001and back into order. Uh we have completed our executive session with no action to report from there. Um we will We're resuming the public session and we will start with our pledge. Please join me in the pledge to the flag. I pledge pledge allegiance >> to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Please note that the emergency exits and in case of an emergency leave quickly and orderly. Um we also are a smoke-free and vape-free school district. Smoking and vaping are not permitted in the buildings or anywhere on school grounds. It's also a hate-free and bully-free school district. We will now go into our board consent agenda and uh the board will entertain um
002a resolution resolve the I'm going to read it and then ask for a motion by a board member. Resolve the Board of Education hereby approves the agreement with the employee identified on confidential schedule A and authorizes the president of the Board of Education to execute such agreement on behalf of the South Country Central School District. Is there a motion? A motion by trustee Felisata, second by trustee Ross. All in favor. Unanimously Okay, another resolution. >> [clears throat] >> I will read it and then ask for a trustee to make the motion. Whereas the Board of Education is in receipt of a letter of resignation from Mr. Antonio Santana, Superintendent of Schools, effective at the close of business on May 6th, 2026. Now, therefore, be it resolved the Board of Education hereby accepts Mr. Santana's resignation
003effective at the close of business on May 6th, 2026. Is there a motion? Trustee Delilah, seconded by Trustee uh Felicita. All in favor? It's unanimously approved. Our third I'm sorry. Okay. It's All right, we have to update this. Um >> Just let me >> Is it updated? Like we all have to refresh now? Okay. >> It's not a telephone. >> So this is C3. Okay. >> Refresh. Recommended action is whereas the position of superintendent of schools was vacated effective as of the close of business on May 6th, 2026. Now therefore be it resolved the Board of Education hereby appoints Ms. Jacqueline Ohagan as acting superintendent of schools effective immediately through and including May 13th, 2026. And be it further resolved the Board of Education hereby appoints Mr. John Dolan as interim superintendent of schools effective
004May 14th, 2026. Is there a motion? >> Ms. Trustee >> Ms. Moore too. Does Ms. Moore have the resolution in her hands? >> Here at the table. >> Um Oh, oh, okay. I see down here. Sorry. Um Where is Forget that I asked for a motion. So um >> Start of the proofs. >> Yeah, for home. So we get past >> You know >> I'm seconding this motion. >> Oh. >> All right, please look down. Where is >> This is the last here and it's only a thing it's on the bottom here. Look down here. >> Show where it is on the bottom. >> I have it down here. Thanks. Oh, okay. And so in addition to what I have read um about appointing Jacqueline Ohagan as acting superintendent effective immediately and also uh, appointing
005John Dolan as interim superintendent effective May 14. Approves the employment agreement and authorizes the president of the Board of Education to execute such agreement on behalf of the South Country Central School District. Uh, motion by trustee Ross, second by trustee Balsamo. Um, all all in favor? It's unanimously approved. And next, um, do we have a a recommendation from our acting superintendent? >> Yes. Uh, for personnel agenda, administration recommends approval of personnel changes reflected in schedule D1. >> Okay. Is there a motion to approve D1? Trustee Valais, second by trustee Delillo. All in favor? Un- unanimously approved. And we're on to E? >> Yes. So, for E, for business agenda, administration recommends approval of the consultant services agreement with Vision Therapy Optometry of Long Island. That is E1. >> Okay. I Is there a motion to
006approve item E1? Trustee Delillo, second by trustee Piccini. All in favor? Okay. Next. >> E2, administration recommends approval of the consultant services agreement with Insightful Vision LLC. >> Is there a motion to approve item E2? Trustee Delillo, trustee Calderon second. All in favor? Unanimously approved. Now, >> And E3 is deficit serial bonds. Um now it's very lengthy to read it. So, do you want to um share it with me or does your or does your voice carry or can we just say [clears throat] it's printed here? >> It's printed there. >> It's printed here. So, your recommendation would be um >> Can I make a suggestion? >> Yes. >> Why don't you just read the first >> Okay. >> five lines and just don't get stopped where it says district for for the purpose of
007>> Okay. >> that could be there but at least people should know what >> So, um the it the bond resolution of the South Country Central School District at Brookhaven, New York I um adopted on May 6, 2026 authorizing the liquidation of the actual deficit in the school district's general fund at the close of the fiscal year ending June 30, 2026 stating the estimated cost of liquidating such deficit is $11 million and appropriating $11 million for such purpose and authorizing the issuance of not to exceed $11 million bonds of the school district for such purposes. So, um and the rest of it is printed. Um so, is there a motion to approve the resolution? Trustee Ross, second by Trustee Felisata. >> Question on the motion? >> Yes. >> Can we just have John give us
008a brief uh explanation of what we're doing here and and how this um this is the definite the deficit financing bond resolution. >> Yes. Be happy to. >> Okay. Thank you. >> I'm [clears throat] going to steal the thunder of my first couple of slides of my presentation, but that's okay. >> is the vote, so this is a lot of money. >> Yeah, we were we were very pleased. We had a lot of interaction with the state and the state approved the district's special act legislation that we have been talking about over the last couple of months, which means that the district can now go out and sell deficit bonds to resolve the existing deficits that were in the 24-25 and the 25-26 school year in the amount of $11 million. So, essentially what this
009does, this corrects and resolves the deficit and gives the district a [clears throat] clear path forward into the 26-27 school year. >> Thank you, Mr. Palomino. >> Thank you. Any other questions or Then, all in favor I'll be glad to do the roll call and you'll Are you able to do that? >> Yes. So, roll call vote. Trustee Cantu? >> Yes. >> Trustee Vice President De La Rosa? >> Yes. >> Trustee Felice? >> Yes. >> Trustee Felisarta? >> Yes. >> Trustee President Hayes? >> Yes. >> Trustee Piccinini? >> Yes. >> Trustee Wells? >> Yes. >> And that's >> [clears throat] >> So, that was unanimously approved, correct? So, um Was there a second item under this, the notice? I think um I think we're s- Aren't we Didn't we have another item where the board
010um is given notice that that a serial bond will be signed and authorized? No? You know the one the one that we put into place 4 years ago? No? >> Excuse me, Mr. President. >> Oh, Mr. Palantir. >> Yeah. >> You may be thinking about the TAN resolutions that we removed from the agenda because of this resolution. >> Ah. >> So, this resolution took the place of the previous tax anticipation note resolution. >> Okay? >> Thank you for adding that. So, that clarifies that. So, we have now accomplished this major piece of business on behalf of the district. Is there a motion to adjourn this special meeting? Trustee Ross, second by Trustee Bellaceta. All in favor? Unanimously approved. So, we're going to go right into our budget hearing, but please give me a moment to
011bring this up. It's okay. Technical difficulty. It's not coming out. I can't get it to come out. I have it out. Um could you come up here and try to get this open? It seems like this Do you see it now? All right, we'll share it. >> [clears throat] >> Share it? >> Yep. >> Okay. So, I'm calling to order at 6:15 the uh budget hearing. Um and again, we're going to start with the Pledge of Allegiance. We'll do it again for this meeting. Please please join me. I pledge allegiance >> to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> All right, again, we have the emergency evacuation notice. Please notice the exit doors and
