001Hey, how are you? Okay. Good evening everyone. Uh, welcome to our um, April budget hearing. Uh, hope everyone had a nice and relaxing spring break. Um, so for now, can I just get a motion for the vote to enter into a special meeting? Uh, Miss Levitton, seconded by um, Mr. Greco. Are there any questions? All in favor? Opposed? Any abstensions? Okay. Can everyone please stand for the pledge? I pledge allegiance to the flag of United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Please take a seat. Okay. And now we'll have Dr. Ru to uh deliver the uh third of the four budget presentations for the 2025 2026 school year. And following the presentation, the board will be presented with a
002resolution to adopt the proposed budget and the accompanying property tax report card. Dr. Ruf, all yours Just going to have to take Good evening and welcome to our third presentation on the um 25 um 26 budget. Um several months ago uh when we started uh the budget season or the budget uh presentation season, I mentioned that it was uh looking like it was going to be a a tough budget year and um it certainly delivered on that. Um we're tonight we're going to go um over the overall budget, some things that have changed since I last presented and so updates and changes to the tax cap and to the budget as well as updates for um revenue. So the budget climate um is challenging this year. It's been challenging the last couple of years. This
003year probably the most challenging. We've had um increases in in some significant increases um health insurance. Um we've continue to have inflationary increases and some of these inflationary increases. We've been feeling um you know the price of paper, the price of um books and materials and those kind of hit you right away through the inflation of when we started inflation started ticking up. Then we have some longer term contracts that that we're seeing kind of the catch-up and experiencing that. Um, now we have increases in our liability insurance that um, and we've had that for a couple of years and it continues and that's related to some environmental um, catastrophes that have happened not only in our area but other areas that impact um, insurance market. Um certainly in on Long Island the um the
004CVA cases and those some of those very large settlements are have worked their way into um insurance premiums. Um we have are experiencing with our transportation contracts. Um we'll talk a little bit about it. We're still in negotiations but we have to adopt a budget tonight. So, um we'll talk a little bit about what's um what's included in the budget for transportation along with um some changes um in direction that we we'll talk about. And we've had we've been dealing with um enrollment growth over the last 10 years and we continue to see shifts um and we have um changing and growing instructional needs. all that in a climate of uncertainty regarding state aid. Um this state aid uh is a couple of weeks late but again we have to adopt our budget. So we
005have to um go with the latest information that we have um and and move forward. So at this point in time we have um and despite those those challenges we were able to bring in the budget slightly $67,000 under the tax cap of 2.80. So the proposed tax levy increase is 2.77. The calculated tax cap is 2.8. We're looking at a budgettobudget increase of about 3.53%. And to the left, um, I would just remind everyone that it's, you know, the 14th year or so of 13th or 14th of the the tax cap and we've remained under the tax cap to a cumulative amount of about 11 million. And in some years though, the we were under by over a million. And in these more recent years with all the inflationary pressures and the cost escalations,
006it's become more and more difficult to even get close to the uh to that gap. But we're pleased that we were able to deliver um those budget numbers while not impacting our program, which is always the primary goal of of the budget season. So, I just wanted to walk through a little bit about the change in the tax cap. The tax cap is not final until the board adopts the budget. So, we know there's always possibility um for some change. And the only change you're going to see from the March presentation of 2.5 to 2.8 was the increase in the coming year exemptions or what are called capital exemptions. And we're going to talk a little bit about that. and that is for the equipment in the transportation the the proposed um bus purchase. So
007just in in terms of the um of the program when I presented in March I mentioned that we were just underway with our staffing meetings and those have been concluded. So um we didn't have a um a big certainly there were shifts among um among codes but overall we're about where we started if you look from the on the right hand side if you can see it and this will all be posted um you have the current year FTEES versus the proposed and so we're up a little bit um in we talked about the special ed area um last last time we're also um this year in this version increase our increasing our psychologist line by 0.5 again based based on student needs and we also have an allocation which I'll talk about in a
008minute for um transportation increase for for bus drivers we have finalized our list of projects there are no new projects up there um some of them um were modified a bit, but this is the the projects that are going to be included into the proposed budget. Um it's the HBT tennis court renovation, including two new courts, staff bathroom renovations for ADA um compliance. We are have included an upgraded sound and lighting system at our secondary auditoriums and then district-wide um projects, electrical, roofing, masonry, and paving uh projects. And um we're going to be doing some walkways and classroom alterations. And these are smaller scale projects than what's being completed as part of the bond work. And that amount, the allocation remains the same as last year, 4.325 transportation. So we have um in our transportation
009area we have two codes. The first is the the one presented 5510 that's called district transportation services. So that's the in-house staff that we have that supports education um supports transportation. So we have our transportation supervisor that does the routing, a dispatcher and and the like. And most of our expenses are in the next line item which is contracted transportation. And so that's where our contracts are with um Huntington Coach and with the other um coach bus companies that we contract with to provide transportation um services for our students. And our transportation in the district um is complicated. As you can see in the left hand corner, we have lots of buses and we call them vans. They're really small buses and we need a lot of small buses also to get into some of
