001Good evening everyone. Welcome to our Wednesday, March 11th Board of Education workshop. Please rise as Dr. Scandan leads us in the pledge. Thank you, Miss J. Any changes to our meeting agenda? >> No changes. >> Okay. Thank you so much. So, we'll jump right into our uh reason for being here tonight to discuss the budget and we turn it over to Mr. Carlson. All right. Thank you. [clears throat] >> Okay. Okay. So, just to uh recap the the timeline which I had gone over um when we first started talking about the budget. uh we gave the uh the budget first look back in uh I guess it was November. Um so so October, November is when the uh employee employer contribution rates for the retirement systems come out. Uh the employees retirement system rates going
002up, teachers retirement system rates going down. So it's always nice when it goes down. They kind of wash uh one another. Although the what's good this year is the the reduction on the TRS side. It's a little more than the increase on the ERS side. So that that works out nicely. Uh so then in in November we had the budget first look uh here and we just started discussing the budget. Uh in the meantime uh we've been working with all of the um building administrators and uh district-wide directors on uh staffing and program uh programmatic needs for next year. Uh in December the health insurance rates were set. Uh the increase for next year for us is 12%. Uh so hopefully that's it's high. It's not as high as last year, still high. Um hopefully
003that won't continue on for every year. Um you know, just medical costs, especially in the pharmaceutical side, are just crazy out of control. So there's there's not a whole lot we can do about that. um on the health and uh insurance uh in in the plan. Uh we have made some changes uh mostly in regard to things like co-pays for pharmaceuticals for all of our employees. Uh they have to pay higher co-pays. Um some of the um prescription drugs in particular the GLP1s were very very costly. So we made a significant change in that. So that's going to save a lot of money. Um, that doesn't mean the rates come down. It just means our we we're trying to control costs as much as we can. Um, I actually have a a a board meeting
004tomorrow with the with the health plan. Uh, so in January, the governor's budget proposal uh was uh released. Um, pretty much what we expected, not a huge increase. Um the governor is proposing a uh all districts get a uh minimum 1% increase in foundation aid which for us that piece alone is about $300,000. Um we're hoping for more than that which I'll talk about state aid more in a minute. Uh so March 1st uh the tax our information for the tax levy limit uh need had to have been uh submitted to the state controllers's office uh which I did uh we discussed at two board meetings ago. Um, and again, just to um uh remind everyone, so the the board at the time said the plan for at least uh building the budget is to
005increase our capital projects from the 1.5 million that is in the current year's budget to $3 million for next year. when coupled with other variables um within the uh tax cap uh computation uh it would mean our tax cap would be at 4.54% next year. I'm going to get to that a little bit uh a little more detail in a minute. Uh so we have the budget workshop starting tonight. Then we have March 25th and April 15th. And uh on April 1st is when the budget, New York State budget is due. It's almost never done on time. If you remember last year, wasn't done till May. Um hopefully it'll be done prior to our April 15th uh meeting is which is when the board is scheduled to adopt the budget. So um it's always nice
006if we if we at least know what state a's going to be at that time. So we'll we'll see. Um and then budget hearing is May 6th and the budget vote May 19th. So the tax cap now as we all know there's there different factors. It's not just 2%. One of the the number that can be limited to 2% but can be less is the levy growth factor and that's based on the consumer price index and uh because the CPI rate uh that is used by the determined by the New York state controller that's used for for setting the tax cap was 2.63% for this year. So that means it's limited to 2% that piece. Uh then there's also a variable called the taxbased growth factor which is accounts for new construction in the district
007and it can add to the tax cap. Usually this number is sometimes it's zero meaning no no additional increase in the tax cap uh for that. Um, and when we have an increase, it's usually about a tenth of a percent, 2/10 of a percent, maybe 3/10en of a percent. This year, it's 1.19%. So, uh, that that by itself, when you take the 2% uh, levy growth factor plus that 1.9%. So, we're already at over 3% on a tax cap, just looking at those two. Then you add on to that we're increasing capital from one and a half million to three million. Uh also our as when we uh discussed this two board meetings ago our building aid is decreasing some for next year when it's not doing as many capital projects these days. Uh so
008that's another variable in there. So when it all gets put together um that's where it comes out to the 4.54%. With capital projects at $3 million. So, state aid, uh, as I mentioned, the governor's, uh, budget proposal would increase our state aid, uh, on the not now, I take out building aid and universal pre kindergarten aid. Building aid because that that varies based on on capital projects and debt service. Um, so we do it, the state does it news day when they report on state aid, they always take out building a took out uh, universal prek2 uh, for a reason I'll talk about in a second. Um, so the foundation aid piece would go up by about 300,000. There's other things that go little little ups and downs. Uh, our net increase would be about
009$130,000, not counting any change in building aid, which as I mentioned is going down. And that's counting zero for universal pre kindergarten aid. The reason for right now we're counting zero is because we have a half-day program and we we get aid. We had a some uh pre kindergarten aid last year and this year because we were able to get a waiver by not having a uh for not having a full day program. We don't know that that we'll be able to get that waiver again. So for right now, we're just saying well let's let's let's start working on the budget assuming we're not getting any pre kindergarten aid next year. Also in the governor's budget proposal, um she is uh recommending an increase in the amount per student for pre kindergarten and both the
010assembly and the senate are uh recommending that as well. So um that that may go up, but with our half-day program, I don't know that we'll get it. Uh Dr. Scandlin and I will be meeting with um somebody from the uh state head department who's in that that that department. Um and we'll try to get a feel for whether whether it looks like we'd be able to get the waiver. And um to make a long story short on that, um because of our half-day program, the other half of the day for those who choose is our enrichment program. We charge the fee for the enrichment program. what we get for that more than offsets the cost of the half-day program. So if we were to say, well, let's just let's instead of doing a half
011day prek and half day enrichment, let's just do a full day prek and get the aid, we'd wind up losing money in that because we would lose all that enrichment revenue. So, um, that's why we do it this way. Uh but we'll see what happens when we have that meeting and hopefully we do get another waiver again. Uh and then we don't know what kind of mandates are coming down the road with full day prek. We'll we'll see how that that comes down. Uh now uh the state budget as I mentioned is due April 1st. It's usually not done uh before then. Uh hopefully it will be done before our uh uh budget adoption date. And normally uh I say normally uh the state the final state aid number goes up from the governor's budget
