001Okay, very good. Good evening everyone. Thank you for being here tonight. We are recalling to order the regular meeting of the Suffren Central School District Board of Education for Tuesday, September 30th, 2025. Uh may the record reflect that all board members are present. And we will begin with the pledge of allegiance. I aliance 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. >> Okay, our next item is student board member report. Joy and Robbie, take it away. Oh, there we go. So, this week is spirit week at Suffren High School. Yesterday, Monday was jersey day where kids would wear jersey sports teams. Today was pink out day where students wear red pink. Good job. And tomorrow
002we have extended lunch and suffering spirit day. So extended lunch is 20 minutes longer and we usually have activities like we have snack stands, cupcakes, facts department makes them, snow cones, popcorn and sometimes we have bounce houses depending on the weather. It could be outside be in the gym but it's a really fun thing. Gets the students going gets them excited. We have Thursday off for Yam Kapor and Friday is the class color day. So the freshman wear green, the sophomores red, the juniors purple, no freshman purple, juniors green, and seniors blue where they will wear maybe their pennies. And so they have a handball tournament at lunch where all four grades have a tournament against each other and then the pep rally for both the freshman verse sophomores and juniors vers seniors in the
003afternoon later in the day. That will be followed up by the homecoming football game. And Saturday we'll start off with the SATs. Um after the SAT exam at Sron High School on um October 4th, this Saturday, the homecoming dance will be at 700 p.m. at the high school. And then the following Monday on October 6th, it will be financial aid night at the high school. This is mostly for seniors and their parents, but any students who are interested are able to participate and will be able to learn about the financial aid process and college applications. College visits also started last week where students were able to meet with representatives from different colleges including Sunni Oswiggo University of Rochester and Colgate University um in the guidance office. Thursday, October 9th, next Thursday will be the club
004expo which is during lunch when students will be able to walk around to different tables where clubs will have um information about where to sign up and also what they do in their club. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Thank you. That was excellent. >> Okay. Uh now we're going to move on to the minutes of the regular meeting of September 9th, 2025. Has everyone had an opportunity to review the minutes? >> Do I have a motion to approve the minutes? >> Uh Mrs. Hodgej second. Uh Mr. Donnelly. All in favor signify by saying I. I. Anyone opposed? Any abstensions? >> Yes, I abain. >> Okay. Mr. Frasier abstains. >> And Mr. Donate abstains. Thank you. All right. Superintendent's comments. >> Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the board meeting. Thank you. Thankful uh that all
005of you could make it here this evening. Uh we have two presentations this evening. We are going to start off with a project, a collaborative project that we're really excited about that involves our students from um the Nourish Project and they're partnering with um the community food pantry. So, I'm going to ask the students to come on up and and give their give their presentation in a moment. But, uh the Nourish Project is a new club that's been created to take action against food insecurity in our own backyard. These students work in collaboration with the community food pantry which serves Slosburg, Suffurn, Hillburn, and Tuxedo. And they are here tonight to share their story and promote an upcoming event that they've organized to raise money for the community food pantry. So, I know many of
006us have seen your your fun Instagram posts um promoting um the evening and the promoting the event, but we're so excited to have you here this evening. So, here to present are Maya Rosado, Victoria Magana, Noami Palma, and Brody Seltzer. Come on up. [Applause] [Music] >> Okay. Um, I can stand here. Can everyone hear? Okay. So, we are the Nourish Project. We are a club at Suffren High School. Um we were just founded last year and we work directly with the community food pantry to raise awareness about food insecurity um affecting students and families right here within our own district. Um my name is Maya. This is >> I'm Victoria. I'm Brody. >> Um and so again, thank you for mentioning our um our fundraiser. Um, we have a night to nourish coming up on
007October 17th where it will be at Suffren High School from 5:30 to 9. I should know this. Oh, thank you. So, um, adults will be having 25 will be adult tickets will be $25 and sixth through students grades 6 through 12 will be $15 and fifth grade students and under will be free. At the event, we will be having a tricky tray or raffles. We will have raffles. Um, I think a few food trucks. We're going to have taco boys and I think a cupcake carriage and a few other food trucks. It's going to be a great night. Um, I need my notes. >> Um, so my friends and I founded this club because we wanted to find a way to build a club that provided real learning opportunities for the and impact for our
