001thank live okay thank you all right everyone welcome uh this is the regular meeting of the suffering Central School District Board of Education for Tuesday April 1st 2025 uh May the record reflect that all board members are present um unfortunately Dr Gunderson cannot be with us tonight as he's attending to a personal matter and we are going to start with the Pledge of Allegiance Pledge of aliance of the United States of America and to the stand [Music] na okay 1.07 student report good evening tah I sat on the right side today uh good afternoon I hope everybody had a great day um here are a couple updates from the high school that are currently going on uh today at unit lunch as some of you may have seen on the suffer Central Instagram there the
002Avid the 11th grade Avid students held a college fair for all the students and each student picked a college and created a display board with information under class and were able to visit each table and talk to the Avid students as well so it was a great opportunity for all students at suffer who are still deciding where they want to go in the future and experience the colleges like away from the colleges you experienced that and then Wednesday April 2nd uh there's the combined English and social studies Honor Society induction at 700 p.m. at the suff high school auditorium um I happen to be the president of History Honor Society so I have the privilege of introducing inducting new students of a part of 11th grade and 12th graders and announcing a new board as
003well as well as the English um a society will do that as well so that should be really exciting I'm excited for tomorrow um and then Thursday April 3rd is the music honors night at 700 p.m. at the auditorium at the high school as well and then this Friday Also concludes the third quarter for high school for high school I think and middle school as well uh so there's a lot of things going on at the high school uh as far as teachers and students and concluding this quarter and stuff like that and then grades I believe are du for teachers I think that Wednesday the next following Wednesday and then this F and then oh Monday April 7th is string Extravaganza at 730 at the high school as well where all members of the
004orchestra be performing a sequence of songs and then follow following that on April 8th is the band band banza I think that's you say at 7:30 where people part of the band will be playing a sequence of songs as well and then which probably most exciting for most people spring break starts April 11th spring break is Friday 11th to Friday April 11th to April 21st I believe and yeah that's all I have for this week thank you guys thank you so much Elijah and thank you for your service on the history Honor Society as well as all the other things that you do it's Honor Society season that's wonderful um okay uh we're now going to move on to 1.08 which is the minutes of the regular meeting of March 18th 2025 has everyone had
005an opportunity to review the minutes good to I have a motion to approve the minutes uh Mr Frasier second second Mr Kern all in favor signify by saying I all anyone opposed any exensions okay very good uh 1.09 is superintendent's comments but since our superintendent is not here tonight I'm going to do it um and we have uh some wonderful events for tonight we are so pleased to welcome area 10 New York State School boards Association members Cheryl Brady and New York State School boards Association area 10 director and Tammy Beaker New York State School boards Association or nisba as we call it Awards and recognition Committee Member for area 10 they are here tonight to celebrate Sufferin middle school as a champion of change for their Leader in Me program and we will be
006hearing from suffer Middle School principal Dr Andrew truss thank you for being here and a few students to share a bit more about the program which is in its fifth year okay all right all right Miss Mrs Brady take it away Cheryl and I apologize I really tried to get here earlier I came from White planes and I ran out of a curriculum and instruction meeting for my own board and um there was so much traffic so I apologize for not getting here in time to introduce myself to everyone um so good evening um I'm sorry superintendent Gunderson is not present for this uh president Dickman vice president ker board members administrators staff students parents I'm here in my role of area 10 director of the New York State School boards Association known as nispa
007representing Westchester putam and Rockland counties I'm the Lea zone between the school boards of these counties and nispa and I'm also completing my 18th year on the White Plain school board and my sixth year on the southern Westchester Bose Board of Education it's a really special treat for me to be here at the suffren Central School District board meeting as I'm an ex official member of the Rockland County School boards Association and I have the pleasure of serving with my colleague and your board member Paul Shapiro who very ay represents your district and recently your assistant superintendent Lisa Weber received an award from the Rick the lower Hudson Regional information center which is associated with the bosies on Whose board I serve and who was the math coordinator in White Plain school district for many
