001Thank you. The trial is three. They're objecting. I'm like, judge me for two days. >> I'm getting ready to pull the public portion back into session. And before I officially do that, want to give our apologies for being as late as we are. We had understood that our notice was going out saying that the public portion was going to start at 8 um as opposed to our usual 7:30. My understanding is maybe the notice didn't say that. And even though we thought we were had an 8:00 time to start the public session, you can see we're late for that. So, my apologies for all of that. And now I will call the business meeting back into order. It's now 8:25 and um we will start by doing a pledge of allegiance and I will ask
002our student exeicio member to lead us. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. All right. Emergency evacuation. Please make note of the ex of the exits and in case of an emergency, leave the building directly as quickly and safely as you can. This is a no a no smoking, no vaping school district. Smoking and vaping is not permitted in the building or anywhere on school district grounds. This is also a hatefree and bully-free school district. So, um no demonstrations of hate and bullying on any grounds in this school district. We now are going to the board consent agenda and that would be the superintendence. >> Thank you, President Hayes. Welcome
003everyone. Again, we apologize for the delay, but the administration recommends the approval of board consent items reflected in schedule C1 through C4. >> Is there a motion to approve items C1 through C4? Motion by uh vice president Dilo, second by trustee Calderon. Questions, discussion? >> Just one question. >> Yes. >> Who do we make the check out to for the Longwood Central uh regional legislative breakfast? >> No. >> I'll put that information in the uh update >> in the update. Okay. Thank you. Um, so all in favor um Chris has >> Chris has Yes, it's it's unanimous. And by the way, Trustee Chris Pacini is present by Zoom. So you picked up his vote. It's unanimously approved. So now we go to D. >> Yeah. Just a a quick mention with regards to the annual
004joint conference. We're really excited. It's a joint conference with all school boards across the island and our jazz band will be the featured uh performers. Really excited about that. So, I just wanted to give them a shout out. All right. Next is uh communications and announcements. So, I'll get to my superintendent report. Um given the time, I'll try to use an auctioneer's voice and go through it quickly. All right. >> [clears throat] >> All right, welcome everyone to our January 7th uh meeting of the board of education. Uh first and foremost, I think all of us have been sort of surprised by the um the weather the last month or I should say December having three snow events. I figured I'd be a quick reminder of how snow days work. I'm going to really quickly
005um again there are different mechanisms by which we communicate to the community that there is a snow closing primarily we use fire and square um which actually gives us an extended span in terms of households we can communicate with so everyone's aware we also included emergency contacts for our students in case they were being seen or home with their emergency contacts so it actually span a little bit beyond our community but we just want to make sure as many people are informed on a timely basis um when school is closing called. We're always going to try to do it as early as possible so that parents and community members can make the necessary arrangements uh that involve child care. Uh delayed openings are basically typically a two-hour delay. When that happens, though, all of our
006pre um things that happen before the start of school get cancelled altogether, like our uh preschool program at the or the before school program. I'm getting preschool and before school confused at the YMCA and at South P will be cancelled for that day. Anything happening before school obviously gets cancelled and then students follow an abbreviated schedule and get dismissed at a regular time. That too will be communicated as early as possible to accommodate our community members. And finally, there is early dismissal which is almost never used. That's in a very unlikely event. Uh there's some climate or or um weather happening that really forces us to leave uh early. Uh I've never used it in my whole career, but it is an option that we can use. But when you look at it, um, in
007reality, our elementary schools still dismiss at their typical time. So, whenever there's a snow event in the forecast, we typically close or have a delayed opening if happens the night before in an effort to um, get the roads clear and safe for our commuters and our students. Um, one thing I also want to emphasize, given the amount of snow we've had already, should we get an exorbitant amount of snow, we may consider having a virtual day so that we don't lose a day of instruction. We haven't had to cross that bridge yet. on Long Island, but it's something that superintendents are talking about because the um if the farmers or Almanac is correct, we may have some snow events u to look forward to or to not look forward to depending on how you look
008at it. Speaking of winter, we had a great a lot of great winter happenings in each of our respective schools. I had the huge pleasure of attending a winter wonderland at Brook Haven Elementary School where our PE staff converted the gym space to different space stations that had holiday themes and yet engaging students in team building activities and some different skills from rock climbing to uh other uh things that they participated in. So I just wanted to give a shout out to the staff at Brook Haven particularly the PE staff Mr. Prush Mr. Jockman and Mr. Manudi for just organizing this wonderful experience for the students. when I visited on a nice winter day, I did not want to leave because it was pretty fantastic. Moving on to some more happenings with our uh community.
009Um we were spreading some holiday cheer. Um on the left you see um Santa Clark at Kramer when they had the little meet Santa night uh which was a fantastic event for the kids. Um all involved had a great time. And I wanted to give a shout out to the former PTA president Rob Starsman who came back to play the role of the Grinch. So, the kids had a great time. And on the right, uh, a big shout out to Athletes Helping Others. They [clears throat] delivered, uh, gifts that were donated to our kids that attend um, the Head Start PreK Center with our own very Mr. America Boy serving as Santa, although he was the real Santa in those pictures. It's a big shout out to all of our student athletes who participated and
010spreading some joy with some of the younger members of our community. Moving on with the winter theme, had a fantastic time at the winter concert at Vid Vern W. Craigs Elementary School. Um, shout out to Mr. Andrade the music teacher and the staff who participated in the rendition of the 12 days of Christmas. And there you see principal pridefully holding up the five golden rings which got the most rousing uh singing from the kids that were in the audience. There's a picture you can't really see it but I went during a day performance and the entire audience was made up of our students. It really was fantastic to see the joy on their faces. The same joy I saw at Kramer when I attended their winter concert. Um again um it was a small chorus
011made up of about 32 kids. They sounded fantastic. They played recorders had some choreograph dancing. So I want to give Miss Stritz a big shout out for a wonderful program and again for spreading some holiday joy. Then we moved on to some of the bigger kids at our winter concert at Belport Middle School. Our first winter concert. The configuration was changed a little bit. This was kind of cool. What we did was we did all of our string uh instruments, our orchestras, our sixth, seventh, and eighth. So you could kind of see live the progression of uh the skill set uh levels of our students, which was remarkable to watch. And I have the good fortune of actually watching kids perform from grades three through 12. And I love, not that I compare and contrast
012because they're all fantastic, it's amazing to see how they progress as they move up in the grades. Um that was equal in impressiveness uh at winter concert number two where we had a 78 u actually we had a 78 uh 67 and eight band perform. Um so you can kind of compare and contrast. a great event. A big shout out to all of the music staff, Mr. Sherlock, Main Camp, Miss Buck, Mr. Loer, and Miss Garcia for putting on a great um couple of concerts at the middle school. Then I went on to our first concert at the high school, which again, lots of talent, always a fantastic time. I love the fact that the orchestra incorporated some electric guitar and bass in one of their songs that added this little element of coolness that
013I really appreciated. Um, lots of talent on that stage. And I always find not just the level of talent and skill that I see displayed on this stave remarkable, but the amount of students that participate in our music program that was equaled by our second concert at um Belffort High School with some special guests that you see there in the lower right hand corner. We have few alumni visit the school uh who participated in music. I love to see the [clears throat] familiar faces and to kind of get a little update of what they have been up to and the fact that they've had successful runs in their respective pathways. those kids in the picture all have chosen the college route and having had a fantastic first semester. So, shout out to the class of
01420 25 who came back to visit. Along those lines, um I love when I get the seal [clears throat] of approval from our students. But, um I like that appreciation. But Riley Pickin when she was in sixth grade really um got a little attituded with me and told me I had to do something about that attit that auditorium. That was several years ago. And in her senior year when we got finally the capital project approved, I said, "Riley, it's finally happening. Let's take a before picture." And I promised her I would take an after picture. And here is the after picture. So um really shout out to Riley for um being so persuasive um and really being a part of the reason all this happened. So congratulations to her and I certainly appreciate the input
015of our students. Moving on to some remarkable students. It's always fantastic to celebrate student achievement. So, I'm going to make a couple students feel on the spot very soon. First, I'm going to start with Gabriel Andre. Gabriel Andre is our first guest. [applause] [applause] Come up, man. So, Gabri is our first National Merit Commended Scholar. Uh Merren distingu national merit scholarship program. because of his outstanding score on the qualifying exam, which is PSAT, and is recognizing as having, get this, exceptional academic promise. Not too shabby. He aspires to be a biomedical engineer, but I kind of listed some of his accolades there. Um he's a National Medic Scholar, National Science Honor Society Member, Math Honor Society member, National Honor Society member, um National English Honor Society member, Matt Flood Vice President, Quizbolt Captain, French Club
016Secretary, AP Scholar with distinction. Um AP Capstone diploma recipient, which is pretty fantastic. And also all county in cello, although I've I've seen you play multiple instruments. >> Yeah, I play piano. >> Yeah, man. So um really a remarkable young man. So we have a certificate of appreciation. I just want to uh acknowledge him. [applause] So um I'll call you back in a second. Congratulations again to Gabriel. Next up is Josiah Torres. Come on down. [applause] Just want to go into a little bit of [applause] his accolades. Um, Desai is also the president of our National Honor Society who's somewhat nervous about mcing the National Honor Society induction ceremony, but you did a fantastic job, my friend. >> Uh, Torres has earned a full four-year scholarship to Boston University. [applause] >> Um, bridge uh national
017scholarship program that's really just given to very few students across the country. So, it really is a humongous honor. He aspires to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. >> So, uh yeah, so I will close for that. [applause] I don't want to wait myself any heart issues, but I may be coming. Um so, um but besides the scholarship, um he's a National Honor Society president, National Science Honor Society member, National Math Honor Society member, National English Honor Society member, AP Scholar, AP Research Certificate. He also plays varsity tennis and he participates in the doctors of tomorrow program which is pretty fantastic where he shadows doctors and so I think his future is bright. So please another big round of applause FOR [applause] the photo on this one. This one. >> Yeah. Come on. >> Family. [laughter] >>
018Thank you. Great job. Thank you. Congratulations. >> It was a great start. >> Thank you so much. >> Good luck, gentlemen. It's a start, right? [laughter] >> There we go. Go move guys. You know what happens. [laughter] >> Magic. >> Thank you. Congratulations again. [applause] So, I'm going to go on and we'll give Trusty Phil some time to get back to the scene. But again, a lot of these great happenings can be found on our website. I invite everyone to visit it um and cruise through it to get information. You can also follow us on social media. There are several uh social media platforms that the school implements um that charact that sort of highlights a lot of our things happening across the district. Um, also if you haven't done so, please sign up to
019our parent square um app. It's a mean of communication that we use um not just for our parents uh but community members at large to join the top community group. And in terms of things that are upcoming um this Saturday we're going to be hosting a wrestling media day at the high school from 9:30 to 1:00. We're going to have some fun and some photo ops with our both our wrestling teams, our girls wrestling team who competed tonight on our board's wrestling team. So, I'll be sending an invite to our trustees if you wanted to come and help support our teams just to have some good fun. Um, we also have our high school chamber concert coming up January 14th. Looking forward to that. Brook Haven Elementary School will have their winter concert on January
02015th. And then Frankie Long's winter concert is scheduled for January 22nd. And I'm super excited about this year's musical, which is Pippen, which will be performed at the high school on February 6 and 7. Did I say Pippen? >> No. [laughter] secondary science center. That's the only way I can say >> developments. >> Yes. Um I also want to thank the board for their continued commitment to the South Country community which leads me to our next presentation. A lot of what happens in our district couldn't happen without our guidance department. But to give an overview of our guidance department, I want to invite Jenner Stebo up to the podium. He is our director of guidance for the school district. There's a lot of fantastic work with our students and staff to help them achieve some
021of the accolades you saw today. Set that up. Take it from there. You just have to. >> All right. Good evening everyone. So again, I'm Jenna Stebo. I'm the director of guidance and counseling programs here in the district. Thank you so much for having me tonight. I'm very excited to talk about our K to2 comprehensive guidance plan and what our school counselors do for our students. Uh so here are our Instagram handles. If you're interested in following us, I suggest you do if you don't already. And the role of a school counselor, our school counselors are here to help our students with anything possible while they are at school. Their role is to work with our families, with our students, with our social workers, our psychologists, administrators, teachers and families. And school counselors can help
022our students through their K to2 experience. [cough and clears throat] So, our comprehensive guidance plan in 2019, New York State changed the regulations regarding school counselors. And notice how I say school counselors and not guidance counselors. That is a former term, but our school counselors really are here to help students across all areas of their education. We are here to promote our students social and emotional development, their academics, career exploration, and college planning. As you may know, New York State is moving towards having the portrait of a graduate and all of the work our school counselors do will absolutely influence that work on the success of portrait of a graduate. Our K to2 guidance plan is revised every year. our students uh we look at our students and what their needs are and every year
023our school counselors come together and we come up with a plan on best to help our students and these are the core pieces of our program. These are the four pillars. These are the things that we focus on every year to make sure our students are receiving the support they need. So the first at the elementary level would be our elementary monthly topics. Our elementary monthly topics are focused on areas that we feel our K to5 students would really benefit from in the classroom. Our school counselors along with our school social workers push into the classrooms every month with their teacher and discuss a various topic. This past June, we actually did a survey with our K to5 staff on what topics would be currently more relevant and maybe moving them. We actually got some