008community. Um, you may have seen us us around or not. If you haven't, hi. Um we've been at one suffren day last year, the suffering street fair this year during the fall and Mounty Mind and strategic planning events um the blueprint day. We are very happy to join you guys. Um and of course Instagram or Facebook. Aside from outreach events, we have become more involved in supporting the community food pantry with rolling out fundraising campaigns as we raise crucial funds as we continue to lose grants and funding. Um, this event we're aiming to raise around $25,000. Um, it's a very big goal, but again, it's important. We're calling out our community to just show support. A few people you may a few sponsors you may see at the event will be Rob's School of Music
009located in Suffurn. Um he will be having student bands and performing with his own band, Just Us. Um, and I think we're having a formal a former student of formal a former student of the of Suffren High School, Ben Stevens. He's coming in. He has created his own band and now is coming back to sing with us and support us. Um over the p every we've I just wanted to update you guys about another initiative aside from October 17th we over the past five weeks we have had we have been partnering with local restaurants on Thursdays. We call them dine to nourish Thursdays and every Thursday we partner with anywhere from two to three four restaurants in our area that are within our serving area and we ask them to do dine to donates with
010us and that those are our videos. Thank you Gunderson. Um so this week we are partnering with Blueberries in the shopping center near Acme. We're also partnering with um Nikki's Pizza as well as AJ's Sushi. Um I don't think I have anything else to say. Thank you for buying a ticket. You guys should all buy your tickets, >> everyone. I'm counting on it. We would be very happy to see you there. Um and just come out and support see what we do. >> Thank you very much. >> One last thing. >> Thank you. There's so much to think about when planning something like this. Um, if you have any students or anyone is watching this or our student representatives, I see you. Not a threat. I'm sorry. Um, we are going to be providing any
011student grades 6 through 12 with 4 hours of community service if they attend the event by ticket. We will be giving out certificates. So, if you know anyone that needs community service, October 17th is the place to be. Thank you so much. I I just want to share, you know, thank you so much, Maya, and and your your fellow uh student leaders who have come here. You know, this is such a a wonderful example of where students see that there's a need in the community. um and in their working relationship with the community food pantry have seen, you know, whether it's uh federal or state funding that has essentially been decreased or disappeared from a really vital service to folks within our school community. You saw the need uh with the reduced funding and you've
012been working really hard to build awareness for the importance of the community food pantry raising money, advocating for its importance and also making sure that at the same time you're not stigmatizing in a negative way um when some of your fellow students really rely on the generosity of their community members. So, you're doing a phenomenal job. The four of you and everyone that works with the uh the Nourish Project should be really proud of the work that you're doing. You're really making this community proud. Thank you very much. And I'd like to shift over um to the the second portion of my comments. Um, I'm going to ask uh Doug Zimmerman to come on up uh in a moment, but I'm going to uh first say a couple of uh I think nice words about
013the folks that work in our business office who have been working tirelessly throughout this audit season with our external auditors to make sure that uh Doug Zimmerman, his entire team had the information that they needed, uh answered questions, and were open to some feedback from our auditors about ways that we could adjust our practices for the future. And of course, Dr. Castellane leads the charge with the department. So, Dr. Castellane, thank you for all the work that you've done on this front. And then, of course, I know the first thing you would say, and maybe I'm stealing your thunder here, but thanking our district treasurer, Pamela Alvante. Right. So, thank you very much for the work that you've been doing as treasur. If you want to give a little wave and so there you go,
014Pamela. Thank you so much. Um, you know, your your expertise is very much valued here. So, Dr. Castlane, I'll turn it over to you. >> Well, thank you. and uh you pretty much said uh everything I needed to. Um but but I I will echo the um Pamela and her her dedication and and what a lot of um a lot of people don't understand is during during the summertime, it's that's our busy season. So, um while things might quiet down for the business office a little bit, end of October, beginning of November, during the summer, you know, Pamela's here, she's here late. She's working uh closing up shop every day. um and her and my team upstairs just amazing. And three years ago when I stepped into this position, um EFPR group was hired by
015the previous business official. they were coming in. And for for those of you that were here, you know that we um and maybe those that weren't here were paying attention. We didn't have our audit closed until well into November, which is um you know, much beyond our um October 15th, New York State's deadline. Uh so what I what I do want to highlight is you know last year we were you know year two establishing that relationship reaching out to uh to them as a resource throughout the year we were able to uh put some things in place. Last year we we did um were on time and this year because of the state releasing their information a little bit earlier as you can see we're September 30th which um which is probably before most districts
