001All right. Good evening, Springs uh school board. Uh we are streaming on YouTube. Meetings being recorded. The phone lines are open. You may begin. >> Okay. We just uh before go back to regular meeting, we just got down to the next session. We discuss the personel contract. Start with the roll call. Roll call. Patrick Brayband. >> Emma Fields. Dermit Quinn here. >> Eric Frederickson is not here and neither is Kate Saris. I pledge allegiance. Pledge >> allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the republic for it stands one nationy and justice for all. Thank you. We are going to start with the public commentary for items only to remind everybody that we have we silent down about three minutes. We do not discuss personnel uh anything else private information. So uh
002anybody have any comments for judge items only items? Nobody else. Uh >> we have no call we have no callers on the line. No bowlers. Okay, we're going to start with the bud budget presentations and Sam's going to bring us into that 26 26 27. >> All right. Well, welcome to budget presentation number one. This is the first of several presentations we're going to do to walk aboard the public through our planned our spending plan for next year. Um, I want to thank Jonathan Leage, your treasurer, for everything he's done to put this together. Um, so we've had success last year with the voters in presenting a budget that stayed within the property tax cap. And so we will be moving towards that goal again for this year. So, uh, I don't need to sit
003here and read this to you. Academically and fiscally, the district is in great shape. uh you can obviously see your academic prowess there or the students academic prowess there thanks to the wonderful instruction from the teachers and the administration here in the district fiscally I think you're in excellent shape as well uh as we said we got off the state watch list last year um and we have had a number of successes in bringing a repair reserve uh into the district as bringing repair reserve back into the district as well and uh a number of other really positive moves This presentation, I should mention as we go on to the next slide, is going to be posted on our website. So, in case member of the public is not here and wants to be able
004to follow along, they can take a look at it. Um, one of the great ways that this district has been able to save money and deliver quality programs to its students has been through intermunicipal agreements. Obviously, maybe most specifically to me, I am here under intermunicipal agreement with East Hampton Schools, but you can see we've listed some of the other intermunicipal agreements. both that you are providing services for other districts such as MTalk or East Hampton and that other districts such as East Hampton are providing services for you. All the districts are working with a cooperative goal of educating their students. And if you could do it in a way that allows the taxpayers to save money and allows the students to receive the same quality of service that they need, then all the better,
005I think everyone's all the better for it. So that has been very helpful. We're going to follow the same budget formation process as we did last year. Uh obviously the district administration is consulting with teachers and staff to determine what the programmatic needs are. We there's an examination of existing programs to see what's working, what's not, what needs changes, what needs improvements. We're gathering pricing, contraction obligations, best estimates, and then we're going to put all that together into a proposed budget. Obviously, we have to see where the state aid figures into all this. Hopefully the state will be on time with its aid. We know last year they will not. And then ultimately it's up to the board of education to determine what sort of spending plan you want to put before the voters. We
006are as uh we did last year looking to present you with a proposed budget that is going to stay within the property tax cap. Have been very supportive of the district in the past and we were able to pierce the cap because of need two years in a row. Last year we did not need to ask the voters for that and we plan on not doing that again this year. So the budgeting basics here you can see obviously the expenditure plan that's what the voters vote on that's what we have to spend. The revenue plan is how we pay for it. The budget is and I say this every year I'll say it again. It's an aspirational document. We can make certain plans of what we think we're going to need. Sometimes those plans come
007to fruition, sometimes they don't. We have to build contingencies into the budget because there are things that we just do not know at the time that we have to present this to the voters. And we are required to educate students who show up here regardless of whether we know that they exist now or know that they exist on the first day of school next year or on the 179th day of school next year. So, we have to have contingencies built into the budget for things that could reasonably be expected to occur. One of the greatest challenges that we have is that expenses are running away faster than we can keep up with them. The revenue, right, the bulk of the revenue is from property tax property taxes. Property tax cap formula essentially says that we
008can't raise the property taxes by more than 2% plus certain exceptions exemptions every year. Which is great if the expenses also only go up by 2% every year. When the expenses go up by more than 2% every year, we have to figure out what has to be reduced from the expenses budget so that the revenue budget can fund the expenses. This is a great example here of how the expenses are running away faster than the revenue can keep up with them. This is your liability insurance. This is not health insurance. This is property insurance and liability insurance. And you can see that the increases are way in excess of 2%. Now, we probably have the best uh insurance that we can get in terms of we this district is a part of a cooperative of
009other districts that own this insurance company called Naert New York New York Schools Insurance Reciprocal, >> of course, >> but expenses go up every year. There have been losses throughout the the nicer network. So, we have to be able to keep pace uh sorry, we have to be able to pay this bill. And what how we do that is we have to figure out what else we can cut in expenditure budget for these increases. So uh we're going to talk uh we're going to break down the budget into the same sections we did last year if the board is good with that. So let's talk let's focus on what we're going to be talking about this evening. You can see general support instructional uh areas transportation benefits and debt service. It's laid out there. Uh
