SOUTH COUNTRY CENTRAL SCHOOL DISTRICT BOARD MEETING 03/11/2026 Part 1

001We completed our executive session but there was no action to report here. So, we will start or resume our public business meeting. Start with the Pledge of Allegiance and we'll have our student execution 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. Emergency evacuation procedures. Please make note of the exits and if in case of an emergency, please leave in an orderly fashion as quickly as you can through the exit to the outside. This is a smoke-free and vape-free school district. Smoking and vaping is not permitted in the building or anywhere on school grounds. This is also a hate-free and bully-free school district. We'll go now to the board consent agenda. See. Thank

002you. Thank you, President Hayes. A couple of notes to the audience here. First, the staff Wi-Fi for all of the staff members in the audience have to be shut off for the board board meeting because it makes too much traffic for our broad band. That makes it very hard to be able to so same procedure that we have during conference days. Secondly, I just wanted to say to the public that there is no direct screening to the actual presentation. The meeting is means it's live. We we upload our presentations to give access to people at home to look at them. Uh but the stream is just going to show the auditorium. It will be through the screen behind me. Uh but the actual presentation is going to be directly streamed. Um and again, I apologize

003for the inconvenience of no food or drink. We're also abiding by that rule. Um but I don't have any food or drink here, so um I appreciate that understanding. Um so with that said, moving on to board consent agenda, the agenda, the administration recommends that you approve the board consent items listed in schedule C1 through C4. C1 through I think maybe I need to refresh that. C1 I'm sorry. C1 through C3. My apologies. Um Is Is there a motion to approve item C1 through C3? A motion has been made by President Rodriguez, seconded by Trustee Calderon. Questions? Discussion? Um seeing none, all in favor. And I vote the vote board member all in favor. Yes, unanimously approved. We will move on to Superintendent's report. Thank you, President Hayes. All right, well I want to welcome

004everybody to the March 13th uh Board of Education meeting. Um I'm going to get right to it by uh first want to go over um snow days. I've already covered this in our last meeting with regards to how snow days work in terms of our requirement for providing a certain number of instructional hours for our students and staff. Really, the point I want to make today is after applying for two state waivers that represent February 23rd and February 24th, uh we are certain that we're going to be granted a waiver for February 23rd. The waiver for the second snow day is yet to be determined by the state education department. In fact, in correspondence received from them, they indicated that they will give us a response in August, which obviously is beyond this school year.

005So, as it stands now, because we actually used three snow days this year, that necessitates our being open on our first snow day, which is Friday, May 22nd. Obviously, if that changes, I'll be the first to communicate to our staff if there is any changes to that. And that today to make up the lost instructional minutes, we will be open on Friday, May 22nd, which is a Friday before our Memorial Day break. Now, before we begin the discussion tonight, I am going to go over some budget sort of tearing updates. >> [clears throat] >> I want to acknowledge that there are understandably very strong emotions in the room and throughout our community. >> [clears throat] >> I want you to know that I not only appreciate those emotions, but I totally empathize with them and

006feel them as well. These conversations affect people, programs, and a community that many of us care deeply about. While we've posted a significant amount of information on our district website, including our external audit, I also recognize that people are still asking a very simple and important question, how did we get here? The explanation I'm about to share is not my characterization of events. It comes directly from the findings of our independent external auditors, whose report is also posted on our website for anyone who wishes to review it. I'd like to read a brief excerpt from the report so our community can hear, in straightforward terms, how the situation has been described. This is straight from our audit report. Budget estimates for several expenditure categories were not sufficient to cover our actual 2024-2025 spending due to

007a combination of ineffective budgeting practices and unanticipated cost increases. Key areas of underestimation include or included central services, teaching regular school, programs for students with disabilities, occupational education, teaching special schools, and employee benefits. The lack of accurate projections and timely corrective action resulted in the district's internal controls over budgeting and expenditure monitoring being ineffective in 2024-2025. I don't know how else to say it other than what was captured in our external audit. As superintendent, I understand that the responsibility for the district ultimately rests with me. I don't separate myself from the financial situation we find ourselves in today. Same time, I want our community to know how deeply I care about our country and the people who make it such a special place. Over the past three years, we've made meaningful progress in so many

008areas in our district, and it's unfortunate that the financial challenges we're facing can now overshadow that work. That said, what matters most is how we respond. I remain I remain fully committed to the community, to being transparent about the challenges before us, and to working with the Board of Education and our entire school community to put the district back on a stable path moving forward. And with that, I want to talk a little bit about what we've done so far to provide an update on the budget process. This has all been shared already. One of the first things we did is secure the services of Mr. Del Monte who comes with 35 years of experience. We expanded the scope of our external audit to provide more comprehensive analysis of the budgetary practices, etc. We're still

009developing a three-year fiscal recovery plan that will revisit that a little bit in the presentation to show that progress and some of the things that we're thinking in subsequent years. On Tuesday, February 3rd, we met with Ira McCracken from the State Controller's Office for initial meeting to establish a working partnership with the State Controller's Office. In addition, the district is still continuing its collaboration with the Controller's Office. We have a set of seven auditors in our district office every day monitoring our budgetary practices, gathering information with our full cooperation and collaboration. We're also actively reviewing asset utilization including property and facility use to ensure alignment with current enrollment and projected trends. And we're awaiting the results of the long-term demographic studies to inform decisions related to leasing or the disposition of space. What this means

010is we are going to have to look at the organizational structure of our school district and make decisions in the future. Decisions of this magnitude can't be made in one year. It takes some planning and some research but we are starting that work now to potentially propose things next year for the subsequent year. Also, as part of our ongoing budget work, any consideration to staff reductions, I want to say it's approached thoughtfully and with a clear focus on limiting impacts on class size and maintaining the academic programs our students rely on. And the district is currently involved in the advanced phase of budget development. We'll present information once it's been thoroughly reviewed at a community town hall type meeting planned for April 29th, 2026. We want to be sure that all of our information is

011accurate, everything is vetted, every choice has been contemplated and discussed with our Board of Education before we have a meeting so that we can rightly answer questions from our community in the most appropriate and correct manner. >> [snorts] >> To provide an update of where we're at now, in pursuit of the special act legislation that will help us finance this operating deficit, the district, our administrative team, have already met with Senator Murray, Assemblyman Spano, Talia Lion who works in the Governor's Office as the liaison, John D'Agostino from SED who's working on us on our behalf, Melinda Person who's the president of NYSED, Aaron McCracken from the Controller's Office which I mentioned before. And we've also reached out and contacted Assemblywoman Cathy and Senator Martinez who represent the majority in our state government. Just to make

012them aware of the special act legislation that we're pursuing cuz the focus and the idea is to have it included in the Governor's budget which will be released in August. In an effort to mitigate the projected operating deficit, the district has been working with our team to find additional reductions again with the objective of not having any significant impact on our programs and our strategic plan. And finally, in the development of our initial draft budget, we have incorporated targeted staff reductions that reflect both declining enrollment and the need to address our operating deficit. These adjustments are again being made carefully with the goal of preserving academic programs our students rely on to the greatest extent possible. And before I start discussing our proposals, I want to get emphasize that we're facing extremely challenging challenging times

013that call for extremely difficult decisions. None of these decisions come easy, especially when we consider not only the potential impact of our programs, but also the very real impact on the people who are affected by the actions we must take. These are members of our school community who have contributed greatly to this district, and that reality weighs heavily on all of us. At the same time, our responsibility is to ensure that the district returns to a sound financial footing so that we can continue providing our children with the best possible learning experiences. Ultimately, that is the purpose behind all of this work. It's also important to remember that this is an ongoing budget development process. What we will share tonight represents a comprehensive snapshot of where we're at as of March 11th. As the process

014continues, the budget will continue to evolve. Our goal tonight is to provide the Board of Education and our community with as much information and transparency as possible. To that end, I want to share information regarding potential staff reductions, but before doing so, I think it's important to first review the reductions that occurred during last year's budget process and the impact those decisions have had on our district this year. So, last year when we proposed a 2025-2026 school budget, we engaged in staff reductions that resulted in an overall reduction of 53.5 FTEs. You see the breakup down on the screen above. Some of these reductions occurred as a matter of excessing or retirements or separations. Others were vacancies that were just not filled. Uh but ultimately, the difference between our staff in the 2024-25 school budget

015versus 2025-26 was a total reduction of 53.5 staff members. We shared this information at a prior board meeting. The effect of our class sizes, and these are our current class sizes at our elementary schools. Mind you, the chart on the bottom left corner are averages at each of our elementary schools at Kramer, R.W. Berwick, Berwick and Wing Long. And the bigger chart actually shows section sizes as of November of this year. Uh, and and that represents all the sections in the elementary schools. In terms of our high school, our class averages at Bellport Middle uh Middle School uh range anywhere from 22 to 23. Obviously, there are outliers, but those are the averages. And at the high school, anywhere from 22 to 23 or 24 rather classes as well. And these class sizes were based

016on non-elective courses, including the back list courses at the high school. In terms of the effect on programs, uh in terms of our academic programs, with the exception of French as a second language, and the reduction in library services in our elementary schools, we maintained all of our academic program offerings this year, reflecting continued commitment to preserving instructional opportunities, instructional supports, and learning experiences available to our students. And I wanted to include a picture of our French class because, again, there is value in all these decisions that we're making in terms of these programs we have to contemplate not continuing. Um in addition to that, in terms of extracurricular activities, extracurricular offerings were also reviewed and adjusted based on student participation. We did reduce the number of clubs this year during our mid-year reductions. Uh

017but clubs at Frank P. Long and our secondary schools were reduced as I just said. But we maintained our music and fine arts programs, grade level field trips, intramurals, and our athletic programs to date. Again, this is basically the result of a staff reduction that we experienced in the last year. In terms of student achievement, which is the last piece I want to cover, again based on the 53.5 reduction in FTEs, while class sizes have increased in some areas as I just noted in the previous slide, we've seen growth in student achievement. This reminds us that while smaller class sizes can be helpful, they are not the sole drivers to student success. In previous years, you know it's more classes, but outcomes were not always where we wanted them to be. What matters most is

018the quality of instruction, targeted instructions, and how effectively we respond to student needs. And this is all the good work that our teachers have been doing over the last year, which have manifested into results. And I can only speak to results up to this point in the school year. In terms of our national assessment and benchmark assessments, we're talking about um our NWEA map assessments reflecting gains in reading comprehension, vocabulary, and analysis of complex tasks. This growth indicates that student students are essentially strengthening critical literacy skills needed for success across content areas, and continue progress towards secondary readiness. We've seen growth in almost all of our grades with the exception of fourth and fifth with the fifth grade um at this point, which has been pretty flat. In terms of our high school students, we

019had one administration of Regents in January. You can see the growth exhibited by our January administration of our ELA Regents. The growth exhibited by our Algebra 1 administration of the uh Regents in January as well. The 86% again also includes appeals, which were included also in the prior year's administration. One of the things I want to emphasize about this administration of Regents exams is that all of these students have a second opportunity to take that Regents in June. So we saw growth in achievement despite the reductions we had last year. But as we look ahead to the upcoming school year, the reductions we're projecting again are being made for one primary reason. To close the district's operating deficit and to return the district to a more stable financial position. Before discussing the specific reductions, I

020want to emphasize that we've been examining a wide range of cost containment measures in an effort to lessen the impact on our staff to the greatest extent possible. This has included reviewing discretionary spending, operational efficiencies, and other areas where we can reduce costs without directly impacting people. At the same time, we also have to confront confront the reality of declining enrollment. As our student population changes, we have a responsibility to align staff and resources accordingly. While still maintaining the programs that support our students' needs. This process is not new. It began with tonight's discussion. In fact, earlier this year we began taking steps toward mid-year reductions in the order to start addressing the district's financial challenges. Even with those actions, however, additional reductions are necessary as we build next year's budget. None of these decisions

021are easy, but they're necessary steps as we work to close the operating deficit and place the district again on a stronger financial footing for the future. I want to start but this was I want to start with a review of our mid-year reductions. Again, this slide was shared in a prior meeting. The reductions reflected on this slide represent the first phase of our 3-year financial recovery plan and were implemented mid-year to begin addressing the district's operating deficit. In total, these adjustments represent approximately 390,000 uh dollars of expenditure reductions achieved primarily through position consolidations, vacancy management, and program adjustments aligned with student enrollment. Wherever possible, we focus on not filling vacant positions and restructuring existing roles in order to minimize disruption to our students and staff while preserving the core of our academic programs. All of

022this has already happened. As we review the reductions that will be proposed tonight, it's important to recognize what they truly represent. These are not simply line items on a spreadsheet. They represent people. They represent colleagues who dedicated themselves to the district and who have truly done amazing work for our students and our community. Quite simply, the staff members impacted by these reductions have been fantastic. Their contributions to this district have been meaningful and significant, and their impact in our schools is undeniable. That's what makes this process all the more difficult. Anytime there's a separation from staff, it's never easy. But when you're faced with the reality of separating from individuals who have been so impactful and so committed to our students, it's honestly devastating. It's devastating for us as leaders, for our community, and most

023importantly, for the individuals whose lives are directly affected. We don't take the human impact of these decisions lightly. We understand that behind every position is a person, a family, and years of dedication to this district. This reality weighs heavily on all of us as we move through this process. At the same time, we have an obligation to take the steps necessary to place the district on a stronger financial footing for the future. Balancing that responsibility with the real human impact of these decisions is incredibly difficult. And it is something none of us approach without a great deal a great deal of thought and care. So, when we look at the proposed staff reductions for the 2026-2027 school year, we're looking at another reduction of 55.5 55.5 FTEs. These include retirements as well as excessing. In

024terms of the effect that these reductions have, let me just finish. In terms of the impact this will have on class sizes for the 2026-2027 school year, uh these are the projected class sizes for our elementary schools. They still remain relatively small when you compare it to other school districts on the island. In terms of the impact it has on class sizes on secondary schools, this is the anticipated class sizes that will be uh projecting for the upcoming school year uh with classes ranging in the size of 26 to 27 in elementary schools and 25 or 24 to 27 to 28 in the uh high school. One of the things I want to point out about the elementary school sizes, the reason that we can't go any larger is basically how our schools are configured.

025Because we have community-based schools, for example, if you have 60 students in a grade, you have to run three sections that are going to be at 20 students per section. There's no way of of decreasing that our That's what we have to look at the overall structure of our school district. What I want to emphasize is the financial impact of this. This will be shared in our budget presentation by Mr. Belmonte, but even with the proposed reduction of 55.5 FTEs, the net reduction of expenditures for our school district is still only $200,000 because of increases in fringe benefits. This is what makes this process all the more difficult. And while we're taking responsibility for the financial challenges within our school control, it's also important to acknowledge that there are external forces affecting school districts throughout

026our region. Through REFIT, which we're active which is an organization that is actively activating advocating for changes at the state level that will provide greater financial stability and fairness to school districts like South Country, um I wanted to share some of those external forces and how they sort of affect uh the South Country Central School District. This past week, we got to enjoy visiting legislative breakfast that was hosted by REFIT. REFIT stands for Reform Education Financing Inequities Today. Um it's an organization that's been around for a number of years that's been advocating for public schools and for our finances for years. There was a presentation by David David Little, Esquire, who's on the board of directors as I am for this organization. He was articulating some of these challenges um that basically school districts are

027different are are facing. So, in the process of this legislative breakfast, questions were asked of our legislative representatives that were in in attendance. Our first question was one of the most discussed topics and priority annually is foundation aid. The governor proposed a 1% increase in foundation aid for state public school districts, which we are, which equates to 68% of districts on Long Island. What are the discussions for either an increased percentage or other factors that would boost or modify school aid in any capacity? Basically, all of our legislators said they're advocating to have an increase in foundation aid. Um foundation aid remains one of the most important revenue sources for school districts like South Country. When increases are limited to just 1% for many school Long Island school districts, it makes it really difficult to

028keep pace with rising costs and places additional pressure pressure on local local budget and taxpayers. Give you a perfect instance, that 1% increase does not come close to rises in inflation, CPI, so it forces school districts to make tough decisions. The second question that was asked of our legislators was that many services that would provided to students, including support staff, special education, and academic intervention to rely in part on federal funding. If those federal funds are reduced or eliminated, districts like ours would face the significant financial pressure to maintain those services for students. And so basically, in terms of federal funding, legislators' response is they don't foresee any uh reduction in federal funds. The state has already committed itself to matching those funds if they should be reduced, but again, the state legislators are advocating

029on that behalf. The next question that was asked is one that's going to be really crucial for our district and neighboring districts is the idea of charter schools. What we expressed to our legislators during the meeting is that charter school and uh initially emerged in New York City approximately two decades ago, the model continues to migrate and grow off the suburbs of Long Island, specifically within vulnerable and impoverished districts. Their accountability and methods of practice and teaching differs significantly from public school models. Further, charter school financing continues to be a controversial topic and significant financial stressor for many school districts. Several Long Island districts spend tens and nearly hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to finance charter school enrollments. What are your perspective on charter schools and the need for reforms? I think in terms

030of us and our legislators in attendance, we're all on the same page. Charter schools operate, quite simply, in a different structure than traditional public schools, but their growth can still have a financial implications for districts. In areas where charter school enrollment expands, districts can see resources diverted, which adds an additional strain to already tight budgets. One of the speakers at this meeting was the superintendent of Woodbury, I'm sorry, Uniondale. They're spending 8% of their overall budget on charter school tuition, which we fund. Charter schools are basically private schools that operate within district boundaries or not, that schools districts finance. Our cost projection for next year for charter school enrollment is in the top $800,000. Is this something we definitely have to continue advocating for? And finally, the question was asked about health insurance. Has there

031been any discussion at the state level to help mitigate health insurance costs, approximately $45,000 for the nice and family plan, to provide any sort of aid to districts so they they don't impede on the district in reallocating instructional funds or otherwise? When we see the sharp rises in um health insurance costs, this which continues to be one of the fastest growing expenses for school districts, when those costs increase significantly, it limits the resources we have available to invest directly in classrooms, programs, and opportunities for students. So, I want to thank President Hayes and Vice President Delillo for joining me at this breakfast and for conversing. And especially thank you to Senator Murray, who's always been supportive of our school district, who's also in attendance, who's also continuing to work closely with us when it comes

032to our special act legislation. What I want to say now is like these factors coupled with the financial struggles that we have operating the cassette are real challenges. But what what what I want to share moving forward in my presentation is not to deflect from any of this. It's to basically capture the fact of what we're working so hard to preserve. And these are student programs. First and foremost, I want to give a highlight to Bellport High School for all of their observances during Black History Month. Um this particular student-run assembly was inspiring and empowering for our students in attendance and our staff. I want to thank uh Mr. Robert Green and Sal Canterino for being the co-advisors of this club and producing such a wonderful program. And also as part of Black History Month,