024really great feedback about, for example, uh making friendships. We had done that as a spring topic and our staff said, you know what, that would really be better as a fall topic because it's beginning of the year and they're with new students in the classroom. So, we moved it to October. This January, we're doing conflict resolution and problem solving with our second and fifth graders. And all of our students have access to an elementary school counselor and these topics throughout the school year. They have monthly morning announcements and themes, bulletin boards, all themed with these monthly topics. For our secondary students, a big crux of our program are meetings called IPR. So you might hear that phrase every once in a while. That is an individual [clears throat] progress review meeting. Every single student at
025South Country gets an individual meeting with their school counselor a minimum of once a year. And at that meeting, they talk about their academic goals, what that student's personal goals are for their classes, for after college, uh for after high school, are they going to go to college? Are they going to go to trade school? What programs might they want to do when they leave us? What are their hopes? What are their dreams? And their social emotional well-being. So every single student has one of those individual preference review meetings at least once a year. Academic planning is a big role for our school counselors with our students. Again, every year our counselors in grades 7 through 11 meet with our students individually to discuss their course planning for next year. We are actually in the
026thick of that right now. We started in December. Uh and our students meet with their counselors to talk about how are they doing right now in their courses and what courses are available for them the next year. But it's not only about the next year. It's about the years after that, too. So, okay, you know, I think I'm ready to take a higher course. I want to challenge myself or maybe I'm not ready yet. How can I do it in the future? And that's what our counselors do with our students. They do a four-year mapping. What can I take in middle school? What can I take in high school? And then what happens when you leave us? What happens when you graduate? How do I have those courses available to me? And then one of
027the biggest pieces of our program, college and career readiness, K to 12. Our school counselors focus on college and career readiness for our students. How do we prepare them for what happens next? So that starts in kindergarten. Starting in the elementary schools, we have a full week of college exploration. Every March, that's our March monthly topic in those elementary themes. We do a career day where we have a guest speaker come in and do an assembly with the students. It is one of my favorite days of the year. we have some, you know, last year we had an illustrator from the um from the community come and talk to the students about uh her job and what that looked like and the students were super excited. Um and we really have a great opportunity to
028do different lessons with the students. They do a dressup day of what they want to do when they grow older. Uh so it's really a great day. At the middle school level, we do college and career month where once a week we do a different activity with the different grade levels. I'm very excited to announce that one of those activities this year for our eighth graders is going to be the first ever college fair for the middle school. So, we do a college fair every year at the high school level. And this year, we're going to do it at the middle school for our eighth graders. So, we are inviting some local schools, two-year schools, four-year schools, and trade schools to come to talk to students about what they could start thinking about now of
029what's available to them in the future. We don't want college and career to be something the first time they're hearing that is in 10th grade. We want them to hear it when they're younger. Another one of our activities that really shines at our middle school for college and career readiness is our budget day presentation that we do with our seventh graders. Our seventh graders go to the library and they get assigned a career and they learn about what skills they'll need for that career, how much money they'll make that in that career, and what kind of schooling they need for that career. They then go to different stations throughout the library where they get to choose, well, what kind of car am I going to drive? What kind of house am I going to live
030in? And how do I afford that based on the money that I'm making in that career? And it's really funny to watch them all pick the Tesla and then very quickly go back and pick something else. [laughter] So, they'll realize how quickly money can go and can I really afford that Netflix account or can I not? So, it's really a great opportunity for them even early on to realize, oh, what's a budget and how does that work? At our high school level, we have our college and career fairs every year. In the fall, we have a college fair for our 11th and 12th grade students. And for our in the spring is our big fair. We have both colleges and careers represented. Last school year, we had over a 100 colleges, over 30 careers of
031career professionals within the community. Uh and they came to talk to our students about what it takes to be in that career. So, it's definitely a great day. Some highlights. Uh I'm going to point out some highlights from the class of 2025. our seniors that just graduated in June did some wonderful things. This is actually a link to a larger document, but I'm going to highlight some of those achievements. So, last school year, I know Mrs. O'Hagen's presentation, she presented to you that as of August, our graduation rate at the high school was 91.3%. Breaking some of that down, some highlights from that was 126 of our seniors that graduated uh got an advanced regions diploma. From those 36 received the seal of biiteracy and 296 of our graduates received the seal of civic readiness.
032So if you do that math 97% of our graduates received the seal of civic readiness. So that is a fantastic achievement. Uh we did take advantage of those major life exemptions for some students. I know there was a question uh from one of the trustees about that. Um and there 31 students were granted a major life exemption but not all of those were seniors. Many of those were actually underassmen that will use that upon graduation later. But there was a total of 31 students granted an exemption of one or more exams. So what happens when our students leave us? What happens when they move on after South Country? Our post-graduation statistics are pretty steady yeartoear. Historically over the last few years, our four-year school collegegoing rate is around 40%. Our two-year rate is typically around
03335%. college and career tech program. So that would be like going to Boseies or straight to a career teched program. It's around 10%. Employment is typically around 15% and military rate is typically around 5%. Our [clears throat] goals for our students when we they leave here, we want our students to be one of those three E. We want them to be enrolled, enlisted or employed, and our students are doing that. So the question then becomes, well, where are they going? So it's a big list you're going to see here. This is every single school one of our students went to from the class of 2025. You will see that the majority of our students do stay in New York State. 81% of our seniors last year stayed in New York State. 19% went out of
034state. So, they're as close as New York and New Jersey, but as far away as Texas and Hawaii. So, we do have a wide range of schools. Uh if you look on that list, you have some pretty impressive names and some really great places where our students were able to go. College Board testing day. Uh, as you may know, for the last several years, we have given our students in grades 10 through 12 the opportunity to take a College Board exam while in school. This is a really great benefit to our students because we are breaking down barriers for students to have access to those exams. The College Board really promotes this program because students don't have to worry about taking the exam on a weekend. You know, they're only offered every couple of months
035and they're only offered one day of the month. So, if you have something going on at home, you have a um you know, a family obligation, you have a club or an activity that might have something going on, getting to that test might be difficult, especially if that test isn't being offered in your school district. So, by offering it here at the school, every single student has access to these exams and they don't have to worry about the cost of the exam. The rate of our students taking the exams has risen. So, we had 183 seniors take the actual SAT while in school this school year. We have 262 sophomores and juniors take the PSAT. So, it's been a really great opportunity that our students are taking advantage of. On-site admissions. So, for those that
036might not be familiar, on-site admissions is a really fantastic program where we invite college uh representatives to come to the high school and interview our students on site. They meet with the students, look through their resume, look through their transcript, and they are given the opportunity to do an interview and possibly receive an acceptance on site. Many of these colleges actually wave the fee to apply to that college when they do on-site admissions. So, not only are the students walking away with an acceptance, but they also did it [snorts] for free, which is a nice benefit. And some of the schools on this list actually will also tell the student if they might receive a scholarship. So, some students walked away with an acceptance and money. So, it's a really great thing. Uh, this year
037we had seven colleges come to on-site admissions. So, on the left column, you'll see 197 acceptances just through on-site admission alone. So, this was a really, really great program. That's 59 more acceptances than we had last school year. Uh, I want to give a shout out to our college and career counselor for running this event. It was just fantastic. It's over the course of about three weeks in November and December. And really, it's a lot of work to put in. Each student is met with personally by our college and career counselor and then they uh meet with the college rep. So, it's really a great opportunity for our students and as you can see some really amazing schools that our students got into. The Suffach Community College meeting alone was over 70 students that that
038in one single day with a rep. So, it was uh it was quite a whirlwind of a day. Bosey's participation. The school counselors start meeting with students like I said for their scheduling. Uh and [clears throat] when they start meeting with their sophomores and our juniors, they are able to select to uh potentially go to Boseies for career and technical education programs. All of the programs on the left side are the programs we currently send our students to. So these programs range from trade school programs to appearance enhancement programs uh and medical programs. So, our students have the opportunity to go to Boseis for about half the school day and they get hands-on experience in these areas. What's really great about most of these programs is that the students once they finish, if they are
039successful, they actually get an industry certification in these areas. So, a lot of times these students are able to leave us and go directly to work in these academic areas, which is really fantastic. So, right now there's 108 students from Belort High School that attend BoseCT programs. scholarships uh from last year's seniors. So, obviously I'm not going to go through them all, but the two that I really want to focus on right now. Uh the first would be the Napzy Foundation. Napzy over the last several years has given us an extraordinary opportunity for 10 of our seniors each year to go to Suffach Community College for free. They give these students a $20,000 scholarship that not only covers tuition, but also some fees, books, and things like that where they can go to SUFFK debtree.
040This has been an amazing opportunity that they only give to two school districts and we are one of them. So it's really a wonderful opportunity. Uh we meet with these students, we help them through the application uh and they are able to uh to go to Suffach afterwards which is really a great opportunity. Last year we had two QuestBridge winners. So from our senior class we had one student go to Smith College and one went to Rice University. And as we heard we have another one this year of our senior class. So our students are doing really well. So new so far this year uh in the guidance department we have three major things that are going on. The first would be school links. Uh in the past we had used a previous college and
041career search engine program and this year we have moved to a new program called school links. This transition has been wonderful. School links is a really dynamic program where students grades 6 through 12 are able to log on and do college and career searches. They can search any college in the country of what programs they have, what activities they offer, what the cost of the school is, what grades you need to get into the program. Um, they also have personality tests and uh job matching based on uh uh based on their interest. And what's really nice is it's more centered like an app. So, the students are more willing to do it. I actually got to see a group of nth grade students take the quiz. They match not only your personality to a job,
042but also to famous people. So watching the students get really excited that they were matched to Dora the Explorer was actually kind of funny. But >> [laughter] >> uh they were like really excited. One was Lady Gaga. They didn't quite know what that meant about themselves. But it uh you know it really is a great program. The students are using it. What's nice about School Links, it actually tells us the usage. Students are using this at home on their own. That to me is the pinnacle of that it's working. So School Links has really been a success for our students to be able to search about their futures. Uh it's really easy to log on. So students just go on to their Clever badge, they click, and they're on. There's no separate username. There's no
043separate password. They're just able to use it. And this is how we're sending their college applications to college. So when they fill out their application, the school counselors are using sending their transcripts and their scores through the School Links program. Something that I'm very excited about are our dual enrollment college courses. Previously, last school year, we had two college courses that had associated dual college credit with it through Long Island University. And this school year, we have entered into a partnership with Suffach Community College and have added seven different courses uh to our to our uh pamphlet. So, as you can see there, some of those courses are three credit courses and some are actually six. So students are able to take the course at Bport High School with a Belleport High School teacher and
044if they choose to, they can pay [clears throat] for college credit associated through SUFFK for that course. Uh the cost for a three credit course is only $210. So if you know anything about college tuition, $210 for a three credit course is really great. They also do offer financial aid if needed. And students do not have to do this though. If they just want to take the course that we offer, they can take the course that we offer. They don't have to pay for the college credit. They can still get the experience, but if they'd like to get that credit through their transcript, they can. And for next school year, we are pursuing 10 more courses to add. So, you can see the ones on the top are through SEA Community College. Again, the top
045three have actually already been approved. We're waiting for the next three. And we're also looking to uh and I believe it's on tonight's agenda uh to enter into an agreement with Five Towns College. Five Towns College is uh going to work with us to offer credit courses for our senior uh excelled music program classes. So, wind ensemble, concert, orchestra, and mixed chorus, and computer graphics through our art department. The five towns college classes are $50. So, it is an incredible opportunity for students. Uh and if you take one of those 510 courses, they actually will offer you a scholarship to go to five towns after. So, this is really a great opportunity for our students. And finally, our partnership with Northwell Health. So, we actually have friends here from Northwell, so I'm going to introduce
046them in a moment. Uh, but we have entered into a partnership this year with Northwell Health to help our students with their behavioral health needs. It's been a fantastic opportunity to work with them. So, I'm going to introduce them in just a moment >> and I'm just going to toggle the Thank you, Mr. Steo. Thank you to your guidance department. [applause] All right. So, I'm going to introduce uh Dr. Scott Fus and Dr. Vera to talk about our North partnership. >> Thank you. Thank you everybody. And uh like uh like the ones before us, we'll try to be succinct. It's a lot of information, but we're very excited about our partnership and about the offerings that we have. So, Dr. Falovitz and myself will uh walk through it. Uh so, my name is Vera Foyer.