010we can get into specifics if you need to. We're going to touch on some of this tonight. Go ahead. So obviously the board of education, it's a thankless job. So I won't stand here and thank you except to remind the community that you are serving as unpaid volunteers for the uh betterment of the students and staff and taxpayers in this district. Your responsibilities are to adopt district policies, uh approve the hiring dismissal of district employees, and oversee the public's tax dollars. It is a tremendous responsibility. of district clerk serves as your secretary and of course the official actions of the board and you present your spending plan to the voters each May under state law where they get their chance to weigh in on that. The superintendent of the business office, this is the center
011of the district that supports and makes the district run, supports everything else that's actually happening in the classrooms. Superintendent of schools is the chief executive officer of the district. The business office oversees the purchasing, payroll, benefits, all sorts of other things that we need to uh provide to employees who work here. And there are a number of outside entities that the district contracts with, external auditor, claims auditor, legal services. And I can go into the specifics of specifics of those services if you have any questions. Facilities and security. This is uh how you maintain this building. We've said it before many times. This is the largest public investment that this community has made. And so we have an obligation to the taxpayers to ensure that it is wellmaintained, that it is safe for students and
012staff to be here, that it's going to last well into the future to the next generation of students who come here and the next generation of people who work here. Security Department is responsible for ensuring the safety of the folks who are here, especially number one, the students. We have a number of other areas that we we're going to be looking at. Most of the most importantly the the liability insurance and Bosey's administration. So it's a mandatory fee whether we take all the services that Boseies has to offer its member districts or none of them. We are required to pay this mandatory Boseis administration fee. Uh and that has to be part of the budget as well. So here's a look at some sections of the budget that we're going to focus on this evening.
013I want to talk about two highlights. So the first is that uh the first is security. You can see that there is an increase in the security. We are in the process of reforming how our security operation works. I don't want to say too much more about about that in public. I think when uh we're able to present things that would be acceptable in a public setting to say without revealing anything about security that is not subject uh not uh fit for public discussion. We can talk about that. But in order to help improve the security operation, we're looking for an increase in in the line there. And you can also see that we have a chain we have an increase in our facilities. Amongst other things is some staffing issues uh that are driving
014that increase but also cost of everything is going up. Obviously facilities uses a lot of materials and supplies in their operation and so costs of everything from power to from electricity to fuel to cleaning supplies the costs are all increasing. All right we're going to talk more about the budget in future meetings. So let's talk about our next steps. Obviously, we're going to present further areas of the budget at future meetings. Um, we're going to be monitoring changes that the state is imposing on districts. The state loves a good unfunded mandate to dump onto districts. So, we're if they have any of those changes, we're going to have to figure out how to pay for that. We are hopeful the legislature is going to adopt a budget on before April 1st. That is the legal
015deadline. They have not met it in recent years. When they don't, it affects our ability to finalize our spending plan. And then we have a schedule how we're going to do this. So you can see those are the the coming presentations. February 10th, we're going to talk about the property tax cap limit. And so we can the voters will see what the ultimate levy is going to be. We're going to ask the board to approve our calculation that we've made because we have to submit it to the state by the end of the month, by the end of next month. And so we want the board to be able to weigh in on that calculation. We're going to talk about the budget again in March and by April this all has to be done. The
016board will be asked to adopt a budget for presentation to the voters on the 19th and the budget vote will be right here from 1 to 9 on that day. Right. Thank you. We're looking forward to decent budget. I was just curious back to and I'm not going to spend a lot of time on I was just curious but I looked at the uh insurance increases. Yeah. >> In the last five years doubled though. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, I mean look, there have been a number of reasons why insurance has increased in recent years. Um I think most most notably to the schools, particularly schools in New York State, has been the um law that allowed victims of abuse to bring lawsuits against schools and teachers who have victimized them. Fortunately, none of
017that impacts this district, but it just raises the cost for every school district regardless that those losses exist in the insurance network. And it's not it's a reciprocal. It's not a onetoone. So, we on some regard rise and fall with the tide of other schools as well. Um, you know, there is some increase attributable to us directly to insurance claims whether we have them or not. But in in general, insurance has gone up and I'm sure I I can speak for my own property and auto insurance that has gone up and to date I'm a relatively safe homeowner and driver. I hope that continues. Tempting fate since I'm about to drive home. But uh uh you know that is I think if any of you own a car or home, you'd see the same experience.