012proceed outside quickly and orderly in case of an emergency. It's a smoke-free, vape-free school district. No smoking or vaping is permitted in any building or anywhere on school grounds. Also, hate-free and bully-free school district. Um the next item is to introduce the four candidates for two seats on the Board of Education. And those the vote will take place on May 19th at the same time that the budget vote occurs. Our four candidates are Kenyatta Nah Augustine. Want to stand stand? Uh Linda Brown. Um Michael Kellerman. And John Mulia. Okay. Thank you very much and thank you for um being here tonight. >> [clears throat] >> Now for the main item of tonight's meeting, the budget hearing. Uh we have um Mr. Belmonte. >> Thank you. >> Good evening. Good day. >> [clears throat] >> Good
013evening everyone. Um this is a uh very exciting time uh if you could call it that because this is the combination of many months of a budget process that was not only building upon a budget but also navigating um several years of a somewhat crisp fiscal crisis that we were up against. So, um suffice to say that as much as we were putting together a budget for the 26-27 school year, we were also trying to fix what had happened in the 24-25 and the 25-26 current school year. So, I am extremely happy to report that last Wednesday, the district was very successful in having several bills passed by the Assembly and the Senate and signed by the governor where they approved South Country special act legislation up to $11 million. dollars. In addition, the State
014Education Department has approved a $7 million advance of general aid for the district to assist with our liquidity problems. Bottom line, we resolved the issues in the 24 and the 25 school years with this legal action. And I just want to reflect for a minute on the magnitude of this. We know that the state is in the midst of their state budget. We know that the state budget has not been finalized. And when we were navigating this particular legislation with all the stakeholders and the legislators and SED and the governor's office, there were times where it didn't look like we may be successful, but ultimately in the end, we pulled through. The significance of what we have done is basically we were able to remove our legislative inquiries and ask from the state budget from
015the budget extenders because we knew that at the time we knew it would not be sufficient for us. And with the help of SED and with the help of NYSED and all those stakeholders, we achieved this outside of the state budget being finalized. There were four bills that were approved. Two in the assembly, two in the state. These bills gave us the authority to basically borrow as indicated. There [clears throat] were two other bills that gave the state the authorization to actually give us a state aid advance of $7 million prior to the state budget being resolved. That is one incredible feat for a school district to have that kind of attention and support from the governor's office right down through all of our legislators. So having said that, I really want to just break
016down a little bit what the special legislation means and >> [cough and clears throat] >> the pieces of it. So basically, these were essential tools that allow us to stabilize today and to protect the students for tomorrow and responsibly cover from the fiscal challenges that we faced in those two years. So think about when we started this problem. We started out with a structural framework, a three-year recovery plan. Okay? We are at the verge of we are two-thirds through that plan in six and a half months. >> [clears throat] >> So each of these two different pieces of the legislation, special act and the general fund advance, basically serve two different areas or two different critical problems that we have. The $7 million general aid resolves cash flow issues. It helps us pay our bills,
017because helps us move the the district forward. The special act legislation funds the deficit solution. Okay? And it provides us to legally borrow to cover the overspend that was in 24-25 and 25-26 um school years. The one thing that I do want to make clear is that this legislation does not provide relief for 26-27. I know that when this first came out, there were a lot of people in the community that said, "Oh, how come we can't use some of that money to help offset 26-27?" The state legislature and the governor's office was very clear. We will only provide you relief for these two years, 24-25 and 25-26. This out year of 26-27, the district is going to have to resolve that. There will be no additional support for the district. And that's where we
018are in the 26-27 budget process. So, what we effectively have done, we took an immediate fiscal crisis, and we turned it into a manageable multi-year replacement plan. So, now we have paved the road to go forward and bring us into a clear path to 26-27. So, again, there's a clear distinction between the two. Uh general aid advance is short-term cash flow only. It's repaid through future aid. So, it's paid back over a period of 30 years. The state deducts 1/30 of our subsequent year's aid payment, and then we get another advance from year three until everything is basically paid off. The great thing about what we did in this finance plan, it's no interest to the district. It's your money interest-free. And how that's going to help us? We talked about cash flow, liquidity. That
019interest-free money is going to help us considerably when we go to borrow on our tax anticipation notes. We won't have to borrow as much. We won't have to spend as much interest. We will be saving the district hundreds of thousands of dollars in interest cost. Special act legislation was long-term. It addresses and funds the deficit legally. And it's a structured repayment over time. Which means that when we come time to bonding, the board's going to have to make a decision how we want to fund that, whether we want to fund it over a 5-year period, a 7-year period, a 10-year period. Each carry a different impact to debt service. But we want to make sure that our budgets are workable and we're not putting too much debt service into future budgets. So, this keeps us
020operating. It restores the fiscal health of the district. Done deal. Done. And these tools they have allowed us to stabilize the operations and avoid any further disruption to the process and the student programs here. And again, it puts a multi-recovery plan in place. It puts us back on solid financial footing going forward. Uh the next steps just to get in a little bit more detail because everyone loves detail as to what's next and what it's going to be. So, um the governor as I mentioned, there were two additional bills that were introduced that were also signed. The authorization of the 7 million, but more importantly for the state to issue that money to us. You can get the authorization, but you also need the authorization to spend. So, it had to be it had to
021come in tandem. And the governor did sign that bill and we do have an appropriation. I'm happy to report that on May 18th, we are expected to receive a $7 million payment as an advance of next year's payment. On the deficit finance side, the board approved the resolution this evening as you have saw and that will give us the authority to issue a deficit ban. It is a very tight window that we're working in. The right now I'm working with bond counsel, general counsel and Unistat fiscal advisors. We're working on a structural sale of the ban. And what that means is we're working individually with underwriters in order to sell the deficit notes on the market. Once we get to that point, the board of education will have to approve the results of that sale.