008of the years that my children went to school there so really special to be here um very briefly for those who may not be familiar with nispa nispa is the New York State organization that provides leadership to our school boards through advocacy information and programs and a drop of history about the champions of change recognition a couple of years ago nispa decided to create a program to highlight the positive programming that was bringing change to students communities and school districts throughout New York State the recognition is unsolicited there's no application it's not a competition but nisa's member relations team Combs through media articles that highlight educational programs in New York state and in addition member relations visits upwards of 300 school districts each year to discuss their successes and challenges nispa Awards committee receives nominations
009from Members relations and the committee selects program to be recognized so on behalf of nispa President Sandra rufo and executive director Bob Schneider and I'm joined here by uh Tammy Burker of the Clarkstown Central School District School Board and Rockland County School boards Association who is nisa's uh area 10 Awards committee representative um we're excited to present a champions of change award to the suffron Central School District in recognition of your leader in me seven habit bits of Highly Effective teens program we understand that the program has been in Sufferin Middle School I think for about 5 years incorporating a Leadership Academy which teaches students to develop leadership skills for the 21st century and ways to be successful in their personal lives including enhancing their abilities to be Global Citizens we have a banner here
010so here is the banner champions of change Southern Central School District Board of Education Seven Habits of Highly Effective teens program so please join me on behalf of nispa and appla in applauding all of you in the suffren Central School District who have contributed to and who have made this program possible including your students and everyone involved in this valuable Endeavor and congratulations again to the board for your service in supporting your students in this creative and impactful way and thank you also for your membership in NVA um and I look forward to hearing from the principal and hopefully we can take a picture afterwards also with everybody we are doing good things at suffer Middle School sometimes it's hard to know if you're doing the right things so um a little history about leader
011and me uh we brought it in the school district five years ago thank you for the support of the board because um it's a it's a program that uh was near and dear to my heart when I first learned about it and I just knew that it was good for kids um over the years it's kind of changed a little bit and um we've grown with it um I've been in education for 22 years and these programs come come and go a lot and um Leader in Me has been a program that the teachers have bought into the students have bought into and it's really just growing even more uh this year we've expanded it we've created the um the lack club which is our leadership ambassadors club and it's just another way that we
012can create leadership opportunities for some of our older students um the sixth graders they uh really need to get uh familiar with the Seven Habits of Highly Successful teens so they have direct lessons um during our Leadership Academy the seventh graders they're working on a project that um is a meaningful project in the community inspirational projects that take their leadership habits so that they can put them to work in the community and now our eighth graders are involved in the Lac um club which is actually taking the onus off our teachers for teaching the direct lessons to the sixth graders and now our eighth graders are starting to teach the direct lessons to our sixth graders so it's just a a progression of learning about the habits implementing them in your personal life and then
013using those habits to teach others and it's really been successful and we're very very proud of it we have four students here that are going to talk about their experience in leadership come on up girls we have Christina Lillian nicolina and Molly um like we got to go into classrooms and do the leader me with them and it was definitely more engaging because at the beginning they were like bored and didn't want to do it and by the end they were all like synergizing which was the Habit we were basing it off of and they were all joined together and they were kind of excited and it was also exciting for me to do it and with my friend nicolina cuz it was like we got to get out of our class and it's like
014it was more of like fun to do it with kids instead of like learning off the slideshows and doing it more Hands-On activities excuse me excuse me can I ask what your name is mly can you say in this micro so we know you know Molly yeah now everybody in the world knows you were speaking tonight thank you um when we went into the classes I feel like they definitely like responded better to us than they met it to some teachers just because they definitely looked up to us more just just because we're like the older kids who knew more about it because we learned it in sixth grade and seventh grade um I feel like it was good for us too to show how much we knew about the habit and make it not
015only like fun but making sure they knew what we were talking about and like overall I feel like it was just a good experience for both like all grades because sixth grade got to help with the slideshows so it taught them even more about it and then we got to teach it so it took some like weight off the teachers hands so it not only taught us but [Applause] them um so what I like about the club is that um me and my friend uh Lily uh we get to um what we get to like engage um I also liked how uh we got to help with the slideshows because at the beginning of the year uh it was like boring and like very wordy and it I I liked how uh like the sixth
