversation presentation followed by a Q&A. Great. Thanks so much. Jessica. I apologize, I'm having some technical difficulties, so I don't have my notes, I'm gonna freehand this. Eric, you can correct me if I'm missing anything. from the last Safety and Emergency Management Meeting I attended as a board representative and topics covered focused for the first time less on COVID and more the attention of the committee was turned toward preparing for next year for
018building-level disruptions or emergencies. And upon several measures that have been taken, one of the key changes is that we now do have a policy for contagious diseases going forward, a policy for bus accidents, which has always been the case, but is now included at the building level so that we will be able to more quickly respond if there are any bus accidents on routes to or from school. Finally, there's an additional policy that was added focusing on... There was a third new policy. The two annexes were the ones that were added to the District Emergency Response team. It was those two. Yap. And that will be in front of the board at the next meeting to open the 30 day comment period for the community, then discussion following that and hopeful approval after that. Great.
019Thank you. And I apologize if people see me looking at my phone. I am merely computerless tonight. So I am going to be using my phone in lieu. Thanks so much, Jessica with the help of Eric, thank you. So now we will move to item three: Hearing From Those Present. At this time, members of the public are cordially invited to speak on district related items or other non-personnel related matters. When it is your turn to speak, please state your name, your address, and if you are speaking on behalf of an organization. For those commenting remotely, please mute the livestream voice, turn on your camera, and then unmute yourself. Speakers are asked to conclude their remarks within four minutes, and will be given a cue at the three minute mark. If at this point a speaker
020has additional comments, they may send them in writing to the board via email at [email protected]. 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 or at a later time and place. Response to public comment will take place after the first and second public comment periods during this meeting. Does anyone from the audience wish to speak? Good evening, I'm Robert Berg, 17 Black Birch Lane. I haven't appeared before you for a long while, but then came last week, last Tuesday, March 29th, I received a very odd email from the district noticing a special meeting for the next day. Two things were highly unusual. One was that the notice was
021sent just one day before the meeting, which is only allowed under the Open Meetings Law for a highly unusual circumstance. And the second was that the notice was so utterly obfuscatory and uninformative that it plainly violated the Open Meetings law. It said, quote, "At the special meeting, "it is expected that the board will take action "on an item discussed at an earlier executive session." End of quote. I immediately sent back an email to the district, advising that the notice was illegal and needed to be reissued. You can't have a legal notice that says we're going to have a meeting to take action on something we talked about at an early executive session. You actually have to say something about what the meeting is gonna be about. You can't just have this vague nonsensical notice. So
022that got my spidey sense tingling. So, but I still wasn't prepared for the bombshell announcement the next day that the district had botched its payroll tax payments for multiple quarters and was in hock to the IRS to the tune of $1.722 million in interests and penalties. Even in Scarsdale, that's an eye-popping number. But what's worse is there seems to be a major coverup going on here, coupled with what I think is an improper accounting practice. The most incredible part of this situation is that Mr. Mattie told us that I thought it was the $834,558 penalty payment to the IRS is gonna be booked by the district as an account's receivable. Tonight you said it's not the penalty payment, it's the actual taxes due is gonna be booked as an accounts receivable. But an accounts receivable
023is money that's owed to a company or an entity for goods sold or services provided. It's an asset for which a company has a legal right to collect payment. So how can payment of a tax due become transmogrified into an asset? I mean, it's an accounts payable that you're paying and now you're gonna book it as an asset. Only in a Trumpian accounting world does an account payable, become miraculously an accounts receivable. It just doesn't make sense. I mean, you're basing that apparently on the idea that somehow in some day in some world the IRS is gonna give you the money back. That's way too contingent. It's like I buy a lotto ticket and I have a hope that I'm gonna win 600 million bucks, so I'm gonna book that as an accounts receivable. Accounting
024doesn't work that way, so why is the district doing this? You say it's not gonna affect the budget for this year, the upcoming budget. It seems to me the only explanation I can come up with is that the tax cap is only, you're only $75,000 below the tax cap. And if you book this properly, you're gonna blow the tax cap and then you're gonna have to do a super majority vote on the budget and you don't wanna do that so you're coming in with a proposed budget under the tax cap even though it's not proper to do so. And that scares me because then you may have a vote that's not a legal vote, because the budget's not being presented properly. So it's a serious question here that I think has to be examined. And
025another thing I don't understand is the district was negotiating with the IRS for months and months on this thing. How could the board possibly not know about any of this until March 25th? Makes no sense at all. You guys as a board are all members of the audit committee. So how could you not be advised as to what's going on if there're negotiations for a major and there's a lien against the district? How could the board, no one on the board had any idea of this? It just doesn't make sense. There are too many questions that the people in the district wanna know answers to. I hope you'll answer them later. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much, Mr. Berg. Hi, good evening. Mayra Kirkendall Rodriguez, Fox Meadow Road. Last week I emailed questions about
026the payroll errors and Dr. Hagerman kindly responded and stated that he was responding on behalf of the administration and the board. The board and administration are not the same body. The board is supposed to be independent and its role is to provide oversight. The payroll errors occurred in 2020 and 2021 while Dr. Hagerman has been superintendent. Is it not a conflict of interest that he decides what to answer about this issue and that you the board do not respond to taxpayers questions? What oversight did you as a board provide on audits and accounting documentation when these errors occurred, and what oversight are you providing now? In publicly available documents on the Board of Education website, you are the audit committee signing off on audits and risk assessments. Additionally, in July, 2021, you the board authorized