022Um The window is really close and we are working feverishly to make that timeline. We anticipate a closing on that ban by May 28th. Why do we have to do it so soon? Because on May 29th, we have a $27 and a half million dollar tax anticipation note that's due. So this revenue that we put in place and the cash flow gets us through May and June of this year. Okay, so we are moving forward and as I indicated, it provides a clear path as we begin to navigate 2026-2027. I have my deficit financing plan up here because this is something that we talked at the last meeting and maybe previous meetings. And those of us that have been following this knows that through this process the legislature they were they may have been hot
023on the issue, they may have been cold on the issue of issuing special act legislation. And it forced the district to go back and to put various plans in place to ensure that we were able to get through the 25 26 year without any difficulty. And you could see by the plans that we had we had laid out at the last meeting on April 22nd second that the cash flow needs for May and June and what we were going to do in anticipation of borrowing and at the end of May we needed to borrow and it's all up there and it's all set forth as we discussed. We had plan A, we had plan B, we had plan C. Unfortunately um and this is something from a professional standpoint that I feel compelled to comment
024on. I normally don't comment on social media. But there were some social media comments out there that indicated that the district may not have had a plan in place and in mid-May the district was going to close its doors, chain the doors, send the kids home and school was going to end in May. Well, I can say you to you with confidence that that would have never ever happened. We had plans in place. We never communicated that to anyone and more importantly if you do research in New York State the law actually does not permit schools to close mid-year. And there has never been a school in New York State that has closed mid-year >> [clears throat] >> for the reasons that we have listed, the state will offer a strong oversight. SCD and OES
025office of the state control and monitors the finances, and they require corrective action. We saw that. They were in the district with seven auditors with me for almost three three months. They have fiscal tools in place from the bond anticipation notes, revenue anticipation notes, aid advances, special act legislation which we took advantage of. So, the district utilized those tools. There's legal requirements. School district has to have 180 days of mandated instruction. We know that. >> [clears throat] >> We know that schools can't close mid-year. Okay? And then there's state intervention. Okay? The state will not allow a school to close mid-year. They will put people in the school to run that school. And why this was so disturbing to me personally, because it sent a incorrect message to the community that the school district may
026not have had plans in place. And that for my role here, I take personally. Because that was not the case. So, professionally, I feel that I had to say that in public. Moving forward, um this is one of the things that we addressed at last time. Uh a lot of individuals in the community has been asking what have we done? And what's in place? Well, one of the slides is up here. We fixed the structural imbalance. We established proactive financing uh financial monitoring and timely budget adjustments. Okay? We restored the fiscal stability based on the funding. We strengthened the fiscal controls and oversight in place. Checked off. We built accurate and transparent budget. that's what we're presenting to the community in 2026 for the 2026-2027 school year. And we implemented a sustainable cost structure. We
027took that deficit, we're funding it over a period of time, and we're putting the district back on a level playing field. The other things that we took decisive construction corrective actions on the spending controls that we put in place. The oversight, the fiscal monitoring, the budget reconstruction based on actual cost. We talked about how the 2026-2027 budget was developed. It was developed line by line, piece by piece, looking at expenditure trends. We look we had cost reductions along the way where corrections had to be made. We made the hard decisions. We got the district to where they need to be at this particular point in time. And more importantly, from my perspective, we reestablished financial control of the operations of the school district. Where we didn't have that in the past. So that has been
028reestablished. So now getting into the the meat and potatoes [clears throat] of why we're actually here, and that's the the budget piece. We are required to present the budget to the community. It's a three-part budget, and maybe I should just digress a little bit. There's a lot of information here. There will not be a test at the end of this, but this presentation will be put online. So if anybody needs to go back and refer to it, the information will be available. And very purposely I did that so the information would be available to the taxpayer. So please at any point if your eyes glaze over or you want to take a nap, please do. So anyway, the three-part budget and the budget information English and Spanish, We all know that. We know that it
029has to have administrative salary information, school district budget notice, and the report cards have to be included. The district has met all those requirements. We have a budget book that was prepared with all those elements in it. It was in every building in the district as well as the public libraries. So, everyone which whichever building you go into or public library, you have access to this comprehensive document that's available to you. The school district budget notice is another piece of information that it gets mailed out to the community. And this is going to be a little preview of what's being mailed out. And you can see there's basically three columns. It gives you the first column where we are now, 26-27, uh 25-26. I'm sorry. The middle column gives you 26-27. And the third column
030gives you where we would be on a contingency budget. Okay? And the significance between the proposed budget that we are presenting to the community on May 19th is $150.5 million, a $3.3 million increase. It's a 2.28% spending increase compared to the change in the consumer price index of 2.63%. Okay? The rest of the form just basically brings us down to the bottom and what the tax cap calculation would be. And that negative $5.67 million is the amount that the district is piercing the cap. That is the structural deficit for 26-27 that we are looking to fund on the tax levy. Okay? So, this is going to be uh uh mailed home to the community. Um And again, the proposed budget addresses the deficit that's going to be funded through the tax levy. If the budget