016graders got to help like uh do it ourselves so that we can show like the eighth graders of like what we liked doing ourselves and it's fun how uh like we got to do games and stuff like that so um yes um it was definitely a lot better than sitting through presentations of words after words and it was better getting um out of the lunchroom into other classrooms doing it instead of sitting in the lunchroom and it was a lot more engaging than listening to words after words after the words so what what they're talking about is that the sixth grade we have sixth graders in our lack Club as well and the sixth graders and the eighth graders work together um to develop the lessons um and obviously they they bring the perspective of
017a student um a lot of times as teachers we say oh this is going to be great for the kids and then we present it to the kids and sometimes it's great and sometimes it falls flat and by having the students involved in the process we felt like it would be a lot more engaging with them and and they do a really really great job before I wrap up I do want any teachers and staff members that are here please stand because the program would be nothing without them um any good program as a yeah yeah absolutely so thank you so much as with any good program if you don't have the teacher support um it just goes nowhere and so I really appreciate all the hard work okay come on up Tammy my name
018is Tammy Berker I'm from Clarkstown I'm presently the board president and I work with uh Paul on the rockling county school boards we have a lot of fun but we work hard so there's lots to lots to be done and lots to be advocated for I knew Mr trust when he was much younger I ALS and I also knew Mr trust's mother who was very invested in the school district and she she was a board member for a period of time she and um she was just a wonderful woman and um it's really great to see a person who who come so far and leading in your district suffron has a very warm spot in my heart because I did live in slosburg for a short period of time and um has been very near
019and dear as we hear wonderful things about your District but this program when I read it uh in with all the other things that come to us we get like 25 uh different uh programs and as um members of the awards committee then we read them and then we make uh a judgment and we vote and the ones that come out on top which you did um if I remember right I think yours was a unanimous vote and so give yourself a round of applause for that [Applause] and so it was it's with great pride that um New York State uh presents this award to you and to uh your school and to your middle school so we are very grateful for all the work you do for kids and the program sounds so exciting
020so thank you so much can you take a picture absolutely yeah absolutely thank you so much uh Dr Trust and everyone yes we must have a picture Dr Gunderson if he was here would really love a picture for to so please uh staff students everyone [Music] so you're in the just go like this [Music] okay right everybody all right congratulations [Music] thank you so much thank you Dr Trust thank you uh Mrs narcisco and Dr mckill for being here tonight uh thank you to all of our suffering teachers and staff who came tonight tonight also to uh honor this program and thank you so much to our student speakers um I can see well they split but anyway I can see that you all did um absorb the lessons of the leader and me program
021and took it and ran with it and and improved on it for the presentation to students um at the middle school and who are starting their middle school experience and I really appreciate um you know your creativity and your support and your dedication to really making this program the best that it can be and thank you so much to nisba for thinking of us for being here tonight um and and appreciating this program and and giving us this recognition we really do appreciate it yeah Round of Applause for nisba thank you um they are they're a great resource for the school board in so many ways um so um for our next presentation we're going to be doing the budget presentation from Dr castellan so if anybody who's here is certainly more than welcome to
022stay and watch the budget presentation if you don't uh now would be a good time uh to excuse yourself um whatever way you want to do no pressure and thank you Dr C thank you Dr castline [Music] all right another another clearing of the room I I don't I don't play anyone I'm okay with that so so the budget Workshop the exciting things that happen here so this budget Workshop is really going to focus on some expenditures and um and how we got to how we're going to get to where we need to be um in in the last in the last presentation and the presentation before I put up this Slide the executive State proposal and the only reason why I put this up is really for continuity to make sure that we are
023continually watching it as you recall last year we did have that decrease in Foundation a that I did discuss last in the last meeting so we there are no changes uh as of right now for projected revenues this was a slide that I put up there and if you recall at that time our expenditures did not line up with our revenues right so we had to go back and we had to look at it and we really had to kind of see where we could make some adjustments so the reason why this slides up here is because we can't really generate a school district's Limited at how they can generate Revenue right we could generated through Pilots however those really kind of come to the district Aid is basically given to us we have the