010our neighborhoods that you can't fit a large bus. Um, and we do many runs. We do early morning runs. Each of the schools have their own run. Then we have after school runs, late buses, and athletic runs. And our and then of course we do all of the private school runs. And our first run starts at 6:30 and we don't wind up uh ending it until the six o'clock late bus for athletics. So, we've talked about um contracted transportation and how that it typically works that um the district did an RFP or bid back in 201718 and um we're in the process of doing one um now and again we are um still negotiating that but we have included an allocation in the budget because we're required to adopt um the budget um tonight. And
011one of the one of the um one of the areas that the district has been thinking about um has been uh about the purchase of buses and we have and this is a change in direction for us because we have contracted pretty much 100% of our buses and the experience I guess um of contracting out um there are advantages to that. But there's also advantages to having some control over um over cost escalations and some control um over some routes. So we have um done an analysis of a bus purchase actually two buses like the one you see up there, a large bus and then a small bus. And what the data shows is that it is cost-effective through state aid reimbursement. That's about 36%. We would break even assuming that the buses um last
01210 years, many last longer than that. That we would save money in the end by moving in this direction for routes like for all of our field trips that we do, for our athletic afterchool routes that we do. and might be a possibility of picking up one of our other routes um to maximize use of the bus and to um provide a more cost-effective solution. The district has been having conversations about this. We when we did our last negotiations with the CSEA, we included in that in the um collective bargaining agreement a salary schedule for drivers um for bus drivers. So that was uh contemplated. So that those three vehicles um are included in this year's um budget as well. So just wanted to spend um a moment just on clarification of the way the
013budget is structured and the relationship between the budget and the tax levy. So that topline number 295,822420,000 is the proposed budget and that's our expenditure plan for all of the goods and services that are delivered by the district. And then to get to the tax levy, which is the amount that is um shared among distributed by Nassau County among the taxpayers is the tax levy. That's the number at the bottom. So we start at at the budget and then we take out state aid. The number that I've taken out was from the executive proposal. We then reduce the budget amount by our local revenue which I'll describe in the next slide. And then we have consistently used our reserves to help bring down um the tax levy. So we're approp we propose to appropriate about
0142.9 million to bring the levy down even further and then an additional use of our restricted reserves to a level of uh 9.1 million to bring us to to the tax levy that is up there. So um the state aid number has not changed since um we presented in March. It's the 35 million aid number and that is we get directly um off of the state runs. I have modified it for two items. Um one is building aid. We have lots of building projects and we're closing them out. Some of those closeouts are are not known yet by the state, but we know they're going to close and we can approximate the aid that's going to come in next year. So, we include that. We also um will be doing some uh end of year
015Boseies um projects that were included in this budget, but we took them out and said made more sense to do this year. And we will um we will have receive as you know we get about 50% on our between 45 and 50% aid on the uh on the purchases that we make mostly technology purchases through BOSIES. So I've accounted for that there as well. Um, one of the concerns or one of the conversations that's going on about um, state aid right now is um, that the CPI has dropped since the executive budget proposal and that that might impact um, school districts. There's also um, this these numbers are just not final. So, we can't really um, again we can't count on it but we have to we have to make a choice and we have
016to move forward. We don't have the luxury of extending And then we have local revenue. So local revenue, the sources up there account for about 5% of of our revenue. And the largest component uh of our local revenue is pilots, payments in lie of um in lie of taxes. And those are Nassau County, mostly Nassau County pilots as well as Lipup pilots. And uh for the 2526 school year, I don't know if you can see it at the bottom. Again, this will be posted. We're projecting an increase in local revenue of about um 5.3% about 7800 uh,000. And that's um mostly driven by the addition of one pilot that is coming on in the 2526 school year. Also of note, uh second line item, tuition. There's a little bump up in tuition. really just adjusting
017to actuals this year and that's for students tuition for special education students that are attending our program from other districts. We have um also um interest um on our investments is 2.6 six million and our unclassified um revenue most of it they're small items but they also include the um premiums that we receive on our TANS as well as um uh prior period adjustments from Boseies. Boseies does an estimate of services and then they sort of true up all of their numbers and districts in in many years get a refund if their expenses come in under their estimates. So this year, as in many others, uh most others, we will continue to use our reserves um to support the budget and help manage the tax levy. And up the in the first box are the
018five reserves that we have been using um to stabilize the levy. And what I mean by stabilize the levy is we use our reserves that are designated for specific purposes. Our practice um has been to take the increases if there are increases in expenses and we use the reserves to offset them. That protects the levy. So therefore your levy doesn't necessarily go up when the expense goes up. The reserves serve as a buffer to that. And so in for the 2526 budget, we are proposing to use about 9.1 million and that's about 2 million an increase of about two million from the prior year and most of it is driven by some of it is driven by expense. ERS expense is up, workers comp is up. So all these expenses are going up, but it's
019also um driven by an additional allocation for our TRS reserve. And that TRS reserve is to again to close um to close our budget gap. And we talked about this at the last meeting that if we needed to close the gap, we would likely turn to our TRS reserve as as a way to do that. And the reserves that we've identified up here and up in the the so the philosophy with the reserves are we use them to to um protect to balance offset the levy but we also the other side to that is you have to be mindful that um you need that if you use them and you continue to use them you have to consider replenishing them and you also have to have a long-term focus and the reserve balance um also