031passes, we have resolved all 3 years of the district's fiscal deficit issues. Problem is solved. You move forward cleanly, no further cuts, no further reductions, and you then have a clear path to 2027-2028 and beyond. And you'll see some information later on in the presentation. The second half of that school budget notice we're required to show the three components, administrative, program, capital. We do that for each of the years, so you have that information. We are required to make a statement about a contingent budget to the public, and we included that. And we say that a contingent budget will only contain legal expenditures specifically authorized by statute, and expenditures that maintain educational programs, preserve property, and maintain the health and safety of the students and staff. This will include reductions in staffing, programs, capital items,
032and non-contingent items such as student supplies, certain equipment, and community use of buildings and grounds. The other requirement of the district is to list any propositions. We do that. We have a proposition on the ballot. That's the um transportation proposition that would change non-public school transportation beginning the 2026-2027 year from 25 miles to 15 miles. If the proposition is successful, it will reduce our cost by a number of $900,000 and bring the cost to the taxpayer down further. We also disclose the basic enhanced basic star exemption of 2,147. So, these are the required disclosures. This notice is going to be mailed to the community probably 6 days prior to the budget vote. So, it will be uh in the mail and uh you should be getting it shortly. So, this is one way that we
033have um showed the budget uh throughout the budget process. It kind of broke down salaries, fringe benefits, and the other components. I'm not going to spend too much time on this. I think we're all familiar with it through the previous uh presentations. I think noteworthy on here is the amount of uh monies that the district spends. Salaries and fringe benefits make up the largest expenditure component of about 66.4%. Okay, the next largest percentage would be a BOCES expenditures at $15 million, which make up over 10%, and then the next largest category would be transportation, which makes up over 8.4%. So, this kind of gives you a breakdown of the different um pieces, but then moving back to the three-part budget, this is a summary of that breakdown. It brings us down to the same number
034of the 150.5 million. You can see the increase over the 2 years is still the same 3.3 and the 2.2 uh spending increase. So, this just gives you a little bit of a flavor for the administrative program and capital portions of the budget. So, the part of the budget newsletter that you would be getting, we give you a little bit more detail. This breaks it down by functional unit, and it basically gives you in the administrative section the different areas that are included, as well as the capital, which basically represents your buildings and grounds and your debt service. I think your program expenses speak for themselves. Those are mainly your instructional expenses. You can see that they represent a very large portion, over a hundred and ten million dollars of the overall budget is in
035the area of your program and instruction. That's over 73% of our total cost. The proposition that we talked about earlier, the transportation for non-public schools, reducing the mileage 25 miles to 15 miles, um possibly decreasing the annual cost to the district by an extra $900,000. Um I don't know what it Oh, okay, the slide shifted. But anyway, so the approval So, what this means is that our budget would be reduced by another 900,000. It would bring us down to 149.6 if it's approved. It would bring our tax levy down to 80.2 million. And it'd be lowering the uh proposed tax increase from 13.45 down to 12.19. And um as breaking it down for the cost of the taxpayer, it would go from about $62 a month down to $55 a month with the transportation referendum.
036So, we're not going to focus this evening on um a lot of reductions. We all went through them and we know what they are. They're listed in the previous presentations. Um what we really want to do is tell a story and leave a message to the community of what's left intact after we have developed this 2016-2017 budget. And clearly we We a sustainable path forward in what we think matters most to our students. Um it provides sustainability, transparency, and more importantly, it was built on sound fiscal principles that allow the district to maintain the academic programs, including AP courses and dual language programs. The Seal of Civic Readiness, the Seal of Biliteracy, and AP Capstone and diploma programs remain. The music program, which serves over 1,000 students in grades 4 through 12, remains. Social emotional
037wellness programs initiative for students and staff remains. Interscholastic sports teams in the middle and high school levels remain. Co-curricular clubs, they were reduced slightly. Over 50% of the clubs remain. Security maintenance of all district buildings remain. So even though we've made difficult decisions throughout this budget, your programs essentially remain intact. On the elementary level, we continue to offer our K-3 dual language program at Brookhaven. We continue to offer our 4-5 dual language program at Frank J. Long. Our average class sizes, and we have some pretty good slides later that has been a flush this out a little bit more, remain at or below the lowest current K-5 sections. The average class size in grade 1 through 3 is 22. In kindergarten, we're still um taking numbers on. The grade The average grade sizes in grades
0384 through 5 is 24. And we continue to offer art, phys ed, health, and library at the same levels in 25-26. Um okay. In addition, we continue to offer the students the same opportunities in music, chorus, band, and orchestra. We continue to support the students with the same level of service from our literary literal literacy coordinators and math specialists. So, essentially, we can say with pride even though we made significant reductions and corrections in this budget, we have maintained the core instruction, enrichment, and student support services in grades K through 5. And that's something that we should be very proud of considering where we are. On the secondary level, we have similar good news. Um the advanced Spanish courses at the middle school and dual language students remain core core course offerings in grade 6,
039ELA, math, and science, social studies, world language, health, phys ed. They all remain the same as the 2025-2026 school year. And the average core classes in grade 6, 7, and 8 is 26.5. And the average class size non-elective core classes at the high school is 25.6. At the high school, all electives will run with a minimum of 20 students um participating. Uh at the high school or college level and AP courses will run with a minimum of 15 students. So, again, at the secondary level, maintaining the core instruction, electives, and advanced core course work while managing class size. I think we would all agree this is much better news and positive news than looking at cuts and reductions that were made as we have gone through the budget process. But the end result is very