016uh at least in our area or even New York State. Uh so I do want to kind of highlight a couple of those things. Um but let's uh we'll call Doug up and uh he can share uh his findings and we'll go from there. raise that up a little bit. Uh again, good evening. I'm Doug Zoran, partner with EFPR group and uh you know, I I I won't go through all the stuff that was already covered. Um you know, just to say we did have outstanding cooperation uh between everybody in the business office and uh you know, completing this audit really is a team approach. We certainly have uh a role in it, but management and the entire accounting team have to be doing stuff not only at audit time but throughout the year to
017get to the point where we can be uh meeting here today to review the results of the engagement. Go to the next slide. So, I've got a very brief uh uh presentation here and uh I'll just walk through it and certainly be happy to answer any questions anyone has. Um, we did have the opportunity last week on the the 22nd to review the financial statements in detail with the audit committee and uh what I'll be doing tonight is just kind of go go over at a high level uh the results of the audit along with uh with kind of how the audit unfolded. So uh we approach the audit by performing uh what's called a detailed risk assessment. So we look at the operations of the district to determine uh where the riskier areas could
018be and we certainly devote more audit effort in that area. Um and uh we identify significant areas. We obtain a detailed understanding of those internal controls in those areas. Uh part of what we do is we test the effectiveness of your internal control system to make sure it's properly operating properly. Uh an example of that is you know your bank recon installations are being prepared timely. They're being reviewed by uh an an individual signing off on them. Um so um internal controls are really the bedrock of allowing the financial reporting system to function appropriately and be able to have a uh a clean opinion at the end of the the year. Uh based on our tests, the audit uh work programs were designed for each area and the uh allowed us to issue uh opinions
019on the financial statements. There's a number of opinions that we issue. uh we issue a an opinion on the overall financial statements and that was an un what's called an unmodified or a clean opinion. So it's a clean bill of health on the uh the report of the uh the district and that's certainly what you want to receive. And uh it was mentioned that you know the filing deadline is October 15th. Um we do uh 30ome districts and this is the second uh board meeting that I'm attending this year at this point. So you certainly are at the front front end of that curve. Uh, and that's a testament really again to the uh the accounting department. Um, it's not as easy as it sounds. I mean, I've got a couple of districts we haven't
020even started their audit because their accounting is is not ready to be audited. And so, uh, you know, it's always nice to come and and be talking about good news as opposed to the fact that, you know, we're here in December and, you know, the audit's way past due. So, uh, uh, again, uh, that's exactly what we want is a a timely filing with the state ed and, uh, you know, put that behind you and move on to the the day-to-day operations of the district. Next slide, please. Uh, as I mentioned, the results, uh, it's an unmodified opinion on the basic financial statements. There is also a federal grant compliance audit. Any governmental organization that receives over $750,000 in an annual basis of federal dollars has to have an audit conducted in accordance with uh
021uh what's called um commonly referred to as a single audit. Uh there's also a extra classroom activity fund. Uh we heard uh you know the the students speak of their fund their their group and that's certainly a piece of that extra classroom activity fund. There's a separate report that we issue with regards to that. uh all the uh records we requested, all the information we asked for were made freely available. Uh there were no issues whatsoever in uh in conducting the audit. As I mentioned, we start with an audit plan and I'm happy to report there was nothing that we uh uh saw that caused us to deviate from that plan. So the audit went uh uh as you know as smoothly as it as it could have. Uh the results of our test disclosed
022no instances of non-compliance or other matters that are required to be reported either under government auditing standards or under uniform guidance. So there's a whole litany of tests and compliance requirements that the district is required to follow in the stewardship of the the dollars either from the state or from the federal government. And uh it's our responsibility to test uh your compliance with those requirements. And again, there were no issues and so there were no uh concerns whatsoever with regards to uh non-compliance matters. Next slide, please. >> Uh and actually this is the last slide. Um so as I mentioned, you receive a significant amount of federal dollars and uh as part of the audit, we tested two major programs this year. The child nutrition cluster and the title one grants to local educational agencies.