033we had um um Bellport High School invited members of the Black Men in White Coats chapter of Stony Brook University's uh Renaissance School of Medicine speak to our students about student medical school careers. And those representatives were all Bellport alumni. So I really want to give uh an appropriate shoutout to all of our schools engaged in these celebrations and observances. And in just talking about student empowerment, uh that's something that's come up I know in the community. One of our speakers was um Desi Torres who spoke about AP African American Studies. One of the things that we put in place are thresholds for running electives and certain courses. When AP American Studies African American Studies didn't meet that meet that threshold, our students rallied, worked together to gain that enrollment to pass that threshold, and

034that's when we'll be running the course. That's an amazing consequence of our student instruction, the idea that we give our students power to make decisions and advocate for important programs that are of value to them. We also celebrated Women's History Month through various celebrations. This one highlights our Women in Law Enforcement um assembly program that was held at Bellport Middle School. We had amazingly powerful women who were involved in law enforcement. Participants in this program included Belinda Alvarez, Rhoda Mims, who was a deputy police commissioner, Chief Milagros Soto, Elizabeth Dates, who was the assistant commissioner, Detective Sergeant April Hargrove, commanding officer of the end part of the hate crimes unit, and Officer Jasmine Santiago who was our Latino liaison to speak to our students in a really truly inspiring assembly program that was not just

035inspiring for the young uh ladies in our audience, females in our audience, but anybody who attended was inspired by their talks. So, I really want to give a big uh credit to Dr. Lindsey Blazic for her connections to all these dignitaries, Ms. Bevin and our social studies department, and the entire middle school staff for helping making this happen. Our middle school students also had the opportunity to visit Washington D.C. Uh they just got back. Save for mechanical issues with the bus in the evening, all the kids had an amazing learning experience and a great time in D.C. So, I really want to give credit to all the staff members that served as chaperones, and for Principal Dr. Iello for attending the trip himself to ensure that our kids were well looked after. Our student council

036also went to Washington D.C. with their um students uh participate in a leadership conference, and I'm sure our student ex-official will uh elaborate on in a minute. And then I want to move into sort of a recap of our winter seasons and give a winter sports update. First and foremost, our Bellport wrestling had a phenomenal season um and brought home two state championships. In terms of our boys, uh girls, I'm sorry, varsity team, they were county champions as a team, as a collective, and Analia Morrow was crowned a state champion in her division. Uh she's a two-time county champ and a two-time all-state. During the state tournament, Aliyah scored 39 offensive points, allowing zero points against. >> [clears throat] >> Um, which was a remarkable uh accomplishment. Uh Caitlyn Maragioglio, also uh all-state, uh took

037third place in the New York State tournament. She's a second-time county finalist, and county champ, second-time all-state, Fargo All-American, is the only junior, and he's only a junior, will be competing uh back to lead the wrestling girls wrestling team to another season next year. That brings me to the boys wrestling program. As you may know, Cam Howard won his second state title as a sophomore. He is now a four-time Suffolk County champion, four-time all-state, two-time state champion, Fargo national champion, and and a double Pan American U16 world champion. So, I want to give a big shoutout to our coaches, Joe Scioli, uh for the girls, for the boys, Chuck Maragioglio, Rob Coffey, and Jake Kaden, for their outstanding uh leadership, and to for supporting our student athletes. And of course, thank you to our entire

038Bellport community for coming out to support our state champion. It really was a wonderful event. Moving on to our basketball team, while the boys varsity season ended abruptly, I want to emphasize that this was not a reflection of our student athletes and our coaches, but rather an unfortunate circumstance. There is still much to celebrate when it comes to our varsity players and the team, and things some of the things they uh accomplished in terms of their competition. Number one, we have Carmelo Flippin, who was crowned the 2026 Rookie of the Year. Julian Crow, who's 2026 All League and All Conference. Eli Malcolm, who's 2026 Academic All League. And Amari Trent, who in the 2026 All League, was also top two in league scoring. So, a big shoutout out uh Rich Brown and Coach Powell for

039leading the Bellport Clippers to a successful season. I also want to give a shout out to our girls varsity track. They were heat winners at state competitions. The Bellport High School 40 by 200 relay came ready to compete winning our heat at the New York States and running a new uh sort of uh record time which represents the second fastest time in team history. They're currently ranked 12 overall overall in division one and are and they keep pushing. They too were the county champs and this coming Friday they will be competing in the national competition at the Armory in Manhattan. So big shout out to our girls varsity um track um especially our relay team and to coaches Dan Jennings and Francisco Bern Barlo. And finally I'd be remiss if I didn't give a shout

040out for our unified uh basket uh golf team that competed at Topgolf. This is an amazing sort of uh activity that really emphasizes or sets the belonging and inclusivity. And a big shout out to Coach Beth Clark and Len McEvoy for providing these students um such a wonderful opportunity. But winning competitions is where isn't where it ends. I also want to highlight that nine winter varsity programs have met the criteria for scholar athlete teams. And I have that list in front of us. Our unified golf always performs well academically. Girls bowling, wrestling, winter track, boys wrestling, winter track, bowling, boys basketball, and girls basketball all achieved team GPAs which averages you're seeing displayed on the screen. Overall we have 12 winter student athletes who earned a 90 plus GPA and 34 winter athletes who earned

041a 100 plus GPA including our two state wrestling champions Karam Howard and Leo who scored well over 100 GPA. So let that our athletic director uh Mr. Martinez and all of our coaches and teachers for making this wonderful thing happen. And finally, like I said before, there's still a lot of great things happening in our school district. You can follow along in our various social media handles. I did want to highlight that I was invited to Mr. Perkins uh Bow Tie Tuesday event where I got to meet Yianni Most Jr. He's a Bellport grad, he's a practicing attorney. Had a really uh inspirational chat with our fifth graders. Um and coming soon, we have great events in the school district. We have the Bellport High School College and Career Fair, which is March 17th, our

042STEM night, which is happening at Brookhaven Elementary School on the 18th, our Bellport Middle School Curriculum Fair, and PTA book giveaway on the same night. So, I want to thank the PTA for providing the opportunity for all the kids that attend on March 23rd, and our annual commanding celebration, which will be hosted at the Boys and Girls Club on March 24th. That captures a lot of what's happening. Please follow our social media handles. Again, please visit our website. If you click on the menu, click on the district link, you will see a link for all of our financial information and updates. All of the presentations we've shared are posted there with and in addition to FAQ with regards to budget questions. And that concludes my superintendent's report. I want to thank the community and the

043board for their continued support as we continue working toward the empowerment of our school district and in meeting these financial challenges. Thank you. Thank you. We're going to go to trustee and advisory committee reports. We'll start with our XC student member. >> [clears throat] >> This past weekend, 11 officers from grades 9 through 12 got to attend the LEAD conference in DC. Our officers worked hard to fundraise this trip through parent support and fundraising. We also want to thank the South Country Education Foundation for this grant. We were able to connect with student leaders from across the country and even internationally. This includes students from Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Canada. This experience was incredibly empowering. We shared ideas and common challenges in our school and worked together to problem-solve, and we plan to turn

044key this information into our own student council. Many of us are seniors and had the opportunity to reminisce on our time at South Country, and we're extremely grateful for the teachers that have helped us along the way. Lastly, I'm proud to share that our student council will be recognized as the gold national capital of excellence, and I just want to thank Ms. Hoffman for her support through this process. >> [applause] [applause] >> Thank you. And Trustee um Fujimoto, do you have a report that you would like to make? No. And then Trustee um Calderon, Good evening. Before I provide you a brief update, I just wanted to acknowledge tonight's meeting is taking place during a very difficult moment for our district. Many members of our staff, families, and community are understandably concerned. And those concerns

045deserve to be heard and treated with respect. So, I just want to thank everyone for being here tonight. Over [snorts] the past few weeks, I had the opportunity to attend the Teaching and Advisory Committee that was held on February 26th, where I appreciated hearing the thoughtful discussion around our goals and progress our educators are working toward for our students. I also wanted to take the time to recognize the work that's happening across the district to support our students. Our schools did a wonderful job celebrating Black History Month and Women's History Month. And although I wasn't able to attend the celebrations at the high school, I do want to commend the staff and students who organized those efforts. Additionally, I had the chance to visit Kramer Street uh school during the Read Across America week. Uh

046Mr. Clark kindly welcomed me as a mystery guest reader. I think they're a great classroom and I'm so encouraged by the manner of the enthusiasm our students are bringing to learning and the dedication of our teachers. Uh even during the challenging times, it's important to recognize the work that's happening in our classrooms and that we're going to continue to serve our students. Thank you very much. Trustee Bellissimo. Sure. So, I've thought a lot about what I wanted to say here and I'll Trustee Bellissimo has said things in the past in regards to kind of how we have been dealing with things and how we have been moving forward. So, what I want to address is kind of in three parts. So, I've got one address in one address in parts. Um one as a parent

047and community member, I'm disgusted. I mean, that's for lack of a better term. >> [applause] >> I'm talking as a alumni. I'm embarrassed. Um I got >> [applause] >> I've been here now as a board member and I'm new to this, so if you want to listen, what I'll say is I think I'm determined to get out of this. So, I know times are tough. We are going to get through it somehow. Uh but, I do want to recognize today Mr. Justin York. More importantly, the most important thing is I attended two events that I thought that these people would be recognized. I went to the K3 ball. The PTA and Septa amazing job. They were amazing. The kids had an amazing time. Kudos to them. They couldn't have done a better event. Uh but,

048what they said next year maybe we'll do the wrestling because I think it was more wrestling going on than more of dancing. Uh and I want to acknowledge the Snow Ball Jamboree. Uh I went to that. I think it was the first year it was done. Uh from Mr. Ernie walking in the door to Mr. Acres dressed up as a raccoon. Uh couldn't have been a better job. I think the teachers we're going through a terrible time right now. And you need to do your job to continue to come show up every day. It was evident at that event. Uh I know my kids went home and they couldn't stop talking about it. So, keep doing what you're doing. Hopefully, you can somehow get to the other side of this. Uh I can tell from

049those events and some of the other events and even I want to mention uh the youth wrestling tournament that went on this past weekend. To see uh Coach Mario show up with his fighters and wrestlers down there. They volunteered their time. They came down. So, if you guys keep doing what you need to do, what you need to do, what you need to do, you're going to get through this somehow. Uh hopefully, sooner than later, but it's going to be a long road forward. So, that's pretty much what I wanted to say for right now. >> [applause] >> Trustee Walls. Um so, I I repeatedly sat up here for this first year as going into this role. And many of you know me. There's probably just as many of you that don't. I sat here

050and said, "We have to continue to look forward." So, um it's not it's It's lost on me that moms, neighbors, teachers have it tough. There There is no way about it. You guys also do something that I could never do. You have the patience of a saint. I can give here and you give every day. So, you know, hard things produce things that we value. You guys work hard every day. We have to work hard for you. But, I hope everybody realizes that nobody's standing here alone. That includes the solution and the problems. So, I hope you realize that um there's a lot of voices that are talking. Please don't just complain. Let's help find solutions. Come talk to us. Ask about the problems. I I There's things that occur and happen inside this district

051and I've grown up here. That some people say things have changed. Much as they've changed, they've stayed the same. So, we can get better. There's definitely a lot of room for growth and everywhere we go, whether I hear people talk about the athletes, I [clears throat] hear people talk about our musicians or the artists or students' performance in the classroom, every bit matters. So, we are in a ugly ugly situation. But, if we just worry about where we are and not focus on where we need to go, because if finances were even, we still have a lot of room to grow and a lot of ability. We have lots of good people. So, I really think that we there's a lot to do and a lot that we can do. So, I guess what I'm

052really trying to say is I want to hear more yeses and people like expand, think outside the box, figure out how we can make a difference. That includes this budget, that includes what we have to go through. It's going to be a couple of years to figure out and every year is going to have new challenges. Please keep asking questions, don't be coming different, don't stand on the sideline, participate, put in your two cents, give us your perspective. Don't [clears throat] hide in the corner and and and think that what you have to say doesn't matter. Just speak, please. Thank you, Madam President. So, I I put a lot of thought into what I wanted to say tonight and I did have to I did have to write it down. And I know many of

053you want to speak tonight, so I don't want to stand between you and wanting to speak to us. So, if at any time it is a little lengthy, but if at any time you want me to stop, tell me to stop. Um but I do want to say to you I'm at the end of my nine years on the board. And I'm at the end. And I wanted to say that to you tonight because I know there's members in the community who want to seek a position on the board and I want to tell you that my seat will be one of them that will be vacant. I will not be running for re-election for the board. And there's a lot of reasons why and I'm going to tell you why. I also am going

054to respectfully disagree disagree with a number of the items that the superintendent spoke about and that's not to be disagreeable. But that's to speak to the board members that will remain on the board um to the observations that I have had over especially over these last 2 years of where I think we could have done better. And where where um observations were made uh about the finances and where we could have picked up a lot sooner where there were problems. I've been on this board for 9 years. I've missed three meetings. I was board president when my father passed away. I scheduled my father's funeral around these board meetings and did not miss a meeting because of it. The last meeting I missed on January 21st of this year was because my best friend was

055dying in California and she asked for me to be with her. And so I did. And even though I requested remote access to be at the meeting, she died that very day. And that's why I wasn't at that meeting. But that's the dedication I had to this job on behalf of all of you. You know I was a frequent flyer at every event, every sporting event, every building, every concert, every play, and every meeting. That's how this job had to be done. And I hope the next person who fills this seat takes that commitment just as seriously. I'm a career unionist. You all know that. But that's not only what I am. I graduated St. Joseph's College and they instill upon their graduates social responsibility and community involvement. And I told you before when I

056was upon my retirement years, I wanted to do something to give back to my community. And when I moved into this community 14 years ago, no it wasn't 14, it was 12 years ago. People suggested to me, "Get involved with the school board." And I was a lifelong learner. I didn't get my degrees until later in life. I've an executive MBA. And do you know how many times I beat myself over the head? Said, "How did I miss this financial mishap with an executive MBA?" Nevertheless, we did. And we Those are the items that I want to speak to you about tonight. And ways that we could have done better. So, I'm disappointed in the way this district spent the last 2 years missing a financial problem that we know had a glaring reality. And

057what What this has done is demoralize our workforce. Which has threatened the backbone of our sound educational system. All or any of the progress we've made is on the brink of being shattered. I've shared this with the superintendent many times and with all due respect, I've told him, "Trust takes years to build, but it can be lost in an instant." One of our board retreats that we recently held, the facilitator referred to this as from hero to zero. Whatever you want to call it, there's no way a school district could begin a new school year like we did in 2024-25 with a deficit in its employee salary lines, especially those budgeted lines for our educators. Nor should we carry those deficits throughout the entire year. Yes, it is the board that puts the budget the

058overall budget together for the voters to approve. But it is the budget office and the cabinet members who develop the backup for the line item budget of where to appropriate those funds to carry out the next year's program. Certainly, the community should expect that personnel and salaries be funded first and foremost. But when it wasn't, and when questions were being asked and answers were being given with a quick, "We'll just make budget transfers by the year end." We later learned those transfers would never would never come, and no administration or leadership verified any further. And now, the hardworking members of our staff are faced with paying for the mistakes of management. Mistakes that never should >> [applause] >> Mistakes that should have been caught. Mistakes that caused massive staffing cuts. I voted no last year

059for those staffing cuts, and I voted no for the 2025 budget because in my opinion, from where I sat, too little was being shared with the board about those budget inconsistencies, and I was being made to feel as though I was a nuisance to the budget office for asking too many questions. Quite frankly, I didn't ask enough. Mind you, salary lines are still running at a deficit in the 20 in the 20 24 25 school year even as we were putting forward the budget for the 2025-26 school year. And treasurer's reports will be presented to the board later and later. Why? To hide the truth perhaps? As I sit here today at the end of my third term and finishing up my ninth year as a board volunteer I can tell you these last two

060years have been the most challenging unlike the seven years prior as I enjoyed multiple collaborations with some very fine board members and staff members alike. I became a frequent flyer as I said before at all the school events. I work with board members who were truly there exercising their commitment to social responsibility. But for me these last two years have changed in such a way that I can't continue as a board member anymore. In May of 2025 the day after we adopted the budget and just as we made significant staff reductions involving layoffs and excesses I couldn't convince my co-board members to give some time before we considered a contract extension for the superintendent. First [snorts] I suggested >> [applause] [applause] >> I suggested we give the three new board members that were about to

061join us in July a chance to evaluate the superintendent for the for the board as a whole and evaluate the budget that would pan out throughout the year. The two board there were two board members leaving and they would have no further interaction with him and should not have any involvement with the continuation of his employment. Nevertheless with 11 minutes prior to the beginning of a of the public portion of the remainder of that meeting after coming out of executive session, the contract extension was placed on the agenda for a vote and I was the only one who voted no. The very next meeting, the superintendent proposed massive raises for certain cabinet members and administrative staff. >> [applause] >> And those and those who were being let go, those who were not even separated from

062employment yet, stood in shock. The timing and the insensitivity couldn't have been worse. >> [applause] >> And I was the only one who voted no. Regrettably, this board wasn't told until Labor Day weekend 2025 that the district overspent the 2024 budget by millions of dollars and the exact amount was still being calculated. So, those management raises that were awarded were done so before the 2025 budget was closed out and while those salary lines were still operating at a huge deficit. Budget transfers weren't made because there was no money to fund them. And yet, I couldn't get a single board member to agree with me to simply pause to see to wait and see just how that budget year would unfold for 25-26. But now we know and it's only getting worse from here. And yet,

063we still haven't seen the final treasurer's report at that time. We still hadn't seen the final treasurer's report from June 20 2025. We would have known that we were out of money and we were overspent. So, after nine years, like I had said, I won't be running for re-election for the board because I hope you can imagine just how tough it has been because the signs were there, but they weren't listened to. Going forward, I think you can do I think we can do more. I can do more for the community from the outside, helping others who would like to run for the board themselves. In spite of the new board members who have joined the board this year and are doing a wonderful job, it's time for me to step aside, but I will

064help those who want to run for a spot on the board. I will help them if they want mentoring. I won't be stepping away. I will be there because I love this community that I call home, and we must hold this district accountable to get it right, and I will be right there with you until we do. >> [applause] [applause] >> As I look out here tonight, I don't see anybody who doesn't look stressed. And I'm looking around at the table where I'm sitting as well. It's similar to the faces that I saw when I went to the week at breakfast at the superintendent reference, listening to representatives from other school districts who are have have similar but different very challenging financial situations. Ours is unique to us, and over the last 7 years that