040important to look at and where we are and what we have done to make sure the program remains intact. Spinning off to the revenue side, I'm just going to wet my whistle a little bit. >> [clears throat] >> That's okay, ladies and gentlemen. I only have 48 more slides and we'll be done. We can all go home. Um so, moving on to the revenue side. So, we've gone through the expenditure side. I think you have a good picture of framework for where we are and what we have done for 26-27. And you can see that for we start out with our state aid. Our state aid remains flat. We talked about that the state does not have a budget in place. And we note that up there. So, as of today, uh we do not
041have a state budget. So, our state aid numbers are um based on the executive budget that was released earlier in the year. Our pilot payments are basically what they are um at $7.6 million. Our other income is down to about uh just under $2.7 million. And that gives us our uh total state aid and other income of about $68 million. Um the next piece of the revenue slide is a little bit more significant because this shows the use of our fund balance and reserves both in the current 25-26 year and moving forward to 26-27. A couple of the things that were noted in the controller's report was the fact that district relied too heavily on reserves and use reserves um for recurring expenses and not for one-shot deals. Part of the problem that the district
042has run into is that we need to better align our expenditure side of the budget with the revenues. We need to bring those two things closer together without relying on fund balance and reserves. Mainly because we're running very low in that area, and you can see just by the numbers up there in 25-26, there was $9.5 million that was budgeted from fund balance and reserves. However, that $5 million that was on top was not available. That $5 million led to the deficit for 25-26. Because when they finished the 24-25 year, we didn't finish with a positive unappropriated fund balance. We finished with a negative 1.8. So, we didn't have that money to bring over. That $5 million slot was a significant piece of our $8.7 million deficit 25-26. So, the advice and recommendation going forward,
043you could see that what we have utilized and what we are suggesting to utilize for 26-27 is 2.6 million. Significantly less than what the district has considered using before. Why is that? Because we now have our expenditure side better aligned with our revenue side, and we need to become less dependent on reserves and begin to rebuild our reserves and the financial footing for the district going forward. Okay. That brings us down to our property taxes. You can see the property taxes, as we talked about, is $81.1 million. It's a 13.45% very significant. Again, when we talked about the $5.6 million deficit being funded on the tax levy, that $5.6 $5.6 million deficit is in that $81 million tax levy. We have no bailout from the state. We have no assistance from the state. The state
044said to us, "Figure it out. Make it happen. Do what you got to do." We did. We went back. We reduced the budget by almost $9 million. We're at a point where we still have $5.6 million. And it brings us to a 13.5 projected increase in the tax rate. And that's where we are. We know that that carries about a $749 annual increase at about $62 per month for the taxpayer. And if you add the transportation proposition in that, it brings the monthly cost down for the taxpayer down to $55. Okay? We know it's a heavy lift. We know it's a heavy ask. But you'll see why, hopefully when we get through the presentation, why it's so important. So finance people love numbers. So I'm asking everyone, please don't focus on all these numbers because
045really what the top does for you is the the little blurbs and pieces on the side really tell the story for what's happening here. The top of this particular slide shows the actual fund balance change from year to year from 2019 to 2024-25. And the takeaway from this on actual use of fund balance, the fund balance was reduced by $20.1 [clears throat] million. The highest level of fund balance we had in the 2021-22 year of 35.5 million. A lot of that was because of COVID. We talked about COVID funds extensively. We know that they were probably the root of the problem that we've had here and how the funds were basically managed, but nonetheless um this is where we are. And the change in the existing fund balance brings us down to where we finished
046last year with 15.3 million. Significant decline. Fortunate to have it. And using it very sparingly going forward. The bottom section just gives you the analysis for our 25-26 school year this year. We anticipate finishing with 13.6 million dollars in reserves. Again, using a very small portion. And then as we go through the 26-27 year, we saw on the revenue sheet that we anticipate using 2.6 million and we should have about 11 million dollars left in our fund balance and reserves at the end of the 26 year. Okay? Again, we're using them, but we're using them sparingly. And we're using them smartly. Um the previous approach of using fund balance and reserves definitely not sustainable. Okay? And the district must continue to reduce its reliance on fund balance and reserves. You have to adopt sound fiscal
047practices that limit the use of one-time non-recurring expenditures. Okay? And you need to be very diligent in doing that in future years to build up to continue the fiscal stability. Okay. This is a slide that I added in the um in the 12th hour. I There was a lot of feedback from the community. We don't understand the tax um calculation. People are getting it confused with the full value on their tax bill. They don't understand the assessed value. So, I figured let me give it a shot. Um it is it's not a complicated topic to me anyway, but um I know for the person that is looking at this probably makes their eyes glaze. So, what you have on the left is what I call a uh a three-step process of how we calculate the
048tax levy and the tax levy increase. We start out with the assessed value. Now, we know it what an assessed value is. An assessed value is the taxable amount of your home that the town uses to assess taxes. It is not the full value. It is the assessed value. So, where could you go find this? You could pull out your tax bill, look for your school district line, and you will see the assessed value for your school district. When you know that what that assessed value is, you could take your personal assessed value and pop it in this formula. You can go to step two. So, the tax rates that we calculate are based on $100 of assessed valuation. So, if you have an average of $2,600 assessed value for your home, you divide that
049by a 100, you come up with 26. Then, you look at the tax rate that the district provided is $290.51 for um for a home assessed at an average $2,600. $100. multiply that out, and you get your annual projected estimated tax rate 7,553. You can see in the chart in the middle um we do the same thing for the current 26-27 year as we do for 25-26 and we calculate the difference. The 749 we talked about earlier then I divided by 12 cuz there's 12 months in a year and came out to $62 a month. That's how we arrived at that figure. Okay. The other thing I heard from the community is that well, my home's not assessed at 2,600. They're different. So, what I did is I compared the chart that's on the right.
