001e e e good evening everybody please rise and join me in the pledge I pled Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for [Music] all thank you for joining us thank you to our amazing Tech Team who've got us up and running this evening um and we will begin this evening with dror administrative report even there we go good evening uh first I would like to as the board know uh we had interviews right before this and we'll be appointing to individuals to join our administrative team so first it's like welcome back so we have we're appointing Ronda mesal tonight as our assistant superintendent for business and operations and besides we're working with Rhonda and living
002through very very challenging times during Co with Rhonda trying to figure out how we were buying protective surfaces how we were counting the minutes that children school buses so we didn't have to quarantine them and bring them back to school the next day uh to some of the work that we started that Mr Cal's done an amazing job continuing both with partnership with Mr Costa we've tremendously worked on improving the facilities and and the campuses so um that's a joint effort um and and greatly appreciated but I think um what really encapsulates Rhonda is her quote on her resume a budget is in America expression of the instructional vision for our students and I think that's how we see it I think we take great pride in and Mr C is going to do a
003wonderful job highlighting the revenues and expenditures tonight uh we take a tremendous amount of pride in developing a budget that gives our children and our community the very best that we can at a reasonable and responsible tax rate so welcome back Ron thank [Applause] you I'm also appointing tonight and later I will say a whole bunch about Dr Leone and his last six years with us uh in June when we recognize people that are retiring and retiring again um but uh Dr Leon um and the team have been through a lot in the last six years he's done an amazing job um bringing the humanities as a as a focus of expansion uh he's he's very beloved within the community by the teachers by the administrator Su a joy to work with and I'm very
004much looking forward to with Dr Leone imparting on our new executive director for humanities is Rihanna Sama Rihanna you just kind of waved everybody so um as I customarily do I'm just going to provide a little background information for you so Rihanna comes to us the district chairperson K through2 of English and libraries from the Northport East Northport School District um prior to that uh she's had an assistant principal position within the New York City public um public schools and her educational background is as follows uh she received her Bachelor of Science and Communications with a focus in theater and English from Northwestern University her Master's in educational theater and secondary English teaching from New York University and her Masters in Education her EDM in educational organization and Leadership from Teachers College Columbia University so
005we welcome you we're excited to work with you um and you met some of us during the interview process but I'm sure Dr Leone he is the best seford cruise director that there is out so I am sure that he will make sure you know everything that you need to know about the secret School District um and that's it for personnel great and now we move to some other really really nice recognitions and celebrations so last week we had the Good Fortune of attending the American majer Teacher of the Year Awards it's also an opportunity this posted contest the students participate in which this year was why I'm proud to be an American um many of our students received Awards and that it always starts with the children and an ends with the teachers and
006one of the most amazing components of that night is when you walk into the American Legion it just ooes SE um you just feel like you're walking back in a little bit of a time capsule and some of the veterans are more than happy to share with us exactly how much of a time capsule it is and they were talking about making their own peanut butter sandwiches and walking to the park and sitting on a bridge uh but I think that also is what makes us seir so uh the teachers of the Year this year were Roman moic over at Sea Harbor and then Jillian Copus who I know is Jillian Ean at secret Manor she will always be julan Egan to me because I hard met her and her mama Egan is always around
007uh Moren Dolan over at se middle school and then Christine certa at se High School um Christine Certo works with our um students on speech and she works with a lot of the students within our CDP program and um Miss naal can can also vouch for the fact that she's so beloved by the students is absolutely adorable first of all so many of them came to the ceremony for her but each of the young men brought her a bouquet of flowers and it was just it was one of those moments that you just feel like there's no better place to be so I I thank you for that um it's one of my favorite nights and it really is such a heartwarming experience so um next year and they have it on Wednesdays so the
008only time I haven't gone is when we've had a board meeting and I'm trying to get Charlie reesy to say when going to be doing them on the night for the board meetings um next uh I'd like to talk a little bit about the third grade drama because that was also the same night so I was able to attend the majority of it and a good big huge shout out to the director Kayla pry be on the blond she's a phenomenal job and Jessica dispensa also always helps out with that production the kids were absolutely adorable phenomenal and the their comfort with being on stage at such a young age is always amazing to me you know they really were very comfortable being on stage which I think is some of the things that we