018I wish there were a better answer. Unfortunately, there's not. One of the greatest advantages in belonging to the nicer reciprocal is that because we are an owner, we can't be dropped from the coverage. One of the problems that you have when that districts have that don't participate in a reciprocal that buy insurance on the open market is if they suffer a big loss, the insurance company will cover that loss and then will drop them at the end of the year because they're considered a risk. We can't have that. We need to be able to know that our insurance is going to continue year in and year out. Unfortunately, that's part of the cost of doing business. >> Thank you. Thanks. >> Next one. Consent agenda. Like to make a motion to approve items 4.1 to
0194.4. Motion. Motion >> second. >> Favor. >> I business and finance. I ask for a motion to approve items 5.1 5.6 on business finance on each agenda. Do I have a motion? >> Sure. Thank you, Pat. We have a pretty quiet uh uh agenda. Um, in the business and finance section, we have our usual um, monthly reports for the board and then you have an agreement to approve with Guild Hall. Um, the musical felt like last year's presentation was or was a huge success, so they're excited to go back to the Guild Hall venue if the board approves it. >> Yes. on 5.1 56. >> You got approval to do the alpha, but those kids deserve it. I mean, it's a lot of work to staff and everybody. >> That's really nice touch up there.
020I've done the high school. I've done guild hall. Guild Hall does a nice >> It's a beautiful. >> It's easier on the production, too, because they staff it. Yeah, pretty magical last year. >> Yeah, last year was amazing. This year is going to be even better. [laughter] >> Okay. Uh new business item number six going over school calendar. >> Yes. So, um this is obviously just a first draft and we do have to uh look at what other districts do, what Boseies do when we create a draft of calendar and we also have to consult with um our teachers union. It's part of their contract. So everything is almost is basically the same. Uh Labor Day is really late this year. So it's changed the calendar for all districts. Uh Labor Day is on September
0217th. The first day of school for all districts is going to be on September 8th. Uh we will have our superintendent conference days the week before. Um but it just changes everything a little differently throughout the year. Um the big difference that we have here when we presented this to the STA I mean to the yeah to this STA was that they chose rather than having u March 29th which is the Monday after east of Sunday off they would rather have December 23rd which is the Wednesday before Christmas Eve off. So that's something uh the board needs to look at and see what your thoughts are. um it doesn't matter. Uh they they feel that that's just what uh is beneficial to families. A lot of families go away and there's a lot of preparation
022during that holiday and they feel that that would be more beneficial to families and to staff. So that's their request and it's our first draft as I said. Um everything else is in complete alignment uh with East Hampton except for that day. It's up to I don't know what the board's I know Eric had mentioned some people >> Monday after >> the Monday after Easter. Um and this is something that we can we don't have to you know we normally adopt the calendar sometime in February so that parents can plan vacations and different things um for the following school year. So as I said the teachers prefer to have the Wednesday before uh Christmas Eve. Uh the other option was the Monday after Easter. >> Anybody approached to Tuesday? I know you're starting school on
023the 8th. I'm always one for that Wednesday starting school only because we do have parents and staff that rent the house. >> The problem is if you take if you take another day off, you have to take another day off someplace else. And it's uh it's very complicated and we do always have to consider busing >> because uh we you know we have bus students to and you have to consider families as well because a lot of families have kids both here and East Hampton and child care can be an issue where East Hampton students are uh watching younger students. So we try to be as close as possible. >> Okay. So >> you fine with this calendar so far. >> Yeah, that's what >> sounds good. >> You'll have a lot of >> a
024lot of students won't be in school 23rd deadline. >> No. Yeah, exactly. >> Okay, next we have it number seven. I'd like to motion approve items 7.1 and 7.4. Right. >> Yes. Um so we're very happy. Uh we received two mini grants um from the East Hampton Education Foundation and we thank teachers Megan uh Leiden and Sandra Veio for applying for these grants. One is for sensorary uh equipment that's going to be used in our prek uh building and the other is for a chicken uh incubation uh apparatus that's going to be used at the middle school. So we thank them for writing the grants and we also thank the uh uh the East Hampton Education Foundation uh for providing this opportunity for our kids. So we have both 7.1 and 7.2 uh accepting the