050That basically this the middle of the chart shows a home assessed at $2,600. We see the $746. We see the average cost of $62 a year and I added the fourth column in that if the transportation proposition is passed, it would be $55 a year. And then I took $500 bands and I went down. I did it at $2,100. I did it at $1,600 and then I went $500 above $3,100 and then $3,600. So, if you go home and look at your tax bill or you contact the town of Brookhaven, the notice in there, the assessor's office, you can go online, look at your property records, go to your tax bill and look at your school property taxes and get your assessed value. And you can actually see how much the impact will be for
051you and your home. Now again, the $2,600 was derived from my conversation with the assessor's office of from their computer records of what the average home residential home is assessed here in South Country School District. So, that is why we use that number. Uh and again, I understand that different people have different assessments. But, also keep in mind that when you look at your tax bill, and you look at your total taxes, and if your tax bills are $13,000, the school taxes is a part of that. It is not the whole thing. You cannot apply these figures to your total tax bill. That does not work. If you look at your tax bill, there's taxes for your um for the town, for the county, for the police, for the fire districts, the ambulance, etc., etc.,
052etc. So, the only thing that we show the community here is the school district taxes. I hope this helps. I hope this um explains it a little better. And um if there are any questions, you can definitely uh reach out to my office. I'll be happy happy to walk through it. Some of the tools that we've used to make the decisions that we've made in this budget process, the difficult decisions relative to staffing, is student enrollment. Um we've completed a very comprehensive demographic study with Western Suffolk BOCES that gave us a clean look at our 10-year historical student trends, as well as a prospective 10-year forward. So, what we're showing you here is that 20-year period from 2015 through 2035. And you can see all those bars facing down, and those are the different grade
053levels. The first bar in the blue with the blue stripes on the left represents grade K-3. The second, grades 4-5. The third red bar is grades 6-8. And the blue is grades 9-12. And the dark blue is grades K-12 overall. So, if you look at the little notes on the side, enrollment in South Country School District decreased 693 students or 16% from 2015 to 2025. That's a significant number of a reduction in students. Why do we look at this? We look at this as a budget tool to ensure that when we look at staffing and staffing needs, the staffing needs are aligned with the students that we have attending the school district. More importantly, looking forward, so we're going to say based on the demographic study over the next 10 years, we can expect another
054308 students to decrease or 8.4% of our total enrollment. You can see the trend line of our enrollment going straight down. When this happens, ladies and gentlemen, you must adjust your budget going forward. So, to try to drive home the point of a correlation, if you will, and I'm not going to get into any statistics, but basically, there is a correlation between decreasing student enrollment, the number of staff members that have been reduced, and your class sizes, because they are directly related. If you eliminated too much in staff, your [snorts] class sizes would skyrocket. So, let's look at what we've done to the 2026-2027 budget process that we're proposing. We know that we've had 693 students to date for 2025. We know We know that going forward, we had 60.5 FTEs that were reduced from
055this budget. The graph on the right side shows the student enrollment by um the class size, I'm sorry, not the student enrollment, the class size, the blue and the red bars. By um grade level. The first set of bars is K3. And I mentioned in the earlier slide, you can see that the um that the class sizes went up 101 to 102. You can see that the grade levels in 4 and 5 class sizes remain pretty consistent. You can see that when you look at your secondary 6 through 8 that it's up minimal, maybe 1 to 2. So, what what can we conclude from this slide? Well, I know from a fiscal perspective I can say that we've fixed, we corrected the staffing ratio to teaching ratios in the district. And it did not have
056a significant impact on our class sizes. We don't have 30, we don't have 35 kids in our classes. This is significant. These are tools that are used in the budget process to bring you a fiscally responsible budget. These are the things that we have done and this is where we are at this time. Um and again, this is all data driven and it helps us with long-range planning. I would recommend to this board and to the administration going forward that something that you always want to do is update your demographic study. Uh some districts feel that it's too much to update it on an annual basis, but when we get to the end of this presentation, when we start talking about um what are some of the things we might want to look at beyond
0572026-2027, into 2027-2028 and beyond. I will make some of those recommendations for the board and for the community based on things that we have done and things that we have noted in the district in a very short period of time. Okay, so understanding a contingent budget. Is everybody awake? I don't see anybody sleeping. Uh, I'm going to throw on the table. So, there's a lot of people I know out there. So, a contingent budget. This discussion is very important. If we take away anything tonight [clears throat] from what I'm doing, I want to tell a story. Hopefully, I told a story. I want everyone to be able to see that we're connecting the dots. And where we are and where we might be going. This is not to instill fear in the community. This is
058what will be step two if we are unsuccessful with step one. So, a contingent budget. We all know that the school district votes on the budget May 19th. If the budget fails, Board of Education has several options. They can put the same budget up. They can put up a a revised budget. Or they could decide to do a revote. Or they can go right on contingency and say, you know what, >> [clears throat] >> we're not putting another budget up to the community. To put a budget up to the community costs about $30,000 in total for a second budget vote. So, again, um the district is uh now on a path to be very prudent in its fiscal spending. And we just like to note that. So, unfortunately, if the budget fails twice, the district
059must adopt a contingent budget with a 0% increase on the tax levy. Going back to that budget notice that we saw very in the very beginning where the current tax levy for this year was 71. something million. If on a contingent budget, we have to go back to that level. What would that mean where we are now? To get there, we would have to cut an additional $9.6 million. I just want that to sink in for a bit. $9.6 million. We've already cut nine. We already presented to you where we are with the instructional program here. Again, everyone needs to understand where we are and where we're going. So, what is a contingent budget? I mentioned I read in the budget letter. It's only a It contains legal expenditures authorized by statute and expenditures that
060maintain educational programs, preserve property, and maintain the health and safety of students and staff. Nonetheless, you must go back to the current year tax levy. There [cough and clears throat] is no choice. There is no use of exemptions. There is no buts. There is no redos. Okay? Two times state law, go back to the current tax levy. And again, it will contain reductions across the board. So, I don't even have to go through it. But, basically on a contingent budget, folks, with a $9.6 million, you're looking at the students coming to school, um attending class, and getting on a bus and going back home. Because in all probability, there will be little or nothing left in a $9.6 million reduction. So, we talked about a plan a a plan A, B, and C. Now, what
061does a contingent budget look like? We thought we're required to show you this as well. You can see that right now, what we're proposing to the taxpayer is in green, the $150.5 million. >> [snorts] >> To get down to a contingency budget and the current level of where we are for the tax levy, it brings our budget down to 140.9 million dollars. Okay? When we look at that column on the right, that red, it's a reduction in budgetary expenditures of 9.6 million dollars. That's reality, folks. So again, if a budget fails twice, the district must adopt with a 0% increase on the current tax levy. Okay? And those are going to be the amounts of the reductions that must be made. So, in summary, we know that the under contingency budget, we must reduce about
062thousand dollars, which we already reduced nine administrators during the budget process. We just think about what that's going to look like. Program, we have another 8.2 million to reduce. And on the capital budget, we have another about 547,000 dollars to reduce. Not a good place to be. Um really hoping that we don't get to this particular piece. This was a slide we showed at one of the other meetings that we had, community members asking what would happen or what some of the things that we would be looking at. These are all across the board from operations, administration, programs, instructional impacts. And again, some of these things have already been taken out of this list in previous budget reductions, but nonetheless, this gives, I think, the community and everyone a look at what the magnitude and
063where we would be going off of it we were under this scenario. Okay? Um So, I won't say any more than that. Um So, one of the things I did, just as this is what I call maybe fun facts that you don't for crazy finance people that they want to know. Um there was a question that was asked that there were 2 years prior in '22-'23 and '23-'24 that the district did not set the tax levy at the cap. So, the question was if we did, what may have been the impact currently for '26-'27? I think that's a good question because did a little bit of analysis and basically the analysis is just looked at each year individually. I didn't do any compounding or statistical analysis whatever. Um but just looking at each year independently.