023And again, there were no compliance matters at all with regards to either of those. There was one item that we mentioned within the the body of the government auditing standards report. And uh that was uh noted as 20251. And that just had to do to with the fact that the district's accounting records in some areas uh required us to adjust certain balances and it's not indicative of like I mentioned the internal controls that we review. Um but uh the government accounting rules continue to get more and more complex and a lot of it had to do with just transferring funds between ver transferring dollars and amounts between various funds of the district. So um we're unfortunately required to report that in the report if there is a a volumewise enough of that that it rises
024to a certain level. So from from an audit u risk assessment point of view it was was not a concern whatsoever. It's a fairly common practice that we uh we do because again of the uh just the complexity of the governmental accounting. Uh that's really everything I wanted to cover and I'd be certainly happy to answer any questions anyone has. Thank you so much. Uh, Mr. Zimmerman, are there any board members that have any questions? >> No. Okay. >> What is >> Oh, all right. Mr. Shapiro. >> So if if we were to rate us from 0 to 10, with zero not being what we want it to be and 10 definitely being what we want it to be, where would we fall? And you can use decimal points, too. >> Well, well, I I
025don't rank anybody. Uh but what I would say is the fact that we're standing here today still in the month of September with an October 15th deadline. uh should you should give you the confidence that the uh the business office is doing what they have to do and I mentioned this is only the second meeting that I've had of the 30 some that we do. Uh so I'm not going to give you a number but it's up there near the the top of the scale simply from the fact that uh if it wasn't we wouldn't be standing here today. Um we'd be meeting in uh middle of October, late October, November and that's certainly not the case. So, it's uh it really is a testament that you can pull all that information together and there's
026a lot there that we ask for. There's a lot that has to be done on a month-to-month basis just to maintain the records uh to be able to get to the point where we can have uh this audit completed in uh this timely manner. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Any other board members questions? No. Okay. >> Mr. Mr. Zimmerman, I want to thank you very much for uh for your overall presentation and more importantly um you know for your ongoing relationship that uh you know your your phone is always available uh for Dr. Castellain and uh and Pamela and and the team if ever they have questions or need some advice. We really appreciate not only your reporting but also your your mentorship of us. So thank you very much. >> Well, thank you very
027much and everybody have a a great evening. >> Great. Thank you so much. [Applause] And in closing the superintendent comments, I just wanted to touch upon uh our student group mentioned that they were involved with the blueprint process, which is our strategic planning process uh that we are almost at the end of. So we are hoping by perhaps next board meeting if not the next board meeting the board meeting after that we'll be able to uh showcase what that blueprint is which is basically going to be our our our focus areas of focus for the next couple of years as a district and our community has done a wonderful job of providing input whether it was through a thought exchange or the community forum night or by providing other comments to us directly via email
028or in person. Uh it's really been a great process so far and I'm excited to go ahead and share that with you in one of the coming board meetings. And this concludes my superintendent report. >> Okay. Thank you very much. Uh and I also want to thank the audit committee um which is uh Miss Brian and Mr. Donnelly and myself who uh spent time going over with Mr. Zimmerman his conclusions uh not long ago and uh carefully considering them before they were presented to this meeting, getting questions answered. Uh it is a complex process as you can see but uh it is important and I'm glad Mr. Zimmerman was here tonight with uh some pretty good news for us. Uh also want to thank the representatives from the Nourish Project for being here. Um unfortunately