027the Assistant Superintendent for Business to certify all payroll registers. So what are those registers, and did you see them? In your board policy number 6,800 on payroll procedures, it states that a periodic test will be conducted to verify accuracy and appropriateness of district payrolls. How often is that test conducted? By whom, and when was the last time that it was done? This evening, we're learning that the administration has known about these errors since June, 2021, so why did the administration only notify the board on March 25th of 2022? And the district has been talking to the IRS and auditors since June, 2021, so how is it possible that the board was not notified? I urge you to please provide a clear explanation of the record keeping and the accounting. In my decades of working as
028a financial risk analyst with private sector and government entities, I have never seen a tax payment be declared an account receivable unless there is proof that tax funds are being reimbursed usually within 12 months. Once the tax payment is authorized, which you all did unanimously on Wednesday, it is recorded as a payable on the balance sheet. On the revenue statement, the payment is labeled as an expense and it's subtracted from the revenues. When an organization has confirmation that the IRS will reduce some or all of an expense or some kind of a penalty, then it would be recorded as an asset, as specifically as a receivable on the balance sheet. And for a pending incoming amount to be labeled a receivable, it should be measurable, collectible, and due within 12 months. So if the district
029does not know what amount the IRS might refund you and/or when, what part of Gatsby allows it to be called a receivable? Please point us to the Gatsby rule that allows a tax expense to now become an account receivable. And what about the tax penalties? Will the district now record those as payables on the balance sheet? And now that the district has larger payables, how does that affect how Moody's might score you on leverage, which as it is, that part of the rating methodology is not a AAA, it's more like one or two notches below that. In addition, I'd like to know what the cost will be of any additional counsel, auditors, maybe improvements in tech systems to detect errors? How much is that going to cost? And also does the district need to restate
030financials or file a notice with the Securities and Exchange Commission since the financials are now different than what you filed previously? Does the district need to restate the financials to submit to NYSED or the state controller? You just authorized a payment of over $843,000 last week, so how does that not affect the level of cash that we actually have? And you're about to be looking for a permanent superintendent, how do these challenges and possibly scandal affect your ability to find somebody that is going to be of the talent that we need to be able to run the district? Thank you, Mayra. Good evening, my name is Bob Harrison. I'm a 40-year resident of Scarsdale. I've attended many school board meetings over the years and many Village board meetings. I was a elected Village trustee and
031I've studied your budgets over many, many, many, many years. Been a member of the Scarsdale Forum. So, I'm not as well-versed as the two previous speakers in this. I think they did an excellent job in presenting to the board and the community that this is a very serious situation. I'd like to know how it happened. Who goofed? Who actually is responsible? Is it the superintendent? Is it one of the other administrative people? It seems to me somebody made a pretty serious mistake here. 800 and somewhat thousand dollars. We pride ourself in having a AAA rating. This could damage that. If I was an all-powerful person, I think I'm gonna say it, some heads should roll. I don't like to say it, but there's a serious, serious, serious error here, and it seems like it was
032hidden from the community, from the board. That's not right in Scarsdale. So I don't know superintendent, if you wanna make any comments? I think you're being paid about $495,000 this year. You had a contract that you were supposed to let the district know if you were gonna leave with 12 months notice. I don't think you gave 12 months notice. So you put us in a difficult situation, although Drew Patrick is an excellent person to carry on. Maybe you should resign. Please keep your comments to- What? Please keep your comments to the... Well, this is a important situation. And I could say a few more things about how the administration has communicated with the community, but I won't go into too much of that. I left a phone call with Mr. Mattie. He hasn't returned it.
033So here's a question or two on the current budget. How much money does the district have in its bank accounts? The Village has 40 million. What do you have? And how much is the interest rate that you're getting on that money right now? Is it just bank interest rates like I get, a 10th of 1% in my account, or do you perhaps invest in treasury bills and get a much larger return, which you should be doing if you're running this district properly? So I'd like to get some answers tonight. I think those are pretty simple questions. They're factual. So I hope you'll respond and let the community know what you're doing with our money. It's our money that you have in your unassigned fund balance. It belongs to the taxpayers. So let's open up, let's
034hear from you folks. Thank you, Mr. Harrison. Does anyone else from the audience wish to speak before we turn to the remote participants? Okay. There are some. We have some hands raised. Okay. We have one. One hand raised. Okay. I just promoted her, but it may take a second. Okay. Ooh, I have to turn down my volume. Okay, thank you. Rachna Singh from Griffin Avenue. I apologize I missed the entire president's report due to pure connectivity over the livestream. The first part of my question and feedback is for the board members and not for the district administration. I would love to hear from the board members directly if they so choose to be responsive to the community concerns regarding this egregious few errors in amount of 861,320 plus interest, and the sum total of penalties
035and interest being 1.7 vicinity? Here are some of my concerns. In the meeting notice for March 30th, which was live streamed and open to public meeting, why wasn't the agenda disclosed by Ms. Verna to be a tax penalty issue? Had the agenda been disclosed rightfully more people would've attended the meeting, including myself. For a board that keeps talking exhaustively about community engagement, this seems contrary to their so-called goal of community engagement. Also, being an open meeting and a very high stake meeting the board, again failed in inviting members of the public for public comment. It's almost as if the board does not want to hear from Scarsdale taxpayers. Who is the legal counsel advising the board on this matter? Who are the district auditors and accountants? Surely this information is not confidential and can be