020in the corner for last year. So audited financial statements last year was about 31 million. So that 9 million represents about 30 30%. So that is an increase, but the reason that we have our reserves is to get us through difficult um budget times and to protect the levy. And so that's the rationale for increasing that reserve because if the purpose of them is to assist in difficult times and and it is it is difficult and the reserves are also um they're not they're not hidden. Our reserves are published in our um in our auditing in our audit report. We consult with our auditors on the use of reserves and we also submit them the amount we're going to use each year on our property tax report card. The reserves are also helpful to us
021um particularly in years because they impact our credit rating and particularly in a year where we're going out for our bonds when when that happens. um it's important to have healthy reserves and we do and so we've appreciated that the board has allowed us you know even to establish the TRS reserve which is one of the newer reserves um that was created I think in 21 20 or 21 and another um it can It's I I would call it an unrestricted reserve. We call it our fund balance and it is the amount 4% we are allowed by law to retain 4% of the subsequent year's budget. And that is for um for a cushion against uh unforeseen financial um events that that occur and and we've certainly had those. We've had them with COVID emergency
022projects, boilers, and things that we've had to do. And we've we've relied on our fund balance for that. And so for the 2526 school year, we're looking to use the a consistent amount with the 2425 of 2.9 million. So this is the um the property tax report card and this is filed um within 24 hours from the board adopting the budget and it provides um the all of the information not in detail but just high level the amount of the budget, the tax levy um as well as again this is very small. This is your statement of the your reserve balances and how much of the reserves you plan to use to support the budget. And so these numbers are reflective of the numbers in the presentation. And our next meeting is May 12th. That's
023the budget hearing. And then um or during that meeting, we'll do a highlight of all the items that are in the budget and hopefully an update um to state aid, although the budget is set as soon as um we submit the property tax report card. Thank you, Dr. approval for that comprehensive uh presentation. Uh are there any questions from the board? U Miss Erington and then Mr. Roto, thank you so much. Um I know how hard this year is and I can't tell you how impressed I am at you at the work you guys have done to keep our programming and stay under um the attack sorry the tax levy. It's just incredible. But I just had a few questions that I wanted to ask about and one of them is about the busing. Um,
024you said you put in a number for the transportation cost because we're still negotiating. Is that a worst case scenario number? Is the number you think you'll arrive at after negotiations? And what happens when we have a firmer number to the community for the for tech purposes? And then I have another question. I've included a an an allocation that I think will cover our scenario. The second part of that question was and what happens if we negotiate something? Yeah. You think that's the most likely outcome number? Is that my understanding? I think I don't want to give too much away in in terms of negotiations. Um, so it's hard for me to say what is most likely. I understand that. I just Okay, that's fine. Um, and regarding the purchase of the buses, which I
025think is a a good idea to prevent the situation we're in going forward, um, you said break even in three years. Does that include like service contracts and insurance? Um, I think you said the drivers were included in the deal or is it just the base cost for the bus? Yeah, the the determination of of break even includes all of the anticipated operating costs. So that includes um drivers, um estimates of uh replacement parts, supplies, DOT inspections four times a year, all of insurance. Uh we reach out to our insurance company for for estimates. So it includes all of those operating costs. Thank you. Um I don't want to be repetitive but um I want to thank you Dr. Rufo and your accounting team and Dr. Rogers and the cabinet um for putting together this
026budget with so many uncertain variables in it which is very difficult to do. Um I just want to point a couple of things out and I have some questions too is 14 years under the tax cap um straight um without reducing any of our class sizes. We haven't reduced any of our clubs. We've kept all our programs in place including special ed, our AP, our science research. We've been able to add teachers. We've been able to add mental health professionals um with increased in enrollment um which is not an easy task to do and this takes financial discipline um prudent and conservative budget planning which is again hard to do with all these variables and this is not the case. I want to point out I'm also on the Nassau SuffK School Board Association and
027this is not the case with other districts where they're actually um laying off teachers, uh redistricting, closing schools, um reducing um the increasing student class sizes. So, I think I'm very proud and all of you should be proud on all of these accomplishments that the district has done and we've increased in our national, state, and local ranking. Um very important uh this is not a given that this just all happens by you know by luck. Um my questions are for the unrestricted funds there are unrestricted aid you had said it was 4%. I know that there was a potential increase in that number. Do you know what happened with that or is that going to go up? Are you asking about the aid or the the percentage is that 4% the unrestricted that we can
028keep our reserve? Yeah. Right. Not the reserve. Correct. Okay. Yeah. My understanding is that that did not move forward. Okay. And then you had also brought up our CPI adjustment. What What is Can you elaborate on that? So, um I may struggle a little with the with the numbers. I think when they ran the um executive budget, it was a the CPI has come down a couple of ten or so, maybe a little bit more, not a half, maybe a quarter of a percentage point. Um and that the concern is will that impact um the aid that um that districts were were given as part of the executive budget. There's uncertainty around that because if any of the formulas or anything else changed, it's really there are moving parts and it's hard to um predict,
029but I just wanted to um to throw that out there just to make you aware because it's something that um the business officials and others are are concerned about. And was that related to the new calculation for poverty and the Rockefeller study or is that separate? My my understanding is this particular discussion it it was not related to that. It was related to the change from January to now. Okay. And then my final question was um related to uh the state funding and federal funding. Do we have any idea in what direction that I know it's completely um we don't know yet, but do we have any idea where that's going or there's going to be any shortfalls there for us? I won't put Dr. Rufo on the spot for that. Um I would say