012proposal to the final state budget. Last year it did not. Um so so what confidence would we have that it will go up now in the final state budget? Well, it would be I would say it'd be pretty unusual for that to happen two years in a row because it normally does go up from there and it did not last year. That's one. Um the uh uh state senate and the state assembly in their budget bills are both recommending a 2% increase in the foundation aid. That doesn't mean uh it will go to that. Uh however, it's an election year for the entire state legislature. So that's really what might work in our favor. So hopefully we get some more state aid. Um again, we'll we'll just have to wait and see about that. So
013the other revenues now tax levy and state aid, that's 94% of our revenue. We do have some other revenues. They don't go up or down much yeartoear. Things like our we get our money in bunches. So we we deposit it and we earn interest. Uh the tuition is is uh mostly uh uh cross contracts with other districts when they ask to send uh students here on a tuition basis. Our adult education program, driver ed, our sack program, the uh prek enrichment, that's what I just mentioned before. Oops. [clears throat] Uh summer wreck of course is a big one. community [snorts] swim and other is things like the pilot is payment in l of taxes use of facilities prior year refunds that's uh from Boseies. So what Boseies does is we pay them all whatever we
014pay them during this year and then when they do their final uh their final um financial statements for the year they determine their actual cost for everything and then they issue a refund for any any overpayments and that there's always some overpayments. Um, Bosey's never owned the charges. So, uh, there's always some some something that comes back. And then appropriated fund balance. Um, we're in the current year's budget, we had three and a half million and we're, uh, saying that should go down to 3 million. Uh, because of where we are in our reserves, we just simply have to reduce that number. So some of the major increases that we saw are seeing in our budget next year of course always contractual salaries is a big one. Um now this number the 2.2 million that's
015after uh the savings due to uh retirements which I'll talk about on the next slide. Uh capital projects is increasing by one a.5 million. It's not two or one a half million is increasing by one and a half million. Health insurance alone is more than a $4.5 million increase the next year. And then the other benefits, the retirement systems, as I mentioned, ERS is going up, TRS is going down. But social security, workers comp, uh Medicare separation pay, that's what we pay uh retirement incentives out of. And unemployment insurance, those as a combined total are increasing by about $1.7 million. So the budget reductions, we've had uh 21 teachers um announce their retirements for next year. And um that's the for those is so what we do with a with teacher retirements is first we
016say let's let's start with budgeting with assuming we're replacing every one of them. But even with that so that's a savings of over a little over $1.8 million. And then we say okay now of those 21 how many can we do without next year? Do we do we not need to replace? So so far we've identified 11 that we would not need to be replaced. So, that's an additional savings because now we don't need to replace them. So, that's that's more that's the $1.2 million. Um, we're still working on that. There might be more, but I don't know yet. Uh, and then what we did this year is uh to minimize any staffing uh changes we would have to make. We did a 25% across the board uh reduction to uh budget codes for things
017contracted services, supplies, and equipment uh to all our buildings and all our departments. So that saves uh over $3 million um by itself. So with all of that, where does where does that put us? So uh the revenue would come out. Again, this is using the uh governor's uh budget proposal number and zero for prek uh aid and that's a little over $244 million in revenue. Uh oh, I just said that. And uh the way we're um uh using those the teacher retirements, the 25% across the board cut uh the 11 positions that we don't need to replace uh it comes out to 245 million uh 875,000. So the difference between those two,860,000. So that's where we have to uh get to close close the gap in the budget. Remember last year when we started
018it was at 7.5 million. So, we're way way ahead of that. So, what how do we get there? Well, a couple of things. Staff reductions, that's that additional of the of the retirements. Do we um can can some of those some more of those not be replaced? Uh we're talking with our administrators union about some uh reconfiguration and administration that would uh provide some savings. Uh crosscontract students uh Dr. Scanland and Dr. Garary uh have already been contacted by a couple of other districts. They may uh be asking to send a couple of more kids uh to our academy. Um that's a that's a it's a um right for this year it's $113,000 per student that we can charge another district for. So if we have a few more students, if we have space for
019them, we have a few more students that's uh that can increase on the revenue side. That closes that gap. And then as I said, more state aid. We don't we don't know yet. The So the two key things on state aid is do we get more in foundation aid instead of the 1% increase? Do we get maybe 2% which would be about another $300,000? Um and or uh do we what's our confidence level in getting uh prek aid for the half day program? So um and then always, you know, we always look at well well what if the budget doesn't pass? Well, it's and it's the same as every other year in the sense of the options. Uh, put the same budget up for a revote. Uh, revise the budget, put that up for a
020vote, or go straight to contingency. But going straight to contingency is the same thing as if a budget fails twice. And that means no increase to the tax levy at all. And that means from the budget that we're talking about actually uh after accounting for that $1.8 8 million gap, we'd have to cut an additional $8.1 million. Now, what would be cut, we don't know yet, and that's really for a discussion for if and when it gets to that point. Um, so and the budget vote date is Tuesday, May 19th, um, at the, uh, Melville High School gymnasium. And there's early voting available. So, if anybody's interested in that, contact Miss Jano or district clerk. So, That's uh that's that and I would be happy to I'll sit down then I'll be happy to take
021any questions. >> Perfect. Thank you so much. [clears throat] All right. So, we'll let Mr. Carlson sit and then uh open it up to questions, comments, thoughts from the board. >> Sure. >> St. I have two two questions or one question, one comment maybe, I guess. So, when you talked about the reductions in the supplies and paper, that sort of thing, that was um if teachers are using paper for assignments, that's not what we're talking about from those reductions. Is that is that correct? >> Okay. All right. Just want to make sure that that it's not taking away resources that we need for students. Okay. >> It's looking at some of our expenditures. We go through a lot of ink and a lot of paper and inter office memos and, you know, just a large