036shared with the taxpayers. How much is the board estimating to be the additional fee with regards to legal and accounting fee and filing for the abatement and appeals? These processes can be long drawn and expensive, and surely this cannot be confidential. It's not evident why the administration not let the board know when they became aware about the errors over past several months. Apparently, the board was just informed of such errors on March 25th. How will the board achieve its function of oversight on administration if they're not even informed of the errors in a timely and effective manner? How does the board address this lack of timely notice from the administration? How many people in the accounting department of the administration knew about these payroll errors and for how long? You've stated that the district has
037already filed a claim for refund and abatement request for 861,320 plus interest. Surely you can tell the taxpayer when was this filed and for what amount. What's the approximate timeline to hear back on such? when are you planning to pay the amount of 412,837 plus interest with respect to unrelated error in the second quarter of 2021 payroll tax return? This must be accruing interest daily as it's unpaid creating more burden on the taxpayer. As it relates to the board member's resolution about calling for an audit for the district's payroll taxes processes and internal controls, what will that process look like? Who will oversee such an audit? And will the board disclose in the due time the result of such an audit? As far as what Mr. Mattie stated about IRS penalty not being a budgetary
038issue for this upcoming budget and being more of a cash flow issue, that's a false narrative. Once this fund is paid as part of the penalty, it will impact the revenue statement, hence reducing the cash at hand. Regardless of Mr. Mattie's assumption, the money spent on penalties, interest, legal and accounting fee is a significant burden on Scarsdale taxpayers and will impact future budgets. If IRS does not return the funds as result of appeals, this might have an impact on student outcome as less money will be available for spending on our students. You have said in a meeting on March 30th that you can't discuss matters of potential or current litigation. My feedback to you and I hope you listen is you can disclose, please disclose as many more details as possible than you currently have
039without compromising the integrity of errors. Board of Education has fiduciary responsibility to protect the interest of taxpayers, both long term and short term. And so far, this board has disclosed very few details and were themselves informed on March 25th regarding the few errors known to the district over past several months. I urge and implore this board to be more transparent in their governance for the school community. I don't know how much time do I have left, but I also wanted to. You just hit the four minute mark. All right I'll settle there. So if you could send your remarks. Thank you. There's nobody else, Karen. Okay. I do wish to remind... Thank you to all the people who spoke this evening. I do wish to though remind the community that we do ask you to
040understand this is presently a matter that requires consultation with and advice from our legal counsel, and therefore we are limited in what we can provide comment to and what else we can disclose at this time, but this board is committed to transparency, which is why we gave a statement tonight trying to provide some clarification, and we will update the community as we are able to do so. I didn't know, was there anything along the way that anyone wished to comment on at this time? No. Okay. Thank you all very much for your comments. I appreciate your attending tonight. Just one note, Karen did spend quite a lot of time for her opening comments providing some background narrative. And I realize that listening to that was not necessarily the way to catch all the details. So
041we will be sending that out as part of the highlight so that all that is written out and people are able to more carefully track those comments. Okay. So now we will move to written communications. Amber. Thanks, Karen. Just one second. Please note that the Board of Education email is also viewed by the superintendent and district clerk. Open Meetings Law requires all board deliberations which 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. A board member will respond at their earliest convenience. For the period of March 4th, 2022 through March 30th, 2022, there were 35 emails sent to the Board of Education from 29 individuals or groups. 20 related to district matters and 15 related to board matters.
042There was one request to resume COVID surveillance testing. There were two questions related to curriculum. There was one comment on the school calendar. There was one question regarding transportation. There was one question regarding the timing of the coach's survey. There were four emails related to employment. There were two questions related to scheduling at the Scarsdale High School. There were three emails related to behavior at Scarsdale High School. There were five budget related questions or emails. Two were questions. One was support for district-based mental health professionals. And one was support for additional mental health resources to come through Scarsdale Edgemont Family Counseling Services, and one was the request for basketball courts at the middle school. There were 15 emails with board invitations, publications, board meetings, or highlights. Two emails with publications. Nine statements that were read
043at board meetings. One invitation. One email thanking Carl Finger for his service to the community. And two questions or comments on the structure of board meetings. Thank you very much, Amber. Now we'll move to item six: The Personnel Report, Drew. Thank you very much. So as Dr. Hagerman alluded to a little bit earlier, we're delighted to share some news tonight that at the next board meeting, April 25th, you will see on the board agenda a recommendation to appoint Mr. William Yang as our new K-12 Coordinator of Digital Learning and Literacy. Wow. So for those who don't know, Mr. Yang is currently an assistant principal at Edgewood Elementary School. He started in the district in 1999. He did leave the district for a couple of years, and went to Chappaqua, and returned in 2016. So we've
044had a rigorous search process, and out at the other side of that, Mr. Yang came through, and we'll be delighted to ask you to act on that at the end of the month of April. So we thought we would let the board and the community know. And the second item, we have our first probationary appointment, probationary teacher appointment of the season tonight. This is a familiar face. Miss Britney Vela has been with us all year as a full year leave replacement teacher. She was at a board meeting last year where she was introduced. She's now moved, been recommended for appointment in the probationary mathematics area at Scarsdale Middle School. So we're delighted for those announcements. Okay, thanks so much Drew for sharing those, that information with us. So now we'll move to the consent agenda.