047I'm a child psychiatrist. I'm the VP for child psychiatry for North Health and uh really excited about the partnership which actually started even before this year. This year we expanded our partnership. We had a partnership previous years to uh uh collaborate on what we're calling tier one education services and now we have a clinical site that your district can utilize as well. But really our work together is motivated by uh the need for more mental health services in particular in this area of Long Island where there's not a lot of services available for families and to help decan from hospitals from emergency rooms and provide students and families immediate access and then do that together with schools who are very well positioned to uh work together with us in terms of uh early recognition and
048prevention efforts and destigmatizing ing mental health and mental health care and promoting equity, making sure that everybody has access to care regardless of an ability to pay uh and really uh help uh make that as seamless as possible. So, our model for school mental health services really follows the multi-tered systems of support that is familiar to schools in many different ways. I know everybody has a pyramid. I always joke this is our pyramid. Uh and our pyramid is really uh starts with the basis which we have been doing with your district for two years now which is the tier one services education professional development for your staff. Opportunities for them to take credit yielding classes uh opportunities for the community uh to get education and services and for the students to get some education. and
049we have pushed into your district on various occasions to do different events and we're excited to do even more of that as we go forward. On tier two is as needed supports. Those are consultations sometimes uh you know the guidance team the department the special education department needs support with assessment from a psychiatrist or a neurossychologist to guide uh education plan development and so on and so forth. And so we're able to support those as well. And then last and certainly not least, the big expansion this year has been the tier three services, which is an actual physical clinical site uh in Riverhead uh where families can come and access our services uh on same day if needed. And because I knew that I'm not going to see this from a distance, I do have
050it pulled up on my phone. We do have some numbers to share with you guys. So actually in the last two years your teams have utilized our education services quite a bit which is really exciting to see the engagement and the interest from the district. The big orange bars indicate professional development sessions. So across in the last two years across 70 different sessions South Country uh team members were present at 47 of those sessions with 186 participants. So your team members are coming and getting trainings on the various different topics and we offer about 50 different classes throughout the year uh for the staff. They're also coming to our regular collaborative meetings which is really exciting to see and your community has started to use some of our community education offerings as well uh which
051is the yellow uh and the uh blue columns over there. Tier three is the clinical services. So we did want to share back some initial data. Just since the beginning of this school year, we have seen uh 35 individual students. Those students had some additional follow-up appointments. Uh half the students that are recommended by the school team to come actually make it to the site, which is really great. For now, most of the referrals are coming directly from school professionals. However, as we uh mature into the relationship and as the community learns more about the services being available, I really want to highlight here that students do not need to be referred by the school district staff. Families can seek out care on their own. And since it is uh care uh protected by what
052uh any other medical care uh healthcare uh privacy protections that we have the uh connection with the school is contingent on the family's agreement uh for us to be able to connect and collaborate which is of course uh you know their discretion. So suffice to say that it's a great beginning uh of the year in terms of uh the district utilizing the services. as kids are coming getting seen. Our average for crisis appointments is within six hours we see kids. So it's really typically the same day. So it's instead of an emergency room visit often we've been able to navigate kids into higher levels of care to the hospital to partial hospital as needed. So we've already uh done that together. We're your district as well. So the rest of the presentation I'm going to
053give over to Dr. Falovitz after I introduce him and the rest of our team. Uh so Dr. Fchovitz is the associate director for the program. The rest of the people on this slide is our administrative team. Your district will encounter uh most of them in terms of like emails and meetings and organizing all of our offerings. And then we do have other partners in the health system. We work closely with our South Oaks hospital partners for their offerings in terms of vocational trainings and partial hospital inpatient units. And then Ann Vanderver and Bianca are part of our teams as well where we offer uh studentf facing programming direct to student health education. We can come and push into health classes with mental health related content assemblies other things uh to help enhance uh the offerings
054that the district has for the students and the community. And we also have a student advocacy program. And this is your Riverhead uh and clinical hop team. The Riverhead team uh is on uh the um unframed side of the slide uh with our nurse practitioners, our care coordinator, our clinicians, and then on the other side our doctors and our behavioral health counselors that are supporting the site uh from our hub um which I'm going to hand over to Dr. Falovitz to talk about the center uh and the rest of the services. >> Thank you so much. Thank you Dr. Hoyer and thank you everybody here for being here. Um it's actually my distinct pleasure of being in this room for the second time in the past like six months. So it's very nice to see
055familiar faces. Um so to highlight a little bit about you know really what makes this all so important to to us you know doing the work and being here is this connection that we have with you and with your community. So, a lot of that work, especially this year, is able to happen at our behavioral health center in Riverhead, which is one of our uh really like newest buildings really, you know, in Northwell of recent memory. Um, and we have this wonderful space right on Main Street, right down the road from the aquarium. Um, that actually houses bless you. uh but not only our behavioral health evaluation center where we're seeing kids from your district but it also has a full outpatient uh clinic and a partial hospital as well. So on multiple uh levels
056of service essentially so that we can really meet [snorts] the needs of the community for sure. And you know to really just give you a glimpse into what we're doing when you know when your your your your students your families are coming to see us you know we really are providing a comprehensive psychiatric evaluation but we're doing it in a way that is intended to be comfortable personal and warm pulling away from the you know sometimes difficult experience of an emergency department especially for those who are coming to us for crisis. So what are we providing at those visits? Well we're providing that urgent access. either same day or typically within a day or so or within a week. Um so that we can do a full assessment of any needs that that child might
057need. Uh there are really no reasons that somebody should not be able to come to us except for very specific ones. And really the idea here is that we'll be able to again comfortably assess for mental wellness in a lot of different areas and then very importantly connect those students in need to the services that they need. We all know that it's a very tangled web to navigate the mental health system. So a big goal of ours is to really make that connection happen and that has been happening very well and that is thanks to our dedicated care coordinators. So we have a whole team uh who really their job is to make sure that these connections happen and that these families don't receive a list of 20 40 70 you know options but you
058know the real people that they can connect with here and now insurancebased lo you know local etc. Beyond that um you know obviously Dr. Foyer alluded to the crisis care, but really again to that mission of, you know, communication, being a part of the community, really trying to help altogether, uh, to shift, reduce stigma, shift beliefs around mental health, educate and support families, um, you know, avoid the emergency room, and certainly support your school staff as well. In terms of the community, um, as you can hear, you know, in much of what we're saying, I mean, we are not here just to connect with the kids, but really to connect with the community and to help prevent downstream mental health uh, negative, you know, consequences. So, one of the ways that we try to let
059the community know about these opportunities is through our newsletter, which is sent out uh, the first week of the month, first Monday of the month, and we sent it out actually the other day. Um there is a community version as well as a professional version. Uh and this is definitely an appeal as much as possible to get that newsletter out to your community through the whatever channels the PTA etc. Um it is where we really list uh the the events that are upcoming. Um and provide you know really direct information about how to access the services. So a really really useful way to let your community know about the partnership and what's available. These are uh a few of the community education series that we have going. Um these are sessions that cover a wide
060variety of topics and they are all topics that really the communities have told us they want. So we do survey the community at the end of the year and then over the summer as we're preparing and organizing our educational opportunities, we want it to be what you need and want. In addition, this year we're offering a series of talks in uh native languages um specifically Spanish and Mandarin. Uh so that's something that there are a number of sessions that are coming up uh where those sessions will be delivered by some of our clinicians, our um one of our Mandarin speaking psychiatrists as well as a Spanish-sp speakaking psychiatrist and other clinicians who are native Spanish speakers. Um so we're really you know really proud and happy to be able to offer that uh that very
061comfortable experience for those families. >> I'm just going to add one thing there uh that these sessions for the community's reference they're really topics that are wide reaching parenting issues. So like the next one is about social media um smartphone at every age uh resilience academic stress. It's all topics that are really meant to be preventive and really uh reach out to everybody who has parents and is dealing with the parenting issues of today uh to approach that from that perspective to try to give some guidance for families. These are also recorded and posted on our YouTube channel afterwards which we have the links for you guys. So if people can come to a session in real time the offerings are there after as well. >> Absolutely. Yes. And that is something that at the
062school. We encourage staff to share with their staff. So these are very available at a click and most of our uh offerings really are or a QR you like QR codes I have to say. Um in terms of just other supports to you know really let people know about um you know as many of you do know there is a growing um epidemic of chronic school absenteeism or otherwise known as school avoidance and this has been a growing issue. So, one of the opportunities that we've um you know started over the past couple years, we do have a parent workshop for anyone who is either struggling or worrying about school avoidance. And this is something that you can distribute to your communities. They don't have to come for a visit. They can literally scan that
063code and they're in the [snorts] meeting. And it's a really wonderful support opportunity for any family who's dealing with this very, very difficult challenge. So wanted to make sure that you know people know about that as well as supporting your anxious child. Um we know and we see in the uh in the data even for your own district amongst others that anxiety and anx associated anxiety disorders do really lead the way in terms of uh prevalence of mental health diagnoses that we're seeing. So we have a uh work really a a lunch support group. Um again an opportunity for families to not only be together and support each other and learn from each other but to learn from our clinicians who are working with kids um in this you know very critical and very uh
064pervasive and difficult area as well. So school school avoidance and anxiety are two very uh central pieces. The resiliency toolkit is a digital resource hub. So of course accessing all of these other things involve a lot you know time sometimes or transportation. This is one that you know similar to like schoolings as that was mentioned is something that they can access on their phones immediately. Um essentially what we have here is a wonderful database of uh resources in English, Spanish and Mandarin um that cover really a wide range of topics. So, not only information about various diagnoses or treatments, but also important, you know, life and community supports, food pantries, social services, etc. We really want this to be something that will support resiliency in any way that people need. Um, and when they access
065this, they get a beautiful like downloadable emailable um handout with various resources. And it's been a really really good way to disseminate information and we have we do track utilization and we've had really nice utilization of this resource as well. Other just points of where you can access all of this because it is a lot and it's you know we want you to really be able to clearly and easily navigate. We have a Google drive um which essentially has all of these resources including our calendar of events with links the easy ways to kind of get into all of this. So that Google Drive is a very you know really easy thing to navigate and has resources as you can see for families and resources for staff. In addition, as Dr. Foyer mentioned, we have
066our YouTube where community education series are held as well as our professional education series for your school staff. So, we want these resources, you know, really to be available and of course go well beyond um just a crisis and getting way upstream so that we can all work together to support your community and families. Professional education briefly, uh I'll just mention some of the things we do to support your school staff and collaborate as a group. Um so, every Wednesday we have a different meeting. We actually held a meeting today, our updates and district collaboration meeting where we really get all of the school partners together to talk about all different things going on in their districts and share some time together to enhance their practices, make sure they're doing, you know, sort of the
067state-of-the-art that you need. And as you can see here, there are various other offerings that are both educational um as well as supporting the well-being of your staff who you know are really dealing with some of the highest stress um and highest strain uh parts of the job. Um and then district specific meetings every year we do meet with your PPS staff and your administrative staff to review, you know, how are we doing and what can we do better. This is something that is a um you know I would say our program is always it's it's always flexing and always trying to grow and you know really um reach out in the ways that we need to to get better at this. So we want feedback, we look for feedback and you know fortunately you're
068a very engaged partner and you give us wonderful feedback and we need that. So thank you for that. as we look sort of, you know, up to date at this point of of what's been uh kind of happening in terms of professional development. Um, we've had about 49 about 50 sessions, I guess I could say. Um, and I think the really nice thing is, you know, not only does it cover a wide variety of topics, but to your staff, you know, they're not only they're they're getting the information, but again getting those credits, which, you know, everybody needs those continuing ed credits. So, we want to make it really, you know, a two hit benefit, I guess. And then student education. So, you know, the students are really the ones who um of course we
069we need them engaged. We want them engaged and they want it as well. Um so, you know, we have a really wonderful partnership with our community outreach uh staff who really cover a variety of topics as you can see here that are, you know, not mental health specific but wellness, life, um how to lead healthy, successful lives. uh and these are a variety of topics amongst many others that you know can be provided and um sometimes the district will ask for us you know to present specific on you know on some of these specific topics. So um again community outreach we mentioned one of our partners earlier and Vandervir and Marina we have some great partners who are helping us to access your students directly and then Cohen Strong Mental Health and this one always
070my heart starts to like you know beat a little faster because this is an really amazing program. Um, so this is our youth advocacy program. And what this is is it's inviting um upper classmen from your high schools to participate in a program where they essentially develop as advocates for mental health uh leaders in your community. And it's a two-phase program where they first are certified in teen mental health first aid um and receive full certification receive um a number of lectures in the first half of the year around various things uh from Northwell experts [clears throat] career research etc. And then in the second phase, they put it into action. And it's really amazing to see this, but they develop a program for your community that will benefit your students. And they have the