009we work on obviously Communicator is one of the secret scholar trees but again it was an incredible production so we finished the high school Mean Girls we've done third grade visit of Oz get ready for Beetle Juice So this weekend Friday and Saturday you can tell Barber Sherwin Dan that I'm giving a plug for Beetle Juice um everybody get your tickets and and head over to the middle school Friday night or Saturday night 7 o' be there if you square and I think there's just one other thing I just also want to point out that our arts program had is blossoming to such an incredible extent and and Michael cerr is one of those magical teachers and we just had the art Honor Society induction students had their art surrounding the the library it was
010spectacular and I have appreciation for that because that's not one of my talents but I do appreciate very much and others and this year we had the largest induction we inducted 45 members to the art Honor Society so M will go back tell us Curry got a shout out most students they got shout outs but it was absolutely spectacular so we have a lot of things to be proud of um I'm about to turn it over to Mr Cassel who's going to really talk to us about how we're able to maintain and enhance these fabulous programs while being sensitive to the taxpayers so Mr P out sorry about that thank you thank you Dan thank you uh for having me here again as we continue our budget presentations and just again a shout out to
011the curriculum team for their very detailed and robust presentation last time so thank you for carrying a torch and budget season the last presentation and great job again so tonight just talking about our anticipated revenues and expenditures uh looking at the 25 26 school year that's not work okay so here's we're looking at a proposed tax levy uh for 2526 of 2.49% and overall a budget to- budget increase of 1.93% for next year just to show you the history uh and SE we always try to provide the taxpayer in the community the most relief possible by trying to go under the cap and this year our maximum allowable was 2.68% and once again we're trying to go go under by not going to the maximum allowable so we're going at 2.49% you can see the
012history over the last several years we've tried to do that as much as possible here also uh this is obviously not finalized data but data based on what has been submitted by school districts across Island uh with their maximum allowable and the numbers that they're anticipating going out with that here in Seaford again even our maximum allowable is less than the Long Island average and the nasau and suff average and of of course our projected tax levy as you can see is 2.9% is less than our surrounding districts and neighbors around us in nasso County as well as suff County so we're happy about that talking about revenue for 2526 so when we look at state aid and uh I'll show you a bunch of information on state a in a few moments basically essentially
013we're looking at a roughly a $278,000 increase in Foundation aid but overall it's important to point out that our state aid is relatively flat moving into 25 26 at this juncture uh last year we were fortunate enough to receive slightly less than a million dollars in Foundation Aid which is a really nice increase we are not seeing a similar increase uh looking at 25 26 so that's important to point out to the board and to the public interest uh is a bright spot and has been and continues to be in the last three years uh we continue to make some really nice revenue and interest we will have to carefully watch uh as interest rates as the market uh will likely level out over the next few years and then our reserve for tax reduction
014uh after 10 years for the sale of the seaf Avenue School uh this has finally come to a close at the conclusion of this fiscal year so that also is putting us into uh a revenue gap of about $625,000 as we move into 2526 so we will be looking to uh especially with the picture I just painted with state aid we will be looking to use some of our TRS and mlr reserves to uh fill that gap of $625,000 uh and many of those reserves are near capacity anyway so we will have to start using them so that's what we plan on doing here's a just a picture of our Revenue uh many of the items I just talked about including the tax levy in state aid and again more on state aid in a
015moment our other Revenue uh is again very small increase really essentially flat our Pilots took a small decrease based on some uh you know changes to what we've received from Lipa and our Lipa pilot and that M that section there that I was just highlighting on the previous slide really explains the $625,000 Gap coming out of the reserve for tax reduction due to the sale of the SE Avenue school and then we'll be using 350,000 in TRS and 275 from our EPA Reserve to make up the difference for this year and we'll continue uh once again to use a million dollars from our fund ads and again all of these using reserves as money that we have saved in our reserves and it's relieving the [Music] taxpayer so when we look at state aid uh
016two key takeaways I want the board to have in the public to have from these from this slide is that when we're looking at state aid as of today at this juncture everything is purely an estimate at this time um as I'm sure everyone knows the state budget is typically due on April 1st uh this Administration unfortunately has failed to deliver a budget on April 1st and I don't anticipate they will again uh so we will likely have to adopt in two weeks based on our best estimates and projections from our state aid runds from the legislative side and the executive side and we will obviously we're confident in those projections similar to the projections we made last year uh just another couple of key things to point out uh and this is a bright