065I've been on the board, I've seen a lot of things that needed to be improved, and my focus has always been on promoting best practices wherever they are and whatever office it is. And it was quite a shock to find out right around Labor Day that the best practices that we had understood from the business office had not had not produced a budget with proper projections and without taking into account uh certain ways that the payment of salaries had been made and the use of COVID funds. This is very clear from our external audit report that um has been posted in the website. And I'm very grateful to our interim assistant superintendent who has come in not only to oversee a business office but to create a business office that observes best practices. And on

066top of that he's tasked with the responsibility of creating a plan for how to get out of the financial challenge where challenges that we're experiencing right now. So this is more um more than I think we had anticipated when he agreed to come on as our consultant to do that. Um and the result is that we're seeing starkly some very difficult decisions that have to be made. Um for my part having been a board member, I participated in that cautious approach that we took to reduction of staff. We knew because of the reduced um number of students that we had more employees than we were going to need. And as we looked into future years, we knew that there would need to be trimming. But the approach was to take care of that through attrition

067or retirement. Or um in some cases, people whose lives life changes took them to move out of state. Unfortunately, last year we were faced with the hard decision of trimming staff. And now we've been we're faced again with the one this year. And this [snorts] one is a a little bit different in that last year uh we we weren't on the list of potential people being excess. They were people who did not have tenure. This year we have tenured employees on that list. It's horrifying to me to look at the names and to see the people that I have come to admire and appreciate over the years I've been here. Been here. On the board. This is not an easy situation for anybody to be in. And as I look around, I want you you

068to know that for me, I know the personal stress that this is causing and the personal pain. I also know that for the decision makers, >> [clears throat] >> including everybody at the table, there's also a lot of personal angst as well. My hope is that we can focus again on best practices. We can hear from our business official and our superintendent about recommendations, particularly with regard to non-mandated expenses. The reason I use those words is because the challenges that we have financially. Um >> [snorts] >> I do not want to see in the future a situation where we are on a contingency budget. And I look to the leadership to give us advice about how to how to get through this very difficult process over the next several years and to get this straightened

069out so once and for all we can be celebrating these wonderful students that we have. It was It was really heartwarming to see particularly the Black History Month celebrations at both the middle school and the high school, largely student-driven and significantly supported by our staff. Um Those are the things that I look at I look at 3,800 students. Those are 3,800 reasons that we all have to be here. And we've got to get this right so that they They're our future and they deserve the best that we can provide to them. Um That's not much of a report. It's more saying I recognize that had best practices in in place all along, maybe we wouldn't be sitting here the way we are tonight. Um but some of the things, particularly the way the budgeting was

070presented, there wasn't a way for us and board members to pick it apart and to know that it was not evaluated the way it needed to have been. It sets forth in our external auditor's report that supports what I just said there. The law No. Um >> [cough and clears throat] >> I know everybody's got a lot of comments. Um we're going to try to take as many of them as we can within the time allotted. And then The next I've got I have more cards with the agenda items that um and transportation and budget. And we have time for in the usual 30 minutes. And the 30 minutes um, assumes a 3-minute time for person. If everybody would reduce to 2 minutes, Motion to extend the 30 minutes. >> [applause] [applause] >> Madam Chair,

071motion to extend Motion to You're going to listen to us. Madam Chair, motion to extend the the time trans- Motion to extend the 30 minutes. >> [applause] >> We need a second. >> [applause] >> And that takes care of my um, abilities. I'm sorry, I know we did. I'm making a comment. We had a first and a second, and now my comment. That takes care of trying to allocate time among everybody. I'm sorry. Right, first and second. So, we have that. We have it. I know that Okay. Please sit down. Madam Chair, is there a second? All right. We have 27 minutes left. >> Um well, it's unanimous with everybody present and um not voting is um sorry, no vote this year. All right. So, just so you know, I've divided up the cards. Some

072were our second session. So, if your name's not called on the first, it's because your category comes in the second session. First, Pat Brady and Carrie Carson. >> [cheering] [applause] >> Hi. Good evening. My name is Carrie Carson. I'm the president of the South Country Administrators Association. This is Pat Brady, who's the president of the Bellport Teachers Association. We are speaking this evening on behalf of the South South Country Administrators Administration and on behalf of the Bellport Teachers Association to express our deep concern and disappointment, along with our increasing loss of confidence in the district's current operations and its direction moving forward. The continually changing information we receive has only intensified the feeling of uncertainty across our schools. At this point, we see no clear end in sight and we cannot accurately predict the full

073impact this situation will have on both our students' educational experiences and the professional stability of our members. Our educators and administrators made a conscious decision to work in this district. Many left positions elsewhere, some with tenure, because they believed South Country offered sustainable and meaningful careers. To now see colleagues excess and in some cases even mid-year has been deeply unsettling for our members and damaging to the overall morale. Most importantly, we are concerned about the impact on students. The program, supports, and initiatives that have been built over many years to support students academically and socially cannot simply be removed without consequence. While we understand that the that the district has outlined a three-year financial recovery plan to stabilize expenditures and revenue, we must ask, "What is the plan to rebuild what will inevitably be lost?"

074What's the strategy to restore programs, to replenish staff, and rebuild the educational opportunities our students deserve? Our schools function through collaboration. Teachers, administrators, and support staff rely on one another to implement initiatives, support students, and maintain effective educational practices. Under the current level of uncertainty, it's increasingly difficult to plan, lead, and deliver the level of education our community expects and our students deserve. The BTA and SCAA stand together, ready to be part of the solution. We welcome meaningful collaboration to work towards stability and providing a clear and transparent path forward for our members, our students, and the South Country community. Thank you. Woo! >> [applause] [applause] >> Next is Matthew Kennickson. >> [applause] >> Good evening. My name is Matthew Kennickson. I am a teacher here for the past 30 years, a community member for

07520 of those 30 years. Two of my children went through the entire school district. I had a speech prepared tonight to read, but after hearing tonight's presentation, I'm going to go off off speech. Steve Jobs said, "Hire good people, set clear expectations, let them do their job, and hold them accountable when they don't." You, Mr. Santana, have failed us. >> [applause] >> Your central office has failed us. >> [applause] >> I am not about blame, but there has been no accountability. >> [applause] >> I have watched for 30 years as teachers have continually held accountable. I do not understand how we got here. I have heard it's incompetency, not fraud, not theft. I hear tonight maybe the right the right questions weren't asked. That falls on this board of ed. That is your job to

076ask the right questions. >> [applause] >> If you don't, that you can ask and seek out people to help you. Everyone in life needs coaches. Then get a coach. You sat here, made decisions that affect real people. I watched this slideshow tonight where almost every picture, every accolade was because of the teacher. >> [applause] >> And yet in two years, you are cutting approximately 70 plus teachers. There is no recovering from that. This is a very unique district with very unique challenges. It takes a lot to come to work in South Country. A lot. This is not a country club school district. I grew up in a country club school district. I went to Syosset. I didn't succeed because of the teachers. I succeeded because of my parents. And everyone in Syosset succeeded because of

077their parents. Here, kids succeed because of their teachers. >> [applause] >> For 30 [applause] years, >> [cheering] >> this district has asked teachers to give, pay freezes, steps, lend us paychecks so that we can get out of the hole we're in and we'll pay you back. Board members sitting here on this board would say, "We'll never forget that." And yet it's been forgotten. You are about to enter another contract negotiation. I've sat on five of them. Every year, you ask the teachers I'm almost done, I promise. Every year, you ask the teachers to give and to take very little. I am curious the central office raises. Where are we the kids? When is the money coming back? >> [applause] >> Yeah! >> [applause] [applause] >> Kaila Mulia Good evening members of the Board of Education.

078My name is Kaila Mulia and I have been spent currently living in Brookhaven Hamlet for the past 10 years. My husband is also a lifelong resident of the Hamlet with deep ties to this community. I have one child who has already gone through the district, one who is currently enrolled, and one who will be starting kindergarten next year. I'm also a school social worker who has personally experienced the impact of district budget cuts having been excessed myself. Because of that experience, I understand firsthand the ramifications that these decisions can have on an individual, their family, and an entire school community. I'm speaking tonight as a member of this community who believes deeply in the district's mission to empower every student with the knowledge, skills, and opportunities that they need to succeed. Your vision speaks about

079excellence, belonging, and equitable opportunities for all students. These words matter and especially now as our district faces a $12 million budget deficit. Moments like this test not only our financial management but our commitment to the values you publicly affirm. If students are truly our priority, then the way we approach difficult financial decisions must reflect fairness, transparency, and equity for all students across the district. I am urging the board to ensure that budget decisions are guided by the same principles outlined in your mission. High-quality education, equitable allocation of resources, and support for the academic and social emotional needs of every child. Financial responsibility is essential, but it must be balanced with protecting programs, opportunities, and the supports that allow students to grow, feel included, and reach their full potential. As you evaluate potential reductions, I respectfully

080urge the board to ensure that any necessary cuts are equitable throughout the district. No bargaining unit, program, or group of students should shoulder a disproportionate share of the impact. Equity must be remaining at the center of those decisions so that all students, regardless of where they attend school or what services they rely on, continue to have access to meaningful educational opportunities. At the same time, our planning cannot be reactive or short-sighted. The decisions made now must be thoughtful, strategic, and carefully considered so that our district can reestablish itself as the strong, vibrant, and diverse community that it has the potential to be. The diversity within our district is one of our greatest strengths. It brings together students from different backgrounds, cultures, and perspectives, creating a learning environment that prepares them for the realities of an

081increasingly complex and interconnected world. When students learn alongside peers with different experiences and viewpoints, they develop empathy, critical thinking, and the ability to collaborate, skills that are essential to addressing real-world challenges. Our community understands that difficult choices are necessary, but we're asking that these choices be made carefully, transparently, and with long-term educational success of all students at the center of every decision. Once again, I am respectfully urging the board to approach this deficit with thoughtful planning, equitable financial management, and meaningful community engagement so that the solutions that we pursue strengthen, not undermine, the vision of this district. Thank you. >> [applause] [applause] >> Good evening. Most of you know me, but for those who do not, my name is Sal La Cola, and I've been a world language teacher in this district for the last

08212 years. I love my work. I love this community. Over the years, I've had the privilege of working with many of you both on this board and in the superintendent's cabinet in various roles, committees, and district projects. But I'm not speaking as a representative of the BTA tonight. I'm speaking as a tax-paying community member. My wife grew up here. She attended the schools. She was a cheerleader for Bellport. Talk about Clipper pride. She loved it so much, she had to buy a house in the community. So, she bought a house here. But all is not well in the La Cola household. We've recently had to engage in a very difficult conversation about whether or not our child would attend this district. And whether or not South Country can give them the educational outcomes that we

083expect as parents. Let me say, I believe in public education. I believe in the diligence and passion of my colleagues and the teachers and staff who come in here every single day and give it their best when giving it your best is not easy. I believe that this district could be the place where I want my child to go. But right now, I say no. Right now, I'm telling my wife to cancel Amazon because we're moving. Great class growing class sizes, reductions in programs, and fewer enrichment opportunities is not what I want for my kid. It shouldn't be what you want for yours. Our kids deserve more. The financial challenges that we face did not happen overnight. They're the results of decisions made without financial stewardship and oversight. This was a multi-tier failure, and there

084is plenty of blame to go around, but the people who are going to suffer for it are the faculty, teachers, and students. Mr. Santana, I've known you for 15 years. In that time, I've known you to be a good man. I've known you to be a conscientious man. I've known you to care deeply about what is right for our students. Tonight, I appeal to those qualities. I implore you that central office lead by example. Show this community that you have a willingness to put some skin in the game and to make sacrifices at the central office level. >> [applause] [cheering] [applause] >> As you have not seen tonight in this presentation, any cuts or belt tightening at the central office level. >> [applause] >> In my remaining time, I'll just charge the board of ed

085as a taxpayer, it is your job. There's an old Latin quote, "Who watches the watchers?" It is your responsibility. We asked you, we appointed you, we elected you, and we will not forget it. And since we cut French, vive la resistance. >> [applause] [applause] >> Elena Romero >> [applause] >> Good evening, Mr. Santana and members of the Board of Education. My name is Elena Romero. I've been a teacher at the high school for almost 19 years and an educator for 26. As I prepare to retire this year, I feel a responsibility to speak honestly about the district or the direction our district is taking. The proposed layoffs, increasing class sizes, eliminating electives, and continued reduction of all types of resources are not simply budget choices. They have real consequences for students. When teachers are excessed,

086students receive less individual attention, less feedback, less support. Teachers can't provide the level of instruction and care students deserve when classrooms become overcrowded and staff are stretched beyond reasonable limits. And the loss of teachers is not just happening through layoffs. Many educators are choosing to leave because of the the conditions have become increasingly difficult with larger classes, heavier workloads, and fewer supports. This silent loss of experienced teachers weakens the stability of our schools. Too often, the students who suffer most are those who already need additional support, struggling learners, students with disabilities, English English language learners, and students who are at risk of falling behind. As a student who or I'm sorry, as a teacher who works directly with students who are already struggling to meet graduation requirements, I see every day how critical individualized attention,

087manageable class sizes, and consistent relationships with teachers are to student success. When those supports disappear, the consequences are predictable. Students disengage, learning gaps widen, the path to graduation becomes more difficult. The focus shifts from truly educating students to simply moving them through the system, negatively impacting the opportunities available for them for years. Public education is one of the most important investments a community can make. Strong schools require adequate staffing, manageable class sizes, and the resources teachers need to support every student. You think of it this way. Our school district functions as a three-legged table. Students sit at the top, supported by educators, administrators, and the community. When one of those legs is weakened, the entire structure becomes unstable. And the students we serve are the ones who ultimately pay the price. You often hear the

088phrase Clipper pride. Pride in our schools should be reflected not in slogans, photo ops, and weekly messages, but in the decisions we make for [applause] our >> [applause] >> consider long-term consequences of these decisions and to pursue solutions that protect the quality of our education of our students that our students deserve. And remember that behind every budget decision is a classroom full of students. Thank you. >> [applause] >> I'm going to call three names at a time. If you could come up closer so that we can get to everybody. Start Glenn McEvoy, Michael Felisberto, and Trey Singleton. >> [applause] [applause] >> Good evening. My My is Glenn McEvoy. I have lived here my entire life. I have taught in this district for over 22 years as a perm sub and a social studies teacher. I

089am here because I'm deeply concerned about the decision to access a large number of my colleagues in the South Country School District. Teachers and support staff are the backbone of our schools. They're the people who show up every day for our students, not just to teach lessons, but to build relationships, provide stability, and create the kind of environment where kids can succeed. When you remove that many educators from a district, impact is not just on charts or budgets. The real impact is on students sitting in those classrooms. Accessing teachers means larger class sizes. It means fewer supports for struggling learners. It means fewer opportunities for students to receive individual attention from the adults who know them the best. And for many students, especially those who rely on school as a place of consistency and support,

090losing trusted teachers can be incredibly disruptive. Support staff are just as critical. They're the people who keep schools running safely and effectively, helping students navigate challenges, supporting teachers, and making sure every child has what they need to learn. When these positions disappear, the strain on the entire system increases. Our schools are only as strong as the people inside them. If we weaken the foundation, the students will feel it first and the community will feel it next. I urge the board to look at these long-term consequences of these decisions and to remember that behind every position being accessed, are hundreds of students' education whose well-being depend on the adults in their classrooms and the hallways. >> [applause] >> Good afternoon. My name is Barry Goldfeder and I'm a proud graduate of Bellport Senior High School, class

091of 2004, and a father of three current and one future North Colonie student. After graduating '04 and being influenced by many incredible educators, some who are here today, I decided to pursue my own dream of becoming an educator myself. For the past 18 years, I've had the privilege of teaching fifth grade students who are in one of 100 amazing students each year. Throughout my career, I've been honored three times as teacher of the month, and in 2024, I was awarded teacher of the year in a district of over 2,200 students and employees. I currently serve as our lead math teacher for 15 teachers in both curriculum development and special education. I don't share these accolades to boast, but to help you understand how deeply education means to me, my family, and that I will always

092fight for the best for our students. I understand firsthand the impact that teacher layoffs can have. I've seen how pink slips create a ripple effect that can last for years across the school district, affecting staff stability, student learning, and overall morale. Great teachers that can create decades of impactful and meaningful relationships will be let go to find employment in other districts. In times like these, it is important that we come together as a community to find solutions that meet the needs of the majority of our staff, students, and family, not just a select few. These decisions are not easy, but they are essential for future success in our district. Right now, our district test scores rank near the bottom of Albany County. For example, in 2024, 201 fourth grade students took the New York State

093ELA assessment. Of those students, 49% scored a level one, while only 2% achieved a level four. Sorry, achieved a level four, which is considered proficient. It's important to note that these results occurred when class sizes were significantly small. Last year, we experienced numerous staffing cuts, which caused class sizes to increase. My own child went from a 17-student class to a 24-student class this year. If these cuts continue, it's reasonable to assume that the numbers will only continue to rise. To address high levels of academic needs within our district, we rely on reading specialists, math specialists, and teaching assistants to provide small group instruction and targeted intervention strategies. These supports allow us to meet students where they are and help close those learning gaps. Unfortunately, staff and budget increases, these critical support roles have become more

094limited. As a result, the workload is increasingly being placed on the classroom teachers who are already working with larger classes and greater student needs. When this becomes the norm, our struggling district finds itself facing an even steeper uphill battle. Currently, our elementary schools are using antiquated reading and math programs that do not align with New York State learning standards. Teachers are now not only being asked to close the learning gap with larger class sizes, but they are also being given resources that lack rigor, appropriate interventions, and often do not meet the New York State learning standards. Even with all these challenges, my children come every single day raving about how amazing their teachers are. This is a testament to the commitment and the professionalism that so many teachers in our district have. You show up

095every single day, continue to give our babies a safe and nurturing environment, and it doesn't go unnoticed. I am asking those responsible for making these difficult decisions to please think about the students who walk through our hallways every day. They are bright, capable, and filled with untapped potential. They should not have to carry the weight of the decisions made by adults who are entrusted to represent their best interests. Please think about them when making these financial decisions. >> [applause] >> Briana Singleton Here. Thank you. Uh the next three, Briana Torres Kelly Salmon Selvosa and Kelly Alt. Good evening. My name is Briana Torres. I'm an English teacher in the district for over 10 years. I've even had the pleasure of having many of your children and family. I was also honored as the teacher of