071opportunity to travel with us to Albany and to Washington DC to meet with lawmakers and advocate for better mental health for um you know, for their uh for their colleagues and their their peers. It's an amazing opportunity that's up in Albany. Um and it's just very inspiring. um like the two youth earlier just to watch the kids do what they do is incredible. Um and our advisory board. So as we said feedback is very important, connection very important and our advisory board is one of the ways in which we're able to to really have that and also make sure that we're getting better and and continue to do so. So we welcome uh families, educators, students who are interested in being a part of our advisory board. Um we have several meetings a year. They're
072virtual and it really is an opportunity to advance, expand, meet the needs of the communities and really hear the youth voice um to make sure that we're we're doing this in the in the you know the really the most optimal way. In addition, um critical incident support is something that we've developed in the past couple of years. You know, unfortunately, we all live life in our community and sometimes our community has um you know, really horrible and unfortunate events. So this is um a partnership that between ourselves and some of our um staff who support trauma and resilience. Uh we are here for you if there is any kind of community need. If there is a major change, a major loss, um you know, it really could run to whatever the district would need. Uh
073but if there are times of either emotional distress, community distress, we're here to support you and we will come and be here with a team uh to support staff, students, whoever needs it. Um we will be here. Otherwise, um this district event request form is just allowing the district to request um you know, specific things. We love again to be here and be physically with you. Um, so you know, coming to deliver uh one of those specific topics, if you want to come to us and come hang out at the Riverhead Center and check it out, please do. We love to have visitors. Um, you know, like we said, the postvention uh or crisis support, you know, us being there when you need us, wellness fairs. So if there's anything where you think it might
074be an enhancement to have us there meeting your kids, you know, really having very like kickback conversation about mental health and, you know, really again enhancing that connection. Let us know and this is one of the ways the district can do that. And really again, you know, just the emphasis on partnership. We all live this life together. We want to help our communities thrive and, you know, be safe and be well. Um, and it just it comes with so many thanks for all that you do to obviously support us, but also collaborate with us and, you know, really uh tell the families out there that we're doing some good. So, thank you for allowing us to be here here today with you. Um, and happy new year. >> Thank you. [applause] >> Thank you for
075provide. I don't know if any of the trustes have any questions. >> Just a quick question. How long have you been working with us? So uh we had the services for educations since last academic year and this academic year we you joined the riverhead site which had physically opened for this school year. >> Wonderful. And they they work directly through the uh guidance department. >> They work through the guidance department directly but they work with multiple staff members providing professional. [clears throat] >> I mean you guys have better things to do. You guys run the whole show. So, thank you very much for taking the time to >> Absolutely. This is really important. >> Yes. Yeah. >> And I do want to give a shout out um only because even when we had a crisis
076a couple years ago, passing one of our staff members, they were equipped to the same and provided support staff. Um so, I just want to show my appreciation for that again. Uh it's been a remarkable partnership that we're proud of. >> Yeah. Yeah. Very much so. I will take a ride out to Riverhead. >> Come hang our emails are in the presentation. So, please just reach out. let us know. We'd love to show you around. It's and the team is lovely out there. I was just there today. >> I was going to go one step further and ask if you have any plans to have a satellite office closer to us. >> Yeah, that's a common question and you know at this point my answer is not right now. I I do think that you
077know maybe in the future here in the south south part of Suffach County there is a need. There's other districts that are even further than you from Riverhead. Uh, you know, I do recognize this is Riverhead is much closer than the Children's Hospital, but it's still a hike. Um, but uh, you know, not right now, but maybe in the future. And >> I know Mr. Steel actually timed the trip. It's like 20 minutes. >> It's 23 minutes from this building. [laughter] >> So, I left here and went there. Uh, it is it's a doctor's office. It's very calm and it's it's comforting. Yeah, you go that way. So, it's 23 minutes. >> It's against traffic. There's parking's easy >> and the access, you know, it really is swift. You know, if it's a same day,
078we're going to do it. And if not, it's, you know, usually within the week >> or right. >> Thank you so much. That's our pleasure. Thank you guys. >> Thank you all. jumping through the medical equipment to get over to uh >> Okay, >> thank you again, Mr. Steel. >> Thank you. >> All right. Um, next up is trustee and advisory committee reports. And I usually thank y'all again. That was great. >> Usually start with our exeicio member. >> Thank you. I hope everyone had a happy new year and a merry Christmas. I'm very excited to be back and I can't wait to see what 2026 holds for our district. To end 2025, our student council ended our food drive where we distributed the food to Lighthouse Mission and three other local churches. I just
079want to thank the community for their support and donations. I would also like to congratulate Mrs. Mori Arti's fourth period pre-cal class for donating the most food, donating around 130 cans. The student council kicked off 2026 with our first meeting where we discussed issues our student officers and board members see throughout the school and thought of ways that we could get more students involved. Our exec board will be meeting with Mr. PL in the next few weeks to discuss these issues. And our board and officers continue to fund raise for our leadership conferences in BC, which I'm very excited for. Okay. Normally I have everybody else go first before I speak, but I want to speak first tonight so I can listen to everybody else. Um, basically my report is I'm going to skip the
080fun things that I did, um, including going to the wrestling event this evening right before the board meeting, um, concert at Bport Middle School. And make only one comment [clears throat] about that. at the middle school, they use QR codes for the programs and announced that they saved over 1,800 pages in copying. So, I thought that was a particularly interesting thing to pass on in terms of how to still get out the information we need, but also it saved a lot of money. Um, the reason I wanted to speak first was to use my time, um, just to summarize where the board sits today in comparison to where we sat last day when we got the news about the overspending of last year's budget. And we're further along the path that we set back in
081September in that we've gotten that external auditor's report which gives details about how we got there and we had the internal auditor report and we've um also got an interim assistant superintendent who's had many years of experience and I referred to him as well seasoned and I hope you'll take that in the best light possible. Um but he is creating um a business office uh that has best per best professional practices in it so that we can be confident going into the future that we don't get into the position that we found ourselves in um as of last day. Um, in addition to that summation, um, I've also along with other trustees taken advantage of some professional development opportunities including one this morning and I I heard that uh, trustee Feliz also participated and it
082was a webinar by the New York State Controllers's Office on fiscal stress monitoring. ing which was very informative about the how they evaluate all school districts every single year to to score each school district to determine whether there is fiscal stress. And in addition to the standard concept of fiscal stress there, they also scored us on environmental stress. And each school district um would be scored on that category as well. And that included uh percentages of stu of students um economically disadvantaged or percentage of students who um are English language learners. And that's what they consider um environmental. It really looks at the demographics of each school district and um they also pointed out what is obvious is that they've got a very good website where we can go on and look at all the
083data for the various districts including our own. And there's um going to be an opportunity for all board members to listen to this webinar. It was advertised to take place for an hour finished in about 45 minutes. So when that comes, we'll have our clerk send out a link so that everybody can avail themselves of that. So now let's start with Trusty [clears throat] Caldwell. Um, sure. Um, just happy to be here. Pretty optimistic about the new school year. Um, I also attended attended holiday programs. I went to the Bport Middle School concert before I was attacked with the flu and then was federated for a while. Um, but that was really wonderful. Uh, I got to see our students put their best foot forward and the performance was incredible. brought me back to my
084classroom days. A lot of the students just they were just so sharp. Um and it was so obvious that the teachers had really good classroom management. So I it brought me back to those days. So it was really nice um to see the students just be really great. Um I look forward to attending uh civics day on Friday. I will be there. It's my first civics day. I've heard great things about it, so I can't wait. Um, and just optimistic, ready to to work hard. >> Trusty Feliz, >> thank you very much. I went to one holiday show and was told that a third of the choir went home that day with fever and flu. And the next day, I woke up with fever and flu. >> Yep. >> And I missed every holiday show
085after that, uh, including um, the Winter Wonderland. So, I was down for nine days and I never missed so many concerts in my nine years on the board. So, I apologize to every school that I missed, but um it was a good time to just uh be down for the count and uh I recovered. That's all I can say. Um along with everyone else and my hats off to all all the teachers who encountered what you encounter in the in the classroom uh every single day. Um just echo the comments that um that board president made about the um uh webinar from the state controller. Um we do have these resources available to us. It was a free webinar and what can't say enough about the re th those resources that we need to avail
086ourselves to. So I do hope that the rest of the board will listen to the 40 it was actually 43 minutes. Um and uh we we really shouldn't be afraid of audits and um and those those tips that they do give us to to avail ourselves to um uh be to be ever so ever so diligent about what to look for to um to help us with in this particular case fiscal stress. So I was very happy that I had the time to uh to listen to it today. um attended unified golf uh yesterday. First time I was able to attend that uh over at Topgolf. Uh ter terrific even even in the cold. They do have heaters over there and the kids didn't mind the cold anyway. So they were the athletes were really
087uh really inspired and it was wonderful to see. Um enjoyed the wrestling today. It was the first wrestling match I finally got to. And as far as the what we are going through still studying the the reports and the and the treasures reports I'm going to be asking a number of questions of our uh interim business manager of the of the uh October and November treasures report that we have tonight. I want to make sure that we're sending the right message to our staff about what we're doing and um so I will reserve those questions at at that time. But just know that we are, you know, everyone here, like we have said at each of our meetings, taking this very seriously and um and then we also have another presentation tonight that we're looking
088forward to uh you know, further uh long-term solutions. So, just trying to put our best foot forward and um and doing the right thing by the district, considering all of all of our stakeholders here in the district. Thank you. Trusty Dilla, >> I I don't have anything except to echo, you know, the concerts were fabulous. Um, the sporting events that I've been able to get to have [clears throat] been fabulous. Um, I love what our staff puts together. Um, and I love how our kids are really into being where they are at everything. Um, I think that comes across when the kids are enjoying it. It makes the audience or the spectators enjoy it more. and that comes from the staff. So that's it. Trustee Felicetta, >> I'll echo the saying. I went to Winter
089Wonderland and a couple athletic events. Um just great to see the kids doing what they do best and um just always glad to see them in that atmosphere. >> Trusty Ross. Well, I attended many of those events, but not because I'm a board member, but because I'm a parent, so there's sort of a requirement on that end. Um, for you [clears throat] guys in the room, as I I don't usually talk about those events. Um, the next months coming up, the budget, that really is the topic that a lot of these pe a lot of the people who are your neighbors, who are around concerned with where we're going to go. We need a budget. We need to make sure kids in the classroom, make sure programs are running. Ask questions. Don't expect that when
090you come in here, this is the only place to ask questions. Most we all live in this community. If we can't explain it to you on the outside, how can we understand it up here, so ask us questions. Don't be afraid to come. Anybody who sees me, you see me at the gym, you see me at different places in town, ask me. My kids will yell at you because everybody talks to me and they hate going out to the store with me. >> Takes an hour and a half to get >> minutes of grocery shopping. >> 100%. And that that happened before I was a board member. So from that end, it's no change. But ask us questions. We want the budget. Things need to keep moving forward. We stepped in a pile from that
091end. their pro there. It is not a project that is going to or a problem that is going to go away overnight. Keep asking questions. There's going to be a plan. It's got to move forward. But as everybody heard, with all the things going on tonight, life still goes on. It's no different than our households. We get an ugly bill, something breaks, something fixes. Life still goes on. I still got to show up at work. I still got to pay my other bills. I still got to get things done. So, please don't miss that. And don't miss that opportunity. >> All right. >> Oh, >> he had to step away. >> He may be able to come back, but he had to step away for the moment. >> All right, then we'll go back to
092him. >> All right. Guide to board meetings. This is public commentary. And um I have three cards and one of them we spoke right before the meeting with the idea that maybe the information you had to share you wanted to come in and talk to us later. Um but if you wanted to come in I'll put this back in the whatever. Well, let me call first um in order Vincent Aloo. >> Good evening everybody. >> And let me just come and I'm doing this a little out of order because I'm doing there only three cards and instead of having them sit through the whole meeting. >> You're in charge. >> I'm I'm right. [laughter] just going to make it blatantly obvious about what I'm doing. >> There you go. >> So, Mr. >> Yes. >>
093Okay. Thank you. >> Your turn. Three. You have three minutes. >> You don't get to talk about individual people, >> employees, or anybody [clears throat] else. And um >> Fair enough. >> Ready to go. >> Okay. Very good. Uh Vinnie, uh 255 Clinton Avenue, East Patchog. Um, I want to thank the board uh for the opportunity to speak tonight. My name is Vinnie Louu. I have been a resident of this school district, South Country School District, for 17 years. Um, as a local taxpayer, I've helped support our school budget year after year. For decades, school construction on Long Island helped grow our middle class. It supported family sustaining jobs for local workers. These local union workers returned these investments to our schools through payment of local property tax. Unfortunately, public school construction procurement on Long
094Island has been undermined. Poor decision- making by our school boards who are either unaware or have turned a blind eye to the fraud or abuse in our school construction has reduced comp competition and driven up costs. Outright fraud from construction managers you entrust with oversight has pushed laws of law-abiding contractors out of the process. Recently, over a dozen school districts have contractors arrested for cheating taxpayers, exploiting workers, and constructing substandard facilities. I have a number of documents I'd like to drop with the district clerk to support that perspective. This has resulted in monopolization of public school construction by a select few low road general contractors and construction management firms. Many of these contractors and their exploited workforce are not local, which means tax dollars you depend on are leaving our state. For instance, the contractor