017spot for Seaford you know the upk money we're now able to utilize that's paid through a reimbursable grand process and I'm happy you know as we've been reporting in previous meetings Dr Bora has been reporting that we're able to uh satisfy you know seats for 120 families and thank you to uh Dr AOC for all her work with that and Dr Jacob for kicking that off so I think that's a really a bright spot that I want to make sure we highlight we'll be able to utilize some of those funds uh again some of these things uh will change over time and that's normal part of the process when it comes to state aid I I do want to point out one more one more item actually building Aid uh we have been talking about
018last year I get a a deeper dive uh in building Aid if the board recalls that we will start seeing building aid fall off so it's beneficial to continue to do projects and improve our buildings so we continue the correct building here I ask a quick question absolutely I know you said upk is a reimbursable grant but I feel like people at home may not understand what that means can you like high level what that means sure uh well I'll keep it high level but somewhat in L's terms so basically uh like for this current fiscal year the 85320 if we did not have upk we did not have a upk program we would not receive that money at all so we only receive uh we have to put in for reimbursement for the seats
019that we have at the at the upk rate um we also have secured upk expansion Grant which has helped with this process um so basically for next year by providing 120 seats we will be using uh as much of that 1.5 million not all as we possibly can but that money is not just given out unless you spend it so the you know uh that's why I like to show it in this graphic and subtracting it out at the end because if we do not use the PK money we do not get it so first students need to pay the seats yes right correct then we pay the schools and the state reimburses correct we we don't get any of that money that's it's basically where a pass through thank you you got it okay
020then we move to the expenditure side uh we have looking ahead for again for 25 26 we have multiple units entering contract uh negotiations which again as we've been talking about contracts uh salaries and benefits make up over 75% of our budget so something we have to keep in mind as we prepare for the budget health insurance our current health bill was a minimal increase as of January 1 and we're very grateful for that believe me uh however as typical uh we need to prepare for uh projected increases for next January because the health cycle runs calendar year and our school districts and all school districts run fiscal year July 1 to June 30 so we have to prepare for that in this budget and just to give you some data here uh the 10year
021average for health insurance we've seen a 74% increase in family and individual coverage and over the last four years even with this minimal increase as of January 125 we're seeing an average of 99.8% per year so we do have to be uh fiscally responsible prepare for uh a a increase for January 26 other major cost drivers on the expend side of the budget uh TRS we've had a slight decrease but our expenses were slightly over budget the past two years ERS we have a slight increase looking ahead and utilities and insurance premiums uh especially insurance is up another 25 to 30% looking ahead and then of course Transportation uh to come with this at the next meeting but uh we did go out for an RFP uh again more at the next meeting but we
022we will uh are anticipating renewing a contract uh with a provider a multi-year contract and there's increases associated with that contract so overall major expenditure categories look like this when you look uh for the current year we're living in and then for the for next year again similar story that we've been saying as far as salaries and benefits making up the larger part of the increases we just touched on Transportation we'll need to increase that as well uh and then you see the other areas there now other uh additional propositions coming to the ballot this may that we're asking uh the community to consider and support both this is very important the point point out that both propositions two and three that I'm going to speak about have zero additional cost to the SE taxpayer
023okay basically what we're doing is we're going to be using some of our money in our reserves not all we're not breaking the piggy bank we're just taking some money out of the piggy bank uh to use some reserves to complete these very important projects and upgrades and if you recall last year I showed you the roof tour pictures and and the condition of our roofs so these the things that we're talking about to again put help put a roof over our children so proposition two uh we're calling it The Safety and Security upgrades proposition and that would entail and ask voters to authorize spending for up to $1 million again of Reserve funds uh no tax increase here to install a door jar system at the middle school and high school similar to the
024work that we're doing at the two primaries this year and in addition we would complete security camera upgrades and additions at those two locations as well and we would also uh either refurbish do a major refur refurbishment excuse me or a new cab and our high school elevator which is in much need of an operator so this would be proposition two Safety and Security South that's the original elevator yes it is correct yes it is and if you've taken a ride in [Music] it okay proposition three uh would be our infrastructure proposition and again voters would be author uh authorize a spending of up to $6.5 million dollars again this is money that we have set aside specifically for these projects uh that we've been saving over the past several years to complete uh complete