096excellence in June. How ironic to now be up here uh for access. I'm speaking on behalf of passionate, dedicated, and above-average educators who are the daily change makers in the lives of so many in our community as they are the people that our students rely on for support, consistency, and education. The English department, already diminished by prior cuts, is a core subject with state and the Regents exams. And by next year, we will have lost six educators including myself. We are facing the ramifications of Central's budgetary mismanagement. If these cuts are approved, I'd like to emphasize how our students will suffer as no one should be able to hide behind the guise of students will not be impacted. >> [applause] >> Students will overflow classrooms. I currently have a class of 28. Students will lose

097electives and not just due to low enrollment. Students who say, "You are the reason I come to school every day." will no longer see that special teacher. Students will lose yet another adult from their already small corner. >> [applause] >> Students will show up to school regardless. We know that, but will it be a place that they want to be? Will it be a place that they deserve to be? And will they have a reason to have Clipper pride? Students are the Even as a new mother and a tiny baby to take care of, I'm still worried about my students before my own. Because they mean something to me and to us, the teachers. We know and are honest about the reality of fewer teachers. We are the front lines. We make the adjustments >>

098[applause] >> We We are daily news. There are many other districts we can work for, sure. I know that I'm worthy. We've already lost phenomenal teachers to other districts, but we are more than just a number on your list. Our heart is here. Our students are here. Our history is here, and we, the BTI, wear bell for it. Thank you. >> [applause] [applause] >> Good evening. I teach at Pine Hollow. The purpose purpose of a school district is simple, student success. When our students are ranking among the lowest performing in Suffolk County, we have to ask a question, what is wrong? Who is accountable, Mr. Santana? That is not personal attack, it is a fact. And when the outcome looks like this, the question we must ask is simple, who is going to be held

099accountable? Because what we are seeing right now is not accountability. Instead, we are seeing the same group of professional classroom teachers being asked to absorb hit after hit after hit. We are already being asked every day to do more with less. Yet, when difficult financial decisions arise, the burden continues to fall on the same bargaining unit time and time again. The BTA should not be the district's default solution year after year. We understand >> [applause] >> But, if reductions happen, they should be shared fairly. Fairness cannot mean that one group absorbs the majority of the impact. Right now, transparency around these decisions is opaque. Our community deserves clarity about how these decisions are being made and why. This leads to something that should be said out loud. Being entrusted with stewardship of the public's trust

100is of great importance. Right now, our trust has been eroded. Our own mission statement says that this is a high-performing school community grounded in core values like honesty, perseverance, and compassion. Those values must not be listed on a website, but demonstrated in action. Our strategic plan promises equity, fairness, inclusion, and access for all students. Cutting teachers, counselors, social workers, and others moves us further and further away from your promise, our promise. Our priorities include academic excellence, student experience, operations. If we truly want our students to succeed, we cannot continue to weaken the very people that are responsible to educate them. This community is not asking for perfection. They are asking for fairness, transparency, and accountability. Accountability cannot mean that the people closest to these students are always the first to be cut. You cannot ask

101teachers to produce excellence for students while you simultaneously dismantle the very system that supports them. You cannot claim academic excellence as a priority while weakening the people that are responsible for delivering education. Leadership means protecting what matters most in a school district. That is your students, our children, and the educators that serve them. Our students, our teachers, our community deserve more, not less. >> [applause and cheering] [applause] >> Older Mets fans might remember the story that great Ralph Kiner would tell while the Mets game was going slow. Having to negotiate his own contract, one year the owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates said, "Ralph, we're going to pay you the same amount of money we paid last year." Ralph Kiner said, "No disrespect to us, but I hit the most home runs in Major League Baseball

102last year." So, then the owner of the Pirates said, "Ralph, we came in last place last year, and we could come in last place again with or without you." We are now the Pittsburgh Pirates, and because we're in last place, we're going to say goodbye to some of our educators, some of the greatest human beings I've ever met in my life. >> [applause] >> A year ago, we made speeches begging the district to make the cuts like a family. Those requests were not answered, and we had teachers and staff members excessed. But, what The much more was finding out a month later that some of our administrators received big raises >> [applause] >> And now it's a year later and our position seems a thousand times worse. So we look at our teachers and we

103see that they've had to choke down a 1% salary increase probably in 15 out of the last 16 years. We look at our teaching assistants and aides. We're making a 75 cents an hour raise this year. Next year it's being cut to 50 cents an hour raise and that's with no medical benefits. So nobody goes into public education to get rich. But then we look at our central office and our administration. We have 12 administrators who last year made over 175,000 a year. >> [clears throat] >> Half of them made over 200,000 a year. So how do we look in the mirror and then tell our high school students there might not be woodshop class next year. I know you guys liked it but it's not state mandated. And even worse, how do we tell

104every elementary school student that there's no more library class? >> [applause] >> And the next the next time [applause] you're going to be in a library is when you go to middle school because it's not state mandated. And that's a kick in the teeth to this whole community. Thank you. >> [cheering] [applause] >> Holly Filicetta Samantha Parenti Clifford Piranha You're a knight. Sorry, I don't think I was supposed to say that word. Uh my name is Holly Filicetta. I live in Brookhaven and I have two kids that go to the elementary school. And before I came here I had to explain to my daughter why I was coming here and why daddy was up there. I don't usually come. I'm here as a parent, not as a a partner. Um woman who works for the

105district. I had to explain to her though what a credit card was and how we got a credit limit of $12 million. She really didn't understand it. Um and then I talked to her about what might be cut, library was brought up and some of the other things and her heart dropped. She didn't understand it. I don't understand why we have to expose our our young kids to that either. Um in my professional life I'm the CEO of a company and I lead a team of people that scrutinize budgets and lead other team members. I also have a board and if I mismanage funds, I would be fired. >> [applause] >> Thank you for that. I'm not suggesting that that's necessarily what has to happen, but I think there's a lot of really challenging things

106that have been talked about and a lot of really important people that pour their hearts and souls into creating opportunities for our children every single day. What matters as a parent, not just a person who has a coworker that's going to be excess, it's who is leading us moving forward. And I think that the question that I have for the board more directly is are these the right people that are going to make the changes moving forward? Have they been evaluated, the people at district office, and are they the right ones to make these changes over the next couple of years? Um I didn't say that as eloquently as I wanted to, but I just wanted to be a different voice cuz I know that there's a lot of educators, great educators, saying really important

107messages, but I haven't heard too many parents yet, and I think that it's it's just a different voice to hear from some of the parents who are in support of the teachers and the students. >> [applause] [applause] >> I um I was here um a few months ago. So, I'm Smith, parent of a fourth grade teacher. I'm also community member. Um I chose to live in this district. So, there's a few reasons I feel like I'm up here. Um I don't really like this format, honestly. I would feel like I like open conversations. So, I just feel like sometimes I get lost in the sauce um personally, but I feel like with that being said, um these past past few months leading up to this, um we can all agree it has caused a lot

108of anxiety and stress. I could say I knew that this was going to be a big impact. I didn't have a clue that it was going to be this big. Um but the mismanagement of funds at this level is absolutely unacceptable. There should be checks and balances from my what I understand, and that would be the BOE and the central office. So, giving raises while teachers are being let go creates tension, and it that creates issues within administration and other departments and other bargaining units. I'm honestly confused how we are even in this predicament and how we um didn't learn within the last two weeks and how we just learned in the last two weeks there's another additional deficit of over one um over $1 million. Teachers are being excessed due to the lack of

109leadership and I believe there over 30 teachers I'm sorry there's at least we just lost tonight almost over 70 43 teachers and over 55 FTE being let go this year. So that's almost 80 teachers in the last 2 years possibly being excessed. We have teachers who have been here over 10 years. I know a friend of mine has 19 years who received an excess meeting today. This has a huge impact on our community, our students and our staff and the question is who's going to be left to teach our children. Of course we're going to have teachers but is it going to be in the I guess best learning environment that we can create. We chose to work here. I chose to work here because I am from here. I love it here. I had

110other opportunities. I can speak for myself. This is my second time around being excessed. The first time I was excessed from my position. Now this is my second time with this meeting and possibly being excessed again. Living in constant worry and in and the unknown to me is not fair and inhumane. We should not have to worry about losing our jobs every year due to financial issues. We have families. We have mortgages. We have life expenses to to plan for. It has become a toxic cycle. It's like a toxic relationship. It's creating resentful feelings that evidently is making morale low. That isn't fair to the students and to the staff. We all deserve to feel seen and heard and not feel like a number. Students will be directly impacted. So I'm confused on how we're

111seeing these numbers saying that they're not going to be. Of course they will be. We're going to I think last meeting we discussed maybe bus transportation and that was passed to this one and now we discussed even maybe changing we're going to do a rich in programs, music programs, maybe athletic programs can be touched intramurals. We're in the unknown of what can possibly impact our students living in the community. I have to ask myself, do I want my children to go here? Um so, obviously these are hard decisions and everywhere there's hard decisions, but you have to decide what's best for our community as a whole. Thank you. >> [applause] [applause] >> Hello. My name is Clifford Peraino. I teach social studies at Bellport Middle School. My history with this district goes back to 1995

112where my father started Sorry. Well, my dad started working here as the chief custodian right here at Bellport High School. I've always had a special place in my heart for this district. It helped put food on the table when I was a kid and it continues to put food on the table now that I have my own family. This is like second home to me. As you can tell, I don't feel anger, maybe a little bit, uh but I mostly feel sadness. I'm sad for my colleagues who are going to lose their jobs. I feel sad for the state of this district. When I was a kid, my dad would bring me here for the football games and for the music performances in this auditorium. He spoke highly of the teachers and administrators he respected,

113some of which are in this room right now and that I've had the pleasure to work with. >> [snorts] >> I went to school in Middle Country and while Middle Country provided me with a good education, I always had this idea in the back of my head that South Country would have been a great place for me to go to school. All these years later, I work here and I enjoy it. Teaching the students of South Country has given me a reason to wake up every day. In my position right now as a union rep, I get to help my colleagues when they need advice. I have a sense of purpose when I walk on the grounds of this district every day. However, I can't deny the Clipper pride we've all been encouraged to feel

114as a dent in it. That's not the right word. The pride has been nearly totaled and it's going to take a lot of work to repair. It's not just the pride that needs to be repaired, trust needs to be repaired, accountability needs to be repaired, the reputation of this district needs to be repaired. If you open Newsday or you turn on News 12 lately and you hear, see, or read the words South Country, it's mostly because we're in a fiscal crisis. People shouldn't think of that when they think about this district, but unfortunately, it's eclipsing any good we do here and it's choking the life out of our efforts to educate this district's children. It shouldn't be like this. You know it, I know it, everybody in this room knows it. I respectfully ask the

115members of the Board of Education for whatever time you have left in your terms and the administrators for whatever time you plan to continue serving in your positions, please do all you can to restore the pride that everyone in this room, whether they be employees of this district or parents and guardians of the students, should feel about South Country Central School District. Thank you. >> [applause] [applause] >> Matthew Kopp Uh Bailey Everett and Corina Colonna. >> [applause] >> Good evening. My name is Matt Kopp and I've been a teacher at Frank P. Long for 7 years now. I am also a tax-paying member of Bellport. We are experiencing a crisis of confidence in our districts. In my 7-year career, this is the third round of mass accessing I have witnessed, most as most of the

116time as a result of budgetary issues. Needless to say, not great. In my own building, I have experienced many hardworking, talented educators get hired by our district only to be accessed shortly afterwards. This is unfair on every level imaginable. It's unfair for employees whose livelihoods are being pulled out from under their feet. These are people with families who are suddenly unable to trust in the stability of their own careers. Some colleagues have worked for this district for over 10 years and are receiving letters of excess. It is unacceptable that this is how they are being rewarded for their years of hard work and commitment to the students of this district. The impact goes beyond my colleagues. Our students will directly feel the impact. They spend every school day within our buildings cultivating close personal relationships

117with teachers only to have them disappear the following year. Living in the district provides me with opportunities to run into many of my former students. When I do, they ask me how their former teachers are doing. And on more than one occasion, I've had to tell them that they no longer work here anymore. I've had to explain to them that some of them have chosen to work in other districts and others were forced to move as a result of poor budgeting. Every time, they're disappointed. And so am I. Whether we choose to acknowledge it or not, this is our district's reputation. We hire great teachers, make promises to them that we don't keep, and send them elsewhere. I had something else written here, but I'm just going to speak honestly. I want this district to

118do well, and I believe that everyone in this room wants the district to do well since we're all a part of the same community. And I'm no mathematician, but I know that if we reduce the number of people in this room, and we reduce the number of people in our community, our challenges would get harder, not easier. It's no different inside of school. No amount of flowery language is going to change that. Actions speak louder than words. We have to do better. Thank you. >> [applause] >> Good evening. I stand here before you um in terms of the transportation. Um I too am a public school educator, and listening to some of my teachers as I was a Guilderland graduate, and those that they are supporting supporting really does sadden me in what they have

119to go through. So, as a public educator, um I stand with them as well. But, I stand before you as a parent um encouraging the board to not adopt the transportation proposal. Eliminating the private school transportation does not redirect those resources into the classrooms, into jobs. Instead, it removes important programs that the district families rely on. These families have created unintended long-term financial consequences if the transportation were to not be there. Under the New York tax cap framework, 11 future increases are calculated as a percentage of the district's total budget. Reducing the budget by approximately $900,000 for this transportation permanently lowers the baseline upon which future increases are then calculated. Over half this cost is supported through the state aid, meaning the net fiscal benefit is significantly smaller than the headline reduction suggests, while the

120long-term impact on revenue flexibility remains. If the district leader determines these funds are needed, restoring them would likely require piercing that tax cap, a difficult process requiring a supermajority vote, and historically challenging to achieve. For these reasons, removing transportation does not advance long-term fiscal stability. Instead, it reduces flexibility and may ultimately limit the district's ability to expand programs or resources for public school students in future budgets. The board has a responsibility to consider policies that support all district families while preserving the district's financial strength over time. Maintaining private school transportation within the budget accomplishes both of those goals. There are many district residents who will not support this budget if the private school transportations are sent to referendum to cut minimums. This cut also does not help the district recover those long-term financial um financial

121does not help financially to cut the annual deficits, and it will not save programs inside of this very school district. The funding evaporates from the budget forever and cannot be reallocated to the school. This is nothing more than a headline and does not help balancing budgets long-term, nor does it help students and families currently here in South Country. To cut costs, look at more things you can do to streamline transportation for private schools and cut costs. Residents understand the pressure, and we understand here and perhaps centralized pickup could be a good compromise. Do not put this referendum on the ballot. Thank you. >> [applause] >> That's what it's for, rich people over teachers. I just want to get it straight. It's made from the audience to understand that you have made your request and so

122we can move on? A group of kids over teacher presentation. We have uh the last speaker in this group is Corrine O'Connor. All right. If your name was not called during the second group, um does the board want to make a our usual process to go ahead and take everybody now before our next >> [applause] >> We want to hear you. Speak up. Can you Well, hear the people yelling. Is there a motion to waive our usual process and take all the speakers now and not have a second opportunity? Yes, for trustee Boss. Seconded by trustee Golden. All right. Next person is Ray Joe Malone. Martin Palomo. YEAH. >> [applause] >> GOOD EVENING. MY NAME IS JOE MALONE. I'm a proud community member. I'm even luckier to be a member of the football family here.

123Um with all due respect to the comments the wise board members made, I don't think we need to move forward just yet. If one wants to look forward, I think we need to look back. Uh, the charts we saw today do not show the line items that were grossly underestimated. What exactly did the audit show? How many line items were underestimated? And how did this happen? Can we stop calling it a financial challenge and financial difficulties? Was it incompetence, negligence, or something much more nefarious? I believe we need to look back to see what happened. If this was fraud, is it possible to claw back payments and save some jobs? Is this the audit Oh, actually you guys actually said the audit is public on the website. So, let me just get that. While I

124understand the want to move forward, 10 years in the military taught me, uh, after every failed exercise, the best thing you can do is an after-action review to prevent mistakes from being made again. This is the concept we practice after major accidents. Whether it be a plane crash or a train wreck, and I assure you this is a train wreck. As a side note, I find it extremely unfortunate that these staff cuts and faculty cuts were made before the community could have their input heard. Why were these done before the community could speak on it so we can find out exactly what happened? It was done in silence and done in darkness, and nothing positive ever comes from that. Thank you. >> [applause] [applause and cheering] >> Good evening. Thank you so much for, uh,

125allowing me to speak. Um, I'm Martin Uh, maybe some of you know parents of a seventh grader at Guilford Middle School. I'm also a uh 20-year educator in the Guilford School District. And first off teachers I understand we were there in 2008-2009 we lost 100 teachers and I'll tell you it took us till now to get those back and it was crushing and so I get >> [snorts] >> I don't know where to begin. So I'm going to approach this from a parent. I too like others have said I'm questioning keeping my son in the district. Miss Miss Louise if you might kind of said many of the things that I wanted to say. I think that the district needs to understand we keep saying that there these financial challenges. These unforeseen costs. Yes those

126things are happening they're happening in our district as well. There's other things at play here from what I could research and gather it's it's difficult I'm also have another job so this has become my full time job now. Um The SR funds if you're not familiar with the COVID relief funds in fact I was paid partially with those for an external thing I was doing. So I'm very well aware of these they're funds that run out everyone knew that they would run out. I couldn't figure out what the district actually received. I a number between 12 and 17 million is kind of what I could pull from you know from online. And they were meant to overcome the challenges of COVID hiring additional staff. You know social emotional learning all these things that we needed.

127Um My school every year would move into the general fund to understand that these these budgets are really gone and to my understanding from what I can tell, it's hard to see, is that those funds were somehow moved to the general fund. I don't know. My question is is we we have a leadership team and Mr. This is really to you. How did you not know that these funds run out? Every teacher that I know knew that. We had to sign some paperwork. Maybe there's some people who knew that were signing their their paperwork, right? We knew they run out. How could you not know? So, it's either I'm worried it's either you don't know and your team didn't know or they knew and just said, "Well, whatever." I don't know which one is worse.