095you hire to do the abatement on the windows outside, Pennsylvania is probably contributing nothing to the school district. I'm here to voice my deep concern regarding opposition uh from your Nassau Suffach School Board Association. I don't think Mr. Beio is giving you good information. I really don't. Um uh to a common sense law S72, Senate 1672 and Assembly 756 that will fix the problem with school construction. This bipartisan state legislation will create a project labor agreement policy for school construction projects over $1 million. PLA's are proven to save taxpayer money, increase tax revenue of school budgets, all while ensuring our children learn in safe, well- constructed facilities. Your opposition, which riddled with misinformation, fear-mongering for very contracted with profiting from this fraud, is misguided. [snorts] How do project labor agreements save taxpayer money? PLA's exempt
096school districts from having to use the Wix law. Right off the top, if you if you um enact a project labor agreement for your capital improvement projects, you can bypass the Wix law. Um federal law exempts taxes on union benefits, which is about 40% of the compensation and prevailing wage package. PLA's guarantee savings from this exemption. PLA's employ New York state registered apprentices, saving money while providing local career opportunities. Apprentices cost 40% less than a journeyman. One of my I'm the business manager local 66, a business manager and secretary treasurer. I'm also the chairman of the board of trustees overseeing with fiduciary responsibility our pension fund, our medical fund, our annuity fund, and our trading fund. Okay. And I was also a part-time substitute custodian custodian in this school district when I was going through
097my apprenticeship. Um, so our level one apprentices make 40% of what a journeyman make. 40%. I guarantee. >> Very good. And with that, I'd like to drop the lid if anybody has any [laughter] questions. No problem. >> Thank you. >> Ask your information to our clerk. Thank you. >> Okay, >> Mr. Slaughter. >> Number of school districts that have been prosecuted for wage all sorts of crimes all over the place. >> There's a letter of guidance from the controller saying how the piggybacking law is clearly being misused. >> Comparison >> of prevailing wage to the union. >> Can you do that? >> Let us proceed. Thank you. >> Well, thank you for the opportunity to speak. You know, I'm not a resident of South Country, so I know uh you know, you've given me the
098courtesy, which I appreciate. Although I am a graduate of Patrick Mford and I lived in Shirley and been a resident homeowner in William Floyd for 20 years. So, you know, been here on the Southshore my life, my entire life and and also >> worked for Cape Browning when she represented the area for 12 years. So, you know, did a lot uh here on Bport when when I was in that role. Um but now I'm the political coordinator for the laborers on Long Island. Um and and on behalf of the building trades and the 65,000 members here on Long Island, um here to just bring to your attention what many school boards don't know what's happening in construction. And I understand, you know, you make decisions on contractors, but you're not construction experts. You rely on
099a lot of construction managers and architects who are third party folks and and unfortunately they have driven the construction market into the ground here on Long Island. uh prevailing wage law which you are required to to follow whether you're a union worker or a non-un worker. Prevailing wage is the same for everybody. So it does not cost you more money to use a union worker. Um however there's a savings to that as Vinnie indicated. You know federal law allows the benefit portion of a package to be tax exempt. So if I'm a union worker and I cost prevailing wage $72 an hour, $40 is a wage package. You pay payroll tax on that. The other $30 is taxfree under federal law because I'm getting healthcare and a pension. So that's a savings to you when
100you use a non-un worker. Typically don't get benefits. You have to pay payroll tax on the whole package. So there's a savings there. You're missing out on. Apprentices as as he started to talk about also are a way to pay a worker less than the pavilion wage as well as creating job opportunities for young people who are getting into the trades. The contractors use today aren't using apprenticeship programs. They don't have them. We do. We're the local unions that train these folks and give them these opportunities. So, we're missing out on the opportunities as well as the savings for our local residents. These out of state contractors are bringing in workers who get exploited. They're not being paid the brilliant wage. And so, they're pocketing that difference. Meanwhile, you're paying for the premium of a
101skilled worker who's supposed to have the training, have the health insurance, have the pension, and and lastly, that money doesn't come back here. So, if you're not employing a local resident like myself who owns a home, who pays the property taxes, we're not reinvesting that money in the community. A project labor agreement is simply a a pre-negotiated agreement on the labor workforce. So, every contractor who bids today, even the ones you're currently using, can continue to bid. However, it polices the job site because you have union shop stewards. It it guarantees the local workforce does the work. The money stays here. all this fraud and abuse. I mean, the cases he handed you is just a snippet of over a dozen school districts just in the last two years. All those resources on law enforcement
102being used to prosecute folks. We could end it with a project labor agreement. There's legislation that would do this. We did it for Sunni campuses. We do it for Dazzy. We do it for Nassau County, Suffach County. All city schools have it. Your schoolboard association opposes it. We ask you to look at the information. It save you money and support the bill. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> And our last speaker, Lisa Danto. >> Oh boy, what a day it's been. Hi, my name is Lisa Danto. I'm a former member of this board for 11 years. I actually was elected with the help of the Teamsters, God bless Lynch, because there was all sorts of corruption in the South Country Central School District. And it's been going on for many years. It started
103with my ex-husband and it and I ended up we'll leave that for that. Now, he's been suing me personally for 20 years. Some people used to ask me, "How the heck did I sit in exact session till 3:00 a.m. with Greg Crely seen the cleaner?" So, I said he [clears throat] >> Let me remind you, we don't talk about individuals, even ones who are not here. >> Okay. There was some somebody who was a board president. Someone asked, "How do I sit on with into exec session for 3:00 a.m.?" Because I had to see what he's going to do at 3:00 a.m. when everyone else had gone home and board minutes were not published for at least 6 to 8 months later. He was very similar to I can talk about my ex-husband, can I?
104It's in court documents. Uh very similar to my ex-husband who used to disappear. >> Let's don't talk about him either. >> Okay, there we go. uh a board member who had to resign in 2001 under the last scandal. 2000 when you last had a a financial crisis and he had his friend who was the financial person, a previous superintendent. So these crises keep happening in the school district from 2000 to 2026 because someone hasn't cleaned house and I've seen it all. I really do hope that you continue with all your investigations. I actually hope that every current board member goes back and looks at what has happened in this district. It repeats itself just like American history repeats itself. I'm a so former social studies teacher. I taught participation in government. I taught participation in
105government with uh constitutional law. We've had a lot of issues with the same law firm year after year. We had a lot of issues with a previous uh financial consultant who gave advice in 2000 and then the whole situation collapsed. Miller, Lily and Pierce, they were the pre preminent uh person in financial and then when they gave it bad advice, many school districts had financial problems. So if we keep having the same old, same old, same old. Guess what? You get the same old. As I sit here today, I could have been sitting in the audience in 2008, which is what prompted me to run for school board then. But I didn't just come one day and think I could do it. I was the PTA vice president of Vern W. Critz in the year
1062001. I was the legislative chair from 2001 to 2009. And we had real legislation then. I know about the the seminars he spoke of because that was Tom Dapoli. He was the youngest elected school board member in Nasser County. That's why he gives good seminars and that's why all the New York State pension funds are very solid because Tom Dapoli looks over them. And as far as the beautiful presentation, you have a powerhouse of women in that back row there and they've been allowed now to do their job. Unfortunately, back in 2014 14, uh, some powerhouse women weren't allowed to do their jobs. So, we reinvented the wheel. All these beautiful programs we talked about today, someone else instituted them way back when and they were walked out because the previous superintendent didn't like a
107woman to overstep her bounds. If any of you want to know the truth, come see me. Thank you, Miss >> A. Thank you. >> You need these books, folks. Come see me. Okay. >> And normally we have to talk fast >> don't respond but I think it's very important for all of us to realize that there are distinctions between things that >> happened at one time and that have happened recently and we're we're focusing on dealing with this particular incident. >> No disment. So next we have Oh, what happened? >> Items for discussion. Okay. Right. Right here. Join me. Go ahead. Okay. >> Items. Here we go. >> Mr. Brown is prepared to present the treasur's report. Now considering that the November report is updated, October report you wanted to present both the November report
108a more recent capturing of the information. >> Well, last time I recall there were a number of months and you provided the September report that captured all the information in July, August and September. >> That is correct. So I think that the board would we were happy at that point to take the the last one. I think we'll just do November now unless anybody >> Yeah. >> wants before you are quick to do. [clears throat] Could we just I'd like to take them individually. I have I have a few markups and I just don't um I don't want to assume that I >> that they'll be trivial enough to uh not ask questions about. >> I know there were a couple of questions I had but they apply to both. >> So I I can't
109make that determination at this point. >> Okay. >> All right. >> Mr. Thank you. >> Okay. Well, thank you. >> Go separately. >> Happy New Year. So the first report that we'll uh address is the October treasures report. Um as you have in your packet, you can see that we have 12 bank accounts that were reconciled for the month ending October 31st. Um our total cash balance for those 12 accounts was $35.3 million. So you also would notice that all of the accounts have a positive balance, which is a good thing. um and each of the accounts have money in it. So with that um the treasur's report also includes the collateral statements by district's policy. Our bank accounts and deposits have to be fully collateralized to 105 uh or 102% and by the documents
110provided you can see that we maintain that every month month by month. The next section in the treasur's report, you have your budget transfers. And you can see that those are all transfers that are from the general fund within code to code. And by doing these particular transfers, we ensure that there's no negatives in the budget as well as covering all the anticipated obligations. So that's a um that's a standard report. Uh the next report you have before you move on please you say you um um let's see reference number on the first page 1559 realigned salaries for October. Could you just explain that a little bit the realignment? >> Okay. So what happens uh in the budget when the payroll is processed uh there's some sometimes there's not sufficient monies in a budget code
111but there are sufficient monies in other budget codes. Um in addition it could be a situation where person was budgeted in one code and being charged to a different code. So what we do every payroll is we make sure that there's sufficient funds in every single payroll code. So what this does is that this aligns the budget with the district's obligations. And when you look at the total expenditure report for the budget, it shows that we're in the black. We're not in the red and we're not running any negatives. >> And >> I think in the past I think the board was used to seeing negatives >> across these particular reports. >> That is no longer the case. We uh we enhanced those internal controls and this is done on a contemporary basis. >> So
112just to clarify all of these budget transfers that are shown here is from one general fund budget code to another. >> That is correct. And it is not a transfer of any reserves in order to cover those. >> That is correct. >> Okay. Yeah. Good question. And that's why we saw that you know last year say for example so many negative lines because there was just not enough budgeted for those particular lines because you could see these are these are you know per school. >> Right. >> Okay. Okay. Thank you. The next set of reports that we look at is the uh revenue report. And this is the only time if you see a negative in the far right column, it's actually a good thing because when you look at the particular lines, what a
113negative on the revenue report shows, and I'll use the example for the other student fees and charges. The district budgeted $20,000 in revenue. So far to date, we have taken in 30,400. So, we're over our budget by $10,400. >> Okay. So, if you notice, um, that is the only negative on that revenue report. >> Oh, you have one more actually. If you go down a little bit more, sale of equipment. >> Yes, the sale of equipment. >> That's true. And if you notice that the district didn't budget anything in that area, >> right? >> But we took in we took in proceeds. >> So, when when you see that, that's a good thing. It means that we exceeded our revenue projections. >> Okay. >> Mr. Belmont, just out of curiosity, is that those numbers reflected
114the sale of equipment, is are those the uh medical equipment that we had sold or moved over to the uh district where a special ed student had >> and then with regard to other students fees and charges, what does that typically include? What what others what student fees are we collecting from people that we've exceeded $10,000? >> Um I could get you the exact detail, but it could be books, fines, miscellaneous fees, things of that nature, but I can get you a specific >> money's collected from the students or is that just a random tag? That's >> It's just a random tag that we put on for any type of miscellaneous collections. >> Okay. Okay, moving on to the appropriation report. Uh as you go through the appropriation report for October, uh you notice that
115it it is quite comprehensive and once again uh we should not have any negatives on this particular report. Just going to the end of the report, you will notice it's 16 pages. So at the end of October, we have expended $39.5 million. And more importantly, if you look at the bottom of that report, we encumbered $87.7 million. Okay? And why is that significant? That's significant because when you're managing a budget, the more that you encumber, the more you have a handle on what your obligations are within the budget. So over the last couple of months, we prided ourselves to make sure that we had as much incumbent as possible. And you can see that it was $20.1 million that were unencumbered that's available for other expenditures throughout the rest of the year. >> And that
116is money that you know the district has. >> Money that the district has and I know that it's money that we will use for things that don't get encumbered such as time sheets >> and overtime and things of that nature. >> There were a few other things that uh jumped out to me in in this report that I'd just like to ask you questions on. Sure. >> For example, on page two, two out of 16, equipment for buildings and ground, there's uh it's the last item on uh on that page. So, we have budgeted 125,000, but we made but an adjustment was made of 71,000 bringing an adjusted budget to 196. >> Okay. >> Why why would that be? >> Okay. Well, that could be one of two things. that could be a carryover of
117a previous year incumbrance that adds to the vote approved budget. So if you go to the if you go to the last page of that report, page 16 of 16, you see that second column that says adjustments >> and this 285. What that column represents is what we call a reserve for encumbrance. So that was last year incumbrances that were carried forward to this year's budget. So I would assume that that could be part of that amount. >> Okay. >> Specifically, I would have to go back and actually look what that what that may may have been. >> Okay. But um yeah, so when you look at that, the voter approved 147.1 million >> and then they had adjustments of 285 and brings the adjusted budget to 1474. >> So that happened uh a number
118of times when it comes to custodial um throughout throughout this report. So that's that could be what you're saying incumbrances from the pri from the prior year. Yes, more than likely that's what that is because we can't transfer out of an you can transfer out an equipment code to a supply code, but you can't transfer into an equipment code. >> Okay. >> Once it's voter approved. Okay. >> So, I'm assuming that that would be a prior year encumbrance. >> Okay. >> It was probably something it happened quite a few times. >> You agree with the villages perhaps? So, um, all right. So you so um when we talked about incumbrances for salaries like I said uh earlier in my earlier report I want to make sure that we're sending the right message because um salaries
