001[Music] mr casey here mrs cogan i'm here mrs gizzy here mr johanny yeah mr keane is excused mr keel here mr ryan here and mr sim okay can everybody please stand for the pledge i pledge allegiance for these minutes mr ryan and a second miss lizzie thank you please look those over does anyone have any questions or concerns okay on the motion made by mr ryan second by mrs gizzy all in favor aye aye opposed abstain carries eight to zero okay new business does anyone have any new business they'd like to discuss mr ryan uh just very quickly uh sherry i'm gonna i didn't discuss this with you uh but i'm just wondering if you had any updates or mr dr perry on the potential relocation of the bus garage district office land purchase situation
002um i have a little bit of an update we have been working with um the engineer and our law firm to try to determine what the next steps in the process will be and the recommendation was made that we wait until after voter approval before we try to get all the information together to go to the village that you know that the feeling was it's a little premature until we have voter approval um so the plan right now is to try to gather all the information that's necessary um so that as soon as we have voter approval on may 18th hopefully we will be able to proceed they are working on some of the um necessary steps for you know beginning to start to do the inspections on the property so that's really where we
003are do you think there's any danger of waiting and i think it's prudent to do to wait like that but there's do do you know if there's other interested parties do they share that information with you that maybe um they did not but we do have a signed purchase agreement so um you know there there is a certain span of time that's allowed within that agreement for us to get all the necessary inspections and zoning approvals okay very good thank you thank you welcome yes uh sherry is uh is the pine bush preserve uh in the town of colony or who who who's in charge of the pine bush what i'm asking about um are we gonna have to to uh uh converse with them about what we're going to do we are i was
004just looking to see um my notes from bill ryan um right now we're gonna it's the pine bush carner blue butterfly is what we're going to have to um contend with so we are going to have to have some conversation um with kind bush in order to get the permitting um we also have permitting from albany county planning board town of colony village of colony and then the pine bush preserve so we have a number of permitting steps we need to take um and our engineers are working on the utility capacity in terms of you know the domestic water connections sewer capacity and electrical connections so those are the pieces that they're working on right now um bill ryan is drafting for me and it will be available at our next board meeting um the
005secret resolutions that we need to do we need to do um one declaring the district as the lea for secret which is a state environmental quality review act um and then so they're working on the preparation of the short environmental assessment form and the board resolution so that will be coming on the 21st assuming that i get that from bill but we have a lot of steps we have to go through so um you know we want we're trying to get some of the leg work done and then once we have voter approval um we'll set up a meeting with the village and try to discuss um the zoning or zoning [Music] exemption so thank you mr ryan sherry do it do we wait i would assume that we wait until we we're much further
006into this process before we look at any steps that need to be taken in to put our our properties up for on the market yeah we're going to have to wait on that because the the referendum for the construction would take place in the fall of 22 so we wouldn't be doing construction until 23 24. so it's a little premature to list our properties but i do have a broker's opinion of value um prepared by the realtor we were working with for both properties um so you know we we have that step as we get closer um and we're getting we're going to actually begin construction that would be the time to begin to market those properties because we really can't sell them right now we're still occupying them so thank you welcome is anyone
007out mrs gizzy i do have a question um how is it looking regarding the um entrance uh for all of the um traffic for the school district on jupiter side i don't know that we've made a lot of progress on that to determine where that will be i know there were some concerns about that area that we we parked on when we did the walk that not necessarily being a valid entrance um so those are some logistical things that we're going to have to work through but i don't have any updated information on that right now okay sherry i have some info on that if you want okay sure um the the engineer or the architect that was there with us that day said he didn't think that part of the the roadway there was
008a village road i went back and looked at the records in the village and it's listed as village road so he might have been looking at the out an outdated map or something well that's good to know i mean that certainly certainly helps um but they've got to do a little bit more research on that and get updated maps and um try to determine where the most appropriate entrance would be so mr johanna you're still needed i'm looking for it sorry different topic if you're done with the um with the land are you done with the land guys looks like it so go ahead okay uh i attended the sand creek pta meeting the other day and mr maron was getting peppered with questions um and he was giving answers like as of now this
009is what graduation looks like as of now this is what opening is i know we're going to cover some of that tonight but the message that i would suggest is as soon as we know anything you know put out you know as of now here's the answer uh with regard to the you know the spacing in the schools you know you know locker locker stuff next year but you know miss barone gave an update since march you know up until there but nothing was finalized yet but as soon as we finalize things i would suggest we get that messaging out to the families who are planning like he gave some answers about you know tentative suggestions about final exams things like that as soon as decisions are made though let's get that back to mr
010maron so we can get it back out to the parents at all the schools not just the same creek we will mr johannine we are working on uh graduation end of year ceremonies the senior class task force is meeting next monday for the first time april 22nd we are meeting for the reopening organization committee for the first time to review the 21-22 school year so we anticipate uh guidance coming out shortly thereafter related to end of the year exams related to end of the year ceremonies currently we are reviewing graduation venues and looking at options there's guidance that just came out on friday of last week but many of those are still very restrictive and limited in terms of capacity size so we're working through that i want to get feedback from the seniors and