024option of reserves which we prefer not to touch and then we have our tax levy so now as you can see we were able to line up the projected expenditures for next year now the individual line items might shift a little bit here or there but those would fall into different categories such as the other category of bosis those numbers would really won't change that much but as you can see and as most people know salaries and benefits make up the bulk of any budget so we have transportation which folds in third and then we have our special education programs in fourth the transportation contract so I bring up the transportation contract because this is going to be one of our biggest variables this year as we know my first presentation we talked about looking
025at approximately 20% increase in our transportation budget now if you saw in the previous slide that was approximately 17 million now we did build in about a 12% um increase instead of a 20% because one of the things we want to focus on is going out for a multi-year contract and I discussed that a little bit in our last workshop and what that means is we are going to ask our taxpayers and our voters basically to approve a multi-year contract so what does that mean that doesn't mean we need need a separate proposition but we do need to include an item line in there so that means that if the budget passes with this item line we're good to have a three-year contract if it does not then we need to go back to the
026table I believe that the only way to bring that number of 20% down to a 10 to 10 to 133% range is going out for a multi-year budget I'm hoping by doing that we will also attract a couple other uh biders in the RFP process I do expect this bid to go out within the next month I've been working with Transportation pretty thoroughly and our attorneys in order to make sure we have a pretty well Set uh contract um or RFP to get a contract and the last thing is we're going to look at some of our non-public Transportation options as the district knows we last year we went out and we awarded a couple of different um contracts to some non-public vendors and what I can say is while we're looking at for our
027main contract we're looking at anywhere from a 10 to 20% increase for for those non-public contracts we are going to increase by CPI CPI is dictated to us and it's in their contract where we would basically go out I would range that to be somewhere in the 3 to 4% so we're pretty set there so some of the contributing factors to our budget this year are our Bo the bosis bond so I as many people know Rockland Bose went out for a bond last year the taxpayers in Rockland County voted to pass that bond that bond is then passed on to us because Rockland C Rockland bosies does not have an individual base so that is another item that I haven't really talked about yet in our budget presentation but we are going to start
028payments on that Bond as early as next year therefore in our budget we do have that debt built in you're going to see that Bond payment will increase as the years go on a little bit and then it'll slowly decrease uh we don't have any control over that that is basically set up through the banks and bosies and the districts within Rockland County we have the riseing cost in healthcare while we know what our health care cost is going to be from July until January of next year we don't know what it's going to be from January till June so that's always a large increase and as you saw in our previous in one of the previous slides we're benefits are around 41 million right so we build in8 to 10% just to prevent um
029any um any big changes right and then we have our teacher incentive now this teacher incentive is a little bit larger this year than normal years and I'll get that into that in in a later slide but one of the great things about this district is we want to attract the best teachers and we have that so when we look at our budget and we see such large increases the bond payment the rising healthare other items I've discussed Insurance Etc these all kind of come into place but one of the things that I do want to know is consumer is the Consumer Price Index and I think we all know that over the last couple years what you bought a gallon of milk for four years ago is not what you're buying for this year
030we all know about eggs nowadays right so more or less the Consumer Price Index uh has continually gone up yet we've been able to to to keep our tax levy low and this slide right here to me personally is probably the most powerful one here and the reason why is you can see the last four years you can see the approved budget and you can see the year-to-year increases you'll get to see our tax base and then you see the levy typically I present and I have these on different slides but if you look here I think it's a little bit clearer to see that with all the increases over the last couple years with everything Rising we've been moving our budget 5% 4% down to 3% and this year down to 3.8 or for