030working from broadest to narrowest. Um right now we have not seen any reductions in federal funding. Uh but I also just rhetorically have not heard a lot of encouraging news from Washington about necessarily increases in federal funding. So as we're looking to the long term, I'm not anticipating that we'll see increases from Washington. I think the opposite is more likely than uh increases. The second question for the state is um again challenging to predict the future but here's the data that goes into the prediction. Uh this has been a better year than expected for the state because Wall Street uh revenues on bonuses were better than expected for uh New York State and New York State is heavily dependent on the personal income tax and in turn the personal income tax in New York is
031heavily dependent on uh revenues from Wall Street. So because the fiscal year ending December 30th was so positive, there was a bump uh in the equities markets at the end of the year, the state enjoyed a little revenue surge, that's the revenue surge that they're con they're contemplating spending uh right now. But um if equities markets remain where they are right now, I think the opposite will happen at the end of this year. So unless and obviously there's um you know three quarters left in the calendar year. So, it's certainly possible for things to change between now and December. Uh, but if equity markets remain weak, then I think we'll see the state's revenue picture also appear weak. And so, I wouldn't anticipate generous uh increases in state aid if the state's fiscal picture uh
032worsens over the course of the next three quarters. Thank you, Mr. Greco. Thank you, Dr. Rifle. I'm not going to be repetitive, but I agree with what was said about you and your team earlier. Um, with respect to the 632,000 that was added from the presentation in March. Is that solely with respect to the purchase of the three buses, there's nothing else in there? That's correct. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Uh Dr. Rufo, the last three years of the budgeting that we've had to do. Can you sort of give me a sense of how difficult this year compared to last year compared to the year before has been sort of trying to get a sense of hey this has been a tough time, but how tough do I think about this year versus last year
033and the last three years in the context of your experience? I I think that 20023 stands out as a very difficult because we had um some surge uh in the years that we have surges in enrollment is become um challenging from from a standpoint of you set a budget and then you have to um you you have more children to educate. So what um and we always try to make sure that um and we're hopeful that in in some years there's while there's increases in one area maybe you get a you know a saving somewhere else and that was a particularly difficult year because we had increases in health insurance and you know everything seemed to be falling the wrong way. So that stands out. Um last year was uh we had savings in in
034in several areas. So that you know in my mind is is was a better year. This year is a challenging year because we had some um uncertainties and um some things that um were unknown. And so th those are what become the challenges once the budget is set. And I think that um in the last several years prior to that, we had some increases in in state aid. We talked about how we got those bumps for three years to sort of get us to where we should have been all along. And so that helped us pushed us through some of those really difficult years that a lot of other districts were um were experiencing. So I think that the challenges as I how I started out with the inflationary pre pressures, the health insuranceances and
035those kinds of things um have created um more difficulty in addition to the state aid uncert uncertainty and and that um that sort of um continues. So, I mean, in many ways, right, this is a rainier year than the rainy years we've had in the last few. I mean, do we have a sense from the 2025 actuals? I know the year's not over, right? We have two more months. Am I giving bad feedback, right? Do we have a sense where our 2025 actual general fund reserves and restricted balances are going to end up? Not an absolute number, but let's just say higher or lower from where we were say in 24. We'll be several million lower than 24. That's what um I predict. Again, it's still, you know, even though it's it's April, um we
036work on a a system of encumbrances where a lot of money is in incumbrances and they are in purchase orders that um by the end of the year sometimes those fall money falls from them and then other times, oh, looks like we need more on this one. So, it moves in the other direction. So um I would say that this year we'll be seven several million short from where we were. Yes. Short meaning less left over not short deficit. Got it. So in a sense the general fund restricted reserves and balances were I don't know 55 a.5 million at the end of 24 according to the audit and by the end of 25 fiscal they'll probably be in the 52 53. I don't not a couple million dollars lower. So, we've been drawing down on
037the fund balances and restricted reserves this year. Yes. And I look at it slightly different than this 50. Although you're correct because you're including um capital. To me, I I don't consider capital because I think that that is spoken for and I don't um consider that I mean all of the reserves are restricted in the way that you use them. But what I can use in the budget going for in the outy years going forward is I would say that 30 million. But to your point at the end of this year we would be because we're using 7 million for this year and then we're not going to be replenishing it very unlikely that we would be replenishing the amount that we're using this year. Okay. So that there would be a decrease. So, it's
038unlikely even this year as well with the 9 million that we're uh allocating to the budget. It's hard to say even further in advance, but it's probably even more challenging to replenish reserves this year at the end of 26. Yes. Okay. So this is the rainy day that the capital funds, the reserve funds are designed for where we're drawing against to protect against cuts to program or anything like that. Dr. Rogers, there are a number of districts that have a target for their general fund expense per year and having a level of reserves in terms of projecting and um targeting the ending balances of reserves. So for example, I know in plain view they have a 20% target of their general fund uh expenses to reserve uh on their balance sheet for just such emergencies.