011their parents related to the graduation for class of 21 and then for final exams we will be reviewing that information tomorrow with a leadership team and anticipate getting some communications out to families uh they're about one other thing related to the calendar since we're kind of on the end of your topic just two dates to be aware of uh may 18th is our annual school budget vote day um we have done some consideration and changes to our virtual learning days and we are considering a half day instructional day on may 18th to provide for instruction but also to provide for um coveted relief from our elementary building so that families can come in and vote without restrictions so we will be messaging that information out by the end of the week and uh second thoroughly
012is a uh snow day contingency um for the friday before memorial day that's may 28th we do have one snow day available so that day will be a non-school day for all south colonie students uh pre-k through 12 and we'll message that out um to our staff members as well as to the community by the 15th so i just want to make everybody aware of those two dates may 18th is a school budget vote again that'll be a half day release day we do not anticipate additional virtual learning days throughout the remainder of the year that's been something that families has that have asked about we will not have a day for april and we we did make some adjustments um and we're looking at may 18th as that half day uh instructional day to
013provide for um not only the release for staff uh planning and support but also to provide for appropriate social distancing for our elementary schools for the voting so those are two things related to the calendar for the end of this year thank you does anyone else have any other new business okay let's go into old business any old business okay it doesn't look like anybody has any old business uh dr perry do we have any public comments uh yes i received two comments uh both from uh graham knowles the first one uh he had uh asked i see that two current administrators are being appointed to new positions on tonight's agenda uh can you speak about what the district is doing to diversify the hiring of future administrative positions um i did respond to mr
014knowles via email but just to uh let everyone know we are looking at all positions um as we are actively seeking the best qualified applicants for the positions we're constantly looking for ways to diversify our candidate pool um so in addition to our efforts to recruit qualified candidates for all teaching and administrative positions we're also seeking to diversify our population for support staff positions as well as you can imagine finding qualified candidates is is always a real challenge and finding diverse candidates is an even greater challenge for our district but we've taken multiple steps in recent hiring we've been able to recruit and uh and hire several outstanding teachers of color not only adding to the diversity of our workforce but the outstanding skills that they've possessed have been a real benefit to our schools
015um we're continuing to draw from a larger pool of candidates mr robelotti most recently attended the martin luther king job fair to try to look at some support staff positions and get the word out we are going to partner with um outreach groups uh not only on social media but also groups that are helping to represent underrepresented populations so we've got an approach again we're looking for the best qualified candidates uh regardless of of race creed color or origin but we are also looking to diversify our population of staff members so as that candidate pool deepens we'll continue to do outreach and advertising to reach a wider range of recruitment efforts and then once we uh have them in the district uh part of that process is welcoming them to the district and making sure
016they're acclimated well and uh that it's a multi-year process to help to retain them so one of the reasons that we are very fortunate in retaining staff is that we do value promoting from within so these two administrative positions that are before the board tonight are a representative example that two administrators who have done an exceptional job for us in their current roles we feel are well positioned to take the next step in leadership within the district and uh you know we're very very fortunate to be able to have candidates in-house that we can recommend to the board for promotions um the second question or actually was a comment you wanted to express thanks to mr caggitarian high school principal for his announcement at the ptsa meeting regarding the foreign language requirement and additionally expanding
017the pathways for our students as the board may recall this was a concern last year from mr knowles and his wife uh he indicated he's pleased to see that a thoughtful and bold action took place these are important steps that we prepare our students to be citizens of the world and the 21st century so what he's referring to is some restructuring going on at the high school uh related to foreign language requirements um we're trying to condense uh spanish and french for to allow for students who are accelerated to take college level courses earlier in their high school career uh as well as provide some pathways for students that may have already achieved their graduation requirements so we are going to look to pilot that next year as we do some transitions with staff members
018as a way to continue to encourage our students to not only take foreign language but to be able to achieve additional college credits throughout their their high school career so we thank mr knowles for both his questions and uh you know that's it for public comments this evening thank you okay board committee reports and action items mr ryan would you please report on the accountability and board operations committee okay uh try to keep it brief the uh one of the member items that we discussed mr johannine had suggested uh agenda topics in terms of uh looking at our meeting agenda and making some revisions uh we're looking at that and we're where uh dr perry will share any suggestions with the full board and we're going to finalize that uh among other suggestions that mr
019johannes made at the annual retreat in july as far as that's the information i have here i believe that's correct on the issue of review of board of education committee charges we're going to be asking the committee chairs to submit uh their uh review of their charge for their committees we want to try to prevent overlapping i think we've done some of that but there's uh there's some more to be done i'm gonna streamline our process so we're going to be looking at the committee charges on on the uh outline of the of the meeting there's a link of what the committee charges uh were on november 2020 and then the updated committee charges for february of 2021 as a comparison everyone could look at those and uh the committee chair look at those especially