031next year 3.8% yet when we look at our Levy we've never gone above a 1.2 so the question is really like how were we able to maintain this and keep our taxes really low um my first year coming on Foundation Aid was made whole there was a large injection couple extra million dollar from New York state that we were not expecting so that helped us budget it we had covid funds we were able to increase positions that the students needed we implemented after school program we had facility upgrades and funding for our lunch programs that then turned into C the community eligibility Provisions right so we all know that the district now receives free everybody receives free uh meals for breakfast and lunch we are now receiving Federal Monies to support those programs so we're
032able to kind of back some money out of of of those uh programs and put them back into the general fund we had a couple increase in Pilots when I first came on I did talk about Pilots dropping off um but we still have some more that might be coming on in the future and we paid a large portion of our debt off so the district had two bonds and we are going to be looking at coming to the end of another bond in the within the next two years however one of our bonds did drop off last year which therefore opened up over a million dollars within our operating budget so that was another reason we were able to keep that tax levy down so when we talk about closing the Gap how did
033I get from $70 plus million dollar down to 170 right so more or less at the time of the presentation I knew we were having conversations about attrition and what that would look like however we were not ready to talk about it so the impact of the District during the restructuring we wanted to make a commitment between the administration the board we wanted to make sure that nobody felt they didn't have a place in the district we weren't doing it simply to for layoffs so one of the things that we did was we set a goal in order to to maintain the same staff by maintaining the same staff we were allowed to have great access to program opportunities it created stability across the buildings and it allowed friendly faces to be in every building
034since then we also looked at all our budget lines we decreased some of our budget lines that did not have impact to instruction so we look to see where we might be able to put a couple things off or maybe move a couple of things around we're looking at some schedule modifications and we're going to look to streamline some different online platforms to make remain consistent within the district questions I know kind of dropped off right there any questions for Dr castelin from the board I you have questions okay from Mr [Music] Cur thank you thank you as always Dr castellan for for the presentation um so I do have just a few a few follow-ups on a bunch of the slides um I mean for starters I do appreciate the slide you know how
035did we maintain slide because I think it gives a lot of context to how we like you said how we're able to manage our budget over the last three to four years with minimal tax levies because of all these extra funds that we were receiving which have since dropped off so again I mean thanks for putting that out because I think it's important to have that that that context um I do want to ask a couple of questions um about the you know the health care the benefits uh things that are um things that the district the board Administration have no have no say over they are they are constants they are numbers that are always going to be there and I know we've discussed this in the past but approximately and I'm not going
036to hold you to it but approximately what percentage I'm sorry are you expecting those to increase for next year based on this year's numbers so for for the benefits uh for the first half of the year we know that's going to maintain the same so we have that price for the second half of the year unfortunately we don't know that so that would we worked in 8 to 10% just in case uh some of those other items uh TRS ERS those are dictated to us uh generally speaking th those will be around a 10% um increase okay um and to go to the transportation piece again I know this has been a large part of the budget conversation this year the proposed 20% increase from Chestnut Ridge you know if if you could just give
037a little more Contex or a little more information about the bid I know you said you're preparing it now you I don't know why that keeps cutting out but you expect it to go out within the next month correct is that right right I would say within the next two to three weeks to be realistic I don't build in a month just for um you know back and forth with the attorneys so what we're looking to do with the transportation contract is we've identified a couple other routes uh that we might be able to pull out of the general contract if we're able to pull those out of the general contract for the bid then that will a allow us to get a cheaper option uh but B it will also um limit if we
038if we have a multi-year contract that it's 12% one year 6% the next year 3% the the last year I'm making completely making those numbers up but it would allow us to kind of pull that out where we would be able to have those smaller contracts based them on CPI which historically has drifted around the 3% mark so that's one of the things that we're looking to do um and really our it's looking at the applications April 1st today was the last day of applications for our non-public schools so we are working the transportation office really to have those numbers uh we anticipate having those renewals out hopefully by the end of next week um once all the applications are processed okay great thank you and um lastly um if you could um just a