039Have we given any thought or has the board given any thought to providing guidance about the pluses and minuses of that kind of system? And do you have some thoughts that you can share with us? Because maybe it's a chance for us to direct you. I think on a question that significant, I would want some time to wrestle with that thought and maybe uh look at some neighbors. 20% sounds like a really big number. Uh for us, that number would be, you know, in the neighborhood of 50 million, which is about where we're at right now for reserves. Uh but as Dr. Rufo said nine of that is capital reserves. We've had capital reserves as much as 20 million at one point. Uh we spent those reserves in pretty much they were exhausted by 201718
040and that was to pay for phase one and part of phase 2 and avoid some borrowing costs for the school district. So our balance is in 2014-15 when I got here the balance was about where it is right now somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 uh low 50 51 52 somewhere um by the time we got to 1718 we had exhausted about two 20 million uh by spending it on capital. So we were down in the low30s. Uh since then we've built back up again. Um, so now you've got 10 years of inflation in there plus an additional 9 million replenishing the capital reserve again to be used. Uh, the board's going to use at least half of that for uh the bond project that we just uh that the voters just approved. So I
041guess question number one is without knowing anything about plain view um is their number inclusive of capital or exclusive of capital? I think the second question would be what are the reserves for? Are they um designed to meet some sort of other spending target? Um so I would want to think about if you're going to have a a maximum or a minimum reserve, then you would also want to have some guidance for how you would use that reserve under what circumstances. So I would I wouldn't want to give you my first thought on that. I would want to give you my best thought on that. So another So another way to think about this is I'm trying to get a sense from you in terms of what are the level of reserves that you've and
042this may be too soon to answer but we need to retain for you to feel that we're that our program is safe as opposed to we're in a rainy day. We've had a number of difficult budget years. We just passed a big financing package of bonds for capital projects. The question is, is there more room for us to draw down our reserves this year because there is some level where you feel comfortable that we can stop because that's enough protection for the program? or is there any kind of guidance that you can give us in terms of we can provide you a framework about how to think about pulling reserves down during rainy periods and replenishing them during sunny periods. So without necessarily creating hard and fast rules, um I think what we did in
043this budget was recognize that this was going to be a difficult budget year. And for all the times that I've worked for for all the time that I've worked for this board and of all the board members that I've worked for here, um one thing has been consistent. Uh folks recognize the program as the reason for uh SIAST's excellence. Preserve the program. Always have a long-term focus. uh and I I certainly hear that in your question having a long-term focus for us uh and address the emergence emerging challenges that we see. So uh we did see obviously the challenge of the pandemic the immediate enrollment surge post pandemic uh now we're seeing a lot of the uncertainty in the marketplaces being a challenge and uh the potential revenue side. So as challenging as this year
044is, I worry that subsequent years will be more challenging for the reasons I stated earlier. Seems less more likely than not that the federal government will be less generous, not more generous with school districts. It seems more likely than not that the state government will have less revenue to work with than it has in the current year. It seems more likely than not that insurance companies are still going to experience large losses and pass those costs along to school districts. It seems more likely than not that if equity markets suffer, the benefit funds, the pension funds, the TRS and ERS will seek to recover their losses in the market from the employers that they hold the pensions for. So all of those things suggest to me that as challenging as this year was, the next
045several years may be more challenging. So my advice would be not to use more uh reserves in the present because you'd want to preserve program in the future. So I'd be we've given you our best recommendation for how to uh balance that. We're certainly thinking about this with an eye towards the future and not just next year's future but three four years out future as far as we can see and uh we've tried to uh use the reserves to as Dr. Rufo said um mitigate the impact to the levy. And one way that I've been thinking about the increase in use of reserve from 7 million range to the 9 million range for this year is 1 million of that essentially is to a one-time use of a reserve to make a one-time purchase of
046buses. And once we make that one-time purchase of buses, those buses will result in savings. once we break even for every year after that those buses will be savings for the school district. So if um to me that's a good use of the reserve because it's an investment that will yield savings in in the long-term future. So I I I would say to you that we are thinking about the future. I've given you my best estimate of where that uh good balance point is between u managing this year's cost to the taxpayer and making sure that the outy years also have some reserves to rely on as well. Must do you have any more questions or you're done? I don't want I'll come back. Okay, Miss Fal. Um, so not to be repetitive, but I