119were uh encumbered and I I'm not going to go through all of them uh so that we can move on to the November uh report but because we're looking at where we have to you tighten up our belts in order to get through the rest of this year the salaries that we encumber encumbered. I want to make sure we're sending the right message to our rank and file. Um we're we're looking to encumber all you know as many as as many of the salaries that we can not only administration and and department heads but rank and file salaries as well. Is that is that the case? >> Administrators, teachers, support staff. >> Okay. >> Right across the board. Okay. >> All contractual salaries and contractual [clears throat] expenses should be encumbered. >> Okay. >> And
120that's what you're working to do. >> And that's what we have done. Okay. >> So that's already in place. >> Okay. >> And we monitor that. So if a code for whatever reason, whether it be overtime or some other reason we need to transfer, we will transfer to monitor that and keep a handle on what our total costs are for the year. >> All right. All right. We can move on to I'm finished with October. Then we can move on to uh November. Thank you, Madam Chair. >> Do we have to vote? It looks like there's a vote. >> Um actually, you know what? We didn't take the motion to um >> Well, he's doing the presentation and then we can take a motion to um acknowledge receipt and review of these two. We'll do
121it together. >> All right. Thank you. >> Okay. So, moving on to November. Uh once again, you have the reconciliation of 12 bank accounts and you can see that now your cash balance has decreased to 23.1 million. So if you compare it to the month before, you'll see how much that the district has completed in >> I can display the which report are you referring to? >> November. >> The treasures report. >> No, November. But which of the three treasures? >> Um well the report I'm going to be going to is is the revenue report. >> The first one of the November report. >> That's it. Okay. Okay. So the November revenues, you'll see here that again on the um we do have some negatives, which once again is not a bad thing, it's a
122good thing. We have some insurance recoveries and we also have uh some textbook aid. And the reason why we're showing a negative in the textbook aid of 62,000 is because the district never specifically budgeted for that aid category because that aid was included in the basic formula aid above. It doesn't mean that it wasn't budgeted. It may not have been budgeted in the proper place. >> Okay. So that's what that means. So on the revenue side, you can see that so far out of the 147 million, we've taken in 86.1 and we still have about $60.9 million to go. On the budget transfers, I believe they're selfexplanatory. Once again, it's something that we do to make sure that the codes don't run through the negatives. There's really nothing there that's out of the ordinary. Um,
123and then when we get to the budget appropriation reports, we basically have the same situation. If you look at the end of the report, you'll see that for the month ending November, we've now spent $50.8 million and we still have $79 million encumbered. So, you really have a significant portion of your budget accounted for. and that you know that shows through this report. Any questions on that? So, as we're nearing the midyear, >> well, it's really a redundant question. I withdraw the question since you didn't fully frame it. You [laughter] can only partially >> and in my head I did. Um I I do have a question though about budget transfers and I think it was >> Yeah, that's all right. Um it mentions bar barracuda expenses. That's for our security system on our computer
124>> correct >> system. Is that aidable? >> Um it's state aided computer hardware. Yes. >> Okay. And that would be true. The the other one I had a question on was um the computer hardware. So you've answered that. Thank you. >> And I had a question about the change orders um the burn crits windows. Yeah. >> Because of a asbestous >> correct >> that's aidable also. >> Correct. It's part of the capital project. The other thing I'd just like to mention to the board about the revenues is that we've been um we've been managing the revenue side of the budget as well as the expenditure side very aggressively. Um one of the things we pushed for and it had to do with the EPC project is there were uh rebates that were attached to that
125project. And one of the things that we did in working with the contractor and we were able to expedite a certain amount of rebates to come in prior to December 31st. So to date, I'm happy to report to the board that we've collected $130,841, which was not anticipated and budgeted for, but it is additional revenue that helps the district and helps our cause. In addition to that, um we had a really uh interesting, I guess, week before Christmas break and um we found out that we had seven capital projects that had to be filed with SED in order for the district to get 100% of their building aid in this fiscal year. Um so we were able to pull that off. We were able to file all seven final building project reports and we got
126a we sent them up to SED electronically and we know now that the district will be receiving additional building aid on those projects as well. So that's just to keep the board up to date of some of the things that we keep doing aggressively to uh manage the budget and to address the situation that the the district is in. >> Mr. Mr. Bonti, one one question specifically with regard to sort of the window project. It was pulled on tonight and and we see it referenced in the the budget line items for the change order, >> correct? >> Uh and I believe it was referenced or I heard someone say it's because of the asbestous issue that was there. Doesn't the cont typically the contract change order requires for an unknown or unseen set of circumstances?
127Correct. >> Yeah, some contracts do. Yes. >> Okay. Why are we doing the change order here? Because as I understand it, based on the age of the buildings and all the other projects we have done, asbestous has been part of every remediation, every window project we've done. So, it shouldn't be an unknown or a certain change, part of that project going into that bid. And if from that that end, are we looking at those items as well? >> I I can't argue with that. I I tend to agree with you. Um, you know, I walked in on that. So, >> understood. I'm not pointing fingers. I'm asking questions because some of what we've asked you to do is hold the line. >> I agree 100%. >> It it's those are the type of things that
128when the project is designed, there's certain allowances or things that you should know or put into the into the contracts. A lot of contracts if it's assumed that there may be a speestous speestous abatement and that also involves testing you put a provision within the contracts. However, if the scope is larger than what you have in the project and it turns out that it's not necessarily in one area but it's pervasive across you know the whole perimeter of the building then you're looking at a different scope of work. I guess my question is more are we are we holding the line and checking them simply because a change order comes in saying that they've exceeded it if we're just saying well the line of the contract meets it right inside the four corners of a
129contract there is some good faith or some understanding that goes into that bid >> and from that >> that's been that's been that's been thoroughly vetted between the architect and the contractor or else the architect would not be presenting change order for the district if it was in the contract. Okay. And from what I know of this project, um that process has taken place. So this was basically unforeseen condition that required a change order. You know, personally my feeling is if there's a change order and if there's a lot of change orders or if there's significant change orders, then you have bad design. Well, bad design would fall on the architect. unforeseen circumstances would be the reasonable prudent of the labor or the individual conducting it. So if he were to fail, that failure or
130that $200,000 cost should fall on him, not on us. So I just I I ask that we we look at some of those things because there have been past practices where we have said and I've run to it in the classroom as well as other places where this is what we did before, so we're going to continue to do it because it was past practices. some of those things you have talked about, you and I have talked about even outside of the room. So, at least raising the question when I see that come up. >> I I appreciate that and certainly any projects that I'm involved with going forward, they'll probably be handled very differently. >> I have a comment in response to Trusty Ross. So basically, you're saying that there's like a new or
131should have known standard for the contractor when this contract was entered into. >> And I'm going to take that one step further and say, is there any way now that we can go back to the architect and see if we really do have to pay this extra money? I think the argument is made if a contract is done the most basic fundamental piece. If you use the law school version, >> I dig a hole in the back. I was told that that that's going to be all sand. I'm going to dig it. I find in the middle of it a giant rock. There's no way I would have known. No other project had it before. Nobody else looked at it before. That was unexpected. Vern Critz is not the first building that we have had
132or encumbered asbestous. >> Right. That's exactly the point and that's why I'm asking our business official if there's a way to go back to the to the architect and say the board has questions about approving this change order. >> I have no problem doing that. I mean, I'll certainly have a conversation with the architect, >> right? I I think your point is very well taken. without looking at the contract, which is really not our job to do, but without looking at it, we don't know exactly what it says. But common sense would say if you're doing building, if you're doing construction of windows and getting into walls of buildings of the age of Vern C, >> it's not even the age. Take that one step further, which is my point. >> Kramer's had windows done.
133Brook Haven's had windows done. middle school, >> middle school, we've all had a speestous on those projects to a significant degree. So, a $200,000 change. Now, if it's five grand, if it's 50 grand, I don't know that I'm I'm I'm making an issue, but here we are looking for money, and we talked about this in some of our plannings that nickels and dimes added up. Mr. Belmont has gone out and grabbed state aid that was ours. Here's 60 grand. We've gone out and got other things that brought in a 100red grand. We've sold equipment at 30 grand. That $250,000 that they put out there is a significant number. >> So here's my here's my question. How can we acknowledge receipt and review of October and November treasures reports and still have our business official go
134back to the architect to try to avoid our having to pay that $200,000 change. >> I I think that's a heavy lift. I I think based on the circumstances, but I will I can certainly go back and have a conversation with the architect to get it, you know, more in depth as to why that happened. Um, you know, that's something that I guess happened, I was going to say months ago as that project was being done. And we could certainly see what their response is. Contract, >> but it also goes to the the underlying contract. >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we would have to see the wording. I mean, I haven't sat down and read that entire contract because it was one that was already in place. >> So, I would I guess, Madame President,
135my suggest at the very least it should be inquired. If it's left unabated, you continue to leave the door open for fraud or other things to continue to occur or similar demands. If there's a checkpoint, there may be at least a a point in the future where those monies are prevented and other options are taken >> or the contracts [clears throat] originally are drafted differently. >> So, well, in the meantime, I think >> can we do excuse me, we don't get we don't get comments from the audience. Thank you. We will um I think you're going to make a [clears throat] recommendation that we acknowledge receipt um and review of October and November treasures reports. >> Correct. >> I have a few more questions. >> You've still Yeah. Yeah. When we get there, >> I
136thought we were done. >> No, I'm sorry. Two two more questions. Just two more quick questions. uh on page um 16 of 16 with um the health insurance. [clears throat] >> Which one of these? >> The his um the the big report, >> the appropriations report. >> Appropriations report. Appropriation status report >> on the health insurance line. >> Um a uh 9060 800. >> Okay. where you have um it budgeted 17 million >> and you've encumbered 9,992,000. >> Yeah. >> And change. >> So that's that's pretty much it for the year. That should that should take you to the end of the year leaving 22 million. >> Um probably not. >> No. So that's really my question. Do we expect any surprises? We have we have Medicare reimbursement that >> No, that's another line >>
137would probably be added to that. >> That's that's uh two lines down. Medicare reimbursement. >> That's right. You're right. >> Okay. So, the health insurance answer yes. >> Okay. >> So, we shouldn't have any surprises this year, which is what we had last year. >> I hope not. >> Okay. Okay. >> I don't think Mr. Bill, I don't think you can promise that [laughter] >> that there's not going to be any surprises from from the insurance company that they're modifying the numbers. >> I have no control of the insurance company changing the premium. But I do know >> so at this point >> I do know that the analysis that we've done in the business office was for the health insurance for every person and to make sure that it's in >> Madam Madam Chair,
138could we just call order? >> Yeah. >> Could the audience please stop talking to each other? If you want to talk, go outside. >> Thank you. >> But you're interfering with us being able to conduct the business of the board. >> Thank you. >> And um and then finally, Mr. Belmont, on the um uh the appropriation status for program and um objects. It's a four-page report towards the end. This is uh mostly uh buildings. I'm sorry. What which which page? >> Uh if you go after uh it's a four-page report. It's towards the appropriation status detail report by program and object. >> Page 27. >> It's um it's a four-page report. It's it's also in it's stapled together. >> Zero letter H. >> Starts with H. >> It starts with H. Yes. >> And it's
139capital. >> Capital. Yep. >> Page 27 of the PDF. If those two are looking on >> Yeah. 27 out of 35 if you're looking on your computer. >> Thank you. I'm looking at the paper. Thank you, Madam Chair. >> So, um, with respect for I just circled a couple of things. With respect to the auditorium, >> did we stay within budget with the auditorium? >> Yes. >> Okay, good. >> You will notice that in that on that page 104. Yeah, >> you'll see under unallocated halfway through the page. >> Yeah, >> you'll have a negative 380 on there. >> Okay, >> I spoke to the business office about that and we're going to [clears throat] >> change that. And the only reason that that's there Yeah. >> is because this report was run from 7125
140to 11:30. So when you when you're doing capital projects you have to run the report from the beginning of the project period not for each particular month because capital project is ongoing. You might start it one year it might take two years to complete. >> Okay. >> So you have to run the reports that show the entire fiscal okay >> status. So in December you'll see that these reports will change and that negative will go away. >> Okay. All right. Anything else outstanding on this report that you that that you saw? >> Nope. >> That we should be aware of. >> So, as far as the capital, we're in good shape. >> Okay. Okay. All right. That's the end of my questioning, Madam Chair. Thank you. >> Okay. [clears throat] So, now do you want
141to make your >> You read it. >> Oh, I'll read it. Okay. Um resolve the board of education receives and accepts the treasurer's reports of October and November 2025. Is there a motion? >> Motion by trustee Feliz, second by Vice President Dilo. [clears throat] No more questions or discussion. All in favor? Um unanimous. And is >> he's absent. He's absent for the vote. Okay, the motion passes. >> All right, I think you're still up. >> Okay. Well, thank you. So, this is really going to be the exciting piece. That wasn't the previous one, wasn't it? So, um this is a continuation of our three-year fiscal recovery plan. And what we're going to take a look at tonight are some of the borrowing options that we have available ahead of us. And um it's always nice
142to start out with looking at the bigger picture and why this matters and the situation that the school district is in. And basically uh what happened to the school district in 24-25 uh specifically New York state school districts are not legally permitted to operate with structural operating deficits. Okay. And when you have a solution to correct that you have to restore the budgetary balance. It has to be legally permissible under New York state law. you have to maintain credibility with NYC and uh the controllers's office as well as rating agencies and also the voters of your community. Um and when you're resolving a situation like this, you also have to avoid compounding structural imbalance. And this is something u at the bottom of this slide that you're going I'm going to emphasize throughout that any
143financing option that we talk about to help us through this structural deficit, it must be comi com combined with a documented recurring corrective action plan to avoid long-term imbalances and it has to be in place to fix the problem. Okay. And a big misnomer is that if a district is financing a structural deficit that once it's financed that the problem is solved. The problem is not solved. When you finance a structural deficit, you're doing just that. You're financing the deficit. You are not fixing the problem. So that's why the recovery plan has to be coupled with it. Uh just an executive summary of some of the things that we're going to talk about. Uh the current fiscal challenge, it's going to be to borrow to address the structural operating deficit between 10 to 12 million.