045The preamble to the consent agenda reads as follows. "The board may conduct some of its business "using a consent agenda in an effort to achieve "greater efficiency at board meetings. "A consent agenda condenses some of the routine business "of the Board of Education into a single motion. "Items are selected for the consent agenda "when officers of the board and the superintendent "believe there is no controversy regarding them. "Any member of the board who feels that any item "on the consent agenda requires discussion prior to action "may remove that item from the consent agenda." Does any board member wish to remove anything? If not, we'll move to the consent agenda and Bob will lead us on that. Tonight, there are eight items on the consent agenda for us to be approving. The first is item 8.01
046Minutes. It is recommended that the board accept the minutes of March 21st, 2022 as presented. Item 8.02, it is recommended that the board accept the minutes of March 23rd, 2022 as presented. Item 8.03, it is recommended that the board accept the minutes of March 28th, 2022 as presented. Item 8.04, it is recommended that the board accept the minutes of March 30th, 2022 as presented. Item 8.05, be it resolved that the Board of Education of the Scarsdale Union Free School District hereby accepts the recommendation of the superintendent to appoint and assign the instructional personnel as listed. Item 8.06, be it resolved that the Board of Education of the Scarsdale Union Free School District hereby accepts the recommendation of the superintendent to appoint and assign the non-instructional personnel as listed. Item 8.07, the District's Counsel has advised
047that the board should approve the settlement judgment as presented... Right, as presented, i.e., the full amount. Item 8.08, in accordance with New York state education law, section 2021 3B, the board is obligated to approve a chief election inspector, election inspectors, and assistant clerks for all elections. We recommend that the board approve the appointments as stated in the memo of honorary items, the district clerk. And item 8.09, it is recommended action to accept the consent agenda. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay. Motion passes. Thank you, Bob. Now we will move to item nine: Information Items and Discussion. We'll start with 9.01, the appointment of the interim superintendent of the Scarsdale Union Free School District. Just to review, at our business meeting on February 14th, the board identified its criteria
048and priorities for an interim superintendent. We then solicited community feedback on the board's criteria and priorities, receiving 108 responses. We shared this information with the community and then worked to identify and vet appropriate internal and external candidates for this position. The board unanimously selected Dr. Patrick as the best individual to lead our schools at this time. The proposed one year agreement is attached to this agenda. Dr. Patrick will serve as the interim superintendent for 2022/2023, and take a leave of absence from his current position as Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources and Leadership Development. His current position will be filled for the year. We will hire a search firm to help us identify a permanent superintendent, and this process will be further discussed under our next item, Succession Planning. Any... Okay, so we will now move
049to our next item: 9.02, our succession planning. And I'm going to turn to Ron, Jessica and Bob for an update on our RFP for a search firm. Ron, can I kick this off or would you like to? Go ahead. Okay so Ron and Bob and I led the charge on putting together an RFP. We were glad to receive feedback in an executive session from other members of the board. The RFP will be sent to search firms that we have specifically targeted as well as posted publicly. The RFP includes a number of criteria that we selected as primary. They were largely things that had already been identified in the community, including our continued commitment to DEI work. We highlighted the qualities of our district and sought a firm that would provide a rigorous process, including forums
050for community participation of all stakeholders from the community. Ron, would you like to add to that? I'd just like to add that it's right now, as Jessica mentioned complete from our perspective. It's with legal counsel for any additional legal language that needs to be put on any RFP that comes out from the district, and we are hopeful and anticipate it can go out this week so we can begin to receive responses. Great, Bob, do you have anything else to add? I'm good. Thank you. Okay. That's great, thank you all so much for your work on that. So now we will move to our next item, 9.03, the 2000 Policy Series, our first reading. Do you want me to give the background on that or do you want to? You can go ahead. Okay, so just
051to provide some background on this is in the agenda, but I will repeat it here that prior to the pandemic, a board subcommittee consisting of previous board members, Chris Moran and Allison Singer and me, we met three times to review policies in the 2000 Series. We discussed the recommendations made by the district attorney and reviewed feedback received by community members. And we made recommendations to the policies in the 2000 Series. This year, the board's policy subcommittee for the 2000 Series consisted of Carl Finger, Jessica Resnick and me. We met on November 12th, 2021 to resume the review of policies 2000 to 2205. The subcommittee met again on November 30th to review policies 2210 through 2320. And then we met again on January 28th and reviewed policies 2330 through 2252. It should be noted that the
052policy subcommittee recommended that the board subcommittee on onboarding, sorry, review policies related to new board members. So the board subcommittee on onboarding will review the following four policies: policy 2352: rules of order, policy 2510: new board member orientation, policy 2520: board member training, and policy 2521: school board conferences, conventions, and workshops. So the draft policies were attached for the first reading by the whole board. And at this time, are there any questions from the whole board on this policy series? I have a really, really minor comment. I believe it's policy 2350, where at board meeting agendas and procedures, items, information items/discussion led by the superintendent and action items led by the board president. Information items are not always led by the superintendent as evidenced by this meeting, and I'm not sure if action items are
053always, maybe they are always the board president, but I was just thinking we could just take out the wording led by, and just have information items/discussion items and action items. So just a very minor comment. Okay. Well, I have a question. I don't have a question, but I just wanted to reiterate your... Well, I don't know. You commented that prior board members worked on this, but I really, they did a huge job. I mean, we were left with a very modest amount of work, so I wanted to appreciate them, as well as the amount of work that Honaray and Dr. Hagerman did in the past in between meetings because having the groundwork done earlier and then having the foundation each time we met just made things go really well, and I think this is really
054excellent revisions, and I think it'll serve us in the long run once we hopefully approve it subject to the comments. So we will make Ron's suggestion, okay? And any other comments? Okay, thank you all for your view of that whole policy series. So now we'll move to item 10: Action Items. The first one is our 2022/2023 budget resolution. That's me. May I? Go ahead, yeah. Sorry, Carl. Okay. No, just don't want to- Okay. start before my time. Okay, I will move that we resolve that the sum of $173,291,393 shall be appropriated to meet the estimated expenditures for school purposes for the school year 22/23, and that the board of education be authorized to levy the necessary taxes to meet the same, and that we adopt that as a budget resolution. Okay, is there a second?