020and review that with your individual committees and we'll we'll review that uh additional training for the board as you know we're having uh a training for the board on may 18th that'll commence at 5 00 p.m uh uh this is giglio has set that up with uh state school boards you all should have received a survey uh that would be helpful to the presider to uh to uh set up our our training more completely that survey if you have not completed it yet is due by uh friday the 16th i believe the date is is that correct yes okay and uh next item final item engaging the community in the budget process a budget serve x a budget a budget exit survey was uh put out and reviewed and i'm gonna ask dr perry to
021comment on that because i don't know the exact outcome of the final uh uh uh disposition of that so how how did that go yes so there's two different uh surveys the the minutes of the meeting reference the budget exit survey this is the survey we put out may 18th as part of the uh post voting uh so we'll review those questions between now and may 11th and make sure that we have those updated uh questions we did put out a budget uh survey list of priorities we had 300 and eight people respond i believe uh was the final tally very good overall um information and uh kerogonado and i are working this week to message those final details out to the community so they can see their results um as you would imagine some
022of the responses centered around areas of maintaining if not enhancing our programs for our students it also centered around priorities of low class sizes the the data expressed interest in maintaining low class sizes with a priority at the elementary level specifically working your way up from kindergarten to first grade up through second third and fourth grade uh with the middle school being a little bit less of a priority and then the high school being lower on the list so the community certainly values things like advanced placement and enrichment opportunities for our students um and uh so some good feedback from that i shared that with the board in the friday bulletin and we will work to get that out on the website so the community uh can have access to that information as well um
023you know one of the challenges with uh the survey uh is that it asked for nine categories in one of the areas so to display that the the charts are a little small so we'll do the best we can to communicate that information out to the community so that they uh can can see what was on there but good feedback um and we thank everyone who took the time to provide us that feedback it's certainly valuable information very good okay yes question mr true yes uh mr mr ryan uh you talked about updating the charge of the committees yes um to whom should i submit my report you could send that to me okay i will thank you okay all committee chairs as that occurs in your committee you can send the results to me
024and we can go over that at the uh at the accountability board ops uh next meeting which is on the 11th uh final thing i wanted to uh just touch on that that was on on our agenda for that particular meeting the budget forums the budget uh situation discussion the second draft will be presented tonight which we'll discuss and then the uh additional uh discussion will be at the may 4th i believe the date is on that for the next one additional forms may be planned if there's interest but those are the two that are scheduled for right now and i believe that is all i have for this committee meeting this is google thank you mr ryan mr johannine can you do the policy the policy committee met on march 22nd there are no
025member items to be added to the agenda this time a lot of discussion about the work that's being done by nisba to help us do a revamp of the policy manual they're starting with the section 5000 which is one of the bigger sections they have done some work to suggest some consolidations deletions and uh prioritizations like saying you have to have these or these are optional for you things like that so a lot of work done in five thousands and then next is going to be the zero to one thousands uh which they're working on getting us this month some discussion about the equal opportunity and discrimination policy uh and a potential new policy anti-racism um um ms goldstein from nisba is is looking at ways to either consolidate those two policies or create a
026standalone in a racism policy the the diversity inclusion committees is recommending the uh um the separate policy which we're probably leaning toward too so we have a a working draft that will be working on completing during the review of the zero to one thousand thing sections policy 2160 office school district office employee code of ethics the controller's office recommended some minor wording changes really no no changes of substance some wording changes with regard to adding um some words instead of saying staff we say would say staff and and or their agents meaning a contractor in a lot of places um in the policy basically so that was really the only change we made to that policy you're recommending that change and that's up for single reading and uh approval for this evening uh in the
0279290 policy uh this is the time of year where we start looking at next year um so we basically the only thing we did was we took off a column and added a new column uh for next year and then during the budget discussions over the last you know since this meeting and before our next policy meeting uh before the end of the year we'll um and after the budget um vote uh we will probably make some minor adjustments to to some of the uh supplemental compensations that haven't been touched in five years or so and you know bump them up just a little bit here and there depending on what they are so i think um you know dr perry mrs fisher and and uh mr backus have a lot of you know minor
028suggestions there that we will we will be look looking at next meeting um after we started the budget remember we met before before neither the federal money discussion was finalized in the budget you know pre-budget things like that so we know a lot more now so although mrs fisher will be sharpening your pencil and you know adding things in and taking things out depending on uh the priorities discussed uh you know based on the survey that very much and things like that so that's that's coming um in the booster club support organizations uh we're still working on that we um got a report that some drafts were out there looking at other organizations other districts and organizations there we're going to revisit that policy when uh we get to the 1000 elections you look at