022organization like this and and you know, sending flyers home. So thinking about using more of the electronic backpacks with students and families than we are doing right now and and tightening up a little bit but you know we're we're paper and ink are two of our major expenses in a supplier. >> Okay, great. Thank you. Um and then the second one's just a comment on the uh I mean the framework the state has set up for us that that makes it difficult. So this is um you know when you have exponential growth right the bigger exponent always wins no matter where you start. And then we see our income. We have the tax cap which limits us between two and 3% usually, sometimes a little bit more, but you know around that >> and sometimes
023less. >> Sometimes less. >> Right. >> Foundation aid. They said 1% increase this year. >> And then you have some of these items in the budget like that the health insurance is the big one. It's going up by 12%. So no matter where those you know the the total amount we have that's that's coming in, sure it's a bigger base, but the exponent is much higher on the health insurance. And so that sort of makes it difficult from a in the long term if it keeps going up 12% every year. I I don't know what we can do really to to to to pay for everything we need to pay for. I think that's sort of what we're seeing, but I I don't have an answer to that. I I don't know what the state
024expects us to to really do. >> Can can you talk about comparisons that I know you've done internally to alternatives for the for the health insurance? Like what how have we fared versus >> Oh, sure. Well, the the the other big health insurance plan for school districts on Long Island is the New York State Health Insurance Plan, otherwise known as NICHIP, sometimes called the Empire Plan. Um, and for the past uh 10 years, uh, our rates have been >> lower. Right now, they're right about the same. Uh, but for the last 10 years, our, uh, our health insurance costs are about $1 million less than they would. I do that every year. And I say, well, okay, based on what our rates are right now and and our um uh enrollment in each category of
025rate, there's five different rates. What What would our C is what our cost is. What would our cost be if we had NIH? And they do that every year. And it's and it's the last 10 years huge difference. Our plans cost less. Now, hasn't that wasn't always the case. for a lot of years before that. Our plan costs more than NICHA. Uh but we made some changes. Uh as I mentioned, I'm I'm on the board of trustees for the health insurance plan. It's it's so our plan is um it's a self-insured consortium of uh three village Smithtown schools in the South Country School District. And the board of trustees is made up of the business officials from each district. Uh so Maine and my counterparts in those two districts plus uh teacher uh union representation
026on uh from each of the districts. And um so we've we've made a lot of changes uh to our plan. Um one thing that we're we're able to well let me back up a so when I first started working here I thought well how could a plan that all of its costs are based on Long Island compete with a plan that's statewide? didn't make any sense to me. So, uh I did some uh research on that and this is years ago and at the time out of all of the I just looked at school districts that belong to Nisha out of all the school districts in the state. So I took out Nassau Suffk City New York City does something different. So is Yoners. So out of Nassau, SuffK, uh, Westchester, Rockland, Putnham, and Duchess
027County, right, kind of downstate plus the Albany region. Outside of those districts at the time, there was one district in the entire state that belonged to NICH. It was a little district up in the Fingerlakes region, which I don't even know if they're in NICH anymore. Anyway, all the districts upstate, almost just about all the districts, school districts upstate have self-insured consortiums. medical costs are much lower up there than they are in Long Island, which we knew. Well, so that's why a plan that's based on Long Island can compete with NICHIP because NICHIP as far as school districts is concerned, the costs aren't spread throughout the state. They're concentrated downstate. So, uh, and our plan pretty much very close to being identical with, uh, NICHIP as far as the benefits. But one thing that we
028can do that NICHIP can't do is we could put programs in um, I mean, it just takes we I'm, as I said, we're we're having a meeting tomorrow. Um, if if something looks like and and by the way, United Healthcare is the administrator for our plan. United Healthcare is the administrator for NIH as well. We have the same network of doctors, same co-pays, same every not necessarily co-pays. Uh the cost to the plan are the same for our plan as it is for Niship because it's still United Healthcare. And so United Healthcare will come to us and say, you know, we have this plan we think might save you money like for um let's say uh certain types of cancer, right? So um so we might put that into place where it's like early detection,
029early treatment, all that and it and it and United Healthcare will say, you know, this really saves saves a lot of money in the long run. These types this type of plan and we'll try it and if it saves money, great. If it turns out it doesn't really save money, we could change it. Nice ship is, you know, it's like it's like turning a giant ship. It takes a long time for NICHIP to make changes like that, but our plan we can do it pretty quickly. [clears throat] So I think that's why where we've been successful and able to keep our costs below that of NICHIP for for a number of years now. So we're doing pretty good on that. Um uh oh, one one thing we started recently um was for and it's not
030all name brand drugs. There's there's a lot of them, but it's a certain certain name name brand drugs. uh we we contract with a company that's actually based in Canada. It's called KA RX and our uh members can get certain name brand drugs through them for no co-pay to them. So that's the benefit to the employee. Uh and it's a much lower cost to the plant. Now, here's the for whatever reason, without going into into that, uh many many if not all uh uh prescription drugs, what we pay in the US is in some cases 10, 20, 100 times more than what somebody would pay in Canada for the exact same thing. So, we get it from this company in Canada for our employees. They don't have to pay a c-ay. It saves the plan
031a lot of money and that's something that we put into place fairly recently. Um that's that's helping keep our cost down. That's one example. So, uh we do a thing with uh diabetes management too. um where it's it's um part of part of um uh the di diabetic uh supplies, you know, medication and that kind of stuff is you have to go to a doctor at least twice a year and get your A1C done twice a year. So, um and just that kind of well, you have to do this. you can't just sit at home and you know give we we'll giving you all the all these uh uh prescription meds and you're not doing what you need to do. So those kind of things um see seem to be working pretty well. So >>
032thank you. >> Um so Jeff, two things. One um you mentioned NIH um the NIH plan, right? Are Nasha plans all the same? Um like for universities? >> No, they're different. In fact, I wasn't even sure about that. Uh actually, it was last year or the year before, Dr. Back um I had I had said something either either at a board meeting or in one of the BAC meetings and um so Dr. Back who you know if you don't mind me saying works at the university and said that doesn't seem right. So, well, as it turns out, well, there's different plans and university employees would pay different for NICHIP than what school districts would pay for NICHIP. It's just different. It's a state plan. So, just because it has the word NICHIP, it just means