055Second? Okay, any discussion? Would you like to start? Yeah, I'll just start, okay. Yeah. Okay, I'll go ahead. I support the proposed budget for the 2022/2023 school year. Of particular note to me are two areas: technology and special education. The portion of this year's budget dedicated to technology resonated with me in a number of different ways. I appreciate that our leaders recognize the growing importance of technology on learning and are cognizant of supply chain and inflationary issues. This plan is thoughtful about our way forward with technology given the macroeconomic factors involved, additionally plans to assess and correct Wi-Fi deficiencies will lead to additional safety and security for our students and faculty. With increased cyber crime, I appreciate that our technology supports contracts that continue to include cyber security initiatives important to protect student data. And
056finally, the additional technology teacher at the middle school will enhance opportunities for our students to develop skills in this important area. With regards to special education, I recognize that COVID sped up and perhaps amplified a growing mental health crisis of youth in our country. I am happy to see that the success of the supported skills program at the high school has resulted in the addition of the Supported Skills Program in the middle school with this year's proposed budget, also allowing us to bring more students back into the district. It is important to continue to support our youth at all educational levels, and I am happy to see the additional mental health supports, including social workers and psychiatrists to work alongside our current staff and youth outreach workers. I appreciate the many voices that contributed to
057developing the plan for next year's budget. I'll share some comments as well. Sure, that's great, thank you Ron. I have a few brief comments tonight about why I support the proposed budget. As part of the budgeting process, we've had detailed presentations about each area of the budget and discussions, and I've shared my specific thoughts about those items during those meetings. So tonight I'd like to focus on key themes that I believe the propose budget addresses for the upcoming school year. The first being educational excellence. We will be continuing to fund the delivery of educational excellence to our students across the district. We are continuing many programs to support our students, including those that may need some additional supports, and expanding on these programs as well. A continued focus on our people. We continue to respond
058to what is in the best interest of our students, and are adding faculty and staff in a thoughtful manner in areas that directly support our students, such as expanding instructional opportunities, mental health, and special education. We've considered future financial needs and potentially future budgets. As part of our discussions about this year's budgets, we've also discussed areas that will likely require investment in the coming years. We have discussed potential infrastructure needs and we'll have a new building condition survey. We've discussed capital improvements and potential options for funding such as with the high school auditorium. And we have discussed how we understand we need to be mindful regarding our fund balance reserves and recognize when there are opportunities to fund these reserves at an appropriate level. And we are also prepared for any potential uncertainty and put
059in place contingency funds for any COVID-related needs. I wanna thank the administration and all of our faculty and staff for their work on the proposed budget. The board heavily relies on the background information and data from the administration as we engage in budget discussions and make decisions. So thank you for all that information throughout the budget process. Thank you to the community for all your thoughtful ideas and feedback, and thank you to my fellow board members. We all bring different ideas and viewpoints to the table, and these discussions always result in robust and thoughtful budgeting process. At the end of the day, every dollar we spend is in pursuit of the finest education for the students, which is why I will be voting yes in support of this budget. Thank you. Jessica. Sure. We have
060a process here where the administration provides the scaffolding of the budget. And it's through the insightful questions that were raised through the community and through the board, through the stakeholders at all levels, which generally got thoughtful responses that were easily accessible. And I appreciate the administration's role in making that information so accessible to the community. I believe that excellence is not simply sitting on our laurels and continuing to invest in the programs we already have, but requires innovation and thoughtfulness about where we have fallen short, a sort of self-critique that allows us to fill in the gaps. We saw those spots in technology, particularly for the sixth grade, adding a faculty member who will help us to not only provide superior technology education, but also potentially close a gender gap that often emerges in middle
061school. We have heard repeatedly from both Mr. Benamo and Ms. Troy about the need for additional mental health support at the secondary and middle school levels. We are lucky that we were able to come up with a budget that will provide that support for all our students so that everyone can learn in the best environment for them. Extending the programs currently available at the high school toward the middle school level for support for mental health will better enable us to serve all students within the school district. While there were disparate voices on how we could best provide these services, I believe that this budget does provide the necessary and in fact, emergent mental health support that our students need. Overall, the balance in curricular innovation, supporting our excellent faculty and supporting these needed services compel
062me to vote in favor of this budget. So thanks to everyone who worked to put it together and who kicked the tires on it to make it even more robust. (Karen speaks indistinctly) I'd just like to briefly say that one of the... In supporting the budget, besides the immense challenge of trying to balance so many factors at the same time and keep our eye on the big picture, one particular detail that is particularly important to me are support of the faculty growth and the commitment of the district to internal training. I think from my own experience with my own children and my contact today with faculty, the reason our faculty excel is because we treat them with respect and we allow them to grow as much as the students are growing. And I think we