029that that's really not a required policy but it's one that some of the other districts are starting to put in as well uh parent and family engagement policy uh the actual committee's been focusing on the communications aspect um and the emphasis on title but also don't forget to do all the schools there too so doc dr greg included a link to the new york state education department family and family engagement guidance there but i'd also like to include in the link that we mentioned from national pta so if we could add that link in there let's find again that would be great we talked about that purchase of any requirements that's been on our agenda for a we got to figure out when we get get to this um dr barry has told me the
030scripture this is part of your exit interview it's got to get done before you leave so it's one of those ones that has to be just sort of taking a look at the controller's office well they just make sure you look at it and adjust different levels it's based on whatever the current regulations are uh so some minor so we expect some minor changes to that in the next month or so and we get to do all again in april 26th thanks and can you do the single reading oh mr kale has a question sorry yes just just one very small thing that is uh i know most of the acronyms but what a num um under number three the draft policy was reviewed by the dei committee what's dei stand for diversity equity and
031inclusion okay so one of the new committees that we've been talking about we referenced it in the hiring mr knowles and dr perry referenced that that issue and also you know not just in the hiring area but how do we improve everything across the district with with regard to uh diversity and inclusion and equity um okay i would just recommend that i uh obviously when it gets to be a policy it'll be spelled out but uh the new acronyms i i would hope that we'd uh describe them better than that one was thank you typically in a policy we'll we'll spell it all the way out at the beginning in the opening paragraph uh and then put the parentheses with the abbreviation and use the abbreviation throughout the rest of the policy okay fine when
032we can but if we don't you know that's one of the things we do in the committee is we make sure we we do have that and i know that uh you know mr mata was always good about finding those when he was with us he was he was the king of finding those the acronyms though thank you we need an acronym cheat sheet one exists out there so be careful what you wish for but we can certainly provide that for you um mr johannine can you do this single reading and approval on behalf of the policy committee i moved the approval of policy 2160 school district office employees code of ethics as presented all in favor proposed abstain it carries eight to zero thank you very much mr gianni okay uh reports for information
033and study mr mrs fisher um yes um this evening we are presenting the second draft budget and within the past week there has been a flurry of activity as the state budget passed on april 7. it was passed by the um sent in the assembly by that date and we have new information on the state budget um i'll tell you in the 30 years that i've worked in education i don't think i've ever seen this much money flowing in from the state and federal lab level in the same year um so it's it's pretty amazing so um i'd like to focus a little bit of time on uh what we do know with regard to on the state budget as well as the federal budget um and what our next steps will be so i'm
034going to begin on the second page of the powerpoint and just review the expenditure summary um this is really just um adjustments that were made to second draft from first draft um generally we start to fine-tune our boses expenses we get our final health and dental and prescription rates so we can factor those final rates in i usually will make salary adjustments for any staff that either are leaving or retiring or you know just general adjustments that we need to make in planning for next year we also had a number of changes in the special education program we had some students who were scheduled to be outplaced three students that are now going to be served within our school district boundaries so i was able to remove some of the outside tuition costs in bringing
035some of our children back we are we do have a need at forest park for two additional monitors and two additional tas so i've added those to the second draft budget i also made an adjustment to the security cameras one of the things that i discovered in looking at the options for funding the external security cameras we had planned to appropriate funds as a budgetary appropriation that would be paid fully from the capital reserve fund and we're still planning to do that however um the total cost is about 161 000 and if i split it up um into a couple different funding sources we can get all of it aided so i made an adjustment to fund the security cameras for transportation out of the transportation budget to fund district office and probably one of
036our middle schools out of there's a separate building aid allocation for security cameras up to 35 000 a year so we're going to try to buy 35 000 but before the end of this fiscal year and 35 000 next year and then we can take advantage of the hundred thousand dollar exception that's um in building aid that will allow us to generate aid on all of our security cameras so um i made some adjustments in order to accommodate that so that was good news um i also discovered an error in debt service and so i had to make an adjustment in the debt service line um so all in all when you look at the bottom line we are up by about 2.1 million or just under 2 percent um the biggest changes are coming
037on the revenue side of the budget um and we'll talk about that in a minute dr perry if you could flip to the next slide this is again just a summary of our expenses based on the draft to budget um as you know we are very labor intensive for draft two about 83.9 percent of the budget is encompassed in salary and benefits and the remaining 16.1 percent is in boces um about three and a half percent debt service and enter fund transfers about four percent um supplies equipment materials are coming in at about two and a half percent of our budget and contractual and everything else that i didn't mention at about 6.1 percent so um as you can see we are we are heavily um invested in personnel and staffing we are a people
038organization and most of our spending goes to those areas and if we could flip dr perry to the next screen and just take a look at revenues taking a look at our revenues one of the biggest changes in the state budget you may recall from the governor's proposal that the governor was going to freeze foundation aid for a second year in a row um the legislature was not willing to go along with that um and they came up with a package in the final state budget to not only fund foundation aid in significant proportions for 2122 but to make a commitment a three-year commitment to fund foundation aid fully within the next um three budget cycles meaning 2122 and then the next two after that for south colonie that provided us an additional 2.3 million