128But the the challenge here voters is we're now you know trying to right the ship and we do have somebody in place right now that that I know you know comes with very high regard. We're asking someone who kind of in charge of the Titanic to now is going to right the ship and we're now supposed to trust this team to get us back on track and it's not going to happen. I'm sorry. I I just don't I don't believe it. I [applause] just don't believe it. And probably I have seen that budget before it gets signed. It gets signed by assistant superintendent. Everyone up through the superintendent and the board. Nobody saw or questioned any of those things. And the last thing I'll leave on is if you're not aware, we've been dipping into

129our reserves. We've been paying our bills with our savings account for years. And if we had a savings account, we could have probably righted the ship or at least almost righted the ship. So, instead for the last how many years we've been dipping in which other districts know you don't do that. Saxton did that and they ran into a big problem as well. >> [applause] [applause] >> Guillermo Falcon Ronald Consuelo Edward Tellus that. Y'all speak from right here, okay? >> [applause] >> Okay, I started teaching in 1978, okay? I've lived here for 25 years. Go to junior high there. The district twice the size of this. Okay? And every year, prepare the kids for the 8th grade assessment test, wait for the news day's results, and I say, "All right, we got we we had

130some success. What happened?" And then all my colleagues would say, "How the hell they only got 30%? 28% scoring mastery." Okay, it's South Country cuz I think I live in the South Country. And the same thing year after year, and it's getting worse. Okay? And what what bothers me so much is I live right around the corner, and I consider myself like the luckiest man around. My sixth grader told me he lives right around the corner. And you know what I'm doing? I'm trying to talk to my son, and I never want one of them to witness this, okay? But I think he's got to get out of here. Okay? Because I don't think academically what's going on in South Country, and I'm not blaming the teachers. Okay? Tell you a little a little side

131note to this, okay? I said I taught I started teaching in '78. I taught with two sets of administrators. The same three administrators, okay, for 25 years. Even as we grew with 750 kids a grade, okay? The same three administrators. And you know what? Every teacher in that building would have gone to war with those three administrators. Okay? They retired, another set came in, taught with those for 12 years. And you know how a building works? A building works when the teachers want to work their ass off because they know >> [applause] [applause] >> Secondly, you need three minutes, right? That will support their teachers and the teachers will teach to the end of those kids. Okay? And that's that's not happening. Okay? In fact, we had an administrative right board where they didn't get

132tenure and guess what? SOUTH COUNTRY HIRED THEM. >> [applause] >> SO, and now they're bouncing FROM BUILDING TO BUILDING because South Country doesn't know what they're doing. AND THEY GOT TENURE. >> [applause] >> IF YOU DON'T HAVE A GOOD ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF THAT SCARES the sub teachers, okay? Your scores aren't going anywhere. Okay? Because your teachers slack and you got an administration building TEACHERS THAT DON'T SUPPORT their teachers. Okay? Your scores aren't going anywhere. So, you better really think about, okay, really think about there's more things that go into the stopping of these scores and other things. And really take into consideration who you hire, what you hire, what administrators you hire, what central office people you hire, and what people you give tenure to because once you give them tenure, then you suffer. >> [applause]

133[applause] >> My name was Arthur, right? Yeah, hi. My name is Kareem. I'm a parent, educator, and taxpayer. Um, you know, it's interesting in the board update today, there was no update about the budget advisory committee from this board. I volunteered in October to be part of this budget advisory committee, which is made up of multiple board members, uh Superintendent Santana, Mr. Belmonte, uh and I volunteered my time because I worked for the city of New York during the 2008 fiscal crisis and was part of my agency's all hands on deck uh plan to kind of deal with the financial crisis. We have met only three times despite requests to meet more frequently. Uh the second meeting started an hour and a half before we agreed to meet while I was at work. Uh we

134have never been provided a complete financial picture of the district. The only substantive discussion we had was at our third meeting on uh the 4th of December where Mr. Belmonte presented a plan to save $900,000 and when I brought up that this is state aidable and the actual savings could be significantly less, I was met with a dismissive hostility. We are told we have a three-year recovery plan, but as far as I'm concerned, there is no multi-year plan, only the concept of a plan. We have such little information on our budget that on February 18th, the two citizen members of the budget advisory committee wrote a letter to the Board of Education asking for a clear timeline regarding a multi-year financial plan. Uh you know, we noted that we need to understand the timeline and

135to allocate time for review to advise the board. You know, we asked for a community town hall because board meetings do not allow for meaningful dialogue. You know, questions are refused here. Uh and I know a group of parents sent a letter to Mr. Belmonte and uh other people asking for a meeting. We were told that that would happen in early March, which has come and gone. And I like to note that uh you know, Mr. Belmonte frequently brings up Mont- um uh Montclair, New Jersey school financial woes as a comparison and these are not comparable school districts, but I would like to note that you know, Montclair has had three public meetings online and in person by mid-February to discuss their their board their budget issues. Interactive town hall style meetings. You know, last

136year you know, our vote for a budget adoption is in 6 weeks. All right. We have never received I've never received meaningful responses from the letter we wrote. We received the response but it didn't answer any questions. I have had multiple requests for more information. None of them were replied to and the response was you know, we're just not meeting anymore. We had a meeting scheduled Thursday after the storms and we were told that it was cancelled because of the snow, but you know, the rest of the world wasn't cancelled. School wasn't cancelled. I had to go to work for 3 days before that. And I asked, why is it being cancelled because of the snow? I'm not even dignified with a response. You know, I I want to say that we were told in

137April that every budget line was being combed through. Every contract, every consultant before we looked at staffing cuts. We were told by Mr. Santana that he hired consultants to review transportation costs. I foiled the contract that was cited by Mr. Santana last April and I was given a contract proposal for this year, not last year. So, the question is, you know, were you being untruthful last year, Mr. Santana? Did you have consultant contract that was contracting to review transportation? You know, I think that there's a concern that a lot of these community you know, there's there's a lot of lip service that these concerns are being treated with respect, that we have transparency. We have an FAQ online. Questions I asked months ago are not answered on the FAQ. You know, again, I have to

138foil to get basic information and then you know, we come here and uh told you know, we're working with the controller's office as if you invited the controller's office into the district. It was me who invited parents and >> [cheering] >> community members, [applause] 175 of them, who petitioned the controller to audit and we are still petitioning. I'm encouraging everyone to go to tinyurl.com/auditorschool. Thank you. >> [applause] >> We finished with all the speakers tonight. I think that we're up to Who is next? Mr. Demasi? Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for the opportunity. Uh I don't think there's anything that I could say tonight that fell through some of the comments that I could heard. As you know, I've been in this business for over 35 years. First and foremost, I want to

139thank everyone for coming out. Your comments were very important for me to hear, okay? And especially when we navigate the issues that we have here in South Country School District. The best I can do to meet this evening is probably share with you the process, the budget process, where we are, and where we are headed, and what the blueprint is for going forward. Um first and foremost, I'd like to just talk about the the budget process itself. And this budget process that we embarked on this year is a little different than what the district has seen in the past. Um in the past, you may have seen snippets of different pieces of the budget throughout the process. We took a little bit of a different approach here. Um we took an approach where we wanted

140to put together a total budget, a budget that is evolving, and one that is continually updated, so at any point in time when we look at this budget, the budget is live as as to where we are fiscally and the strides that we made in getting to the um the finish line, if you will, of having the board approve a budget in April. So, the annual operating budget is not a static exercise. It's a dynamic evolving process that continues throughout the fiscal planning. And some of the things that are noteworthy is that through the process, what happens and what we have implemented in the business office. There is a ongoing continuous review of expenditure trends and operational needs across all departments. And that is quite a voluminous task. Not only are we reviewing that internally,

141we have seven members from the controller's office that's working with me on a daily basis. Okay? So, there's a lot of there's a lot of backup, there's a lot of back and forth, there's a lot of evaluation and assessment as to what has happened and what is going to happen. Uh we monitor changes in state aid. We have already identified things that we've started to bring some additional state aid into the school district. Uh more importantly, we spend a significant amount of time evaluating opportunities for cost reductions and operational efficiencies to ensure the program's stability. And what do I mean by that? Sometimes when you're in a situation like this, you have to look at the resources. You really have to take a hard look as to those things that may be working and those

142things that are not working. And look at this as an opportunity, maybe we could redeploy existing resources to make things better. That happens um very, very often within a school district, especially when someone is taking a fresh look at things. And one of the things that um that I pride myself on since I've been here is the implementation of processes and controls. We know how we got here. It was clearly stated within the audit report. The question is, what are we doing to fix it? So, the internal controls that they have been lacking are now being put in place. And they're put in place so that these controls are monitored on a daily basis, on a weekly basis, on a monthly basis. Okay? It is not status quo. It is not what has been happening

143in South Country before. It is happening now. We are making changes. We are looking at processes. We are looking at things that who's making decisions. Does the people that are making the decisions have the right information? Are the people that making those decisions, do they have control of those budgets? Or are they making decisions blindly? So, we are looking at all of those things. And hopefully at the end of the day, we're going to we're going to try to put together a proposed budget, as difficult as this is, that is fiscally responsible, educationally sound, and sustainable. Because our goal, everyone knows how deep this problem is. We have all heard the numbers. The question is, how can we fix it over a period of time? And what is that time? It can't be fixed overnight.

144You can't fix a $12 million estate overnight. Your programs will never ever look like they are. So, when we embark on this process, we do it with every decision. And I said this when the board first hired me, after doing this for many, many years, many school several school districts, anytime I ever had to make a decision to cut a budget, I always ask the question. I think my colleagues can attest to this. How does this impact the kids? How does this impact the program? Because that matters. So, some of the things that we did to embrace some of the reductions that we had to make, we're trying we're looking around the fringes. We're trying to keep the core instructional integrity in place. We're trying to look at some of the non-mandated items. Some of

145the things that I call low-hanging fruit, um that you can you can reduce without having direct impact to the students. So, one of my goals, and after seeing what the issues were, and basically going through um the current budget and the budget process, is try to bring credibility back to the budget process. Okay? I think everyone has spoken very loudly. I've heard it. Okay? There's concern about credibility of the budget process. I know that without a fiscally sound budget, you do not have instructional programs. That budget has to be the foundation of your instructional program. That is what supports it going forward. I recognize that, and that's what I bring to the table with the South Country Board of Ed and with our administrative team. Um They probably never met anyone like me before, and

146I think they they would probably agree on that. So, some of the things that we did. I I talked about uh enhancing processes and the controls. We have many, many controls that we put in the business office for monitoring finances, for managing the budget. It's no longer acceptable that um that a board that a report would go out to the Board of Education with a negative balance on it. Transfers are done at the time purchase orders are put in place. Okay? And it's not acceptable to run negative balances. It's not acceptable to say we will cover that at the end of the year. That is poor fiscal management. That has ended, and there are new processes in place. We looked very closely. We made some painful decisions on budgetary reductions, and um that has helped

147us a little bit. Uh we identified some revenues where there were some additional reports that needed to be filed, so we've generated additional transportation Um we're constantly looking at ways to reduce our costs, and one of the things that that we have done is all of our strategic partners, all of our contractors, if you will, people that we work with in the business office, from bond counsel, the fiscal advisor, um I personally have reached out to them, and they have uh either lowered their prices, put off their invoices to the following year, or agreed to hold the line for the for the current year. And last but not least is a three-year fiscal recovery plan. I know some people are very anxious about the plan. Everybody would like to have an answer today as to

148exactly what it is. The only analogy that I can put together is what we are doing here, is that the bus is moving at 60 miles an hour, and we are trying to change the tire. Okay? It doesn't stop for us to fix it. It's a process. We got a handle on 24-25 in a very short time. We know what that particular deficit was. And now going 25-26, we got a very good handle on where we are this year. The deficit concerns we had in 24-25 is rolled into 25-26. We will finish the 25-26 year with a deficit. However, one of the things that we will be talking about, is special act legislation. And what that special act legislation does, it allows us to borrow and finance that deficit over a period of time as

149to not to immediately devastate the instructional program. It gives us a runway. It gives us the room we need to make the financial corrections with the minimal impact to the instructional program. Okay. So, one of the roadblocks that I ran into in taking on this uh project was that despite the efforts that the district is making in trying to cut back, resolve the deficit the reductions that we make, the increases in some of our contractual costs, our mandated contractual costs, are far exceeding what our reductions are. So, we have a cost pressure that's upward on the district's budget at the same time as we're trying to reduce spending. And you'll see that in the next couple of slides. So, as I mentioned in the beginning, this is not a static process. This is a different

150process than the district has seen before. But, what this does is it gives us a snapshot as of today where we are in the budget process and what the numbers are. So, this is just a different way to look at the entire spending plan, if you will. And when you look at salary and fringe benefits, the reason why we have that on top because it makes up about 70% of the overall budget. We're a school district. We're service oriented. We're service organization. And we don't make widgets. We teach kids. We're people. So, salary and fringe benefits, number one cost. You can see what's happening. Even though we had made cuts in the salary line above where we have almost $2 million reduction in salary costs you see our benefit costs are up over 1.7 million.

151And we'll see a breakdown of that after that will make that somewhat more clearer. Debt service. Debt service is up 1.9 million. It's not because of special act legislation, it's because we have new debt service that came on for the EPC project. The energy performance capital project that the district took on. So, this is now going to be a cost that's within our budget. And also in 2026-2027, we do have a provision to pay some debt service on borrowing for our special act legislation. Contractual expense expenses, >> [clears throat] >> those are not your When you think contractual, your labor contracts, these are contractual expenses that we call in the district our 24 object codes, things like legal fees and contracts and uh bond counsel and things of that nature. But, those are our contractual

152costs. BOCES, uh the district subscribes to a substantial amount of BOCES services. Over um 14.5 million is the projection in 2026-2027. One of the recommendations and one of the things that we are doing as a district, we're looking at many of those BOCES programs to see what we may be able to scale back, what we may be able to bring back in house. And those are the things that um yield efficiencies and save the district's costs going forward. Uh supply costs, uh back in November, we froze spending on our supplies. Not that we cut the buildings off completely, it's basically they still were able to obtain whatever necessary supplies they needed to finish the school year. And for 2026-2027, we cut supplies across the board 20%. Now, we didn't do that blindly. Before that was

153done, there was a lot of communication and discussion in the buildings about their current inventory, what they had. Did they really need to buy and spend this particular money? One of the things that we did is we looked at some of the church. We looked at multi-years and said, "Okay, you have $1,000. You've only been spending 500 over the last 2 years. You really need that thousand." Okay, so it was done with It was done with question and it was done with purpose. Textbooks, that's a very small area. Um, our textbooks are where they need to be for the next school year. Transportation, transportation is an escalating cost. And as additional students come into the district, whether they be special ed or private school, district has an obligation to transport based on our transportation policy.

154Okay? And when this happens, um, a lot of these costs are mandated and somewhat out of our control. Uh, mid-year, uh, we did a somewhat of a route efficiency study, if you will. We were able to reduce transportation costs a couple hundred thousand dollars without impacting student transportation. We're currently looking at other options to further reduce transportation going forward into the 26, 27 school year. Um, the other lines are pretty self-explanatory. The transfer capital, uh, transfer to cafeteria, that's what we use to support our cafeteria fund. And the special ed fund, that's basically our summer school special education program. So, and the equipment will basically holding the line and only health and safety type of equipment is going into the budget for 26-27. So, you can see with this type of approach we know at

155this particular point on this day that we have a projected budget of 152 152 billion 172. It's up over $5 million from the previous year. It's a 3.4% uh percent spending increase. On the other side of the expenditures are the revenues. A lot of people get these confused. If you look at a school district, there's really two buckets. You got the bucket on the left, which is the expenditures, you got the bucket on the right, which are the revenues. Your revenues have to equal your total proposed budget. Okay, it's simple math. Legally, the district cannot over expend its voter approved budget. So, what you see here is we start out and we always start out with our revenue. I'll state aid. You'll see how state aid is rather flat. Okay? We're hoping for a little

156bit more in foundation aid, but we did have a tremendous drop off in building aid. Our building aid went from this year a 1.4 million down to about $400,000. So, that was a tremendous hit to the district. Then we have other income items, which are basically add up to about 2.7 million. So, that's part of our revenues. The other half of the revenues is one of our five ones. is what we call other funding sources. It's not counted as revenues, but we use this to fund a portion of the voter approved budget. So, what you see on the top is what we are recommending for 26-27 from our existing reserves. Now, I have to say from the 24-25 deficit, we have no unappropriated fund balance. We have no undesigned fund balance. That is currently at

157-1.8 billion. And and that's because of the situation that we ended up with. And plus, a significant amount of our restricted reserves, reserved for ERS, TRS, unemployment, those are referred to as restricted reserves. Those are very limited. So, we made a conscious decision in 25-26, we're not going to apply all of the reserves to the budget. We're going to We're going to very prudently leave some so we're able to have some revenues in 26-27. The takeaway here is that after next year, there are no other reserves. Okay? The reserves are practically depleted. And that's problematic for a school district. You'll see a new line there called special act legislation deficit band borrow. A band is considered bond anticipation note. And what a special act legislation will do for us, it'll let us fill the hole

158to make sure that we don't overspend the voter approved budget. That's all it does. The special act legislation requires the governor's approval. Um as you heard by the superintendent's presentation, we're working very carefully with our legislators to get that legislation passed in the governor's budget. It's very important to the district. If it doesn't end up in the in the governor's budget, then alternative B would be a standalone, which is very, very, um, I don't want to say very, very, but more difficult um, process to get passed. Nonetheless, I'm hoping within the next month or so, when the state budget is resolved, that we will have this authority. You need to have special legislation to go out and do this borrowing. This is going to give us that runway I talked about to fund the problem

159over multiple years without just taxing everything all in one year. So, as you can see, um, the total revenues is 152, uh, 172. It's the same as the budget appropriations on the previous slide. You can see that the projected revenue increase is 2.4% and what I did on the bottom is just a projection on what the impact to the taxpayer would be. And doing a little research for South Country, I understand that the average, um, taxable assessed value is about $2,600. So, multiplying that out for the projected tax rate, uh, you can see that there's a, uh, a possible proposed estimated of $442 a year or $40 a month increase where we stand now. Keep in mind, the process is still going on. And that's before any state payments. So, that gives you an idea

160of both the expenditure and the revenue side and what we have been doing to get the situation under control. So, this is just another way to look at the revenue sources for the district. One of the things that we indicated was revenues are flat. You can see that your property taxes comprise about 50% of your overall revenue. Your other income is a very small percentage, your pilot payment, another very small percentage. State aid is a larger percentage. And keep in mind, when any of these other pieces of the pie shrink, it usually moves over to the tax property taxes. Okay? The new thing up there is the deficit borrowing. It was that $6.6 million you saw on the previous slide. That constitutes about 4%. That $6.6 million, that's a target number that we have to

161keep taking down. Even though we're making reductions this year, a 3-year plan, you have to make reductions next year and the year after. Either you make reductions or revenues increase. Okay? It's really simple math, and that's what happens. So, we have the foundation, we have the blueprint, we're monitoring it, we know where we're going, we're working with the controller's office. One thing I should mention that if we do get the special act legislation, it does require to be certified by the controller's office. So, we just don't get the authority to borrow. And with that comes a whole bunch of strings. If you borrow, there's reporting that gets done quarterly to the controller's office, there's and then also annually, there's also reporting that gets done to the state education department. When do we find out, sorry