144Um the structural deficit was driven by a combination of ongoing structural cost pressures as well as insufficient prior budget corrections. There's a legal requirement by New York State, as we mentioned earlier, that does not permit New York school district to carry operating deficits. And you have to timely put an action plan in place to correct the problem and restore the fiscal balance and maintain the fiscal sovereignty of the school district. So, um, the recovery path that we will be presenting to the board last night, uh, tonight is basically three scenarios. We're going to look at some short-term borrowing. We're going to look at state authorized long-term deficit borrowing or notes. And one other option as pay as you go, a correction through significant near-term reductions. So, so looking at this from the fiscal content and
145planning assumptions, um the structural deficit came about because of 2425 over expenditures accounted for in the recovery plan and anticipated the 2526 underbudgeted expenditures and revenue shortfall. So, the problem as we know didn't only exist in 2425. it carried over into 2526 and that's what we're looking to address this fiscal year. Some of the assumptions that we assumed in this plan was a tax levy growth at about 2%. We assume that we have a flat state aid uh for modest growth over a period of time and for the most part the district's fund balance has been largely exhausted and the goal is to rebuild some of these rever reserves to restore the profitability and generate future annual surpluses by the end of the year or as soon as possible. Um the board does recall that
146our unanticipated um or unappropriated fund balance currently at the end of the year was negative 1.8 million. So that's something that we have to pay close attention to and correct moving forward. Um the first option that we want to look at is a non-borrowing option. It's a pay as you go. Um it involves no borrowing. It would eliminate the uh deficit through immediate reductions. Okay? You would have to probably make reductions to the tune of $10.5 million. It would have a significant impact on staffing and it would have the highest immediate impact on programs and class sizes. We don't think that this is a practical option for those reasons. And based on a thorough review with bond council and also our external auditors, um this option is for a very [clears throat] shorter term and
147more likely will not be a feasible option without more severe expenditure reductions. So this is something that we we put up there. But when you look at the size of the the deficit, if the district had to reduce this amount of money in one year, obviously it would be catastrophic to the district. it would be catastrophic to the program, but nonetheless, it would be an option for the board to consider. Um, further looking at some of the pros and cons, when you do something like that, you avoid additional debt and interest cost because you don't have to go out and borrow. You preserve your future borrowing capacity. You demonstrate that it's immediate fiscal discipline and selfcorrection. And more importantly, there's no reliance on state authorization. So the board could decide if this is the way
148they want to go. The downside of do the to do this particular option is the tremendous impact to staff right up front and it's limited ability to rely on attrition for staff reductions going forward. And this would give you the highest and the most immediate impact on the instructional program class size and services across the board. And you have a bigger risk of operational disruption for programs because you're making such steep cuts at one particular time. So the second option that we're showing the board is what's referred to as a budget note. A budget note is simply a short-term borrowing tool that covers the current cash flow shortfall caused by the accumulated operating deficit uh which is unexpected expenditures and not budgeted and revenue shortfalls. The key characteristics of a budget note which makes it
149different is that it's typically a one to twoyear repayment plan. Okay? And that's basically legal statute. And it cannot exceed 5% of the district's budget, which means that if we have a 10 to12 million operating deficit, 5% of our current budget allows us to borrow up to about $7.5 million. So the $7.5 million certainly wouldn't um carry the load that we would need to correct. So this in and of itself may be problematic. Um, a budget note does require board action and legal opinion and it's when anytime a district issues budget note or a deficit note, it does carry heavy scrutinization and review of the office of the state controller and SED as well. And more importantly, that any debt service is repaid from future budgets. Okay. So, the best use of a uh budget
150note is that it bridges the financing while the immediate reductions are being implemented. Again, you still have to have a plan to reduce your cost and put yourself back on track. It's a multi-year corrective plan is adopted. And normally when you get into a situation like this, you end up with labor concessions or structural changes that are made because you have to restructure the entire budget. Some of the benefits of a budget note, it's fast to implement. It avoids immediate program disrupt disruption. It stabilizes the cash flow and is familiar to New York State and the school professionals. Some of the downsides of a budget note is that um again we mentioned the 5% so it's limited. It's subject to a two-year replacement plan and it really does not fix the structural imbalance. Okay? And
151when you have to borrow, you're taking up future budget capacity, what we call where you have to have the debt service in the budget, which kind of prevents you from budgeting within other areas because you must have that debt service. And anytime a deficit uh note or deficit bond, again, the rating agencies view this as a warning sign of districts in fiscal distress. So anytime you issue a note once again you have to have a recovery plan that shows that the district is taking actions to support the fiscal situation. The third option that we're presenting to the board is option C which is referred to special act legislation. It's deficit bonds or notes. And this is legislative approved authority which allows the district to issue bond anticipation notes andor long-term bonds to amortize or to
152to fund if you will over a longer period of time. It's usually a 10 to 15 year period. However, the district can including in that special legislation the availability to go for bonds anticipation notes and limit it to five years. Okay? Or issue bonds and limit it to five years. So I think our overall objective here is to look at the obligation and how many years the district is willing to fund this particular problem um going out or keep it more in a constrained five-year you know plus arena to kind of keep the cost down and the interest cost uh as well. The difference with this special act legislation, you have to get legislative sponsors. You have to get your assembly and your senate on board. This is legislation that's presented to the state to
153the governor. The governor has to approve it. Okay? And in addition to that, the district ends up with substantial oversight from the office of the state controller and also SED. Um, when you go in this direction, the state controllers's office comes in and they actually have to certify the deficit of the school district to approve the amount that's going to be financed. So, municipalities usually use this type of legislation and it's not uncommon. It happens and we see more and more of this um across the island and across New York State. um they use this type of legislation when the deficit is too large to absorb in one to two years. We talked about a budget note and that had to be paid back in one to two years. This is something a little bit
154longer term. You have a little bit more of a runway to basically get your finances back on track and spread some of the cost and some of the burden out over multiple years. Um, in addition, they use this when immediate cuts would be educationally catastrophic. We talked about that. The more cuts that you make at one time to resolve this problem is you're cutting into your um into your programs and the opportunities for students. Um, the districts has to commit to deep structural reform and that's because of the oversight from the controllers's office and from SED. So this requires this type of methodology. If you go in this direction, there's tremendous amount of oversight and reporting that has to be done on a quarterly basis to the controllers's office. And essentially if if the legislature
155and the governor is giving authorization for a district to uh obtain this particular funding, they want to make sure that the district is on the right track. You can't just compound the problem or you can't compound the particular deficit. You have to take corrective action. Of course, when you do something like this, there's always it's politically sensitive. It's time consuming. Um it's public perception. Um it's all those things that um concern people, but more importantly, the longer you spread out the debt, the more interest cost that the district is incurring. So that's always in the back of our mind. How can we minimize this and what might be in the best interests of the district? Okay. So what does all this mean? If we consider a special act budget, bond or notes and plus the
156vantage recovery plan and we're looking at a 10 to 12 million deficit borrowing. Uh and it could be up to 5 to 15 years. Uh we're looking at an annual debt service of about 2.3 million if we were to borrow 10 million. If we were to borrow up to 12 million, we would be looking at about uh 2.75 million. um recurring expenses would still have to be reduced districtwide by about $10.5 million by year three. You have a less impact on staffing in year one with this type of plan and then phase reductions thereafter as well. Um as I mentioned earlier, it does require state approval and it comes with um substantial state oversight. >> [clears throat] >> So basically we presented uh three practical options uh well maybe one of them went not so
157practical um the first one but they all require expenditure reductions and that's really the takeaway from all this and um we talked about the budget note earlier uh we think it's not viable because it has the one to twoyear payback period and it really goes deep into cuts and affecting the instructional program. Uh the special act legislation bonding, it minimizes the educational impact. It requires the state approval and significant oversight. Um it becomes the best solution based on the fiscal situation because we're able to kind of craft it um in accordance what our fiscal needs might be. Um and again the uh you always have the option on the the 10 to 12 million not to borrow but that will have a devastating negative impact on the district overall. Okay. So in conclusion [clears throat]
158and a recommendation uh to the board and again the recommendation is just the concept of option C special act legislation for bonds anticipation notes or bonds for 5 years or longer. Okay, we're recommending five years. The board was comfortable going out longer. We can certainly address that. Again, it needs to be combined with a disciplined phase budgetary reductions across the board. Okay. Why bonds or notes financing is in the best is the best balance for the district because when you have consistent uh budget predictability, you know what your debt service is. What we go out and we borrow debt. It's what we call level debt. So your principal and interest are going to be the same amount every year uh for the period of the borrowing. It brings fiscal credibility because it's you demonstrate to
159the raiders and the people on the outside that you have a uh defined deficit payown plan um which uh helps the district rebuild its credit and you it's reasonably manageable with the interest cost because you're borrowing over a um a shorter period and you have control of that. the longer you borrow, the more interest you pay. Okay. So, um we do have uh some options there. And this particular chart kind of brings it all together for the district. So, if we what we've been talking about, if you do a special act legislation, uh, a bond, a band or note that goes for this shows the first three years, you'll see that the debt service, depending on what you borrow, 10 million or 12, 2.3 to 275 each year. Um, as far as the budget expense
160reductions, we're looking at 10.5 million over three years. Okay. We assumed the tax levy increase of about 2% a year based on the tax cap. And you can see the staffing reductions. Um that would be across the board. And our end goal in this thing would be to make sure that we begin to rebuild fund balance at the end of the year. Um, I don't want anybody to walk away thinking that because we just have staffing impact on there that that's going to be the only piece that we're going to be reducing costs. We're going to be reducing costs in other areas, consolidation of programs. Uh, we're going to be looking at our revenue side. We're going to be doing all kind of things, but the most immediate effect that you get in this type
161of plan is staffing reductions. And we hope that most of these staffing reductions would come to to the district through attrition. Those would be retirements and positions that don't have to be replaced because that that with that approach would have the least amount of impact to people and families and um I'm sure the district is concerned about that as well. Okay, we're coming down to the end and as I mentioned earlier with any financing plan, it's mandatory to have a corrective action plan. Okay. And the common elements of a corrective action plan is you have open labor agreements for concessions. You have staffing realignment and attrition. You have program consolidation. You look at your transportation and your Bose programs. Your optimization, your health insurance plan design changes, whether you look at other plans or whether
162you look at changes that can be made within the plan. health insurance contributions by staff. Um, we also, as I mentioned, you maximize revenues where possible. And of course, when we get down to the budget and we finally get a 2627 budget drafted, which is going to be a real um accurate assessment of what the district's cost, the program's costs are, we're going to have to make the decision. Do we stay within the cap as far as a tax levy strategy or do we anticipate overriding the the cap when it comes to that point? Like those are things that are way down the road, but nonetheless things that we have to start thinking about when we put this plan in place. So again as I started this discussion the most common misconception when people are
163borrowing is they think that once the deficit is gone because you borrow. The answer is no. Deficit is still there. The only thing we've done is we financed it. We did not eliminate it. Eliminated comes in the in the part of the three-year reduction plan recovery plan. So, with that, I'm going to take a drink of water and I'll be happy to answer any questions. >> Could I ask [clears throat] one? >> You wanted to ask for I got to do >> I hope you you can help me with this. >> I'll try. When I went away for Labor Day weekend, I spent some time thinking [cough] about how much I value this school district and the future that I saw for it. And it was rosy. And I had in mind, we were just