063all are aware of the tremendous energy that we experience when we're around the teachers. And we learn about when we have the good fortune to sit in on tenure reviews, I'm continually impressed by the support and creativity that I see within the faculty. So I think the community can rest assured that we are indeed nurturing our faculty to the highest level. And I think, I don't wanna say it's a secret ingredient in our success, but it certainly is one of many secret ingredients in terms of keeping the district with such an excellent school district. So I enthusiastically think and hope everyone will also be supporting the budget. Thank you. Carl, do you wish to? Yeah. Yeah, I'll go. So I just have a few comments and very briefly, I just wanted to say, I do
064appreciate very much members of the community who've come forward with their very insightful comments as to what our educational needs are from their perspectives and what is the budget needed or should have had from their perspective as well. Not everyone could be happy, but I think we made an effort to balance all the considerations and make the right calls. And I think for the most part, we did succeed in this budget in doing that. I wanna say I'm proud as a first year board member to be participating in this process in the way I'm able to. And I'm proud as a member of the board to support the budget, and I will be voting in favor of the budget at this meeting. Among a few things I think are standout aspects of this budget are
065it shows our commitment in this time, especially post COVID as we're recovering from that to the mental health of our students, to our special education efforts, to our DEI efforts, to our overall educational program. I think all of those are given full freight in this budget. And once again, I wanna say I thank everyone involved, both in the district and the community and on the board in this effort. So, I am pleased to support the budget because not only, or should I say, not only because in my personal estimation it sets the right tone and the right priorities for the district, but because the priorities that we heard from the organizations that come and speak to us such as the PT Council and the League of Women Voters, and I'm leaving others out, the other
066PTAs, et cetera, indicate to me that we're basically on the right track. I do think it's worth acknowledging that there was, there is some, there isn't uniform agreement about every staff member that is proposed and included in this budget. And that is a little bit of a challenge because I think we're used to, to some extent, a fair amount of agreements. So we've struggled with that somewhat, but ultimately I feel confident that the administration has us in the right direction, that the differences are relatively modest and that the questions that were posed by again, not just me and the board, but by the organizations and the other members of the community that appeared before us and wrote into us were answered with sufficient detail and confidence to lead us to believe that this really is
067an excellent effort and really meets the goals that we as a board have set and that the community has set for us. So with all that in mind, I certainly will be voting in favor of the resolution I just moved. Okay. And I too will support the budget resolution for the 2022/2023 school year because this proposed budget supports Scarsdale's mission and commitment to the education of every child and the whole child. It supports continued and expanded special education programs and the important diversity equity and inclusion work being done at every grade level. It provides for critical social and emotional support for students by expanding mental health counseling capacity and outreach potential at the secondary level. In addition to providing for a quality core program, it provides STEM and sustainability experience, supports all areas of the
068arts, and improves and expands authentic global opportunities. I also support this budget because providing strong support of teaching and learning is paramount to ensuring excellent educational experiences and outcomes for our students. And the budget maintains high quality teaching and learning initiatives and resources that align with our strategic plan. For example, it supports professional learning for our educators, and fund software and online services that support teaching and learning at all levels. This budget also provides the necessary financial resources and the efficiencies to operate the school district well and maintain and improve our physical plant. I'm especially in support of improvements to our wireless connectivity and communication system, including the identification of dead spots, as there's been concerned raise of that in terms of safety, targeting wifi improvements for outdoor and indoor spaces. So putting together a
069thoughtful, detailed, and comprehensive budget like we have that is responsive to and supportive of the needs of our students, our faculty, our staff and our physical plant is a very involved process. I'd like to acknowledge and thank the administration, especially Stuart and Jeff. I know you've worked many, many hours on this. Also to our faculty and staff, our community, and my fellow board members for their time, their input and their diligence during this year's budget process. So now I would like to call for a vote on the budget resolution. All in favor. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. The motion passes. Now we will move to item 10.02, our property tax report card, Jim. Okay, so just two sections on the back (indistinct) school district's New York state requirements. Can you speak up, please? Yes, is that
070Bob Harrison? Hi Bob. Hey. Okay. (indistinct) All the way. Well, go nitany. Okay, so just one or two background sentences here. All school districts in New York state are required to adopt a property tax report card no later than 24 days before the budget vote. And that tax report card is then transmitted to the state education department within a certain timeline. The state education department in turn compiles information that's reported on all districts and it's made available on the state education department's management services webpage at least 10 days before the budget voting date. So what we have here for our consideration and hopefully approval and adoption is a property tax report card prepared by the business office. A more detailed budget notice will be mailed to all qualified voters in this district after the May