033it's New York New York State Health Insurance Plan. It's not one NICH ship period. >> But they charge the university a different rate than they charge school district. >> Yes. >> Okay. And the other point was you mentioned that for the last 10 years you know this consortium plan has been cheaper but obviously things are trending in different ways. Um do you see do you see a trend where the consortium is going to continue to increase costs while NHIP stays at a different rate or >> I don't I don't know I I mean of course cost costs just keep going up. I don't know that NICHIP can necessarily keep their rates down though for the same reasons. So, um, uh, of course, if for whatever reason, NICHIP, well, here's how they could, uh, because NICHIP
034is the state, they have a lot of money in reserves. And if the state says, well, we'll use some of our reserves to offset the cost of NICHIP instead of charging the members that, well, then then the cost could could come down. So, if it turned out that and and it was a long-term thing and and you know, we we could cons certainly consider switching over to Niship if that looked like it was going to be a better a better deal for us. >> Yeah, I'm not necessarily promoting the use of NIH as the insurer. My my concern is, you know, what are the methodologies they're using necessarily to keep cost down? If it's it's depending on reserves, we obviously, you know, it's a different story. But whether it's, you know, looking at the formulary,
035whether it's looking at, you know, mandating use of um generic drugs, etc., like what what what are the kinds of things they're doing to keep cost down? Because this is the second year in a row we've had a pretty steep increase in healthcare costs. >> So, I think it's I think it's worth having a little bit of a deeper look at. >> Sure. >> Um it's one of the largest components of growth we've had in the last two years. >> Yeah, I can I can I can send you a uh comparison of the of the two plans. I can get that from uh Sure. Thank you. No problem. Be glad to. >> Thank you. Who else? >> Hi. I just wanted to clarify some things. So that the healthcare which is great everybody else brought
036up. I mean, but I think it's important that everybody understands that we've saved 11 million over the last 10 years because we're with the plan that we are now. Um so that has been you know um you know done by the business office and the board and administration. So that's a good trend and we always need to go further if it doesn't happen in the next couple years. We could always look at changing the plan if we have to or modifying things. But I think it's very important for people to understand that we did save $1 million because that price going up is a lot. But in comparison, we've been doing the right thing. It's just unfortunate that the percentage has gone up so much. Just as a point to that too and and I
037think out of the current board members and Jeff was the only board member on the board at the time. We did look at this many years ago when I was still here as an assistant superintendent. the um at that time there was a plan to decide to move forward with it and we held and thank goodness we did because that's when you see on the chart that Jeff provided how the increase we would have been paying a lot more right >> you know we were hedging our bet a little bit like oh they're cheaper right now >> that that period of time right afterward it went up exponentially and we would have been in a lot worse shape back then than we are even now. >> Yes. Um, and then I just wanted to briefly
038I mean the next largest number is our contractual salaries which is going to go up obviously every year. But I also want people to understand that all of our unions have been very good working with the board and our negotiations team and their raises have been reduced that over what it's been in the past and they have been working with us because they know that we are in um financial situation. So they are working with us and I think that's a great number. So you know thank you to all the unions that have helped keep that number down. Um and then just on the revenue just for you know for people to understand the sack is really a self-sufficient. So we're getting that revenue but we're also paying out because we're paying staff. So that's
039kind of self- sustaining. Um same with our summer wreck and community swim I'm assuming. Yes. And to that point too, even uh we've increased the fees uh for those programs over the course of years because they went through a long period of time where we didn't do any increases to any of the fees and we we've needed to make up a little bit of time, but also just being conscious of the CPI, slowly increasing that. We've had changes Dr. Dusky can talk about in changes to minimum wage. Um there's actually a proposal right now for another change to minimum wage would be if we if that comes along we're going to have to increase those costs and pass along to those individuals that participate in those programs. SAC yes self- sustaining however it won't be
040for long if we don't increase the fees. So we need to make sure we do that and has some cost-saving measures. Uh and just that we brought up sack too part of the recommendation from the school uh closure repurposing committee so people don't think that the individuals on that were crazy in looking at this. One of them is saying yeah we are going to say you could save this money but a higher priority is the safety of the students and the the sack buildings have been in place for over 30 years now. They were only designed to be here for 10 years. So, our maintenance and operations team has done a wonderful job maintaining and trying to keep these things up, but they far exceeded their their lifespan. And from a safety standpoint, not only
041uh is it important to get the students in the building because those build those structures are old, um also for the sake of it, it's much safer to be in a physically brick and mortar structure than it is to be in one of those one of those areas. So our plan based upon that recommendation is to move all the SAC programs into the buildings uh occupy some of the spaces and then the uh school closure repurpose committee said revisit this next year and see if if the enrollment continues to decline. I just want to be careful with that decline notion for a moment. The declining in the past three years is the enrollment has gone down by 0.5%. So because we've added the prek UPK program into those numbers. So this is not we're leveling
042off. It's not a massive decline like we've went from 2012 when we had 7,400 students to today where we have 5,486 students. Yes, that's a big difference. And when [clears throat] people criticize the past administration saying, "Oh, we didn't do enough." back in 201213 when the tax cap first came along. Jeff and Garrett, correct me if I'm wrong, about 150 staff members throughout the district were laid off at that time. So, a lot of changes happened back then. So, we're just in a state of flux at this point, but we're not massive declining enrollment at this point. Um, those staffing charts that Miss Pimeintel showed a few months ago as our CIO, one of the things on that chart is not included and the state does not include is the prek numbers in that number.