047do want to thank you because I know this year was incredibly challenging. It's been challenging financial times for people in general and the school district is certainly no different. They have the same exposure to all the same things that people do. So, thank you. I know it was really tough and you guys do an amazing job. Um, just in response to Jack's point about putting in um, guidelines, it sounds to me like flexibility, allowing you guys to have flexibility is usually important. So you can look at the budget and plan for, you know, this is not only a tough time this year, but tough times next year. And you if we if we give you a specific number of what you have to maintain or what you have to have then it doesn't allow you
048to have the flexibility that you guys may need for your expertise and I know how hard you guys work and you guys have such an expertise at playing with the numbers and figuring out the best way to utilize the money we have and the funds we have coming in that it sounds like the flexibility is really um giving you guys flexibility is really to our benefit and the school district's benefit to allow you guys to, you know, use your expertise in the area and make the money work the best way it can. I I think that the way we've tried to uh work with the board is to be transparent in the decisions that we're making so that um you're sharing in that flexibility with us and you have certainly the opportunity to direct us
049if you see the choices that we're making may not exactly reflect the priorities that the board has. Uh you you know the decisions that led up to those choices. you're able to see the impact of those choices and you're able to redirect us if uh you want us to be redirected. So, um you know, I I see value in both approaches. Um what we've done for the 11 years that I've been here is to try and uh be as transparent and and how we go about that and to work as closely with you uh and hopefully um take away from our conversations u a distillation of your priorities and then reflect that back in what we bring back month after month as we continue to refine the budget. Mr. So it's funny I listened to
050what Mr. Ostrich said and I I I had my my way of massaging it and I heard what Melov said and I actually think it's in line with what I would recommend and obviously this is not for today. It's maybe something you can get back to us on but the idea of not necessarily having a target for reserves as a percentage but having goalposts you know whether it be 25% and 15% be the two goalposts. So, if we start to get close to the 15, you can start to make sure you um overfund at the end of each year versus if you start to get into that 25% range, you could start to think about passing some of those dollars back to the community. And and I actually think that may be those numbers. I'm
051just throwing out there. By the way, that is not those are not legitimate numbers, but that may not be a bad way to do it because then it could put some of the onus on us uh as a collective to come up with those numbers. you know, obviously with your guidance and sort of put something in place that may be a better way to sort of, you know, track how this is going over time. Um, where we don't have to have this discussion year after year. Minson, just want to clarify. Brian was saying you mean to have the target as an alert versus a hard and fast rule. Yes. Yeah. So they wouldn't even be targets. So a target would be stay around 20%. I'd be saying take a number high, take a number low,
052try to stay in between, and as you get close to one of those numbers, the sort of our guidance to the administration would be to try to pull back away from that number and don't let it blow past it. So I would say I agree with having a threshold of alert, but I wouldn't say necessarily that when they are there that we have to look at it and say, "Oh, you have to stop and go the other way." We would have to look at the circumstances, why we're there and why we have to use it. I think that it's a good to have a threshold where you're like, "Oh, we're getting a little low and we discuss why we're there and we discuss what it means to go below there or not to go below
053there or what we lose in the process." But I think it's a good marker, not a hard and fast rule. Luckily, it'll never be hard and fast because we'll be doing this every year, but it would give them the opportunity to explain, hey, we're getting close. This is why we decided to do based on your guidance from X number of years ago. Dr. Rogers, the buses that we're thinking of buying, are they going to be compliant with the new set of rules that may or may not be coming down the road from New York State? I think if I remember right, one of the reasons we've been hesitant in the past other than managing a workforce is that we were worried about buying buses that were going to become obsolete. I it just I'm curious
054to hear the change in thinking and I I have a lot of thoughts on buses. So I have a lot of thoughts on buses too. None of them good. Um so two things uh one even within the districts are not allowed to buy diesel buses under the current uh statute after 2027 and then those are still allowed to have I believe a 10-year life to 2037. So we're two years ahead of when the state would restrict us from purchasing such a bus. So we talked about maybe this is an opportunity for the district to buy its first electric bus. Um, but I think we have a lot of reservations about the technology, the weight of the bus, uh, the charging infrastructure needed for the bus. The bus costs $400,000 instead of $250,000. And the the
055deeper we got into it, the less likely it seemed that the bus was going to be useful for our needs. The other thing with the buses is the the buses save us money when they're running. They don't save us money when they're charging. So diesel buses can run it, you know, indefinitely, just keep putting gas in the tank and the the thing just keeps going. So if you can get eight runs a day out of that bus, four morning runs, uh, three afternoon runs and two athletics runs and a late bus, that bus is covering a lot for you. So what is the change in thinking? We've actually talked a couple of times about buying buses in the BA in the past and have kind of walked away from it, but I think the lines