039dollars in foundation aid um that's a huge boost um foundation aid can be used it's unrestricted so we can use it for any programmatic need or any operational need that we have so between that and the other changes made to the expenditure side of the budget um our deficit is now at about 538 000 so we had a multi-million dollar deficit and now we're down to 538 000 um we'll talk a little bit more about options for that um keep in mind this is not include any of the federal funding the federal funding is all grant-based and it's all to be recorded in our special aid fund and that's a difference between what the governor had initially proposed and what they ended up in the final eight package so we still have a little bit
040either reduce expenses or you know additional revenue we do have a plan to take a look at funneling some of our general fund expenses to the federal stimulus funds in the grant that will dissolve the remaining deficit so we'll talk about that a little bit later on in the meeting um and again on dr perry if you can flip to the proposed revenue chart um the revenues as you can see um are two major financing sources are local property taxes and state aid our projected levy is one percent and state aid um you know is going up significantly primarily due to um the increase in that foundation aid um so that was really welcome news and to be honest it far exceeded our expectations in terms of what we thought the state was going to
041be capable of accomplishing in the next budget cycle so moving on to page eight um actually six fine print um just to just to kind of review a couple of things in the state budget date and update in the federal stimulus act they did pass the budget um on april 7th it was a week beyond the deadline and as i mentioned we're seeing a very large increase in foundation aid as are many of our neighbor districts and throughout the state the state has in this budget made a commitment to fund foundation aid over three years and that goes back to the spitzer administration when they were intending to fully fund foundation aid and the lawsuits under refit in the campaign for fiscal equity and that has never come to fruition um the state is staying
042in this budget they're making a commitment to doing that i hope that's true we do know that every legislative cycle they're going to have to revisit it and look at where their revenues are and state expenditures so we are cautiously optimistic that they will be able to carry forward with the remainder of that phase-in plan one of the biggest changes that we saw from the governor's proposal you may recall that the federal stimulus package that was passed in december in the governor's proposal the governor took that funding and basically applied it to our state aid and reduced our state aid by like amount so for south colonie that amounted to 4.48 million dollars that basically was diverted the federal funding was in his proposal um to be supporting our state aid and then the state
043aid was cut by a similar amount we're happy to report that those adjustments were not accepted by the legislature and then the final aid package that was removed which that's very significant because not only are we getting a 2.3 million dollar increase in state aid but that 4.48 million from the second stimulus package will be funded separately in a grant program so we will have additional resources above and beyond that um they also rejected the consolidation of the expense-based aids um dr perry if you could advance the next slide please um so the federal aid from december of 2020 that's the 4.48 million dollars is going to be handled as a separate grant allocation and in march when they pass the third stimulus package under the federal american rescue plan that allocation for south colonie
044on the projections is a little over 4.7 million dollars and the intention of that funding is that it is supposed to support um district operations for the next three years and there is some specific language on how much money we have to spend each year i believe i read earlier today 1 8 of the funding needs to be spent in each fiscal year that's about 12 and a half percent um so we've been working on um yesterday and today on a plan on how we would reallocate funding from the general fund and to fund some new initiatives so we'll be sharing that with the board um a little bit later this evening so we'll have two two sums of money the cares act funding which is from the december stimulus package of 4.48 million and
045we'll have until ju september 30th of 2023 to expand those funds the second from the third stimulus package is 4.735 million and we'll have until september 30th of to spend those funds we are told that there will be guidance issued by this education department by the end of april um and that um there's criteria that will need to be met on one criteria that we are aware of is that a portion of the funds need to be allocated to lost learning opportunities and i think we've come up with some really great initiatives that we can utilize that funding for we do have to submit a written plan to the state by july 1st and that's after having a public comment period from our stakeholders so that we'll be busy in may and june formulating that
046plan and getting feedback from the public before we submit submit that plan to the state um you know and i really can't underscore the significance of the funding i mean in my lifetime in education over 30 years i have never seen an allocation of this magnitude 9.92 million dollars from the federal government and then 2.3 million from the state government so it's a big sum of money just a a word of caution on that um one of the things we have to be very very careful of is that we we um develop a multi-year plan for how we're going to spend it um because at the end of that three years you know i'm not thinking that there's going to be an injection of another nine million dollars for school funding so we're trying to
047determine how we can best spend that funding to approve our academic program but also be mindful of what the impact may be of spending it over multiple years so we're working on that um let's see my lights are going off uh dr perry if you could advance to the next slide please um just to recap the budget draft first draft was a little over 109 million um second draft is 109 116. it's down by about 600 000 budget to budget we're have an increase of 2.1 million or 1.98 percent our tax levy is still projected at one percent and our levy limit is 1.03 changes that we're anticipating before we adopt the budget next wednesday on april 21st we are always fine-tuning boces and private special education placements right up until the moment we adopt
048the budget um they're going through the annual reviews right now and there are always our changes in progress boces services we will be finalizing our boces expenses this week and that will be on the agenda for april 21st as well so you may see a few changes i wouldn't anticipate a lot unless it's in the special ed area um program adjustments um that is you know as i mentioned just based on state funding we do still have a deficit of about 538 000 in order to balance our budget so we will need to make some kind of program adjustments and we are looking at funding that we can funnel over into the federal stimulus in order to balance out the budget so we are also looking at some new initiatives that we would fund through