162if you said this, >> [snorts] >> find out if we if we qualify or Well, we've been working with our legislators and we understand that they're discussing it within the governor's office and we're hoping that it ends up in the governor's bill. Okay. So I think the question is if it's inside the state budget, correct? It's a We want it to be inside the state budget. >> of approval of the state budget. If our item is there, is it approved until the state budget is approved? Correct. But if it if our item is not there, as I mentioned, then the district has to try to go for stand-alone. And what that means, we look to put up legislation outside the state budget. And that's sometimes a much hard harder lift and once the budget's been

163approved. So our window of opportunity is is right now and we've been very active in reaching out to the appropriate people to make sure that that's in there. We can't guarantee it, but we're we are doing everything that we need to do on our end. Okay. Special You heard me talk about special act legislation. I keep saying this and I'll probably keep saying this because people think that if I borrow, the problem is solved. No, it is not. What the special act legislation does, it lets you finance the deficit. It does not fix the deficit. We have to fix the deficit. We have to reduce those costs and eliminate that deficit. This is only a means to carry us through a couple of years. Okay, and that's pretty self-explanatory. Okay. You saw on the first

164slide we showed how the benefits were outpacing the savings that we've made in salary reduction so far. So, this is just gives you an idea. It goes right down the line from state retirement, which is ERS, to TRS, to social security. So, you can see in our teacher retirement, we have a very nice reduction, 1.7 million. Now, that's a combination of one, TRS lowering their rate for 26-27, which is a plus. And based on the staffing reductions that the district has planned to make. Uh so, that's reducing that cost as well as social security. You can see that if you go down to health insurance, health insurance is a very large cost driver. We're seeing a 12% increase in health insurance, which is a $2.7 million uh increase from the previous year. And that's one

165of those mandated costs that are basically out of our control. We are looking at other things to make sure that we can control those costs as best we can, but when those increases come in, it's based on the number of staff and eligibility. And the other benefits you can see are relatively small. But, that gives you a good idea of where the cost drivers are and what's happening in this particular area. Okay. So, trying to sum this up and uh bring it to some kind of closure, when we started draft one about uh at the last meeting, we were at 152.5. We had a 3.6% spending increase, budget increase. We were at the property tax cap at 6.51%. And again, that number that we had circled it for the special act legislation deficit borrowing was

1666.9 million. So after the efforts of the week as you saw from adding things, subtracting things, we came up with draft two which was slightly less than draft one, 3.4% spending, still at the cap, and special act legislation is down to 6.6. Okay? Hopefully we can get that down a little bit more before we get the board to approve a proposed budget for 26-27. It has to be that would be our goal as well. I know this is not a popular popular topic for some but we were asked to bring this forward again for discussion and the possibility to put a proposition up with the budget to reduce our costs by $900,000. We all know the impact of this, it brings our budget down to a 2.79% spending increase. What it would do, it would

167allow the district to reduce the mileage from 25 miles to 15. Many school districts on Long Island, 15 miles is the state minimum and that's what many school districts have. So this is some of the things that the difficult decisions that we look at to say, "Okay, um you if you're able to save $900,000 here, then you know, how much are you saving in in staffing or other instructional costs?" Are teachers saved if if this goes through? I have a question. The answer would be yes because we would be able to offset some of those reductions by this reduction. Do you have to lower the tax cap. You have to lower the tax cap you said last week. Okay, so okay okay, everybody's anxious. Okay. So, what happens is is that if we're at the

168draft two budget at 152.1 and we go to 3.4 to 6.51, if the proposition is approved, the tax cap does go down, the proposed levy goes down to 5.25%. Okay, and I do have a note on the side that the transportation cost does generate transportation aid. And we have a transportation aid ratio 56.7%. The way transportation aid works, this is what's called an expenditure driven aid. You got to spend the money to get the money. So, what happens, you spend it in one year, you get the aid in the next year. So, effectively what would happen if this referendum passed, we would reduce the 26-27 budget by $900,000. We would still get the transportation aid in the 26-27 budget. The transportation aid would be reduced in the 27-28 budget. But, yeah, it would go from

169private school it would go from 25 to 15 if the proposition passed. If they don't live outside of the district, >> Excuse me, but this is exactly the kind of information we would like to have delivered by having you speak during public session as opposed to engaging You didn't know you were going to extend it. One of the one of the things that um the other thing that I probably should have mentioned in the very beginning is that when you embark on this type of process you you need to look at everything. It may not be a solution that ends up getting adopted or embraced. It may not be something that's liked, but we as a district me in particular, we have those difficult discussions. And for nothing more to determine is it a viable

170solution? What is important for the district? Okay? To establish those priorities. Okay? We shouldn't be afraid to talk about anything in this budget if it has to do with reducing cost. That's how you can put together a budget where the community can support and you have efficiencies going forward. Okay? So, this is one of the things again. It's an opportunity to bring down costs. We know it impacts um 121 students in in the schools. It's not the same, but ultimately it'll be the board of ed's choice as to whether this ends up on the referendum. Mr. Belmonte, if the $900,000 is replaced by teacher salaries, so the budget doesn't go down >> The tax levy is That's the expectation right now. I asked this question by email and it was ignored, so I'm asking it

171now publicly. How many jobs are saved? I'm going to finish the presentation. It's never been answered. Even last time when we asked that, it was not answered. Mr. Belmonte, how many jobs would be saved if um if this proposition were to go through? Well, it really depends on the the salary of the individual and you know, if the average salary of a teacher is let's say with benefits of $200,000, it could be anywhere from eight seven to nine teachers. >> [applause] >> How is that possible if you're lowering the tax cap and you're losing the next year's building aid? You never look at this. You This is part of my critique of how we're doing this. As a member of the budget advisory committee, we never look at things one, two, three years out. We

172are multi-year in And and I have to agree. I was on the budget advisory committee. I have a presentation All right, I'm going to I'm going to ask Mr. Belmonte a question. >> questions. All right. You're asking are things I know board members are going to >> I've asked the budget advisory committees. I've emailed to them. >> All right. She's going I'm going I'm going to agree with the with the with the speaker that the budget advisory committee was nothing but lip service. Yes. It did not It did not work. It did not It absolutely did not work. >> the finance committee before. Um With respect to the um question before about the Catholic school services, if the I think the figure is 121 students, if those if all of those students who no longer

173have the services of the buses were to then uh uh transfer to South Country School District, what would be the impact on the on the district approximately? Could Could you prepare that for the board for the next meeting? Madam Madam could we have that prepared? Could we have that prepared? Translate your question, basically. What what would happen if we absorb 120 more students? And how would that affect the projections about our expenses going forward? On the on the budget for the 20 And how would that also affect um the projections about our need for staff? Correct. Thank you. So, if you got some estimation on that. Um I think at the next meeting. Could I just ask you one second, a sort of structural question? Sure. Right now, we're talking about um possibilities. And this

174is And you're going to be adding to that over the next meeting. Is that correct? So, like this is not the entire picture. No. No, it's not. We we talked about um we talked about many things. And you know, as I mentioned earlier, some of the things that we bring up are very difficult discussions. And I can give the board an idea of some of the topics that we are that we are talking about, that we are looking at. Um we're looking at late buses across the district. We're not looking at just providing regular transportation, but late buses from the 2:30 to 3:30 to 5:00. Cost out what that what that impact would be, but more importantly, the impact of the program on the kids as well. Okay? We're looking at um some curriculum writing

175uh in the general fund. We have some curriculum writing monies that we that are in our special education funds. Um we're in a, you know, pretty good place. So, we might have an opportunity to kind of reduce some that. We we're talking about summer school. We're talking about um guidance summer school and salaries as well. We're talking about music field trips. We're talking about the five the three large field trips for Washington, Frost Valley, and Medieval Times. Um we're talking about intramurals at uh Frank P. Long. Um we're looking at and one thing that made it into this budget, we looked at um athletics at the middle school, the second middle school teams, reducing those teams to one. Um we're also looking at our buses cost that we saw was over 14 and 1/2 million

176dollars. These are difficult decisions and discussions. They're not written in concrete that we're going to put them in and use them to reduce the budget. There's a lot of dialogue and there's a lot of thought that goes into it before we bring it forward to the board of education. Any questions? The problem that we have tonight is there's a deadline for putting a proposition on the ballot. Yes, ma'am. >> decision has to be made tonight even though [clears throat] we don't have the information about the rest of the uh 2011 Yeah, we're waiting for some information. So, one of the things we did look at uh with the assistant Mr. Belmonte is the impact of reducing the tax levy base by $900,000. We just talked about first. Mr. Belmonte, would you elaborate on the law?

177If we were to pass our plan tonight, then our tax levy would reduce by $900,000. And next year's tax levy is set. That difference represents about $18,000 of lost revenue. Next year's tax levy is 5%. That loss of revenue represents $45,000. In terms of the state aid, they're correct. We received state aid that was raised about 56.7%. That represents something like $505,000 a year. So, again, the loss of that aid is there, but again, the overall cost is reduced by $400,000. So, if you look at the savings of $400,000 minus the loss of revenue, which is in the range of $18,000 and 2% tax levy next year or 5% tax levy the following year or $45,000, we're still looking at a savings of about $350,000 a month. Presenting this just as information for the board

178to ponder. Um so, that's kind of the projection of the loss of revenue that would result from passage of our referendum. We'd like to say the impact that it has on the families and community members, ensuring that's money that could be appropriated for different uh areas. In terms of the impact of 121 students enrolling in our schools, the reason it's difficult to answer is because you have to look at the distribution of those students and the grades that they're in. If they're evenly distributed [clears throat] to all K-12 grades, the impact would be nil because they would absorb the total cost. If the majority of them are representing an impact in individual grades, obviously, that's going to have staffing implications. So, that's sort of what we're looking at in terms of the factors that we're

179considering. I'm wondering why you're not entertaining the fact what all the other teachers are saying Um central office Um there's nothing about that in there. There's nothing I'm going to call a point of order here. Are we going to reopen our public comment? We had a question and discussion on this. No. What about No, we need to collapse all the public comment into one section and ask the people to questions and discussion Everything is just taking away from the kids and the teachers. Why? I just don't understand why why we taking away from the kids and the teachers but not anything about Is there a reason? We're going to have to If you You finished your presentation and you seem kind of disjointed right here. That's okay. Um because I know there are questions from

180the board. And that's what the questions discussion Um Um we will get to that in a minute. Right now I'm looking at questions I have a question. I'm just going to clarify. Tonight we're voting on a totally For clarity, just the board of education is voting on the referendum to allow the public to make this decision. We're not voting on whether this is going to be passed or not. We're voting on purely giving the public community the option to vote on this decision. That is correct. The timeline tonight allows us to The reason this is the one topic that's being discussed is because this is a policy that has to be adjusted compared to all the other line items are done as a part of the timeline. Right. And there was a time to get

181it in the legal ad and advertise accordingly. So, our job as a board is to recommend to the community to give them an option on this. But does that option not include saving teacher jobs? It looks like it was just saving money, not saving to It shouldn't be saving. It should be the same dollar amount with keeping some teachers or giving them a day off. There will only be one referendum or could there be multiple referendums offered as an option to the public. I like I like that suggestion again. If the referendum is only this is the only item that can be a referendum this is a policy compared to those are budget line items. Now, I think but the assumption would be and I think I heard someone say how much would it save

182in teachers and your response was somewhere between seven and 10 teachers indirectly with the savings. Okay, so I don't think we can say that the line items match one to one in that regard, but I do think that this $900,000 plus the $400,000 $419,000 this year that would be savings could possibly potentially save up to more than seven to 10 teachers. For next year? Can I ask a question? I don't understand the transportation money. So you can't get everywhere. That was in the past and that's why I asked this in the So what I understand is that you can't take transportation money and save my job. Is that a fact? So what I'm attempting to do is to answer your question. So we can proactively reduce the budget by the cost of transportation. The proposition

183has to pass first and that's why it affects the tax rate. So if this proposition were to be presented to the public for a vote that does not mean that we can change or take, you know, proactively, you know, increase our expenditures. The vote would have to take place first. I don't know if that answers your question. So we wouldn't have a choice. For example, we can't propose let's say a budget above the 6.51% and an amount of $900,000. Should the proposition pass, we would reduce the tax rate to 6.51 in fact the cap. It has to be done this way. So at this point we can't simply say we're going to say $900,000 and apply it to salaries. You know, the proposition would have to be passed by the public. Again, what we're doing

184is simply presenting this information to the public. That's how it works legally. Anytime you change transportation, it has to be done by proposition by the community voters. Let me ask a question about that. Is this an effort to lay to lay the groundwork for the 3-year plan that you have going forward? Yes, because we are reducing costs going forward. We're reducing your costs going forward, and even net of aid, you will consistently, after the 2027-2028 school year, still see a $400,000 reduction of costs. You're also reducing Yeah, but that revenue, as you know, is $18,000 [laughter] if you if you do the math. It's $18,000. So, effectively, what what we're saying is, so yes, there would be about $400,000 and less $18,000, you're still achieving a savings going forward and the revenue is coming down.

185Then you have to hire teachers for the 120 students that are going to probably come back to our district. They're not coming back. Hold on. People, please. They're not coming back. Hold on. Let me remind everyone that we know that there is is the sign of interest in this, So, um but we need to follow our protocols on board meetings and let the trustees ask questions, Mr. Man. So, Mr. Belmont, the we've had the the discussion between the board, the administration, the public has been a three-year plan to return to some fiscal responsibility. This proposition, if passed as presented, would reduce the expenditure for next year by $900,000. Is that correct? It would also reduce the income received from the tax levy by $900,000 for next year, correct? For the 2026-2027 year. We vote on

186a budget in 2026. You vote on the budget now, and the transportation expenses are reduced in 2026-2027, and the reduction of aid comes in 2027-2028. No, no, I didn't say aid. My My question was is that the tax the cause is a cause and effect. And if the If the proposal is approved, it reduces the expenditure that we have to incur on transportation by an estimated $900,000. >> That's correct. It also reduces the amount of money we receive as a district by $900,000 on the tax levy. We're reducing the tax levy. Next year Next year alone, for a single year, we will receive the $500,000 for having spent the $900,000 in the 2025-2026 year. That's correct. So we will not have that additional income in 2026-2027. We will no longer get that benefit, correct? That

187is correct, but your expenditures are still going to be down close to 400,000. So you're not going to get the income, but your expenses going forward are still going to be lower. Well, the expenses, but if we outpay if we outpay transportation still running at $900,000 >> from a fiscal perspective, and nothing else, just from a fiscal perspective, one can say, "Do you want to spend 900,000 to get back 483,000?" And you're So, you're helping me make some of my point, which is or at least answering the questions that I think are being are just trying to be addressed. And it's taken me a while to get to them over the last couple months as well, which is is that if we reduce our expenses by 400,000, based on the 3-year plan and the principles

188that have been discussed, the only thing that we're going to do is reduce the borrowing that we're doing. We're not going to bring back staff because we saved it. We're going to save it in the borrowing that we're going to do. That is correct. This is By lowering your expenditures, you're not going to be lowering your expenses by 400,000, you're going to be lowering your expenses by 900,000. Your expenses, considering the revenue, what I said earlier, you have the two buckets. So, the revenue bucket is on the right-hand side. So, continuing your budget would always be down 900,000, beginning in the '97 the '27 '28 year, this is the second time I did that. '27 '28 year, your revenue is going to be down 400,000. No, no, but I guess I'm getting back to the

189other point right now that we've been asked about teachers or that's been sort of the tonight's central theme, that there is no promise or proposition that says, simply because we save that money, that we're going to save teachers' jobs. And ultimately, it's reducing the four It's only going to reduce the borrowing. And so, and and that that 500,000 is short-term. The the the benefit for the district Let me add a second just to follow up on that, though. If that $500,000 doesn't come from there, it would come from other places. We have to reduce that no matter what. So, if it's not $500,000 from this area, it could be $500,000 more in teachers' salaries. That is That is correct. What did you say? 500,000 more in teacher's possible. Beyond what was Right. Then there there

190there there there is a the general proposition, Mr. Excuse me, Mr. Galbardi, is that and that's part of what you have been preaching from the first day that you walked in is that right now our expenses exceed our revenues. Yes. So that we are we are we are as a result of we have done over a number of years that we have we have exceeded our our our expenses have exceeded our revenue for several years. And that's not something that this didn't pop off yesterday or over expenditures, but this has been a building theme. So that no matter what the general principle here is you're looking to cut costs. You have to bring your your expenditures, you're absolutely right. You have to bring your expenditures down in line with your revenues. And specifically, because you

191do not have the reserves and fund balance that you had in the past. So that is more of a very, very important reason that those two things need to align. So you have to either bring your costs down or we have to bring our revenues up. Either one works. And from and from this standpoint this is this is regardless of whether the teacher's propositions, at least for the foreseeable future this is going to be an annual repeat based on that $6.6 million deficit holding exists. Until that number disappears and we're able to begin to generate some surpluses again to start to restore the fund balance and reserves. Yes. Can you clarify that with 1.5 in the way you're explaining it? If we vote for the proposition nothing will happen for the rest of this school

192year. Next school year we would save $900,000. The following school year we would only recognize maybe $400,000 in savings. For the following year because I know it's only No. No, that's not how it works. It everybody wants to net the two. I think it's important to know that when a budget is presented to the community is voting on the budget. They're not but voting on the expenditures. They're not voting on anything else. So, when you look at an expended the expenditure side of the budget, you have to look at that in isolation. Why? Because that's what the taxpayers vote on. So, if we're reducing our expenses by $900,000 in 1 year, I don't care if it's for anything, for reducing budgets. Okay? That $900,000 effectively, if you're not budgeting again for the next year, you're

193saving that $900 throughout. Now, if you want to add the impact of the revenue, you have to do that on the side. And you say, "Okay, in 2027-2028, we're going to lose $500,000 worth of transit." So, we're still down $900,000. But then we're losing on the revenue side only another $500,000 in um in transportation. Plus what we lost. But the bottom line is that you always have that savings moving forward because the expenditure saving outweighs what the loss of revenue is. So, you're still going to end up with a budgetary savings. Of $400,000. Of $400,000. Yes. That's correct. It's because we're still receiving the revenue next year, but then following year we're not. Right. That's That's That'll be like $500 more every year. That's one year of more savings of more more revenue revenue and