043So when those are people that are u looking at numbers on the state website and saying oh look at you know their numbers are wrong they don't include prek state has never included it. It's always been K through 12. So we need to be careful and if anyone needs information on that please call my office. I offer that multiple times or I'll come to your house and I'll show you. I'll go on your computer and I'll type it up for you and show you where it is. But you you need to be knowing the the facts are before you make general statements that that are just incorrect. And you know we need to be understanding of how that's working. Did you have more? >> Um, not. Can we talk about preK? >> Sure. >> Um,
044I know we need to wait for the governor's uh final proposal to see how much money per student they're going to be giving if she continues with increasing it to $10,000 per student. I think we're going to need to have a conversation going forward, not for next year, but for the year forward um about having a full day program because I think when we ran the numbers, having a full day program will be giving us enough revenue to cover the program and covering what we did for enrichment. So, right or pretty close, >> right? So, um yes. So, part part two parts of this um the governor's proposal for those watching at home or those going to be watching this later on after the board meeting tonight. um why you would want to watch this
045and not Netflix is beyond me, but that's another story. Um that number is going from currently $5,400 per student for a full day program, the governor's proposal to move it to $10,000. That's for our district. And if you look at the the aid runs for the state, there are some districts that are one of the districts that's right next to us on that aid run is getting $12,500 per student. There's another district on Long Island that's getting $26,000 per student. So, it depends on the district. It depends on a lot of other factors. Poverty levels being one of them. Our poverty level now has increased to 18% for this year. So, it's gone up even more than last year. So, um we're at that threshold for 10,000. So, what that means is when it was
046$5,400, our current preK program, it's a half-day program, we get $2,700 per student for the 204 current students in the program. If the governor's proposal goes through and it seems like the assembly and the Senate are supportive of that, um, let's hope that comes to fruition. If that happens, we wouldn't get the 10,000 for a half-day program. We would get the 5,000 for a half day program, which is still a $2,300 per student increase, which would help offset some things. Now, as Jeff mentioned, the loss of the revenue on the enrichment side is what we have to be careful of calculating. And you've mentioned before and it is true. The governor's current proposal is that by school year, we have to have full access, which means anyone that puts in for this program has to
047be accepted. Based upon our current numbers, we have six prek programs operating right now. we'd have to increase that number to 10 more just to be handled the if we used this year's projected um requests which is 270 students. We would need to increase 10 more teaching staff. So yes, it would increase the amount of money but you're also going to be paying out salaries for the teacher and the SCAS in those rooms. So just like you said about SAC, it may balance it completely out. There is a chance that it could even lose money. Now, we could offset a little bit of that with having a a prek sack program prior to school and after school. That might bring in a little bit of revenue, but that's a different line item in the budget
048as as they come in. So, and there are parameters to that too. There's also been a proposal to drop the age level to another level to a U3 program um which brings a whole another set of uh of issues to contend with. Dr. Scary has some experience with age levels at that level about you know those type of things what those requirements would be. Um those are children with diapers and things of that nature and changing uh parameters a whole another set of regulations in the state education department. So we just need to conscious of all that as we move forward because it's we always look at the numbers. Oh it's going to be a windfall but there's an expense on the other side. >> Right. Of course. And by the way, they also have
049been one of the proposals, I don't know if it was the state of the assembly, talked about transportation for prek, too, which that's [clears throat] a whole another uh headed expense along with electric buses and everything else. So, we got a lot lot of things to think about as this goes forward. >> Um, I'll go >> and Oh, no. Go ahead. >> No, go. I you know I just wanted to say um that while we're looking at all these numbers and there's going to be some cuts and changes and everything else, we also need to focus on the good things that are going to be happening next year as well that is basically costneutral. Um you know we have the Bloomberg lab coming on. We have um the beacon program about the associate associates degree
050from Suffach University. I think we have our first person graduating this year with that. That's a fantastic program going forward in the high school. We have two new CTE programs happening um that are fantastic. We're looking into maybe adding in an ROTC program um in the upcoming year or years. Um so there is a lot of good things that are happening that people need to understand that we're working towards as well. Um and most of those are costneutral. Um so it is not affecting our budget but we're trying to do the best for the kids which is why we're doing this all. It's always about the kids. >> Absolutely, 100%. Um, I had a question. We speak often about um the success of the academy model and we've talked about wanting to to get an
051eighth grade program. What is the possibility? What what is a possible timeline for that? Is it possible to do that for next year? What would that look like? Do you have a sense of how many students might be interested? How many students from out of district, which would mean income? [snorts] So um there there are not too many alternative programs for middle level and around uh most of it's through Boseies. So this would be a unique program. We certainly would have uh a demand from among our own students right now between the two middle schools of students that could benefit from being in that type of setting. The um we it would be purely speculative about how many students from the outside that we could bring in. Um but when we created the academy in
052201213 for the 1314 school year um the original projection was we were we had a number of students going to the Bosey's ICC program which was costing the district $1.5 million. So you know if we want to look at numbers overall in the generation of this that program us having it here we haven't paid that for all these years. So you know now the program has been around for 13 years. Uh this has really been a savings that's over Jeff will do the math 13 times 1.5 million [laughter] how much money how many millions of dollars that has saved us. Um so when we did that initially um we were asked by a board member to do a P&L profit and loss and the what it came down to at that time was how many
053students if we brought back and how many students if we took in would help offset the cost and it was we took the six students out of the ICC program and we brought we brought in six students out of district and that really produced the revenue at that point and and as Jeff mentioned the revenue the um non-resident tuition rate for a student with special needs at the secondary level is about $113,000 for this year. It wasn't that number back when we started. It was a lot less. So, as in as increased expenses, if we expanded the academy um taking in more students at the secondary level right now from 9 through 12, that would help a little bit from the budgetary standpoint with the understanding that we have expenses to those students when they
054come here that's just simply not taking a check and then they're good. Um, at the same time, if we expanded that to the eighth grade, it would help bring in some students from and other districts at that same rate. So, I would probably say start with a grade level. We could talk about or bring it back to the alternative ed committee and have a conversation there and the program review committee and see if there's a possibility of us even getting this off for next year. The academy has a has a wonderful reputation out in the general areas and but what has occurred is that some other districts have opened up their ownmies comich and they're off the ground and I hope they're very successful. We still have a number of districts that don't have their