025donations for those grants and I say once again we thank them for that. And then 7.3, um, we have a resignation for the purpose of retirement for a teacher who's been here a very, very long time. In June, we have a few, uh, retirements that are coming up this year. And we will, um, acknowledge all of that, those staff members in June, uh, when they retire. Um, the first is Joan Branch. She's been here for a long time, as many of you know. She was here when I first worked here and she's a a wonderful wonderful teacher and she will be very much you know she'll be really missed but she'll be retiring in June and we will acknowledge her then. But all the teachers um by February 1st if they're going to retire we'll
026have some on the next board meeting are supposed to let us know so that we can plan for the following year as far as recruitment goes. So, we appreciate them getting their notice to us and we'll have a couple more coming up and um obviously we wish her very well uh in her future endeavors. And then um tonight and one of the favorite things I have to do, we have an amend and granting of tenure and we have a teacher here that we want to acknowledge. And um originally her tenure date was going to be a year from now, but because she had tenure previously in a New York state district, which is state ed law. She's receiving tenure now, I had the privilege and opportunity to observe her. Um she's a local resident. She
027has child in the school and um she's a real asset to the Springs community. So we are very very uh excited to uh recommend tenure for Diane Shoemaker. And I just like you come and accept some flowers. >> Thank you. Congratulations. >> Thank you. It's a pleasure working here. Yeah. >> And then um just the lastly we have our enrollment report and then our update. Um for our update just uh to update the board before I get into enrollment. Um just as you know we had a lot of uh work done through our repair reserve that began over the break um the winter break. The installation of the fence on the side of the kindergarten parking lot has been uh installed. It looks really nice. I don't know if you've had the opportunity to look
028at it. Uh they're also working on the pre uh the kindergarten playground. It's been um all the wood chips are gone. They're putting the surface down and that should be completed by the end of the week. We're excited to get that done. It's going to be a nice enhancement to that entire area. Also, we have uh Ashlar, who is the company that's going to be doing, as you know, during the uh last uh public hearing we had for the repair reserve. We're replacing all the sophets, the gutters, the koopa um all which of which are rotting. As you can see, we did a tour um on the outside and we're getting all of that replaced. They did a little mockup for us. It's going to look really nice, and we're excited uh to replace it
029with uh it's a aluminum cladding. so that it will not rot and it will be very similar to the cladding that's in the back of the building. And I think that's going to be just a nice uh addition to the front of the building, the side of the building, and all those places that you see where the paint is peeling and the wood is rotting. Um so we're excited to have that done. And then also, um we're getting a lot of quotes in. We've talked about a lot of different uh projects that we have inside the building that need to be addressed as well. Uh we have a meeting coming up with our buildings and ground committee to look at. We've received quotes now for those projects. We'll talk about the projects at the meeting
030and what the priority priorities are. They'll bring that to the entire board so we can decide what are the projects we would like to uh move forward with. So we're excited about uh getting things done. As uh Mr. Schneider mentioned in his budget presentation, there's nothing more important than being sure that we're good stewards of the building. and that we're maintaining it and keeping it in proper working order so it doesn't cost more in the long run which is what happens if you don't maintain. Um, also just want to know I met with local superintendent and assembly man Shioone um last week we were discussing um uh we the fact that we need to uh have a feasibility study for the school bus fleet electri electrification plan which districts um will be submitting to the
031state sometime in March. So, we're going to go out for an RFP for a study um to see what the costs are for actually uh putting this uh project in place. Uh there's a lot of questions about uh the challenges that uh the east end faces as well as other districts about the costs cost of busing, the cost of getting electric power, installation of charging facilities, whether the buses um how long they can be charged for. So, there's a lot we need to look into. The study will give us this information. State will receive studies from a lot of districts and we're hoping that they're going to put the timeline down the road a little bit so that we're sure we have all the infrastructure and all the costs in place before uh we do
032things that we're not quite ready for. So, uh just to update you on that. And then this week, just to let you know, we had a wonderful two weeks with um our fabulous variety show who's been visiting uh the school over the last two weeks. They're really enhancing our performing arts curriculum. They've been uh working in the PE classes, uh teaching students dance from all different cultures and from all around uh the world and just very the kids have been having a blast as well as teachers. They had administrators and teachers participating as well. So, uh, we really appreciate being able to enhance our curriculum with some of these activities. Um, and then just some upcoming events. Uh, tomorrow night is our PTA meeting. Uh, 7 o'clock here in the library. All are invited to