056have finally crossed with uh what we've experienced with our transportation RFP this year where um the the advantages of having all of our busing managed uh externally are dwindling as the costs have increased. And I think we've reached a point where uh economically it makes sense for us to run the buses ourselves. And while there's a headache associated with running the buses ourselves, the economic payback is going to make the headache worth it. So um I feel that this is a good decision. We watched our neighbor to the west go through a similar um plan over the course of the last 11 years or so where they started out with just two buses of their own. Uh in fact the same buses that we're planning on buying and have slowly increased the size of their
057fleet. So they now have a fleet that is 2/3 externally managed and one-third internally managed. and it provides them with some flexibility, some control, um some control over cost escalation without having to own the entire enterprise. So, I'm not saying that that's where we should go alto together because uh for us, what we'll do with these first couple of buses is we will take the I'm going to use the wrong term, but it'll make sense, the highest profit routes and keep them for ourselves so that our buses are returning the most savings possible. At some point the next routes will not be as cost-effective and then the next routes after that will be less cost-effective and at some point it doesn't make sense anymore. But for these first three buses we will cherrypick the three
058best things that we can do with them to save the absolute most money. This progresses in a hybrid fashion until you get to the point where you're saying your supply demand lines cross and it the marginal utility is down and it's not worth there's not incremental cost savings unless there's some kind of meaningful shift that we can't anticipate. The problem is we only have a finite amount of time to execute. Right. Yeah. right now. Right now, knowing that we're going to break even in three years on an item that should last us 10 years, it's a no-brainer. At some point, what I think will happen is we'll do this calculation again next spring and we'll say if we buy two more buses, the break even on them is four years, but that's still worth it
059for a 10-year life. And then maybe the year after that, it'll be a seven-year break even. And we say to ourselves, I don't know, maybe not worth it. But we'll have to see how the contract evolves over time. And again, we're still negotiating and Dr. Rufo's uh trying to be a little bit KG. Uh because we don't want to give away our negotiating position in public here. Um and we'll again come back to you with our recommendations and our analysis uh in subsequent years. But I I do think that given how expensive external busing appears to be becoming that it is more likely than not that we will want to find ways of managing that cost by doing more of it in house. Um I guess I want to just weigh in on the reserve
060um the reserve process. um is not a mystery. It's completely transparent. Um and my experience over the last 6 years has been that um whenever we've had uh surplus, we've the board has to vote to replenish any of the reserves. So every step of the way, the board and the public has been completely made aware of all ins and outs of the reserves. Um so we're aware of the reserve balance. the reserve balances are audited. Um, we vote on replenishing them every year. Um, and my experience again as I had brought up before with long-term planning that Dr. Rufo does and Dr. Rogers, um, we've always been very conservative and prudent in anytime we've had excess, we've replenished the B the reserves. So, um, plus these are taxpayer money, so we don't want to hold
061reserves um, if we don't have to. Um that's why I brought up the 4% um amount. So we're very prudent over my experience. You guys have done a really good job. And I don't know of setting a percentage or a target is the numbers are the numbers. So when we have extra money, we fund the reserves. If we we don't want our goal as from the board is to keep our programs, keep our teachers, keep class sizes. Th those are those have been the goals of the g the board and I feel like the district has followed what we've directed them to do. Okay. Anyone else? Okay. Uh so going back to the reserve, um I hear different things uh from different people and so in this case um I do agree that uh for
062my eight years on the board um Dr. Wu's team and Dr. Rogers, the entire administration has been very transparent when it comes to uh the uh the budget and the tax cap and every year uh we've been going uh under the tax cap. So, uh I would recommend that um Dr. Rufo's team and also Dr. Rogers continue to apprise the board as we go along, but instead of setting a target, we won't set the target. We'll just give them that flexibility and then have them report to us and report to the public that what we've been doing in the past. How do we how do we feel about that? Okay. Okay. Okay. All right. Are we all good? Okay. Thank you. Okay. Uh so now we're moving on to audience to the public. Uh so
063just please bear with me as I read this. Uh the board value the community's input and provides opportunities to offer that input via email or in person. Persons who wish to speak during audience to the public must register online to speak in advance of the meeting by 5:00 pm the day of the board for meeting. A link to the pre-registration forum will be made available on the homepage on the district website one week before the meeting. Persons wishing to address the board in person doing audience to the public must conform to the procedures adopted by the board. Speakers remarks must conform to the following uh rules. One, all speakers and observers are required to conduct themselves in in a respectful and civil manner in accordance with rules set by the board. Speakers must address the