055own programs and still send students to us and it's a very specialized program. It's not a behavioral intervention program. So that's it's a different type of program. Um and that's never been its intention to be that. Um the only thing for us would be space and where would we put it? So going back to that school closure repurpose committee um their thought was well before we start to sell off North Country and divide everyone out maybe move out some of the administrative programs here to allow the academy to expand to a part of the building to create that opportunity for students to come here. And a hope and vision as well here has been that we've been talking about the school for the arts too eventually. You know we have a tremendous opportunity uh for
056students here. Uh we our art program, our music program, our theater arts program are wildly successful and it's to the the abilities of the students and the talents of the teachers in those programs that have created that. If we tout that as an opportunity to bring kids in for those type of programs because not every school has has the production program that we have with with our theater arts and and our music programs. Uh, as I said before, our arts program alone is bringing in more scholarship money than even our athletic program, which is amazing to think about. Um, so there's an there's things that we could capitalize on, things we do really well that could generate revenue on another level for our district in many ways. And that doesn't mean that we have to
057build an arts school somewhere else in the district. we could actually tap some of the the space that we have at the high school and use it there and and fold those students into the program as has been done by uh other people in the district over the course of years bringing their own children here. So, it's an opportunity that we could look at fold but we just need we need space and uh I'm I'm okay with moving to a portable personally if it makes room for the academy to have an ability to go someplace else. >> Thank you. Yeah, I think the school for the arts is also fantastic and I would love to continue that conversation, but I feel like that's creating a program. The academy, you've already cracked the code, right? We
058know we know we do that really well. So, I guess am I hearing that if the committee finds that's viable, you think you could come up with the space for next year? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Yep. >> So, is that just the space concern? Is there any monetary considerations because >> Well, this staffing that would be associated with that because the eighth grade program is not uh you know for particularly social studies u social studies is different curriculum. Um the one advantage in a district like this in three village where we have a lot of students taking advanced courses for high school level in even eighth grade, seventh grade, eighth grade um many of the students that we would be looking at would be able to fit into some of the existing program. Now
059it's the idea of do you want eighth graders intermingling with seniors? You probably don't. So you want to try to keep the younger students separated from the older students in the physically distant from them and then having some separate locations for them to be interacting in the building. So we'd have to run the staffing numbers and certainly that would be something that could lead to a cost increase on one end but you're also producing revenue on the other end. And it it took time. Remember the first time we opened the academy we only started with 19 students on that first year first beginning of that year. By the end of the year, we were over 30. Um, and 13 of the 19 students that came in were were seniors, and 13 seniors graduated. All those
060students were targeted for non-grads. So, something we we that was mentioned yesterday at the PTA council and something we need to continue to uh emphasize here, we have a 97 to 98% graduation rate. >> Correct. >> And we should be very proud of that. And that's for all students. students that are high performing academically and students with special needs and everyone in between. So we should be touting that we have some of the highest graduation rates for students with special needs of any district in the entire state of New York. So we should be very very proud of that and we only send out about 8% of our students in special education programs. We do most of the education ourselves and I think we do a remarkable job and that's to the credit of the
061parents, the students and the the faculty and administration out there that's doing those jobs every single day. So, we need to keep letting the community know that no, this is not a district that has a graduation rate that's in the 80% or the or less. You're still getting the same level of education despite whatever people think about me or the budget or bonds or anything else. your students are still going on and getting accepted to tier one schools, four-year college, two-year college. And with the CTE creations, we're creating opportunities for kids that don't necessarily need or want to go to a college setting. They can make a lot of money in some career opportunities. We're starting to see the light with that and bringing that those programs inhouse as opposed to shipping students out for
062that as well. And the more we keep doing that is going to create more opportunities for our students moving forward. We going back to touting the the good things that that that's a major good thing like this district ought to be very proud and if you go online tonight too and look around the graduation rates around just some of the districts around us and we've exceeded some of those districts by far and what we've accomplished here and that's despite special ed numbers going up and down despite ENL numbers increasing 400% in the past few years despite a poverty rate increasing by 14% in the past 12 years we still have maintained that graduation rate with all of those students, our homeless students that have been affected, that has increased, our students come from single parent
063households, we're still achieving that success. So, this board, this community uh should be very proud of the fact that that's still going on here. >> So, first parents are interested in the early voting option. Can we describe how that is and also adding the critical information on maybe later presentations about voting? The information for the early voting is on the website. They can contact me. They can email. The application's on the website. They can email the application. It can be mailed all up until a week before the um vote. If it's within the week of the vote, they have to come in person and obtain an early vote ballot. But they can do it every day for the 30 days prior to the vote. >> And we can have Denise Nash put that out on
064our social media to >> be great. Thank you. Okay. Another question regarding interest. [laughter] Roughly how much interest rate are we getting for that interest we get? >> What is the rate? >> Yes. >> Uh right now around 3 and a half%. So we can't get very much interest uh because uh we're limited in as to what we can invest in. >> Right? So when we we deposit money in a bank, so you know how like when you put money in a in a bank, there's the FDIC coverage up to $250,000. Well, so beyond that, like if you just went to the bank and deposited the million dollars in the bank and that bank closed, went out of business, you might only get $250,000 back from the FDI. The other $750,000 might just be gone.
065Um so we don't want to do that. So how did we get the 3.5% because that's really not the regular rate. >> Well, so so that's in in either money markets CDs or what's given the highest rate right now. So what we have to do though, so when we uh money that we deposit in banks, >> so we have to have what's called third party collateral, right? So so if if we're depositing money in your bank, right? you have to go what we say to you is okay but but we want you to go to another bank >> and get uh if we're let's say we deposit $3 million in your bank right you you would then go to uh bank of Stan and say hey Three villages putting $3 million in my bank can
066you pledge at least pledge $3 million in uh US Treasurybacked notes >> right >> for that so that now of course that's going to cost you money, right? Because Bank of Stan is going to charge you >> exactly for that. So you take that from the interest you'll pay me, right? So but the the good side to that is if you were to go out of business, your bank went out of business, >> my money I can get my we can get all our money back, >> right? >> So but it but it it costs it it means we get less interest rate >> if we buy uh try to rebuild directly. That's more than 4%, right? >> Well, but but we need our money like this. Not long-term investment. This is we put our