029suffern is affected by food insecurity as much as it is in many other parts of the world and I I just want to thank you for helping to uh deal with that. Um, it's sometimes visible and sometimes invisible. And I appreciate that you are looking for creative ways to bring food to families, which is something that many of us take for granted, but um, I'm sure your efforts are helping to alleviate uh, that stress and anxiety from them. So, thank you so much for all the effort that you're doing and for being here tonight to talk to us about it. And we wish you all the best with your fundraiser coming up. Uh, and now we're going to move on to public participation. And this is our first of two public participation sections. This is
030on action items only. Is there anyone who is here to speak on an action item? They are on our agenda tonight at 2.01 through 2.18. Okay, it looks like no one is here to speak on an action item. Uh so we're going to close that portion of the meeting. Uh before I uh ask for a consent agenda, is there any item that any board member would like to pull? Okay, great. Uh, do I have a motion for a consent agenda to approve items 2.01 through 2.18? Mr. Frasier, second. >> Mr. Shapiro, all in favor signify by saying I. I. Anyone opposed? Any abstensions? Okay. Very well. Uh, then we're going to move on to our second public participation section. This is on any board related business or district related business. If you're here to speak
031from the public on any district related business, please keep your remarks to three minutes. Uh please give us your name and uh please do not mention any staff, student or teacher by name. Is there anyone who is here to speak from the public on any district related business tonight? Okay, looks like not. So, we're going to close that portion of the meeting and go to board member comments. Any board members with any comments tonight? Yes, Miss Brian. I just want to publicly, you know, emphasize the importance of someone like our district treasurer who manages the day-to-day nuts and bolts of what we do. It is a job for someone who loves numbers. And I commend you for holding down the fort of this audit in such a short space of time professionally. To have this
032done and wrapped up so quickly is a tremendous effort and on behalf of all of us. We certainly appreciate you for doing that. Billy, too. But but but I I I understand the amount of work that goes into this process and getting us to where we are right now so quickly. So, thank you. >> Uh thank you. Any other board members with any comments? Mr. Andert, >> thank you so much. Uh thank you for all your work. I just want to take this opportunity to request uh in the future a datadriven update for the fall on student achievement from the 30,000 foot view just kind of give an overall picture of where we are meeting and exceeding our expectations for students and where we have room for growth and as the state test scores are
033coming out in early November. uh it might be a good opportunity just to give an update uh how we're doing across the district as well as some of our internal benchmarks uh so we can just have a snapshot of the achievement especially coming out of the first year of the restructuring and we've asked a lot of our students and our staff to kind of go through and make sure that we're living up to the expectations we set. >> Thank you very much. Any other board members with any comments tonight? >> No. Okay, then we'll close that portion of the meeting and go to superintendent's closing comments. >> Thank you very much. And uh until a second ago, I didn't have any closing comments, but I want to thank you for offering up uh that suggestion
034and uh and I appreciate you um also um recognizing that it's important for the board to see the big picture with regards to student achievement. And Dr. Dr. Mahill and I have been talking about how we can best share that information with the board of education while also focusing maybe a little bit closer than we would have in previous years um on the uh the impact that the restructuring has had both pros and some challenges with with that. So you can expect that um at some point in the not too distant future. So thank you. >> All right. Thank you very much. Um, our next meeting will be Tuesday, October 14th, right back here in Hillburn. Uh, thank you to our district treasurer and to our business department for being here tonight. Uh, thank you
035to the Nourish reps. Thank you to all students who were here. I know you're all big fans of the external audit and that's why you came. Um, but if you need to have your paper signed for government class, we can do that, too. Um, and uh, thank you to all of our new teachers, new staff, new custodians who we recognized earlier tonight at a nice little reception for them. Um, bringing their energy and their ideas to this district. We're happy to have you. So, uh, we'll see you back here on October 14th. Do I have a motion to adjourn this meeting, >> Mr. Shapiro? Second, Mrs. Hodgej. All in favor signify by saying I. I. Excellent. We'll see you back here on October 14th. [Music]