194then the following years It goes down. you don't see as much value Right, but your expenditures still go down by that much. So next year and the following years we would still have more revenue. Correct. But is it too early to say would we be saving jobs or would we just be continuing to make cuts? Well, you know, once again, that's this is a multi-year plan. And these are one of the this is one of the things that we talked about, you know, around the fringes that may not have a, you know, direct impact. I know some people would say, "Well, what if all of those people come back into the district?" Yes, you would have to accommodate them, but as you already said, it really depends on their grade level and where they would

195go. Um the reality of that happening is I'm not sure. What would you do? If you're on the board. He's not here next year. I I don't I'm not I'm listening to what he has to say. So if you think that this is really helping the district, why would we not do it? Can I just We are saving $400,000. Yes. Whether or not it goes to saving jobs or not, it's money that we don't have to make up. I'll ask it on you. This is not my best recommendation. I couldn't hear what you said. I'll ask it on Mr. Woods' behalf because uh What is he's supposed to be directing our questions to the board. Talk about putting pressure on me. Yeah. Your recommendation obviously Well, my my We are saving $400,000. Yes. Look, my

196my my recommendation is is we uh we spend many hours agonizing over those things that would have the least amount of impact to our core instructional program here. When we look at what things that we bring forward, one of the things to consider is if we didn't do this and save $900,000, what would we have to cut? Another $900,000 in staff? Okay. It's for salaries. It's almost like the worst of two evils. If we didn't think it was fiscally responsible, we wouldn't bring it forward. But ultimately, it is the board's decision, and the community does have to vote. This is putting the proposition on the ballot gives the community the choice. You people say yes or no. Not us. We're just bringing it to you. Correct. And that's That's how it works. Just to echo

197Mr. Bomonti's comment, we can't promote the passage of this transportation proposition. It's not permissible for us. All we can do is present information. So, to ask Mr. Bomonti to recommend or not is somewhat of an unfair question cuz he can't really say I recommend it or I don't recommend it. But we can only indicate the facts associated with the referendum. And the fact is that yes, it reduces our base levy by $900,000 on the revenue side. It also reduces the expenditures by $900,000 on the expenditure side. Next year, and this is again hypothetical, should a referendum pass, the $900,000 is removed from our expenditures. Um we will receive the 500 possibly $500,000 in state 2026-2027. Um and in future tax levies, again, if the tax levy based on this lower uh base with 2% next

198year, we would lose out on approximately $18,000 in revenue. If the tax levy was 5%, it's about $45,000. Um and then you can kind of take that into perpetuity. Um if you look long term, you know, the annual savings are about $400,000. Again, in terms of us recommending what direction the community should take or what steps are permissible, but those are basically directly from law. So, that's kind of the sort of the facts surrounding the proposition. So, basically, you're providing us with information about an alternative. And the alternative with regard to the private school transportation um is time sensitive because in order to get it on the ballot, the decision has to be made tonight. And it's not that the board is making a decision that that should be done. They're only making a decision

199that it goes on the ballot. Is that correct? That is correct. And the taxpayers have the authority to approve or deny. That's a lot of what you're giving the community the choice. That's what this announcement You have to vote that the community want. We're here. We're good. We're here. So, I'll have to answer the answer that. This is your first question. So, she uh proposition deadline of March 20th is for community members, not for board proposition. Any more questions from the board members about this? >> Thank you for answering our questions. I think this is for Dr. Katz. If you really want to save money in the future, you have to really look at your budget. I I've been through it. That one would work. That The only way we're able to save money, okay,

20090% 95% of our budget is already educated in this. Okay? And then, if you can get your vocational budget down, which many districts are doing, okay, then all of a sudden that 14.something million is cut in half. And if you want to cut it down to some school, some school is the cheapest way to get the kids right. We did it one year. We had a 13th grade. We had 180 kids in grade 13. And it was more expensive to educate them throughout the year than it is to 6 weeks. Yeah. 8 weeks. So, so So, cutting some of those might be the answer. You got to really eye your budget before you cuz that's how you can save money. You bring You bring back three kids from both of you, that pays for all

201of your school sports. That's That's That's a lot more money. Let me just try to say this again. This is an ongoing process under the guidance of Mr. Belmonte and the district administration. The only issue that is time sensitive is this transportation proposition. None of it The other issues will be discussed further. Looking down at Mr. Belmonte, is that correct? Um only if the board is going to um do another mention. I have a I have a motion. For anybody who's speaking, if they have a comment, I'd like to hear it. We sat here through what what we have. Well, I would like to have the um cards pulled out so we can go back. 11 minutes is supposed to just have any people speak up in the audience. Application for anybody else? In the

202event that a public speaker would like to make an additional comment or request, I make a motion to allow them 5 minutes. Okay. Um let me see. Okay. And um all in favor Yep. Um Sessa, I think. Ross Ross made the motion. Who is seconding? All right. It's your turn. Okay, we'll call um William McCarty. And then next up is Gladys Santana. Is she here? Three. Is this Marina? And Mitchell. >> I want to President Hayes, can you please explain to me the multi-year impact of the uh you know, what we're about to just vote on and what the board is about to vote on regarding this? I I and I I also want to say like this is in some sense a financial malpractice to have everyone do mental gymnastics at 11:00 p.m. to

203understand the multi-year impact of something. Uh I probably support it, to be honest, but I don't understand it and I'm I'm having a hard time. So, I I I'll stop talking if you could just let me know as board president, what is the multi-year impact of this? Uh you know, we have we're saying right now the difference between uh 5.25 and 6.5 is something like $900,000? Is that what we're saying in terms of the tax cap impact? Which is not just this year, that goes forward as well. We're saying that we're saving $900,000 this year, we're going to lose I I would like to hear you explain it to me as a board president. Mr. Belmonte has just said and said it several times tonight, he said it once. >> [snorts] >> If you look

204solely at the budget side, the $900,000 that we're talking about comes off the budget, which means that our need for money is reduced. And right now, our need for money is enhanced because of the prior deficit that got rolled over and the short-term borrowing that we'll have to take. this. So, by reducing these expenses this year, that reduction will continue year after year after year. Not true. It's true. Assuming Assuming that other expenses don't get out of hand again. It's not 900, it's 900,000 for the first year. Right, but the first year that's the reduced expense. It's also giving us a baseline for the next year's budget. And it would be at a reduced level. Whereas if we if we have the 900 in this year, our baseline going into the next year would be

205900. So, we have a reduction of the budget. It does have an impact on the revenue side because of the way the state's made reimbursement funds. And that for the next year, we have a nice bump by the state reimbursement because that is reimbursement to the expense we had this year. The following year, we don't get that bump because we would not have the expense that would generate the revenue. Because we would not have that extra transportation um expense. So, according to um the report tonight, um the difference would be in terms of um our our revenue from tax levy and everything else that's expensive, would be eight $18,000 less. >> Yeah, how do we get to 18? Because the difference between 6.5 and 5.25 on $71 million? Yes, that's right. Well, the $18,000 represents

206different tax levy is lowered by $900,000. Based on that new base amount, and we asked for a 2% increase in the tax levy for 20 um 728. Right? Um the difference in that 2% without the $900,000 would be $18,000. That's based on the $76 million or whatever the tax levy is. So, that's So, we're cutting $900,000 in bussing costs, and we're losing $900,000 in uh revenue because of the the tax cap goes from 6.5 to 5.25 every year going forward now. There's And then you're saying the next year there'll be a 2% on top of that prior That's what I'm saying. That's That's what I'm trying I I I struggle with the same piece. So, I want everybody to understand part of this is black and white. You're going to push down one, you can

207put down another. When you're asking to expand and look at multiple years, the projection was given assuming what tax increase was to occur the next year. It's just an assumption. We don't know until that tax year comes. So, what they did was they said, "Assume a 2% tax increase." If it was just a 2% tax increase, they're saying it would be an $18,000 difference in the money we would get. If it goes to a 5% tax cap, it's a $45,000 difference. So, you have to play in your head with some of those numbers to figure that part out. So, going out to like year three, we're cutting transportation to save $18,000. Is that the Is that the net benefit here? You also have to remember that the expenses go also. That's the other side of

208it. So, yes, this $900,000 is going from the base value, but the expenditure is going as well. So, when you subtract the proposed tax levy for the subsequent year, you don't have that $900,000. You're asking to There's two different buckets that you have to address. And then you have to put them together in each spot. So, to answer your question, $18,000. The tax No, no. 2% of the $76 million increase on taxes. So, I'm going to use a an example. But if they If our tax base this year, everybody Everybody gets $76 million as our tax base. That gets spread out amongst all of our properties. So, we're going to pull in as a school district $76 million for taxes. We don't We don't give a number when we do the increase, we give a

209percentage. So, you add 2% to the $76 million, right? You follow so far? That's $1.5 million, right? 2% * $76 million is $1.5 million. I'm not giving you specific numbers. I'm giving it as an example. Yeah. You're asking me what the 2% is. The 2% is whatever the tax base number is. The tax base is $76 million. The next year's bump would be 2% would be whatever number. $1.5 million, if that's what you're coming up with. Okay. Now, assume you approve the proposition. And let's assume for the conversation that the proposition is a million dollars. So, instead of us getting $76 million in revenue, we get $75 million in revenue. The next year when I get that 2% increase on my taxes, I get the 2% on the $75 million. So, what's the difference between

210the 1.5 you calculated and the 2% on $75 million? I'm going to give you the exact number with some trusty rods. So, the proposed tax levy is 6.5% which is $76 million 149,521. Minus $900, so $900,000 is my to your point. Um the new adjusted tax levy will be $75 million $249,521. So, now let's move to next year. Without the referendum, that tax levy is going to be 76 76 million 149 521, right? If there were the 2% increase on that tax levy, the increase would be 1.522990 million dollars. If the referendum passes and the tax levy is down to 75 249 521, the debt the money is generated by a 2% tax levy is being 1.5 million 04990. The difference between the two is $18,000. Yeah, but it's the base is also different. The

211base is also different. I just want to That's the difference That's So, just look at the numbers. You're asking You're asking You're trying to stretch it out. If the $900,000 is reduced, you agree that your tax number every year when they give us that percentage, that's how much this tax base is increasing year to year, right? Okay. So, the base number the the floor that you start off with, if it starts off lower, it doesn't go as high. If it starts off higher, it goes higher. So, they're saying that the calculations are saying that for a simple 2% difference, the difference that I think that you're trying to stretch your put your head around is that that $18,000 is in perpetuity. You've lost that over every tax year going forward. So, whether it's a 5-year

212budget >> $900,000 in perpetuity as well? We're talking about the difference next year of the 2%. Well, the $900,000 is a reduction in expenses. No, but it's also a reduction in revenue because we're it's the difference between 5.2 and 6.5. >> let me put it this way. The reduction of $900,000 in expenses nullifies the reduction in in revenue, right? So, that's zero. So, then you have to look at So, the So, the the budget impact of this is $18,000 next year, right? We're cutting 100 transportation over 2 years. >> Not next year. $1,000 is in 2017. I mean, the point I'm trying to make is like this is not the way to do public policy. And I You know, when I worked for the city of New York, I would have council members call my

213office and ask me on major tax reforms, "Can you please explain it to me?" I said, "You voted on it yesterday. How can you not understand this?" And and you know, these things should be understood. They should be explained. This is why we have a business office with a staff that is supposed to explain this stuff. It shouldn't be, "Oh, that's what the business office says." Because that's the kind of stuff that got us into this in the first place. Thank you. So, again, so I'll explain again. That's just the Again, the difference in the base revenue is $900,000, but we also look at the expense. So, those two sort of cancel each other out automatically. So, the answer here I'm trying to say of cutting 121 kids transport is in 3 years out is

214$18,000. And also the savings in the expenditures of $400,000 is net savings. You can't discount that like those. Let's Let's go back and try to Uh this is sorry. So, Dr. Sam Two uh two spoke guys, this is sorry. Thank you. So, I just um a quote from everything that we just heard. There have been years of over expenditure, which have led to the place we are now, right? That this was a Sure, years of it. Who will be held accountable for that? >> [clears throat] [applause] >> Who has been held accountable for that? I want to explain why this is important. It's not just because of anger or grief or anything. This is a fiscal issue because all of this, why we're here so late at night, is a trust issue. There is no

215trust that our board and our business office and our admin are able to fix this for us because they are the ones that that brought us to this point. I understand it's not everybody on our board. I understand it's not any bad intentions, but this question about who has been held accountable is critical. I can't tell our kids that they will lose their sports, they will lose their instruments, they will lose their folks that teach them that they love and say you are the only ones who have to suffer and pay for this. That is not right and that is not fair. There has to be some sense of shared suffering, shared loss so that we don't get here again. I think this is extremely important and also it deals with trust issues. We are

216arguing over math. We should not have to do this. We should trust that the folks in charge are able to do this. A piece of the options we've not talked about cuz I'm all about trying to find fixes. There should be more input from moms, dads, folks who teach, experts into our districts fiscal issues. We are glad to have an expert here. At the end of this year, he will cash his check and he'll be gone. That will be it. Right? We have to have some new systems to help us create new outcomes. Otherwise, we'll be here year after year arguing excesses. This is not the way to do it. So, let's actually talk about what we want to see in future. For for trust, we need some more voices. Right? I have lots of

217thanks for everybody on the board. We can also add in other groups that can help to advise the board. I'll stop there for now. Thank you. >> [applause] >> Before you go, before you go, Evan, before you go. I just want to make a comment. I just want to thank you for all of your community activism because of your um of your um uh dedication to the community and your outreach uh you got the controller's office to our district before we did. I don't think we would have gotten it >> [applause] >> Um and that's that's why they're here sooner rather than later. Uh, I'm It is It is I didn't mention it earlier, but I probably should have that I can't believe we're in What are we in the middle of March now? We

218still don't have our forensic audit uh, forensic investigation complete to know who's responsible um, to hold them accountable. One of the very first things I said to Mr. Belmonte when he first got here is that whoever is responsible, I want them held accountable. And I think all the board members um, share that feeling as well. But, we don't know who's responsible at this point. There's many fingers pointing many many different in many different directions, but we're still not clear on who's responsible and um, and where that responsibility lies. So, that question is still out there and I just wanted to thank you for your advocacy and want you to know that uh, that I I am very much still looking and I believe the board is still looking for that responsibility. Thank you. Well, that's

219extremely um, it's kind of you to say. I want to note that it was a group of people who were trying to work together to get the state audit, so it's not only me at all. Um, I do think that I'm glad that this was raised about the fiscal audit. I hate to say it, the group that we did bring on to do the fiscal audit had not done a fiscal audit of a school district. Oh, excuse me. Um, yes. Um, did not do such an audit of a school district before from what I have seen. So, again this comes back to the trust issues, right? Um, so my time is up. I'll leave it for the next person. Your point about the trust issue is very well taken but in terms of the controller's

220audit, this district had been under controller's office about 20 years ago. And all school districts are on a controller audit cycle. We were due for one. They they kind of backed up there in the controller's office. We were due for one anyway. And you know, luckily with our council's assistance uh council's office has reached out to them and they did come in and they're doing the audit and it's working to our advantage that we're getting And I have to say something. On my first meeting of the budget advisory committee, Mr. Belmonte said that the the controller will not come into the district. Excuse me. No, he No, no. I didn't say anything. No. Thank you. No. Thank you. Exactly. Exactly. That's all. Yes, please. Under the standing, um I just wanted to say that, you

221know, sitting in this room today has really made me feel so sad for all of our children. Those who go to public school and those who go to private school. And one of the points I want to make about our kids is that every child deserves safe and reliable transportation to our schools. For years the district has defined that obligation by giving transportation for 15 to 25 miles. And many families, mine included, whose children were raised and born here, chose this place as their home with the understanding that that was optional for our family. We have chose to not participate in public school for religious reasons, and for us our ability to be in this district has been a significant um determination in how we chose and where we chose to raise our kids. So,

222to hear that we could retroactively retroactively remove retroactively remove or limit our transportation without adequate notice uh prior to the 2026-2027 school year places an an unreasonable amount of undue burden on the families who rely on this district's well-established practices. And I heard the room, and I do not like hearing the teachers getting cut. I do not like hearing services getting cut. So, I hold agreement with the applause and and the dedication that teachers deserve as a community deserves and all of our students deserve, but I want to bring back a very important point that this is about safety. Our children deserve to have a safe ride to and from school. I also want to specially caution the district the right of families to religious education. We are limited in those options in our district.