064In '22-'23, the tax cap was 7.76%. The district set the tax levy at 1.75%. So, we gave up $3.8 million in revenue that year. And then if you go to the following year, the tax cap calculation was 3.23 and we set the tax levy at 2.75, a loss of another 1.2 million for a total of 5.1 million. So, if you think about having that 5.1 million in the beginning of the '24-'25 school year where all the overspending occurred of 3.5 million, we wouldn't have been there. We would have avoided that spending debacle. We would have avoided this based on the compounding of those monies coming in, we would have avoided the issues in '25-'26 currently. We would have avoided the 5.6 million dollar deficit we're wrestling with in '26-'27 that we're looking to put on
065the tax levy. So, this is hindsight. This is wonderful stuff, but it's good information. Why? Because I'm hoping to get a message as to finance tools that you use in creating the budget and missed revenue opportunities. You're in a situation where your state aid is flat, where districts are struggling to keep up with the double-digit costs of things like health insurance, um special ed, totally out of control, and those other costs that we have no control over that mandated. So, those costs have risen, but our revenues are flat. We're on safe harbor. We don't get additional aid. We're not driving additional aid. Um our building aid is getting lower. We need to do more in capital projects so we can generate building aid. So, knowing that, when you set your tax rate or your tax
066levy, you must consider all those factors. And not set it just on emotional needs as to, well, we think it's too high. You need to set it in accordance with where your program is and where your program wants to be. If you're not going to set your tax levy at the cap, then go back and reduce your budget. Do the responsible thing so you don't end up here in the future. That's the information that I bring to you. So, this is something that just it kind of, you know, as we go along and we peel back the onion and we discover things that have happened, these are learning tools that hopefully will be helpful as the district goes forward. Okay, so where are we and what this means for the community? Uh >> [clears throat]
067>> we talked about that if the budget and the transportation proposition is approved, we have achieved fiscal stabilization, okay, and reduced the prior year deficits in 24, 25, 25, 26 through the special act legislation and general aid advance. If the budget is approved, we just resolved the 26, 27 deficit problem. The cost that we are incurring, we're going to distribute that over the over multiple years in a more manageable transition. I call it a soft landing. And the reason we talked about this, short-term versus long-term. The long-term gives us the ability to stretch those payments out, not adding $5,000,000 of deficit debt service to the budget each year taking up instructional capacity. The more of that debt service you have in the budget, it's taking up room for you to put money's in there to
068run your programs. And we want to get that money out of the budget as soon as possible. But we need to do it in a responsible way where you can afford to maintain and grow your programs without bankrupting the district. Okay, and you are on that path. Predictable and reasonable long-term fiscal planning, we put those pieces in place. Strengthening the internal controls, the budget monitoring, and financial accountability, done, checked off, continuing, constantly being enhanced and modified. Um, protection of your core programs. You saw the programs that were still intact. You've been with us through the budget development process. You saw the bad side of what we have taken out to make the painful decisions, but your programs and the opportunities for the students remain. I really believe that we have a sustainable path forward. Um,
069resolving multi- multi-year deficits in a short time frame avoiding any additional program and staffing reductions, I think is key. Again, we have taken a 3-year recovery plan. I know a lot of people were critical of in the very beginning. It was a framework that we provided, but it came together. And we've short shortened that time period. And possibly, comes May 19th, we would have resolved those issues completely with the help of and the support of the community, and more importantly, maintain the significant level of educational opportunities for your students and your children. I didn't mean to do that. I promise you, I'm almost done. Okay. I did that. Okay. So, >> [clears throat] >> this is another slide that I added because I wanted to see if I can capture the fiscal impact of what
070we're talking about for the community from [snorts] a dollar and cents standpoint. And just follow me here for a minute. We know where we are in a 2026-2027 budget. We know that the impact could be 3.4 3 13.45% to the taxpayer. We know that's high. We saw what those numbers would be, whether it's 55,000 a month on the average with the transportation proposition. But, I put together this fiscal impact [clears throat] illustration because I thought it was very important. If the community decides this is too expensive, we don't want this, the board has to make a decision where we want to be in round two. Okay? We're going to have one more bite at the apple. So, do we go down? Do we pierce the cap again? And if that if so, at what amount?