064board only, not members of the audience or the audience as a whole. Three, speakers must limit their comments to issues concerning the school district operations school district affairs or board of education policy. Four, because of the rights protected by the state and federal law, no speakers may speak about an individual student or staff member. Nor will the board or or administration entertain questions in public regarding collective bargaining negotiations, persona personnel matters, student matters, or legal matters. Five, no speakers may speak about the decisions involving specific personnel or specific students. If a speaker wishes to address the board concerning specific specific personnel or specific students, the speaker must write to the board. Six, speakers may not use epithets, slurs, personal abuse, lewd, and obscene speech, profanity, lifeless speech, threats, and fighting fighting words or gestures which
065by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite a breach of the peace. And only residents of the SAS Central School District are permitted to address the board. Each resident will have four minutes to address the board which may be extended or reduced at the decision of the chair. The board will not permit polling of board members by speakers. After every resident wishing to speak has had a opportunity to do so, the board and administration may respond to residents questions of comments. No resident will be permitted to address the board more than once per meeting and no one may record another member of the public in a manner that is disruptive or confidential confront confrontational. Okay, with that uh we do have a speaker today and uh Galina Lamper. Hello, my name is Galina
066Lampert. I just want to bring to your attention that school taxes are extremely high this year since we move to SAS in 2017. our mortgage payment went up due to raising uh school taxes for uh about $800. So on behalf of a month, yes, of course. So uh I understand the board does the best for students. I'm a mother of the stu former student who graduated from high school sasid high school and the college and he's still in the college and uh we barely we literally struggling living in this neighborhood and we're not planning to move. We have no help and our son is still in college and we're struggling here. Can we freeze taxes for few for a few years? We can do something about that. I'm talking on behalf not only my family,
067on behalf of uh people who live in our neighborhood, 55 plus seniors, they raise their children. their children move. I don't know if their children help to them. So I just want to make a point that school taxes are very high and a lot of people in our neighborhood are struggling and some people have no chance. I mean they just due to some circumstances they cannot leave they cannot move to west to east north south. We plan to stay here and we're struggling. Do you want to add anything? Thank you very much for listening to me. I try to be less nervous, but you got my point. Thank you. Thank you. This close closes the audience to the public. I certainly take your point and um I want to assure you that no one takes
068these decisions lightly. Uh certainly not we and the administration. Uh we're taxpayers here on Long Island ourselves. Uh and certainly recognize the the burden that the schools place on all of us. Uh so without discounting your point, I I do want to ask if you'd be willing to have someone uh from the administration follow up with you. Uh because the number you shared sounds very high. I have have no idea what your taxes are, what percentage that represents, but we have seen circumstances where the county's assessment of homes creates year-to-year increases that are much greater than the tax increase that the school district uh has put forward. And I would want uh we've done this with many people. We've gone through the tax bills with them to kind of point out where that is. So,
069I'm making that offer to you to have somebody from uh our team uh work with you on that. And um the other point that I would make and um again this is not something that helps in the immediate but it is certainly something that we think about. Uh we understand that the school district is also part of um something that keeps the value in the homes in Sioset which doesn't necessarily help if you're not uh looking to leave Sioset but it does make the asset that everyone has here we hope more valuable but um I do want to assure you that we don't take these decisions lightly um when we're working to preserve the program but also working to uh balance the budget And it is why in previous years there were several years where
070we were well underneath the tax cap. And the reason was because it wasn't necessary to ask the public for that much money in order to preserve the program. So uh in those years we came in well under. Uh in this in the last couple of years as Dr. Rufo said earlier they've been challenging. So we've been uh very close to the tax cap. But um you know I I do want to point out that there were a number of years where we had the ability to stay well below the tax cap and when we had that ability we did. Thank you for your comments. Okay. Well, thank you for sharing your consent with us and then someone from administration will be reaching out to you. Thank you. Okay. And then we're moving on to uh
071the budget adoption and school property tax report resolutions. Uh 2C is the adoption of 2025 2026 school year budget to be presented at a public hearing to be held on Monday, May 12th, 2025. Can I have a motion, please? Mr. seconded by Dr. Park. Are there any questions? All in favor? Opposed? Any abstensions? 2D is the approval of the school property tax report card for the 2025 2026 school year. Can I have a motion, please? Uh Miss Velco, seconded by Mr. Greco. Are there any questions? All in favor? Opposed? Any abstensions? Okay. Thank you. And meeting adjourned. and we'll have our uh regular uh meeting on Wednesday uh two days later. Thank you.