049the federal stimulus grant funds okay um moving on to the next slide i'm just a reminder um our annual budget vote will take place as well as our board elections on may 18th there will also be a separate proposition for the land purchase and so there's some information i've been working with cara granado our public relations specialist to try to get some talking points about the land purchase so that when we get information out there we're hitting all the major points that we want our community to be aware of certainly you know in addition to the information that that's on this slide there are some significant building repair costs associated with both of those buildings that if we don't move forward with a new facility we would have to invest in repairs to those buildings
050so that's where we are currently um next slide please miss dr perry just a reminder of upcoming upcoming meetings april 21st is our scheduled date to adopt the budget that is planned right now as a virtual meeting our public budget hearing will take place on may 4th right now that is planned as a virtual meeting and then our budget vote would occur on may 18th uh we are going to be having in-person voting at the five elementary schools from 11 a.m to 9 00 p.m we also have absentee ballots we've ordered a lot of extra absentee ballots this year because we are waiting for final information on um who can apply for an absentee ballot um there was has been a lot of discussion about expanding the eligibility for absentee ballots for folks not only
051that may be ill with cobid but folks that may have fear of contracting covid by coming to a public election site so we are waiting for final information on that before we release our absentee ballot applications and hopefully we'll get it soon um so um we do expect that we'll have more absentee ballots this year we're working with a new vendor as you may recall albany county was reluctant to allow schools to use their voting machines this year so we are purchasing our own voting machines we have a new vendor that's preparing all of our ballots and a brand new process so amber is um right on top of things and we're working together to make sure that the vote will go smoothly so and that's all i have many questions i do have the
052projected tax rates that i always have in the budget power points as well as the detail of the budget so if you do have any questions please reach out thank you sherry appreciate that and uh also just want to thank our legislators and and state representatives who helped us support uh the passage of the budget uh certainly is uh definitely uh welcome news uh from where we were several months ago looking at a 3.2 million dollar deficit and potential additional reductions to where we are currently so we believe we can make some adjustments through attrition retirements and some programmatic adjustments uh in addition to using the federal stimulus monies over the next several years to provide some program enhancements so uh very much appreciated and thank you sherry for your hard work and to all
053our cabinet thank you dr perry and thank you again sherry um number nine reports and recommendations for action it's pages four through six a through j may i have let's giggly all before you do mr joe handy had his hand raised i'm sorry i didn't see that mr johanny yeah so also when he talked about the lost opportunities i was wondering if we could um maybe do some extra for the curriculum review board i know a lot of work was done offline there but i know we're always really tight for money in that and that's really a small piece but i don't know if that would qualify for that it's actually doing a lot of work we do have that on our tentative list um as something that we might like to utilize some of
054the funding for um you know we should have better clarity um once they put out the guidance at the end of april um but that would seem to be something that would fit the criteria i know we're always hurting for pennies on that one and a lot of a lot of the staff wants to work on those and we always we have that priority less than uh mr backus and the team create for that maybe we could go down a couple more in the list because i know there's always a backlog but always something new coming obviously thank you thank you not only that mr junior we'll probably have adjustments because of curricular needs going into next year from everything else so your thing along the same lines excuse me thank you okay back to
055um number nine may have a motion mr ryan and the second thank you mrs cogan is anyone here yeah against ryan yeah uh this is big leo i have a uh just wanted to touch on item 9f donations thank you to uh rochester institute of technology for their donation for project lead the way and also for the constantine construction farm they're donating ritchie cessna and the uh the uh family over there are donating eleven hundred and ten dollars to support the shanna uh mara memorial garden up at lysia kill that's headed up by one of the teachers up there krista giambetti and our last meeting the family uh donated a i believe a sum of 3 300 or something like that 3500 okay and uh i i know that uh i and speak i know
056richie over there and he said he would be able to donate more if there's more needed i do know that uh there's been i have some sort of delay up there i don't know what that what the delay was but the the family donation has an expiration to it so we have to make sure that we don't lose that and get that project moving along and uh uh the constantine uh family we're very close with the uh with the mirror family and they want to see this completed also so if we could if we could uh make sure that moves along uh expeditiously and uh if there's more resources needed constantine corporation has uh has told me that they would would be willing to uh help us in any way that that's necessary yeah mr
057ryan i'll give you an update we appreciate their their support and their donations certainly going to go a long way to beautifying that memorial garden um we have met multiple times with uh krista giampetti and mr wetzel elijah kill gordon webster's got a plan in place it was delayed last week due to availability of equipment but it is scheduled for um i believe this friday when he returns he is one of the only individuals that can run the uh the bobcat uh in the district uh it helps to move the uh the ground around and level the area uh we are doing that in collaboration with the village of colony who's sharing that equipment with us uh so we we had to do it when it was available um and they had some projects going