071How much do you want us to cut out of the budget? 3 million? Do you want us to go back to the cap at 5.25%? Do you want us to reduce that 5.6 million that we put on the tax levy to fund? Do you want us to reduce the budget by that much and bring the budget down to the cap and present a very different budget to the community? Okay? Um I just want to point out that the second strand, we know that the proposed budget at the 13.45% carries an approximate 55,000 a month out of pocket for the taxpayers. I also calculated if we went down to the 5.52%, it would only cost the taxpayers $18,000 a month. People are going to say, "Wow, that's great. Did you look at the difference? Hey, I'm
072saving $37 a month." Wait a minute. Let's look at the cost of that $37 a month. To achieve that $37 a month in cost savings, the district and the board has to go back and cut 5.67 million from the budget. You saw the list. You saw where we have to be. I hope this is clear because this is reality. This is where we are. This is what we built, and this is our path forward. So, you have the information. I can only hope that the community goes out and they make an informed decision based on what we have presented and offered. Okay? And not an emotional, angry decision. The emotional, angry decisions will have consequences, and they will have consequences for the students in the programs. So, this is the financial data and the tie
073to the 26-27 budget that we will be proposing to the community in May. Okay. I promised the board that I'd give them some suggestions moving forward 26-27. Um here they are. I think that >> [clears throat] >> everyone is looking for some strategies, some long-term planning. Now that we have a pretty good baseline for 24-25, 25-26, hopefully we can resolve 26-27. Now you have a solid baseline to do some long-term fiscal planning. You cannot do fiscal planning if your base years are a mess and all over the place and you don't know where you are. The projections are meaningless. They will mean nothing. You really can't manage them. We are at the point where you could start doing some meaningful long-term projections. The path forward, you can evaluate grade configurations. Now, this is not for
07426-27, we're talking about beyond, okay? You can evaluate your grade configurations, possibly closing a building. Look at your enrollment trend slide that we provided. Look where we're going out to the next 10 years. You have that flexibility. Those are opportunities. Explore those opportunities, capitalize on those opportunities because that will enhance your instructional program and afford opportunities for your children. With that building, rent it or sell it? You rent it. Great great tenant, Eastern Suffolk BOCES. In my previous district, I rented two multi-story buildings to them. Best tenants in the world they have. And you have a steady flow of revenue coming in on your revenue side. You no longer have we start reducing your expenditure side of budget because you're bringing in revenues and you're bringing up your revenue side. Great strategy going forward. You
075have the opportunity to do that. Capitalize on it. Um you carefully evaluate your in-district and out-of-district special ed placements. We are growing in the area of special ed education. That's kind of mind-boggling. Um I think when I first came in, I looked at the statistics, there were like 74 new special ed entrants that came in as of July 1st. The special ed costs in this district are well over $23 million and growing. They're up about $3 million from the current school year. Okay? And they're growing. These are mandated costs. These are costs that we have to look at. There are ways to look at that and the district should avail themselves of that. Are there opportunities to bring students back into district programs so we can save money through those services and educate those children
076in our towns. So, that needs to be looked at. Are there ways to the amount that we spend for contractual contracted services for um services, related services for special ed children? Do we have the staff in house? Would it be cost-effective to hire that staff and not use as many of those contracted services? Okay? I'm giving you things that are um really tools that things that need to be looked at going forward. Evaluate your debt service very carefully. We know we're going to have deficit uh debt service that's going to be taking up some of the capacity in our future budgets. We do know in the '27-'28 year, we talked about this, you have about $2.5 million or thereabouts falling off in existing debt service. There is a tremendous need for capital improvements in this
077district. Boilers, roofs, things that I've been working with uh Mr. Puro with period of time. Debbie probably very familiar with the things that we currently have going on plus the things that we need to have done. Unfortunately, right now because of the fiscal situation, we have everything on hold. Okay? We need to start addressing the capital issues with nothing more to improve your facilities and start driving some of that building aid back into the district. We have a 70.76% building aid ratio. That means we get 76 cents back from every dollar back from the state. Let's take advantage of it. Let's do it. That means it costs it costs the taxpayer very little. That's using your money smartly. And we need it because our building aid fell off from previous year to this year of
078over what? 1.4 million that we lost in building aid revenue. So, that's something we need to look at. There are student enrollment changes and class sizes and staff ratios. You need to You need to constantly look at them every year as you're developing the budget. Are they reasonable? Are they consistent with other neighboring neighboring districts and what other school districts are doing? Okay? And with any program or staff, I cannot emphasize this enough. And I hope that this is something that I don't know we can paste to the walls. Any time the district wants to add something to the budget, I would suggest we have to ask two questions. Do we have the money to pay for this? And number two, is it sustainable going forward? Cuz the worst thing in the world for a
079school district is to add something one year because you have a one-time revenue and you think it's it's the greatest thing in the world, but if you don't ask the question if you can sustain it, you might have to take it out year two. And that's not good to do for a school district, nor the people that get used to the program that you're providing. Okay? And just the board governance piece, uh stay diligent on your monthly monitoring. Do not allow negative account balances. We did do that ad nauseam. That is not the practice any longer. That should not happen. Ask the questions. Do not be afraid to ask the questions. And don't settle for the answer that we're going to cover it at year end. Insist that it's done currently. So, everyone has a
080good handle on where the finances are for the district. Other than that, you know our vision, discipline, transparency, sustainability. Um I think we've done that. I think we've delivered. And um I believe that that's all I have other than remind everyone the school budget vote May 19th, 7:00 to 9:00 at the Bellport Middle School Auditorium. So, thank you for your patience. I'm sorry to have put you all through this, but I think it was very necessary. Um and hopefully it's good information. Oh, sorry. >> I know I didn't >> So anyway, so that's all I have. Um Thank goodness, right? >> Well, thank you for putting us all through this. Um you have some very um well-founded suggestions, recommendations to make to the board going forward, um as well as laying out the plan for
081the district, both financially and how it's able to look forward to providing programs for the students that we have as well as looking into the future for how to deal with our buildings especially in an in a 10-year projected period of further um student um population reduction. So um I thank you very much for this. Um Is there a question from the board? >> Oh, actually sorry, Mr. Belmonte. Just what You had made comment earlier that the budget document is available to the public through the various schools or the library. Are you aware how is an individual for the public allowed to access that? Obviously, a school building is locked down during the day. They're not accessible. You know, you you aware is how they connect? >> Yeah, they have anytime the operations of the
082buildings open, these usually are in the main office. And at any library during operations, we also have this We'll post this on the website. So, it will be available for them on the website as well. So, we make it as available as we can for everyone to have access to. You know. >> It's already on the website. Thank you. I just wanted to go back. Um we had introduced the four candidates earlier. Um I saw Mr. Mulia. Um yes, you were introduced earlier, but now that you've raised your hand and everyone can attach a face to a name. Um glad to see you. I don't think I saw Mr. Kellerman come in. Yeah, so um where We've completed the presentation portion of the budget hearing. We did have a public partic- participation segment. Do you
083have cards? No No cards. So >> Well, Sarah motion Just before we move on, I just wanted to thank Mr. Belmonte. This was the most comprehensive budget hearing I've ever heard. >> Thank you. >> Um and I really do want to thank you for the suggestions going forward. And I want to thank you for the um for the emphasis you placed on um on some of the things to look forward in in going forward. It was really very beneficial. And I hope I hope there's more people watching online than than have joined us here tonight. >> Thank you. >> So, Sarah, motion to adjourn. >> Sure. >> Um Miss Trustee Kuchinsky seconded by Trustee Ross. All in favor. Okay, the meeting the budget hearing is now adjourned.