033attend. Thursday evening, we have our eighth grade orientation at 6 p.m. at East Hampton High School. And then, uh, Thursday, January 29th. And January 30th on Friday is the middle school performance um, at Guild Hall. as you were speaking about before, it's going to be Mary Poppins, one of my favorites, and I think it's going to be a spectacular performance. So, I encourage everyone to attend. And um that's our update for now. And just our enrollment has been really, really steady. Uh we have five fewer students right now in preK through eight from our last month's enrollment uh numbers and one additional high school student. And if you look at where we were last year, can you scroll down a little, Pop? If you look at where we were um last year um no now
034you lost me now um up a little. So last year um January 21st, 2024 down a little. [laughter] We had a total of 691 students down a little but now [laughter] we're at 689 students. So you can see you know we're almost very very similar to where we were last year with enrollment. So, our numbers are quite steady. Thank you, Bob. [laughter] >> We just have to prove 7.1 or four. We don't have to prove the >> No, just have to prove 7.1 7.4. [clears throat] Okay. Now, we're going to go into public commentary number two. Any comments or questions to the board? It' be great. Again, we remind you keep your talking down to about three minutes or so. We cannot discuss personnel from the public or LGBT like public comment. >> We have
035no callers on the line. >> I have a question. I can do it right right now. >> Yeah. Yeah. This is the time to do it. Public commentary. Okay. Just say your name. That's all. >> I'm Conrad Maro. Um, I've been a resident of this town for about 29 years now and uh this is my first time at a school board meeting. >> But my concern is the one wall court which is adjacent to the tennis courts. Um the the wall itself is perfect. It's the playing surface that's a horror show now. And a couple of months ago, the the town engineer had come down and I happened to be here and he did an assessment and he determined that definitely the surface needs to be resurfaced and he was going to do his review
036or whatever and then was going to present it to the board as part of the school budget and I just wanted to know if he's done that and if it's going to be in the school budget to uh resurface that court. real quickly respond. So, um, no, they haven't contacted us, just so you're aware about that issue. But, um, I did mention um, we do have a meeting with the town on January 22nd. As you may be aware or not be aware, the town leases that property from us. So, one of the things we we are going to have our attorneys there just to discuss who's responsible for maintenance of the property. Uh, we're looking at a few different issues. So, it's very um appropriate at this time that you bring that up because it
037is something that we're looking into to be sure that >> possibility that will be put into the school budget. >> Um it's right now the town um that's this is what we need to discuss. We It hasn't been proposed to be put into the school. >> I didn't notice it before, but posted on the tennis court, we can play after 3:30. >> Right. That's something that we're looking into as well. I know. Um we've been you know discussing a lot of different things and as I said um I will email you after our meeting with the town. So one of the things that's occurred is we don't have clear that we don't have clear understanding of who's responsible for what um the property the building and it's something that we're going to be looking into
038>> the cleanup over there >> and all of that. So, all of that is something that we're going to be uh making sure that we have clear uh a clear understanding between the town and the school district so that we can be sure the property's maintained, kids are safe using the property, and the community has clear understanding of when they can use the property as well. >> Okay, great. And the other thing I wanted to say, and the engineer didn't seem to be in agreement with me, but that court uh can lead to injuries for people. >> No. Then I appreciate it. He he said that if it gets approved, he's going to make it the same surface as the tennis courts, which would be like great, >> right? >> And there's plenty of people
039using that court. I'm not the only one. I I play raet ball. I drill on that court just about every day, but I've seen lacrosse people, uh, pickle ball people, handball, soccer people, uh, using that court. And um >> no, >> we welcome the community using our fields and our and our uh facilities on the property uh through the proper channels. So we want to make sure we have everything documented properly and everything is clear so community knows when they can use the facilities as well as when our students are going to be using them and who's responsible right now. That's that's great. >> Okay, thank you. >> Thank you. >> Anybody on LTV? No, we have no callers on the line. >> I ask for an enjoyment motion. I think second. >> Okay, we
040thank you very much. Thank you for coming. >> Thank you. >> Congratulations again. >> Thanks. And that's the meeting on the 22nd.