058on last week so we were bumped by a week uh but nonetheless we we have a plan in place to make sure that is completed before the end of the school year um when uh the monies need to be accessed so we'll make sure that uh gets completed and uh we're looking forward to the expansion of that already nice location and shaina's memory great thank you very much thanks and thank you also to villager colony they do a lot that i don't think people realize because they're very quiet about it but without them we'd be spending a lot more money and wouldn't have as many nice things okay anybody else have anything for um number nine okay on a motion made by mr ryan second by mrs cogan all in favor all right all opposed
059i'll abstain carries eight to zero okay personnel instruction may have a motion mr casey second mr sim thank you you guys can look that over it's pages 10 through 12. any questions about this mrs cogan yes if we go to right to page 10 the personnel instruction creation of position create the following anticipated probationary position for the 21 22 school year one administrator 11 month can can i uh be reminded of the details of that please yes this is a position that currently is filled by a school psychologist who's retiring uh the individual has worked in an administrative capacity for the last 25 years in pps uh helping to support the pre-k through eighth grade committee on special education and because of her roles and responsibilities over the years it's been predominantly administrative but she
060had been in the um school psychologist role so we are moving forward upon her retirement to move that into an administrative position it's kind of a shifting of monies from one category to the next by really identifying the the current responsibilities mr coogan will that be at the high school i nope that position will be uh housed at leicester kill okay predominantly focused on pre-k through eight uh dr nancy marmet who currently uh is in that position is the pre-k uh through 8th grade cse chair she does a lot with our special education population as they transition from the county at ages three and four transitioning to the schools and then moving up through the elementary level so that position we anticipate being housed at leicester kill middle school to help support the overall operation
061of the building but also to focus on the pps pps role all right very good thank you any other questions okay on the motion made by mr casey second by mr sim all in favor aye opposed stain carries eight to zero 10a the jewel agreement may have a motion miss gizzy second mr ryan thank you uh dr perry do you just want to remind people or does anybody have a question yes certainly i i just want to recognize and and uh thank the board for uh approving our uh two administrative promotions uh looking forward to mr zansky taking over on july 1st as the principal of leicestershire middle school and mr bill romer taking over as the supervisor of physical education and athletics and intramurals on july 1st upon the retirements of mr wetzel and
062mr gardeno so looking forward to both those uh individuals carrying on and remaining with our our organization the jewel agreement um this is uh utilized from time to time when um the district uh has a staff member that we want to continue to uh review and work with uh when it comes to their uh probationary appointments so this particular individual teacher uh has agreed to extend her probationary period by one year uh we feel that uh they're continuing to make progress but uh not at the point where we are looking to make recommendation for tenure this year so this would allow the district one additional year to evaluate the personnel work with them on improving their performance and ultimately uh we'll come back to the board with a recommendation in the future uh related to
063um you know continued employment so that's what this jewel agreement is it's a language that allows for a probationary period to be extended by up to a year by mutual agreement thank you any questions okay on the motion being by mrs gizzy second by mr ryan all in favor opposed abstain carries eight to zero okay personnel support may have a motion please mr ryan and mrs gizzy it's pages 13 through 15. are there any questions mr johanny yeah 11e uh miss lady got appointed to the extra position number one is what's the time commitment and number two was what isn't she going to get done because she's going to do this job too or are you going to clone yourself amber well a little bit about the depth deputy claims auditor this is really a
064backup claims position uh in the event that the uh claims auditor is not available for a period of time uh amber would uh review the outgoing uh checks and and billing uh most of the time this is information related to verifying addresses verifying check numbers and things like that we don't anticipate it happening on a regular basis but we have it as a backup in the event that the claims auditor is not available so hopefully it doesn't take her away from her regular performance or her duties on her on a continual basis if it does it's something we would have to revisit with the claims on her yeah just if i could pick you back on that um it's very rarely that we need the services of the deputy claims auditor and it's usually just
065for like one or two checks that maybe like there's a field trip or something that needs to go out of the building and they miss the build schedule so it's usually just more of an exception kind of thing it doesn't happen very often okay thank you thank you any other questions i have a motion made by mr ryan second by mrs gizzy all in favor abstain carries eight to zero thank you okay number twelve the resolution to appoint impartial hearing officer may have a motion mr casey and mrs gizzy and dr perry would you like to explain uh yes from time to time through the cse committee process um there are disagreements between families and the school district regarding placement recommendations of a child and as part of that process families can request an impartial
066hearing so when that happens the district looks to appoint an impartial hearing officer who would review the placement review the child's educational uh anecdotal records and make a recommendation to the school district so this is authorization to move forward with that that hearing process and to appoint audrey daniel as the hearing officer for this particular case thank you any questions okay on the motion made by mr casey second by mrs gizzy all in favor aye thank you opposed abstain carries eight to zero thirteen resolution to resume certain inter interscholastic high-risk sports may have a motion mr ryan and mrs cogan so just a little bit about this uh this could be the last of our approval of high risk sports uh boys varsity jv and modified lacrosse are deemed to be high risk due to
067the contact that goes into that sport and then unified basketball is our basketball program for our special needs population students again basketball with a high risk sport so unified basketball was also deemed to be high risk um a program like girls lacrosse would claim to be similar but there's not as much contact in that particular sport so the state did not deem it high risk uh so it didn't have to be in this process but that that was the difference between why boys lacrosse is approved and girls have not uh girls lacrosse was not deemed to be a high-risk sport but particularly lacrosse and unified basketball uh previously we've approved our other high risk force dr perry those those are the two that remain uh not approved yes these are our springtime sports uh boys