164gearing up to get to the point that we could be thinking about some capital projects and having a bond for large amounts of construction for some of our aging buildings to bring them into the 21st century learning spaces. So that was the beginning of my Labor Day weekend. By the end of the weekend, we got this news about [clears throat] last year's over spin that has led to us having a plan produced by by you and your business office. Is it option C, the special act legislation that would get us back to that rosy picture quicker than those other two? >> Um, yes. And with less damage. >> And the best way to say it. >> Okay. So with regard to option C, the special act legislation, which does involve some borrowing, [snorts] we also
165could have a capital project bond if our community is supportive of that, and they've always been supportive of the efforts made in this district to provide the best quality education for for the kids here. Um, we could have both. While we have we're still working on paying back the deficit by the special act legislation borrowing, we could also borrow a um a capital bond if the public approved it and that would be permitted. Correct. >> That is correct. >> Okay. And the benefit of the capital bond is that we get state aid on that on those that expense. >> So that generates some more revenue that could help with this three-year fiveyear process. Correct. the board the board's going to see that there's going to be many facets to this three-year uh recovery plan. And
166part of that is will probably involve capital project work in the future. The reason being is that if we look two years out and as I told the board, we look at everything and right now we know that we have capital debt service that's falling off to about 2.7 million and 90 and 2728. Okay. If the district if the district loses that and does not backfill that with capital work, you compromise your state aid because you don't have any additional debt service on the book. Your debt service decreases. It's a negative impact on the tax cap calculation. So, as I me, you know, I don't want to get too granular, but there's a lot of pieces to the puzzle that fits in. So when we put the plan together and strike the right balance to
167answer your question, yes, is the recovery plan may very well include capital projects just by necessity because you want to keep your revenues and your debt service where they need to be for many reasons. And with the debt service being approximately $2.7 million per year, that would translate to borrowing just ballpark borrowing how much money now given the current interest rate? >> 15 to 16 million >> 15 approximately 1516. >> Thank you. So just a point of clarity that plan C where it is the state legislative approved process that's not the quickest process that's the most re reasonably and prudent responsible financial plan. agree that because the bond deficit note or those are two one or twoyear instruments as opposed to a three to sevenyear or longer period. So, as we we're determined, >> yes,
168you have to jump through. That's why we're very fortunate that we're talking about this now because when you look at that process and when we spoke to bond council as well that the amount of time to get the legislation drafted to get to your legislators to get this before the governor, you got to you have to get this approved. You have to have some plan so you can develop your voter approved budget. >> Right. So that that brings up the second process. Voter approved budgets are up for May 15th. >> That is correct. >> Right. So the likelihood that we're So we need to be prepared as a board to not only prepare a budget but that budget is going to be Yeah. But maybe because that budget is going to be subjected to whether
169or not the legislature is has approved and or is going to approve that bud that legislation because arguably they could be on track to do it but that may not occur till May 20th in which case our vote is on a May 15th. >> Yeah. I think history has shown that when it comes to this type of legislation, that's something that they they usually move forward because of the budget timelines. >> And I also bring it to point because as I made a state the statement earlier, we need a budget. We need those people to believe in that and we need to help because those voices for those who are listening as well as those who are in the audience need to make those phone calls to get those representatives to encourage them to get
170that done beforehand so that we're not walking into that threshold >> 100%. [clears throat] >> All right. So I'm going to go on to the next item for discussion which is the good faith discussions with bargaining units. The reason I put this on is because one of the things that I think is most alarming not just to um community and the board is to all of our staff is the idea of reducing staff and the idea is how can we mitigate that. So our reduction are the minimum reduction we need to make alluded to the fact that we are trying to accomplish this primarily if not absolutely through attrition that is by positions that become vacant because people resign for whatever reason or retirements. So far, you know, we have quite a number of people
171retiring this year. [clears throat] Uh we're trying to make that happen across collective bargaining units. So, we're trying to capture that and see what we can do to so that we can sort of absorb those uh sort of reductions in staff without compromising programs. But above and beyond that, and just to discuss because this is a basically all hands- on deck approach, what you all can do from our cabinet down to all of our stakeholders to help mitigate this process as as a community. Um, and I want to sort of go back to what President Hay said about things being rosy. Um, you know, for me, I learned about this dilemma on August 29th, which was the Friday before Labor Day. So perhaps I didn't get to enjoy Labor Day as much as I would
172have liked to. Um, but I think what bothers me the most as a superintendent is the progress we made in the last few years. Um, as a district, you know, things, you know, are really moving in the right direction. We certainly don't want to sort of hamper that progress that we've made. Um we've really been dealt a really pretty awful deck of cards. It's something that we have to sort of uh manage for the next couple years, but I'm optimistic and confident that we'll be able to manage it. It really is going to take all of us together to sort of uh get through this. And so um you know, I just want to reassert my commitment to sort of kind of seeing this through um because yeah, we are making great progress. You saw
173some of the uh sort of achievements of our students there. there too many students in our school district that are doing amazing things. That's because of the efforts of our teachers, our administrators, our other collective bargaining units aren't here. But yeah, everybody who plays a role in making this uh school district special from our maintenance staff to our clerical support staff, our IT guys who uh patiently wait for these board meetings to be over. Um but um yeah, so and the idea is just that we're going to be engaging in some discussions with our collective bargaining units to see what we can do as a collective to sort of help mitigate this problem and reduce the loss of of of staff as much as we can. Again, we want to preserve the programs we have
174to the greatest extent possible. That really is the mission as we navigate the sort of challenges ahead. And that's all I sort of wanted to say before. So now [clears throat] um curriculum >> yes we are G. >> So the administration recommends approval of curriculum items reflected in schedule G1 through G3. >> Is there a motion to approve item G1 through G3? Trustee Ross Trustee Felisetta. Um questions or discussion? >> Just one comment. I just want to renew my my continue observation that items one and two we continue to approve and there are costs involved but we never see the costs to those two items. And I just want to renew my frustration over the costs that are attached to them that we never see. We can provide information with that regard. But again, these
175are mandated services and >> I understand that. I'm not I'm not I'm not taking away from the necessity. >> But again, these were cost overruns that we experienced last year. And we should be able to see what is budgeted for these two I these two lines and what we're proving to see that we're staying within the budgeted amount and especially because of what we experienced last year. So I would like to see some effort made that we can see what's budgeted, what we're approving, and that we're within budget. >> Yeah. So another way to look at it and perhaps Mr. Bontik highlighted when we have our appropriation status and treasures reports, all those budget lines are there. >> Yeah. But we're in we're right now we're in January. We only saw November's operating report. We're
176not seeing what what is at present. just a we had discussed that obviously you have special ed students or students receiving services so you're not going to identify them out so creatively maybe it is just a general budget change to that department or something generically so that we can get an idea of how it's being affected you know special education services have increased by $50,000 or they've decreased by $50,000 so we can have a handle on what's there just holding the line not holding the line bad choice we have to give the services but to know where we need to and have to pull resources >> that we're within budget. That's all that we're within budget. >> Well, we may not we may never be the the idea of budget is sort of out the
177window when it's a required service. We have to we have to >> make a budget amendment. >> Right. But we're no choice. >> Right. >> But we want to know what it is. [clears throat] >> I have a question about um Frost Alley. >> Yes. because I'm very happy to approve >> the overnight nature of it and the fact that our kids can participate, >> but this shows a cost to the district. >> Correct. So, so far that those trips, the grade level trips to middle school we left in the budget, all the discretionary spending because that was something that really the parents were lobbying for. We may have to look at it uh differently in years to come, but for this current year, it's budgeted for. >> Okay. And that money is encumbered or
178set aside so we know it could happen or >> correct. >> Yes. >> Any other questions or discussion? >> All in favor? Uh it's unanimous. >> Moving on to personnel agenda items. The administration recommends approval of items located in items H1 through H8. Is there a motion to approve item H1 through H8? Uh, trust Vice President Dillo, second by Trustee Feliz. All in favor? Again, it's unanimous. >> Next, we have business agenda items. The administration recommends the approval of business items reflected in schedules I1 through I10. Um, do do we want to pull out item I2 and do that separately? That that was the discussion we had about the >> stop. You can't it would it would stop the work if we don't do it. Mr. No bant. That's the change order with regards to
179the windows. >> And I have a question about five and six. >> Wait, I think that he's thinking. >> Yeah, he's just looking at it. the fur brow that uh that is that's tell that's te that's uh telegraphing that or the squint or the squint underneath >> he looks like he's thinking >> I think I just dumped a question on him that he's got to look up so I think we've given >> we're talking about the change order if they >> Oh I'm >> [laughter] >> I think I blacked out for >> I thought you were deep in thought >> with regards to business item the change order which is business item I2 the question is if it's pulled does that have an impact on the project >> um yeah because the contractor has to
180proceed >> but if we approve it how do we still have that option for you to go and talk to the architect about getting that revised so that we don't pay any of it. >> Let me pay can I present a sample answer? So sometimes things get approved that don't happen. So for example, we approve uh certain hours to do some sort of extracurricular work up to 20 hours. It doesn't mean 20 hours are going to happen. It's just we have approval for it. >> So it doesn't eliminate his uh Mr. Bam's ability to reach out, >> right? And the the approval doesn't necessarily mean the checks cut tomorrow, right? >> So there's always the ability to have >> a correction made, but the questions still need to be asked. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> Okay.
181So in that case, [snorts] >> uh your motion is for I1 through I 10. >> Hold on. Well, it's a motion to open for this. >> Well, first we have to >> We didn't have a motion yet. >> Well, no. I want I might want to pull out one cuz I I don't want to vote on number five because it's not being presented to us by the auditors. I want to know why the auditors aren't here to present us the internal audit report. >> That was presented to the audit committee. >> It it was when >> Yeah. >> We had our last >> It was not correct. >> I'm on the audit committee. >> They were there. >> Yeah. >> No, not the not the internal audit report. Yeah. Yeah. when >> that was our
182last audit. last audit committee meeting >> they >> it was they were here the external auditor not the not the internal >> the internal order from here >> yeah they were >> was I there >> apparently not [laughter] >> there's too many meetings >> I I don't I >> those second audit not the budget advisory meeting it's the the second audit >> let's not get [clears throat] let's not get into that one >> I wasn't invited to that one. >> Oh, that no don't misrepresent that one. That one was a a no >> a scheduling error. >> I believe that meeting was on December 3rd. >> December 3 was uh the internal auditor came in and talked to us. >> Okay. I think you're right. I was >> so >> Okay. [clears throat] But don't
183but don't they why but why aren't they here to present it to the board? >> Typically our internal auditors don't present to the board. Our external auditors present >> just auditors. Yep. >> My experience. >> It's getting so frustrating. Okay. Um second question. >> All right. You know what? Take the motion and then I'll ask my question because you're right. We have to >> You're making the recommendation. >> Yes. Administration recommends approval of business items reflected in schedules I1 through I10. >> Is there a motion? >> Trustee Felisetta. Second. Um, Trusty Calderon. Um, questions, discussion. >> I have a question on the Chromebooks, which is item number seven, the multi-year agreement with Eastern SuffK Boseies. Is that aidable? >> Yes, it is. >> Thank you. Is that why it's going through both the way it
184is? >> Yes. >> Thank you. >> The other thing we changed was rather than do the purchase in one year, we're able to do it over multiple years. So it reduces the expend expenditures of you know each individual. >> It's a lot of money. >> A lot of Chromebooks. >> Is that because they're outdated or just they get old? And >> some of our kids are using Chromebooks are six, seven years old. >> Okay. Okay. Okay. Thank you. >> But that number's over. Right. the numbers over four years as opposed to we were doing it what annually when we were >> peacemealing. >> Okay. >> Oh, we were peacemealing it before. >> Yes. >> All right. Thank you. >> All right. I had a motion, a second, some questions and discussion. All in favor? Um
185unanimous and no no public commentary. Closing remarks. Seeing none, who wants to make the motion to adjurnn? Trustee Ross, second by Vice President Dillo. All in favor? Thank you. The meeting is concluding now at 11:00. Thank you, Mr.