025roof replacement at Harbor and the manor uh just again to remind the public and the board last May voters approved the Middle School roof that we did open bids for that project we were very satisfied with the bids and that work work will be starting as soon as school ends at the end of June this year so we are on plan and on target so this would follow a similar plan as the plan we just had for our Middle School roof uh obviously we can't replace a roof during the school year so we have to wait for the summer when students are not in session so this would get us three out of the four roofs in two years which is fantastic and then the other uh item on this proposition is to address the
026high school Courtyard we have uh water drainage issues that's affecting our high school wrestling room and is flooding out our wrestling room on multiple occasions uh so we're working with our Architects to finalize the plan for this we have a few different options that we're working on and we want to be obviously fiscally responsible and choose the best plan so more to come as we prepare to adopt I'll have more information on that so that's proposition three and that is basically a summary of our revenues and expenditures again just to highlight um all the wonderful presentations coming to a school near you uh these are the the lists that we've complet so far and what's upcoming uh a lot going on in April at different ptas and events and things like that and of course
027uh April 9th we'll be back here again asking the board to adopt the official budget for the 25 26 school year and I don't anticipate major changes from now until then but there could be some minor subtle changes be happy to answer any questions from the board thank you from us thank you very much thank you very much [Applause] appreciate okay we going to move on to some business uh I need a motion for agenda item 51 move it second any discussion all in favor I need a motion for agenda item 61 second any discussion all in favor I need a motion for agenda item 62 it second any discussion all in favor I I need a motion to add to the agenda at Agenda item 63 instructional Personnel action report number two move it
028second any discussion all in favor I and now I need a motion um to approve agenda item 63 it second any discussion all in favor I need a motion for agenda items 7 1 through two move second any discussion all in favor I okay it's our resident comment section would anybody like to speak okay uh correspondence board received correspondence has been responded to we need a motion for agenda is it okay if we do the contracts okay I need a motion for agenda item 10 A1 through 5 Second any discussion all in favor policies together need a motion for agenda item 10 b 1 through 4 Move it second any discussion all in favor I motion for agenda item 10 C1 through D1 move second any discussion all in favor I need a motion for
029agenda item 10 E1 move it second any discussion all in favor I I need a motion to add to the agenda at Agenda item 10 E2 uh a resolution um to approve the employment agreement with Ronda mes move it second any discussion all favor I and I need a motion to uh approve the resolution that states at Agenda item 10 E2 that states as follows be it resolved that the Board of Education hereby approves the employment agreement between the Board of Education and Ronda mesal and be it further resolved that the Board of Education authorizes the board president to execute set employment agreement on behalf of the Board of Education second any discussion all in favor I okay um any miscellaneous discussion items from board okay uh closing comments um well congratulations thank you Miss
030meol welcome back um and congratulations to M very to have you um I just want to give a shout out to the SE for marching band for their great St Patrick's Day uh performance of the parade it was great it was great to see them on TV um I had the great Fortune of attending um the American Legion event the other night uh where we recognized as drora said some students for their um achievements and also where we recognized some teachers of the year that was wonderful um and also the scope Awards uh where we recognize our award winners Miss Shel Miss Kachi and Miss Hansen so [Applause] congratulations um and we are very much looking forward to uh seeing Beetle Juice I encourage everyone in the community to go out and support that performance
031I know it'll be great I know we're all going and really look forward to it um anything new different from the board okay any need a motion to just yes yes you so um Mr C makes it pretty pretty easy but in 14 slides he can encapsulate everything that's most prideful in our community and we're really thrilled to be able to put forward a budget underneath the cap that provides our students with the continuous improvements that we have and I also um since he's transitioning out and Ronda is coming in I I do feel the need to give a huge um credit to the fiveyear plan that we have with regards to the roofs and self funding um because and it's been mentioned many times by doing the roofs this way and not going to
032bond we've saved the community $7.9 million and that's through the efforts and the work of Mr Cal and and we really do appreciate the vision I know Miss Mes will pick up the torch and the two of us together will go forward with Mr Costa very able and willing to go um so uh I I I heartfelt thank you for the work that you've did and I look forward to our continuing work the next several months thank you so much Mr for appreciate your and that 5 plan was no small beat thank you so much okay need a motion toour why we have you here I need a motion to return to Executive session purp for the purpose of discussing the personel yes disc discussing Personnel issues thank you any discussion all in favor I
033thank you so much have long