039maybe if if you could provide a little more detail around the Bose's bond that was approved last year um what those numbers look like because I don't recall specifics about the numbers absolutely so um and off top of my head I can tell you it's around the 600 around the 600,000 mark would be our um our Capital Bose uh contribution for that okay and that's $600,000 that the suffer Central School District is responsible to to pay bosies correct for the next fiscal year for the next fiscal year so the way it works is basically every school district has what they call an arada uh so basically the population in the district uh so the larger districts will pay more money the smaller districts will pay less so it's based upon a percentage and everyone pays
040into that so the bo B uh the Bose's business official sends us all the information we had a brief discussion where uh do we want to end up with a larger Bill two years from now where we're being hit with a $3 million bill in one year as opposed to looking at A600 to $700,000 Bill and how long is the bond for I believe it's at 15 years okay so would it be right to say then that our districts going to be paying $600 plus thousand per year for the next 15 years to bosis so that number will yeah that that number will most likely change um so what I can tell you is I can get you that I can get the no oh it's okay I just you know again I just want
041to have some some some basic numbers to get a feel you know so the so the operating we will need to build that into our operating budget and our expenses uh the the nice part is we can put it in as our debt um on the balance sheet so but we will have that will be in our budget for for the next years to come okay thank you that's it for me I'm good anybody else any other questions from any board members no okay great thank you so much Dr castelin I know uh in between these budget workshops a lot of work takes place in your office as numbers are changing and uh you're working on uh trying to firm things up so we very much appreciate uh you being here tonight and giving us
042an update all right thank you okay um and uh that concludes superintendent remarks um we're going to now move on to our uh first of our public participation sections this is on action items only action items are on our agenda tonight from 2.01 through 2.09 are there any action items that a board member wishes to pull okay no all right I would ask for a motion for a consent agenda to approve action items 2.01 through 2.09 do I have a motion Mr Donnelly second Mr Shapiro all in favor signify by saying I I anyone opposed any extensions okay then let's move on to board member comments do any board members have any comments tonight Mr Shapiro last time it was nine weeks that was two weeks ago so if my math is correct it's seven
043weeks seven weeks until the budget vote and seven weeks until the uh board C candidates vote so please marketing calendars if you haven't already start speaking to your neighbors make sure that they come out to vote It's always important that we get as many voters out as possible um the last couple of years have been I don't want to say lean but they were definitely leaner than some other years before so please let's make sure that we get the vote out and let's make sure that we keep this District strong thank you all right any other board members with comments tonight no okay well I would just like to thank again um everyone who is here from suffer middle school I know it's already an extension of a long day um we really appreciate um
044students and staff teachers administrators being here um as you can see from our budget presentation we deal with a lot of very complicated um and serious uh decisions that we have to make so it's our pleasure whenever we have students coming to speak with us I know it's a little bit of a nerve-wracking Forum but uh we we appreciate you so much even if you're just here to have your paper sign for government class uh you're more than welcome to attend and uh now uh let's see well we're going to go to our second public participation section this is on any District related business if anyone is here to speak on District related business please approach the podium and keep your remarks to three minutes and please do not mention anyone in the district uh
045by name whether a student or teacher staff um anyone like that is there anybody who is here from the public who wishes to speak about District business okay seeing as there are none we will close that portion of the meeting and uh move on to superintendent closing comments and it's going to be very quiet from the superintendent seat so we're going to close that portion of the meeting um and uh before we adjourn I just want to notify everyone that the board is going to move back into executive session uh we are not going to come back here uh to resume the meeting when we're finished with that um so I would just like to uh say that our next public meeting will be April 22nd um this will be at suffron high school and
046we will be representing we will be uh recognizing the top 10% of the senior class so very exciting um hope you can join us that's a wonderful uplifting evening to hear about where all of our uh seniors are doing um and now I would ask for a motion to adjourn and to move into executive session um for the purposes of discussing um let see where is it the employment history of a particular person do I have a motion to adjourn Mr Shapiro second Mrs hodj all in favor signify by saying I I I okay anyone opposed any extensions very good we will see everyone back here on a or in at suffron high school on April 22nd and do I have have a motion do I need to do a motion to resume executive no
047okay all right