0719th, 2022 statutory budget hearing. That more detailed notice will list the budget growth over the prior year, the tax levy limit, fund balances assumed changes in school programs under a contingency budget. Let's hope that doesn't happen. And the basic star exemption savings. So with that, I would like to recommend the board adopt our 2022/23 property tax report card as presented. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Motion passes. Now we'll move to item 10.03: appointment of the interim superintendent. Ron. Thanks, Karen. I have the pleasure of reading this action item. I move that the board adopt the resolution for the appointment of Dr. Drew Patrick as the interim superintendent of school's effective July 1, 2022, as presented below, which I will read. Be it resolved, that the Board
072of Education of the Scarsdale Union Free School District here by appoints Dr. Andrew Patrick to serve as interim superintendent of school's effective July 1, 2022 in accordance with the terms and conditions of employment set forth in the interim superintendent agreement attached here too. And be it further resolved that the Board of Education of the Scarsdale Union Free School District hereby approves and authorizes the president to sign said interim superintendent agreement. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes. Congratulations, Drew. (board members applauding) I'm waiting for the applause to stop so (laughing) I can say to you, Drew. I'll wait till your picture's taken. Okay. You're ready? I just wanna, Drew, we are delighted to welcome you in this new role and we really look forward to working with you in the coming
073year or the new... The remaining board members and the new board. Thank you. So congratulations. Thank you. Can I say a few words or? Sure. Okay, thanks. First and foremost, thank you to the Board of Education for your support and the trust and the confidence you've exhibited toward me. I genuinely appreciate it. And I'm very excited. I'm very much looking forward to serve as interim superintendent and I feel fortunate to do so here in Scarsdale. It's a remarkable place. I've been overwhelmed by the support of emails and texts I've received since you sent notification out about this action that you were taking. And I wanna express my gratitude to everyone who has reached out. I've not been able to keep up with my thank yous. I also wanna thank Dr. Hagerman, who's been both generous
074and supportive, not just since this news was announced, but throughout my six years in Scarsdale. We're already planning thoughtfully together for the transition. And while there's a lot of work to do, I'm confident that we're gonna enter 2022/23 with positive momentum, so thank you. Okay, thank you so much. (board members applauding) And so now we will move to item 10.04: proposed new textbooks. Jessica. Can I defer this to someone else- Oh, sure, sure. I don't know, Jim, is your okay? I guess, yeah. Thank you. Sure, okay, I mean so I'm going to skip all the standard verbiage about New York state education law and simply say, because we have as a board publicly considered these textbooks before, I'd simply like to say that and recommend that the board approve the proposed textbooks as presented. Is
075there a second? So moved. Okay, any discussion? That was a second. Second. Oh, sorry. Okay, any discussion? No. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay. The motion passes. Now we will move to item 11, hearing from those present. Again at this time, the members of the public are cordially invited to speak on district related items or other non-personnel related matters. When it's your turn to speak, please state your name, your address, and if you're speaking on behalf of an organization. Again, we ask that speakers conclude their remarks within four minutes, and we will give you a queue at the three minute mark. If at this point, you're not finished with your comments, we ask that you send them to us via email. And again, this is a comment period reserved for comments only, and the board
076does not engage in dialogue at this time, and we do reserve the right to respond to comments and questions at our discretion either during response to public comment or at a later time and place. Does anyone from the audience wish to speak? Mr. Harrison? Good evening, my name's Bob Harrison. I'm a 40 year resident of Scarsdale. I live at 65 Fox Meadow Road, and it was an interesting meeting. Jim, your voice is terrific. Good job (laughing). Okay. Thank you, Bob. Maybe your mic wasn't on. That's the problem, yes, thank you. But you came through, excellent, okay. So Drew Patrick, congratulations. Thank you so much. Hope to work with you and keep moving Scarsdale schools upward and upward and upward. (laughing) Okay. So I don't recall in was there a response to my question earlier relating
077Stuart Mattie with interest rates on our fund balances and what is the total fund balance and what is the current interest rate that we're getting? It's a dynamic world out there. The Federal Reserve has made a substantial move in rates, which had been bound, the Fed fund rates at zero to 2% for about two years. And now rates are gonna rise dramatically. There's plus and minuses. From an interest income standpoint for this board and this district, it's a positive. On the other hand, inflation presents some negatives. So did you respond to my asking what the current interest rate is and how much money do we have in I assume it's all local banks like The Village? Can I get an answer to that while I'm standing here or are you gonna wait till I sit
078down? Well, we have a response to public comments. So when you sit down, Bob, we'll address that. 'Cause you didn't respond previously, correct? No, we did not because we reserve that- Okay. I hope you will respond. This is important. I think your budget may be inaccurate based on whatever, 'cause I know what's going on with The Village board. I had a letter to the editor of the "Scarsdale Inquirer" and the "105H3", who did a great job, and it explains what's going on in the world. It's a dynamic process out there. We have an inflation problem and the Fed was too nice for too long, at zero to 2% interest rates. Now they're gonna go up probably seven times this year and five times next year. We could see a federal funds rate at 2% by
079the end of this year and then another increase next year. So that means additional interest income to both The Village funds and to the school. And we'd like to know what they are and what you're estimating. The Village is dramatically they estimate about $160,000 of interest income for the coming year. The number will probably be 700,000 or more based on what is publicly stated by the Federal Reserve already. So I hope we can get a good response here this evening in the public. Thank you very much. Does anyone else wish to speak? Do we have any hands raised? (Amber speaks indistinctly) Okay, we have one hand raised. (Amber speaks indistinctly) Okay. Turn on the camera. Yeah, could you ask that she turn... Could you please turn your camera on? Oh, there you go. Thank you.