067money in there, >> right? The minimum time is four weeks. So, we can rotate every four week and still get the 4.5%. That's one way. [laughter] I understand that's introducible work. >> Yeah. Well, but but no, I I mean I >> trying to get more revenue. Yeah. You know what? I Yeah, I'll I'll look into that a little more. Yeah. Um because our our rates were higher rates were pretty high up until you know more recent months, >> right? I mean people are still high these days. >> We we we get decent rates uh through municipal banking. Um not real high but again there's there's no risk. That's >> and also some CDs are high these days. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Another thing >> before we move on to that, just so we're very cautious
068with this, there are regulations about the investment of money that >> and Jeff does not look good in orange. So we do not want anybody going to jail around the table because we cannot we cannot essentially gamble with anything with so it's it's a safe choice. >> So since both overcharge us so much, do we charge them interest? [laughter] >> Can we? >> No. No, unfortunately we can't. No. No. >> Thank you. >> No, but you know what? We do get we do on a on a different note, but that reminds me. So So when people pay their property taxes late and they have to pay penalties and interest on it, we get a share of that. Even though we didn't get the money late, the town pays us a piece of that. Can you
069elaborate a little beyond the paper and ink what what some of those other um 25% reduction in contractual services would be? >> Sure. Sure. >> Yeah. So, for instance, the contractual services um we're currently using five different testing programs in the district. So, that that doesn't make much sense. So, we're working with the tech department. Dr. Viscari oversees that with Miss Ruben trunk to see if we can limit those numbers and some of those programs only I shouldn't say only and some of those programs cost 20 somehat thousand some cost a lot more so looking at just some of those type of things as we go across the board. So that's just one example and Jeffrey if you want to add on any of this. >> Yeah well it's it's a lot of those kind
070of things. It's a lot of um equipment, right? Um and we and we did that during COVID, that year or year after CO, I should say, when the budget failed, we couldn't buy any new equipment. So, we managed and things like that, like if if we would have spent, you know, whatever in in one area, uh, $80,000 on equipment next year, well, you have to you have to cut that down to 60,000 or it it didn't it didn't necessarily mean every single budget code went down 20%. What we 25%. What we would say is to for for example, a principal, okay, of these budget codes that you you have control over, right? the principal doesn't have control over teacher salaries in their building, but bud uh budget codes that they have control over. All of
071these codes add up to x number $100,000. Get these codes as a as an aggregate total down to $75,000 for next year. Um so it was it was a lot of things like that equipment uh some textbooks uh >> right >> and and another thing we've also worked on heavily is >> uh we have a very good maintenance and operations department and we've sent a number of individuals out for training. >> So for things like maintaining some of the uh turf fields we have our own folks doing some of that work as opposed to contracting with the company there and that's saved us a lot of money. We've done the same thing. We own our own payloader. So, those of you that have seen the snow in the past few weeks, it was used an
072awful lot, unfortunately. But we've trained several of our staff on how the operations of that. And it's it's things like that where we're, you know, well, the average person looking at the district say, well, how does that save? Well, if we're not paying that money out to a contracted service and it's our own people doing it, it's cheaper sometimes with the overtime than we are paying for the contracted service. And those individuals then train the next person who train the next person. So in per in perpetuity, we're we're planning for a long-term uh resolution and not having to use all these outside companies as we move forward. Those are the type of things and that takes long-term planning. We're doing the same thing right now. We're sending a couple of our our team to training
073on how to do uh concrete curbs. Not to the tune that it's going to save all the money we were putting into the bond for that, but where we have major damage, especially after these storms, so we don't have someone tripping over it and then suing us and then it's costing us more money in the long run. So it it's there's a logic to some of these things as we see it. Someone says, "Why does this person go to that?" We're doing it because it it it will save us money in the long term. >> And some of the things are um that that we not not the students, we as employees um maybe we we have to do without some things. Um, we have um we have a a a program that we were
074using um that does a lot of the financial forecasting. Um and it worked okay, but the price just kept going up and up and up and up and up and we we just we just don't need it for the the for what they want for it next year. $22,000. Forget it. We forget it. No, that's coming out. Um we use a uh service to uh that we work with on our state aid reporting uh as well as our special education um student reporting. Um cost a lot of money and it's it's a luxury and it's a nice thing to have and it's it's been great but we just we just have to do it now. It's, you know, and if and if it means and and it's not just me, it's, you know, if it
075if it it's going to take me longer to do that stuff because we don't have them doing it, well, so be it. And that that's just what some of us have to do. >> And cultural arts programming at well at all levels, but mostly at the elementary level. So the PTAs, most of their fundraising goes to bringing in the cultural arts programming into the schools. Um, beyond what they're bringing in, are we spending money on top of that? Is there any way to like amp up that partnership with our PTAs? >> Uh, sure. Yeah. So, so Brian can speak a little bit about the cultural arts because it falls under this area as well. [clears throat] Um, but we appropriate a certain amount of money per school. We far exceed that money and the support
076from the PTAs is amazing. We really do appreciate that. Um but using the Boseis approved vendors um saves us a lot of time and energy. We don't have the the inclination to go vet all these vendors and they they have literally hundreds of of them on the list. So Brian, if you wanted to say anything further about that. >> Yeah, we could certainly look at what we allocate for uh each of the buildings. They do utilize it. If they go over it, a lot of times the PTA will reimburse. Um so once they reach their threshold, then we start getting money back. But if you wanted us to look into um you know reducing the amount that we allocate for arts and education. >> No no that was not that I think there programs are
077fantastic and they mean so much to the kids. I was more asking the PTA's already engaged in that exercise maybe if we in a more formalized way say listen we we want to bring in X number next year um but on our end on the district's end we we really have to limit our participation. Is there any kind of special fundraising you could do that we could support you? Maybe you're going to bring back the National Circus Project to all the schools or whatever. Something that generates bigger dollars as opposed to wrapping paper, which is it's dollars, but it's smaller dollars. And >> yeah, I think our PTAs are responsive to that. And I think that they do play a role in each of the buildings a little bit differently in each of the buildings,
078but I think that they all are all cognizant of that and they contribute in their own way. >> I I agree. I think they do a fantastic job. I just I'm I'm thinking they're all such good people. If you ask for more help, I bet they would give it. But we're not going to do car washes with us taking off our shirts and doing any names. That that would actually scare people away, lose money. So, we're not going to do that piece. >> The high schools did have an idea about taping John to a wall. So, John be warned. Uh for a [laughter] long time, they've been dreaming about this a while. Um I I did want to just ask you, Dr. Scallan, you brought this up a couple of times about the poverty levels
079in the district. uh going up [snorts] now. It affects affordability in the district. It affords you know what people are willing to pay in taxes etc. But there is also perception uh about how the poverty levels are set, how it affects our taxes uh and what the relative poverty levels are across the districts that are that are close to us. Would it be possible for you or Mr. evolves into sort of give a little bit of an education on sort of what are the factors that goes into the calculation of this index and then how that index affects um you know how what state aid we receive. I think it would be illustrative for the community to learn how this district fares, how this district believe we fare and how this district actually fares in