068lacrosse is a spring sport and unified back wall was typically done in the spring as well so we had already approved the fall season two the winter sports prior to this and this is the only high-risk group of sports for the springtime okay today we don't have another title for that rather than high risk i think that would be a better well i think ultimately uh the term high risk was being recommended to be uh removed in the future by the national federal high school federation of high schools but new york state kept it in for this year i don't think you'll see that moving forward in the future any other questions please sure uh brian casey yes stephanie cogan yes rose giggliello yes colleen gizzy yes neil johanning yes michael keane i believe is
069still excused yes yes james t ryan yes edward simm we lost him we lost him okay vote carried 7-0 thank you um the next one is a memorandum of agreement civil service employee benefit fund um i'm i lost my internet connection too on my other computer i don't have a spot here um for the motion but should there be a motion there should be a motion so we can do that and i will add it back in thank you can um can i have some make a motion thank you mr johannine and second mr ryan okay and dr perry do you want to explain this uh yes i'll have sherry be my backup here but i believe this is an adjustment to uh dental and vision writers that were part of the csta negotiations there's
070been some change in the employee dental plan through csea so these memorandum agreements allow for our csca employment employees to access the cfda dental and vision plans um previously we had used delta dental we still offer that to our bargaining units but for our cse members this was an added um option for them sharing anything else you wanna i just want to clarify that these two moa's are specifically for retirees csca offers a plan if you are enrolled in their their delta dental and vision plans as an active csca employee you can carry it into retirement at your own cost so this allow we have to they have to have a plan sponsor so we are technically the planned sponsor what's part of our collective bargaining arrangement um and there's no cost to the district
071the billing goes directly through csa we don't even get involved in the billing um so it just allows them to access it in retirement at their own expense and take advantage of the group rates mrs calden do you have a question okay no problem any any questions okay all in favor on the motion made by mr johanning second by mr ryan opposed abstain carries eight to zero can everyone please look at the future meetings and please take note of where they're going to be yeah so uh just as a point of clarification i i knew this was going to come up uh we had made some adjustments for the board to be able to meet in person beginning on april 20th uh we will still livestream the meetings to the public the beans will still
072be closed to the public but the board members will be meeting back at the district office unless otherwise mentioned in a different location moving forward so beginning on monday april 20th with the communications committee meeting that meeting will be held at the district office the next board meeting is wednesday the 21st that will also be at the district office for board members we will again have a virtual presentation to our community members and live stream that out thank you any questions about this any mr johannine yeah i would recommend that the policy meeting stay virtual because usually we come in because there's a council meeting but that's going to be virtual that night too so getting back back online for that plus we might have nisba online too so i'd recommend we keep that policy
073meeting unless it's there's an overarching reason from dr perry and team to uh keep that one that makes sense yeah i'm agreeable to that we'll make that adjustment uh amber make that adjustment in our notes thank you anything else mr keel it just occurred to me i'm not sure if the uh the rest of the board knows that uh a bunch of us and it was probably about 25 people went marching through the woods about a month ago did everybody know that that went on looking through the uh the woods and finding out where our new uh transportation facility probably will be i'm not sure if everybody knew we did that but uh it was an interesting adventure the pictures were wonderful we had quite a contingent there and uh actually everybody was all masked
074up and uh between being massed up and having my glasses steam over i was talking to uh our lawyer mr ryan and i thought he was our uh superintendent our building uh person gordon and uh mr ryan says to me tim i'm your lawyer as someone else was falling up the hill so it was it was quite the uh quite the uh budget but it's it's quite it's a good location i mean i hope i hope we're able to go through it there's a lot of hurdles to clear in terms of uh i have a question for mitch hogan miss cogan is that what you would consider a uh hike see i was going to keep quiet but you do have to ravel rouse no it was more of a survival of the fittest i
075i wasn't sure if any banshees were coming coming running out because i was like what are we doing where are we going and what have i gotten myself into miss colgan you didn't have your compass i did not have my compass yeah next time you want to take a field trip count me out uh you're a scouter from way back miss hogan you handled yourself uh professionally and uh with athleticism we may uh challenge you in the future at a higher elevation but uh thankfully if we do that again we'll bring amy brunell our athletic trainer with us so we can better prepare that idea as long as she brings her gator i'm fine with that we do we do have uh videotape of the whole event that will be for sale at a later
076date maybe you're lucky you're cute mr ryan thank you very much i'll encourage him mrs cogan i know mr johanny you still need it you mean it click clicked on the wrong one sorry you're right um you just mentioned mrs burnell or amy burnell athletic trainer i'd like to give a shout out for her she was on the capitol news 9 yesterday a spectrum about advocating for the certification and licensure of athletic trainers which would um help us help you know schools throughout the state to make sure that the people they hire into that athletic training role have the appropriate training and certifications like that so congratulations to her and association for that advocacy thank you thank you okay may i please have a motion to go into executive session mr ryan i see you
077and mrs cogan thank you all in favor opposed thanks abstain carries nine to zero all right i will stop the live stream just a moment you