080We have one hand raised. Is that me? Okay. Thank you. My name is Batia Weseinfeld. Please turn your camera on. It's on. It's the- I have one hand raised. I'm sorry. It's getting her background. Is that me? Can you turn off your live stream from behind you? Sorry. It's on. I have one hand raised. I'm sorry. It's in her background. It's getting her background. Okay, so first I want... My name is Batia Weseinfeld. I wanna just say, start out by saying thank you to the members of the board for your service on behalf of all of us in the community. I really admire your willingness to generously volunteer your time to serve all of us. We're very lucky in this community that the vast majority of students leave our school district to move on to
081higher education. Thus the students and parents and the community at large is invested in ensuring that students can leave Scarsdale and move on to higher education at the best universities. Over the last couple of years, there have been a number of changes in the college admission process. There is a growing perception that these changes have negatively impacted the success of our students in moving into institutions of higher education that are commensurate with their abilities and achievements relative to other students in the nation. This perception may not be accurate, and even if it is, the board and our educators and deans will be best positioned to devise an effective strategy to address it if they're equipped with useful data that analyzes the outcomes of our students over the last few years. I would like to offer
082to contribute by helping you to evaluate, to sort of collect and analyze that data if you wish, sort of over time in Scarsdale. Just presenting the information for you it could be helpful to address if this understanding is incorrect, then it could be helpful to be able to refute maybe erroneous perceptions that are out there and potentially it could also be helpful if there is a decline in our students' achievements and outcomes upon graduation with respect to higher education. Then it could be useful for you to understand what exactly that is and to be able to devise strategies to address it. I mean, I'm a social scientist myself. I feel like I sort of have some skills that are relevant to this, but happy to just, hoping that someone might be interested in doing an
083exploration of this issue. Thank you so much, thank you. Could you please state your address? Oh, sorry. Yes. It's 4010 Boulevard in Scarsdale. Okay. Thank you very much for your comment. Thank you very much. 4010 what? 10 Boulevard. Any additional? (Amber speaks indistinctly) Okay. I'll just double check. No, there's nobody else. Okay. So response, I don't know if you wish to respond? Do you wish to email, send a response by email? I actually already did after your last comments. Mr. Harrison, I did send you a couple emails as a follow up to you after you got up the first time. But our treasurer report, treasurer's reports are put on the Board of Education meetings every quarter. So I sent you the December 31st treasurer's report. The next one will be at the first meeting in
084May. That shows all of our cash balances and investment reports, so you can see that there. We currently do have two T bills getting about a half a percent or so of about $10 million. So we do actively look at those. As far as our interest revenues for next year, we realize that those rates are going up, but it's always a fine balance. We were very short last year. I know you spent quite a bit of time talking to Mr. Martin earlier last week, talking about this very topic, and it sounded like a pretty fruitful discussion. I think we're comfortable where our budget is. We know inflation's going up on the expense side, so it's gonna be a balance on either way. I think our fuel costs are challenged with what our budget numbers are.
085So we might see a deficit there and if we're lucky, we'll see a surplus on the interest side, but all in all, hopefully, we'll come out balanced at the end of the day. What's the dollar amount that we have in the banks, please? As of December 31st it's 65 million. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you, Stewart. And now we'll move to item 13: Wrap Up Items. I just have one. Do you have any wrap up items that we will post my opening comment on the webpage so that people can take in the details? Just regarding the IRS issue again just that we understand it's a very serious issue. We're very committed to continuing to work with all the folks involved. There are a number of questions of who are the folks who are supporting our
086work? If you go back all of the auditors and attorneys are all listed on our reorg meeting, these are all the folks who we're using in a professional capacity, obviously to provide us a guidance and work on this. And we are prepared to go as far as we need to go to be able to resolve this issue. We are in ongoing communications with our attorneys and other folks. Again, as we work towards resolution on these issues, it is not our intention at all of not being transparent about this issue, but we ask for your patience and are certainly prepared to share out as much information as we can at any given time. It will be a process that just unfolds over the next weeks and months. And so we appreciate folks' patience as we work
087through this process. Obviously our number one commitment is to get every dollar back into our budget so that we can appropriately apply it towards educational programs and services. Thank you, Thomas. Karen, could I just ask that I was trying to message the last speaker, if they could email their comments, if she's still watching? I believe that Michelle Verna actually has her contact so she can reach out- Oh, great. on our behalf. Thank you. Okay. Anything additional? Okay, Amber will read the meeting dates for the coming month. On Tuesday, April 19th there's a special meeting for Southern Westchester BOCES vote at 9:00 AM in this room 171-172 at the high school. On Thursday, April 21st, there's an outdoor board coffee at 3:30 PM in front of the high school picnic tables until 5:00 PM. On Monday,
088April 25th, there is a special meeting and/or executive session at 5:30 in this room 170-172 at the high school, followed by an education report and a business meeting. And I believe at 6:30 on Wednesday, April 27th, there's an indoor board coffee from 5:30 to 7:00 in this room, 170-172. Okay. And just in closing, I too, I know Thomas sent the wish, but I too, on behalf of the board, want to wish our students, faculty and staff and parents a wonderful vacation doing whatever it is that brings you joy. And then I will entertain a motion for to dismiss. So moved. Second. Okay. All in favor. Aye. Motion passes. Thank you everyone, have a good evening.