080relation to the rest of the neighboring districts. Um >> yeah, we while we say 18% um I have colleagues that like I wish it was 18%, there are districts that are at 75% 80% poverty levels in their districts. So when the when the concept came along of free reduced lunch for, you know, free lunch for all students and equaling that playing field, you know, in a country that produces enough wheat to feed every person on this planet, we it would be a travesty that children go hungry. So I think we need to be conscious of the fact like we're lucky that it's only 18% as opposed to saying that you know but it has increased and it does create it does provide opportunity for uh funds to come in but it also creates u concerns
081um and I'll be very honest with very one concern that's been a pet peeve of mine for 14 years. A child that doesn't have supports at home to do homework or to take even a simple thing like a take-home test. Well, we think of take home test. Oh, that's a gift. You're going to go home and take the test. You're going to bring it home back. Great. If the other kid has a tutor at home and a mom and dad that both have college degrees and this poor child doesn't have anybody, you're dooming them for failure. So, what are we doing to help support that? And it's it's really like changing that mindset sometimes about we think we're doing a good thing and sometimes it it has a negative impact. And it's sad to say
082that, you know, we have we have food pantries in all of our schools at this point that we're giving out food on a weekly basis to children. Um, and that's we're lucky the community supports us so much and groups like the three village dads that constantly contribute money and the PTAs that contribute money and food and things like that and we wiped that out very quickly. Um, so we lost an administrative position this year in the budget uh for a person that did that job. Um, and she was busy every day carrying out things to to families and children during COVID. We supplied whole families in this room and the room next door in the training room to give them supports because they couldn't even get toilet paper. So, you know, it's stuff like that
083that we we have to be conscious of. Um, so yes, you know, when a child goes to lunch and ask for a second lunch and they're putting in their backpack because they don't have food that night, we have to think about that. >> Dr. Lee, >> so Dr. Scanna, you mentioned that this actually help us bringing more funds. My understanding state aid didn't increase because of it. Do we get other source of funds because of the increased poverty level? >> Well, not theoretically over time, yes. >> Um but it's not like there's any an immediate direct correlation. >> Okay. Uh like I said, theoretically, yes. Over time, uh because the the higher wealth, the the state aid formulas try to steer more money towards lower wealth and less money towards higher wealth. So by that
084token, if our overall wealth were decreased, >> it would again, but it it doesn't happen overnight. It takes time. Now, there was um uh we had a we had a couple of board members. This is um it was back in I think it was 200 n 2008 2009 something like that. Um, and they were working on something at the time, uh, and it was called fix the formula. And it was the the idea that they had at the time was, well, what if we could take the top 1% of income and not count that in the bottom 1%. And um, how and in a district like ours, that would have made a huge difference in our wealth if you could take just the top 1% of earners off. Um, ultimately it didn't go anywhere. And
085there was some, this wasn't just a three village thing. There are some areas of the state where where that's an issue. There was at the time when when this was going on, there had been a a district upstate. I I I don't remember what district it was, but it was a in a rural area, a pretty depressed area. Um, and somebody from I think it was a Time Warner cable family member who was a billionaire uh bought a giant plot up there and built a tremendous estate and made that their primary residence. So, you had this very poor area upstate where suddenly a billionaire moved into the neighborhood and it made the district a wealthy district and the district didn't get any more. It might have gotten some tax money from it, but but even
086that it wasn't it didn't offset how its state aid was impacted. >> Um >> Okay. Other other than state aid, do we get other resource to um help the situation? No, >> not really. We get some federal aid, but but it's not much. It's mostly allocation based like for for um uh some some title one. Uh but we we don't get a lot of federal aid. That's not a significant source of revenue to us. But we we do get some. But that's that's pretty much it. >> I see. I see. Thank you. >> Any other questions for this evening? >> I saw I have one more to We talked about U3 aid too. So the the idea of, you know, having a prek for three-year-olds in the abstracts if it was, you know, free. I
087think this would be great for education, right? Like getting getting kids off Coco Melon and socializing one year earlier. Like I think this would help in the long run, but the finances have to make sense. Is there any talk of state aid for that that piece the U3? Anything like that yet? >> Not yet. >> Okay. Keep an eye on that. >> Um I just wanted to say and let everybody know that we are trying to increase our community outreach. Um so people are understanding um the information that the district is putting out and making it easier for everybody to access it. Um, and we know that a lot of our um, community is on social media, so we're trying to put more on that. So, this year, starting with this budget and probably carrying
088on if we do the bond vote next year, we're going to be creating a um, three village budget Facebook page. Um, and what that is, it's not going to be a back and forth. which is going to be a page where we're going to be able to post all of our um information that we talk about um the um presentations that Jeff does or anybody else does um and [clears throat] just some information regarding the budget up from now until we vote um just so it's at people's fingertips. So when you're looking around and you're reading something on Facebook and you don't know if it's true um you can go to our Facebook page because it's right there and see if we posted something about that. Um and then we are also setting up something
089called um ask three village um which is basically um for questions. So you'll have access to send in an email or Google form, however we end up doing it um to ask budget questions or bond questions whenever that comes up and you can get either get a individual response back or we can post some of those answers on our new Facebook page. So, we're trying to get our information closer to everybody's fingertips. Um, and and we're hopefully that's going to be helpful. Um, but the page is going to be just us posting information. Um, it's not going to be a back and forth discussion. If you do have questions that you want us to answer, um, you can ask the ask Three Village page um or or email or, um, Google uh, form and somebody
090will get back to you relatively soon. So, I think uh we're looking at getting that set up in the next couple of weeks. So, we'll make sure that that goes out um over social media from Denise so everybody is aware and everybody can join that. Um and also with the early voting, we're also talking about doing something with that too because we know that the early voting may um be helpful to a lot of people here. So, I know we already talked to the union that they might be um helping us with something. Um we could probably reach out to the PTAs and do that. Um, and we'll be talking to Denise Nash because I think um, getting more people out to vote is going to be helpful for everybody to making sure that they
091are understanding what's going on um, in the district. Um, especially if your kids are younger and you're going to be here for the next 12 years, you want to have a say in what's going to be going on in your kids's education. So, uh, we have that coming up. And then I just wanted to say because we're I guess we're towards the end. So, we have about $2 million that we're looking to find, right? Um, so I guess in the next couple of meetings we'll be going over um what we think that plan is and um I guess more information on that. Right. Okay. >> All right. Anybody else? Okay. Productive conversation. Thank you everybody. And we will uh certainly be continuing it. Do I see a motion to adjurnn? So move. >> Second. Second.
092>> All in favor? All right. Thank you everybody. Have a good night.