223Many of our religious options are outside of the 5-mi radius. So, again, I urge the board to consider both impacts that are on families um and and you know, it's it's hard to be in this room. It truly is because the only people hurt are the babies, all of the kids. And this is such a beautiful place to live, and I'm proud to call it my home. Um so, to hear comments that, you know, cut the private cut the funding for the private for the rich kids. My fam- my husband's family lived here for the first year. Okay, we are not rich. This is a financial sacrifice that we make because we want our children to have a safe religious education, and they'll go as far as always. Personally, the district has provided this funding

224for more than 30 years. So, to expect us to now readjust our future because of decisions is really, really harmful and it's many of the families both in both in the religious and non-religious schools. >> [applause] >> All right, call her. Does this show up here on my screen? I'm not reading I'm having trouble reading the first thing. That's fine. Um I'd like to just reiterate what my husband had said last time we attended the board meeting 2 weeks ago, um and that we have not really discussed the impact of the declining enrollment and how that impacts um the multi-year plan. If we're cutting costs, why are we also considering substantially increasing security costs by 1.2 million? This slide that came up before that you did not discuss. You're discussing all of the the cuts

225that were being made. Um there are still many unanswered questions. As for transportation, um I agree with what you just said and thank you for that. Um but we've decided as a family and also to send our children to Catholic schools. The transportation allowance for 25 miles has been reasonably relied on upon for families for over 30 years. Loretta Drew, who was here this evening, um who had helped initiate this 25-mile radius, um was here in support of discussing why and how that came into play over 30 years ago. Um there are no Catholic schools, no Catholic high schools within the constraint of the 15 miles. Our oldest daughter will be attending the high school Catholic high school this coming fall, and our son will also be attending the Catholic elementary school. It really saddens

226me that we're spending so much time discussing this when we're talking about the very minuscule amount of money for this transportation. And there are many other areas that have been discussed that we don't need to hash out again, but I am really not understanding why this is such a point of contention for our district when it has been in place for so long, and it's not really affecting or saving Yeah, it's not really saving any sort of teacher jobs or anything of the sort. So, it it feels like we are basically not not being honest about what's actually happening. So, I'd really love to have some clarity on the situation. If that is what needs to happen because teachers jobs will be saved, then that's what needs to happen. But if it's not, please don't

227lie to us and tell us that there's possibility that jobs can be saved. Thank you. >> [applause] >> The next speaker, the last name is Travers. Okay, hi everyone. So, Kate. So many friends in this room, so many many passions. But I just want to say if we have to make cuts, we have to make cuts everywhere. The recommendation for the state 15 miles, we're following recommendations for everything else we do educationally. We're cutting 10-year teachers for 10 years, and we're considering kicking kids out of our district. My child is currently in second grade, and he gets his homework on my phone because his teacher is not allowed to bring back the second grade so we're cutting everywhere. If we had the luxury of bus my my friend's children to their beautiful school, I would

228leave behind it 100%. We don't have the luxury to do that. We had the luxury of doing it for the last 30 years. That's wonderful. We can't do it anymore. What if it's 200 kids next year? What if it's 300 kids next year? Where does our budget stop? How long do we have to support this school because we can't support it. We can bring it back in the future, amazing. But we can't now. We're cutting where we have to cut. We're cutting paper for second grade. >> [applause] >> I can get the first name and not the last name. David Gold What's What's your last name? Goldblatt. It's Goldblatt. Thank you. So, I came here originally to talk about the this budget. Uh And I don't want to talk about that today. This is the

229way I see things. I don't think anyone here is actually looking at these numbers in the budget issue. Uh if you look at this on a five-year basis, from what I understand, you're losing four and a half million dollars of revenue plus some increases. You're saving two and a half You're saving four and a half million of expenses and you're losing five million, two and a half million of state aid. So, the net here you get 500,000 back in this budget year. Right? That is correct. If each subsequent year you lose money depending on the tax cap, it could be 800,000 to a million dollars. But this is a bigger issue which is I would be a harder tax payer. This is not budgeting. Borrowing money is not revenue. Looking at the things on a

230one-year basis is unbelievable. You need to look You cannot say that you're spending by getting paid back for something you did this year next year, but that's revenue next year. That's not revenue next year. You lose that in total. I don't believe that this math is correct. I don't believe that this that this referendum is stated properly. I don't think it's honest. I don't think it's true. And I do not but We talked about how complicated this is. I did some numbers, okay? From what I've seen, all of our operating funds are distinguished. We're borrowing $6.6 million this year. We're cutting 43 teachers to save $200,000. And if expenses go up at the same rate next year, and you don't cut more of these teachers, you're and there's no dedicated fund and no additional borrowing,

231the budget deficit is going to be between 16 and 18 million dollars. So, this thing is disastrous. And I think that the fact that we're talking about $9,000 on a on a presentation, this is you're doing today exactly what got us in trouble in the first place, which is doing something that saves $500,000 next year with no understanding of what that does to the long-term budget, no understanding of how this rolled out year over year, looking one year at a time on cash basis, calling borrowing revenue. This is a state takeover. This is a disaster. And this is a tiny tiny piece of it. And I don't even think it saves any money other than in one year. So, next year, you go back and you say you don't get the state aid, you don't

232get the tax levy, and you save the and you save you get $500,000 less, you spend $500,000 less, and you get $500,000 less in state aid. That's a $500,000 loss in my books. So, and that happens forever. And that's my this is the only issue I have with this. My guess is that this is happening up and down because it's moving down on the machine there. The comment goes to the point that we made a little earlier. That unfortunately, this one issue is time critical because of the requirement I'm getting numbers wrong. This is what you also don't know is $500,000 That's 5 years. But but save $500,000 in the first year because it's a budget cut. Is that what you want to do? What about the expense of say half of the students no

233longer go to Catholic school, they come back to the school district. Only half that amount of money. I think that if 40 of them come back you're saving $200,000 anyway. But even beyond that, it's losing money. It's losing money because you're lowering your taxes. You're going to refer back to what Mr. Belmonte said before about incorporating more students. Well, given our declining enrollment, I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I It's not the budget's revenue, it cuts the budget's expenses. I know. But it also cuts the fee. Cuts the taxes. Means

234the shortfall then. The collection of $500,000 in taxes and spending $500,000 less. Is that right? Well, the difference is the difference is the $18,000 I I don't but I'm saying I'm questioning that math before. Okay. And also I don't know why you're talking about a 2% annual increase when the cost is at 6.5% this year and it's at Well, the salary is has its tax cap calculations that vary from year to year. Right. So, this was kind of a hypothetical that they were answering. Sir, are you here as a teacher, parent? >> I'm here I'm here as a resident and a taxpayer. Thank you for Thank you for Ma- Madam President, do you have any more questions? Do you need more cards? Okay. I did I have a question on the whole uh concept. And

235And we're all with this issue. Uh and while I appreciate the information that um that Mr. Belmonte has been able to share and and all the insight he's been able to give us from the onset of this fiscal crisis. He doesn't live in our community. And um And this this is this is purely a community issue. Um And I like I said uh at the it was either last meeting or the meeting before that I had hoped that our district would start meeting with the um with the um real estate agents to um and the the real estate agents to encourage the real estate agents to promote our district more and hopefully encourage some of the families and real estate agents and the families of private school families to come to our district and learn

236why they are sending their kids to private school. Cuz we didn't know. I did I didn't think we we knew. So, because as soon as this proposition hit the hit the hit the press, we started calling one. And we started to learn that it was the real estate agents who were really encouraging people to move here because of the generous mileage limit that we had to the parochial schools. And that people had a right to want to educate their children with a with a faith-based education, and we gave them that opportunity, one that they had for 30 30 years. And somebody mentioned Reverend Drew, who's an institution in the Bellport community, the Bellport Brookhaven community. Um And that's what brought me back to, you know, Mr. Belmonte, with all due respect, you know, very good

237at what he does, and everybody in here who lives in the Southern community can agree, our community is very unique, and people who don't live here don't really understand the uniqueness of our community. And so, were I, too, as a board member, thought, "Gee, this is a way to save almost a million dollars. This seems like a no-brainer." It's not, and it has me very perplexed right now because the arguments that were raised here tonight presented a very good issue, and a very tough issue, and and issues that, you know, when you talk about bussing bussing kids to private school versus our kids don't have paper in their classrooms anymore because management has made really bad mistakes over the last 2 years, what kind of decisions do we make? And the one thing that I'm

238resentful of right now in this very moment is that we haven't had very much time to really debate this issue and look at the long-term effects and the and the long-term decisions of what this really means. And I'm I'm being really resentful of that What time is it now? 11:30 11:33? And we have to make this critical decision at this period of time and I ate dinner at 4:30 tonight and my blood sugar right now is is not really cooperating with me cuz I can't keep my eyes open to really think this through and we have to make this decision tonight. What was that? It's insane. Now we have to stand up to the whole community to vote but it but but the comment was made also it's going to divide the community and that's

239exactly what it's doing. And this this whole process for 2 years The budget fiasco is dividing the community. I understand. That's a terrible ask. I'm just going to disagree with you. Trustee Poulos said it to the point that not that a shooter should not be put on there but it's the conversation that I think there were people that walked out of here tonight with at least answers that they had been looking for for some time. So to that extent I agree him trusting police that you got to ask the answers. So, maybe the answer is in short term is that we need to have more sessions like this where the questions are permitted and people can ask those things because we have that necessity based on prior acts to rebuild that trust. So, the conversation

240that and and I'm one side talking about paper, one side talking about transportation, others talking about people and how that affects because I'm I'm on this board less than a year. I had a pretty good financial background before and I'm learning through this. So, anybody who's sitting on the outside to see where I We all make choices in our life, right? Some kids need some extra help, other kids We do with our own kids. The first one we sort of baby, the second one we're willing to give them anything that falls on the floor 5 seconds later. You know, we make those choices, but they are educated choices based upon our experiences. Nobody has experience with the school budget and the inner workings. So, when issues like we have arise, it is not unreasonable to

241say the doors need to be open more, need to ask more questions, and we need to be able to answer those questions. And throwing it out here at the last minute. I'm not saying paper's wrong, I'm not saying that transportation is an issue, school layoffs are a thing, but everybody needs to be should be able to make an informed decision. You know, that that I think is the issue that I have. So, is the is tonight the last day that we have to make this decision because of our board schedule? Or if we had said that I'm just putting this out there, if we had a special meeting that was held, say say on Tuesday of or Wednesday of next week, would that permit us an additional amount of time to consider the circumstances that

242are being discussed. And I just want to do a point of clarification. So, this was initially discussed in our budget and finance committee, where it was the recommendation that we bring it forward to the board. I believe that happened a couple of presentations ago. But again, we're just proposing options. We're not the primary guide of the board, to lead you in any one direction. It's just information. I can't say, you know, despite the complexity of the math, that long-term, there is a cost savings associated with this. That's a factual statement. We'll be happy to provide more information. But I just wanted to make that point. And also, this is specific to the structure of the paper, because what we did is not eliminate people altogether. We still have the folders. This is the practice. That's

243how our last school district teachers had about 2,100 pages above their quota. And we have accommodations where the more efficient things can happen. So, that decision was made because of our current quarter of the fiscal year this year. We've almost spent our allocation for paper by about $30,000. So, we're just trying to monitor the use of papers and stuff just more deliberately, not to eliminate any paper. We're using screen times as part of our meeting plan. But but didn't eliminate people altogether. We don't want people to have those discussions now. So, back to the actual vote. I think so. If you're the board is amenable to having a special meeting at the end of uh next week, either Thursday or Friday, I think the school is closed on the 20th. What what information do you

244need to get to now? Yeah, that's that's all I need. I think I agree. I think I think we need to have I think we're going to be able to speak freely. Ask questions. A special meeting is a Yeah. Um Yeah. So, I think one more information we need to provide is what Sorry, what what more information we need to provide in that one for now? I think I think it's got to be handed over to the community. Is is there a way to lay out the differentials for each year, 3 to 5 years going forward, you know, either with or without the transportation money? But, sorry, to to Rob's point, like the bottom line is, are we going to leave it up to the community to vote? Really, that's the question we're discussing, is

245it passing or is it not? I mean, on the website, it doesn't have to be a special meeting. >> And then the community can make an informed decision on that. She said that needs to be made whether or not we're putting it before the If we do have a special meeting, we have to be public in nature. I think I think so. I think we have enough information. We have enough information tonight to to make a decision about whether this proposition goes on the ballot or not. Yes. You think we have enough? I think I I think so. How are you guys making the decision if you can't really communicate to the net effect over year one, year two, year three, year four, year five. That seems like we're all asking the same question. What

246is the net effect? And one side you're talking revenue and and lost revenue. And then the another side talking expenses. If we are Could you going to put it to a vote for us? And today you can't answer what the net effect is. How do you expect us to vote on it instead of it just becoming a argument amongst the community? Right. So so let me just say this. We we attempted to explain it, you know, again, and I think it's it's confusing. Long term, we talked about the impact on the revenue side. We talked about the impact on the expenditure side. We talked about the reduction in the tax levy and the impact on future tax levies, hypotheticals at 2%, 5%. Uh I can say with certainty that over the long term it does

247represent cost savings. That's not the same Who stated that calculation? Excuse me? Are you including the state aid calculation? Yes, absolutely. So we can certainly provide a lot more information to the community before this has to sit and make a vote. Um you know, again, so we did provide the board with sort of a sort of the pros and cons. Uh but again, I can say with certainty that the long term effect of this is reduced because we're reducing our expenditures. There is a net savings. There is. And again, I'm not saying that to try to persuade anyone in any one direction. personally believe that we should We certainly don't want to do anything that's divisive to our community. But our task is to present to present information. Uh we presented it uh as best

248we could. Uh it certainly took me some time to understand some of the points I raised with regards to lowering the tax levy. That base tax levy is lowered forever. Uh and also to try to understand the real impact and the net difference uh between having the proposition pass or not. If the proposition is voted on to be put on the ballot, the community can still vote on the proposition, and you can have meetings to talk about the impact on the budget. Um, so that still can happen. I also want to say that Lombardi said, as I said earlier, this is a process. So, we're presenting options to the board. Those options are going to keep getting modified as we go down this budget process. Again, the goal is to save as many jobs as

249possible. The goal is to minimize the amount of money we have to borrow for our deficit spending. Um, and again, I take all of the criticism that comes to me, and take it personally, obviously, as I said in the beginning. Um, but one way we're showing our accountability is by bringing Lombardi in to have a change in our business office, to have him provide the necessary training and changes in our processes, so that when we move forward, the processes are a lot better. Because ultimately, the goal is to never have this happen again. And even with regards to how this has affected our ability to talk about with the Comptroller's office, once we overspent the budget, we were obligated to contact the Comptroller's office. Now, for all four community activists and our full community for

250reaching out to the Comptroller's office themselves, I think both can work in tandem, but we had an obligation, and we did so through our attorney first, who contacted um Comptroller's office. And Lombardi contacted Comptroller's office when we started the meeting with the practice, who's the top official here on Long Island. All these things All these things need to happen in tandem. And I don't separate myself from the responsibility of what occurred in the last three and a half years. Where this problem started happening, we can go back, awaiting the results of the forensic audit. We correctly cooperated with that forensic audit, with full cooperation and collaboration, including myself. I certainly we myself accountable. But at the same time, I'm holding myself accountable to work for the resolution, to work with Mr. Bilotti, to listen to

251your input, because I do listen to your input. And everybody's making valid points. And to say that, you know, our decisions are being made in the absence of appreciating the fantastic work teachers make, administrators make, our volunteers make, our football families make, our boosters, I think this is a mistake. All these people that we're contemplating excessing, it really is heartbreaking. I've gotten to know some of them. I gotten to know the impact they make in our school buildings. I've seen the interactions with students. When I take photos with students or staff members, it's to highlight the work teachers are doing. It's not my specific work. It's the work and the impact that you see in the students' faces. And Clipper pride is something that we shouldn't sort of degrade. Clipper pride is something we still

252have to believe in, even as we meet these challenges. It's something that we have to embrace moving forward. So, again, I can never compare my stress and anxiety levels with those of those families and people who are being affected by reductions in in staffing cuts. Um but I do empathize and feel like this is really devastating. Mr. uh Mr. Bilotti said it was embarrassing. It's embarrassing to me, too. It really is. So, I came here with a charge to sort of change sort of uh sort of things in the school districts. And I've been working diligently toward that end. I feel terrible and accountable for what happened over the last four years because I failed to see it. Despite the questions I asked, despite the information, uh one of the things that Mr. Bilotti told

253me is to trust, but verify. And certainly I have the skill set now to trust, but verify. Question. When you look at appropriations, when you look at treasury reports, you really have to dig deep. I don't have an accounting background. My My background is in education, as a teacher, as an educator, as a community leader. And so again, I think you're right. We get caught up in in in a discussion about mathematics. Um I think it's going to be almost impossible for people to understand the long-term benefits of reducing transportation costs, but also we have to appreciate the impact it has on our families and our communities. Both are true. So, what we did was present the board with options and information. And as an administrator, we can't direct the community what the board is

254voting on. direction. All we do is present information. Surely my advocacy and my work with the board is to right the ship, to get us financially stable, because I surely don't want what's happened now to diminish the accomplishments we've had over the last 3 and 1/2 years. I apologize. I know it's late. It's 9:32, but I felt like I needed to say that. So, I think we can close the question. Because I told the board a few minutes ago, um this information is still on. Um So, I think is this a resolution that needs to be read out loud? Or It's printed, so Okay. So, are you making the recommendation for it? The administration uh recommends approval of item 11. This is the application of the F2, correct? F2, yes. Okay, thank you. The administration

255recommends the approval of the proposition uh okay, uh agenda item F2. I don't have that too. Is there a motion to approve item F2? Vice President De La Torre, second. I Trustee Kelv Long. And again, um questions or discussions about this? My comment this is just to get it on the ballot um requirements for convocation. All right, the motion was made, it was seconded. No other questions or discussion? It's all in favor of the proposition. Okay, I see five. And I can't see any I have a Yes, Councillor the what? Is there a no vote? One no One no vote, and the second no vote. All right. So, the motion The motion carries five to two. And then next we have We need action the legal notices. Okay. Do you have the legal notices? Legal

256notices. Do you have the legal notices >> So, the recommendation by the administration is to approve Senate Bill 3, option 2. That's the ballot for the proposition including the proposition for the transportation change. All right. Is there a motion to approve Senate Bill 2, option 2? Trustee Villa? Second. Trustee Villa Estella? Questions? All in favor? I. Any no votes? No vote. And you got a vote? No. So, there's one no vote. And I And I don't know who that is. Yeah. There were nine questions on that. So, you're going to have a question? No, like I just want to ask you for a clarification No. It is a no vote. And And that's the one that I'm going to go forward with. Same here. >> Thank you. And then So, Mr. Slavin, Trustee Walsh was

257also a no vote. Yeah, and I know he had it. So, at F2, there were two no votes. At F3, there was one no. I'll review the votes. So, the no votes is that the vote was, and this is for option two, was um six yes, including Trustee Piccinni, and one no, and that was Trustee Walsh. Moving on, the administration recommends approval Treasurer's report. I'll second the motion. Okay, so the administration recommends approval of acceptance or the approval of agenda item four. Okay, the treasurer's report for January 2020. This will be presented at a later date. Right. Okay. Motion. So, the motion is resolved that the board of education acknowledges receipt and review of the treasurer's report from January 2026 with the presentation to be made by the business office. We did say and review,

258which we have. It's in our documents. We looked at it, but it will be presented to us with the explanation at a later meeting. Is there a motion? Motion by Trustee Deuel and seconded by Trustee Calhoun. All in favor? Um Let's see. Unanimous vote here. Okay. Trustee Chimney abstained from that vote. Trustee Chimney. The administration recommends approval of curriculum by Trustee Lowden in schedule G1 and G2. Is there a motion to approve items G1 and G2? Trustee Calhoun seconded by Trustee Lowden. All in favor? Um Unanimous vote here. Okay. We're done with that. >> Moving on to the personnel, the administration recommends approval of personnel agenda items located in schedules H1 through H6. Is there a motion to each one through eight. Trustee Conway, second by Trustee Palazzolo. All in favor. Uh unanimous for everyone

259who is present. I'm sorry, I have to go back to regular items. We missed G3. One second. Where? G3 was in the approval of the budget items. We did one and two. Correct. 22nd energy 2. G3 is just approval. That's the approval on one and two. Right? No, you were refreshed. Well, comes up? Comes up? That's what we voted on, one and two. Three is two. It says It's only one and two. Yeah. Any problems? I love them. The administration recommends approval of business items reflected in schedules I1 through I6. Is there a motion to approve I1 through I6? Motion by Trustee Palazzolo, second by Trustee Ross. All in favor. So, unanimous of everyone table Yes. Thank you. And we have a roll and no contrary Any closing remarks? No motion. I'm going to say

260I'm sorry we couldn't really enjoy it. auditorium product think I think