001the floor to enter into executive sess session to discuss my mic was on to discuss the appointment of a particular person and pending litigation invited in is missy parent. >> All those in favor? >> Good evening everyone. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. >> Okay. At this time it is our public input on agenda and non-aggenda items. I welcome any member of the audience to speak at this time. Okay. All right. Uh Mr. Carmelo, you want to provide your update? >> Thank you very much. Uh, so we've been giving a um superintendent update every meeting about the Wine and Skill uh merger annexation. Uh,
002and so as you know from the last update, uh, March 31st vote was passed. Uh, and so we're moving forward. And at this point, we were just when one of my slides will say, we're just waiting on the commissioner's proclamation. and we received that today. So, I'd like to read it. um in the matter of the dissolution of the Wine and Skill Union Free School District, Wler County, and the annexation of the territory thereof to the city school district of the city of Troy, Wler County, appearing that it is in the best educational interests of the community that Wenkill Union Free School District, Wler County, be dissolved and that the territory included within the boundaries of said district be annexed to the city school district of the city of Troy, Wler County. Now therefore, under
003and pursuant to the provisions of article 31 of the education law, it is hereby ordered that Winskill Union Free School District and the town of North Greenbush be and the same hereby is dissolved and that the territory included within the boundaries of said district as hereto for established and organized be and the same hereby is annexed to the city school district of the city of Troy, Wler County. Further, pursuant to provisions contained in section 1524 of the education law, this order shall take effect on July 1st, 2027, except all qualified voters of Wed School Union free school district shall be deemed qualified voters of the city school district of the city of Troy upon the date of this order becomes final as approved above. In witness whereof, I, Betty Rosa, commissioner of education of the
004state of New York, for and on behalf of the state education department, do here unto set my hand and affix the seal of the state education department at the city of Albany this 5th day of May, 2026. We received that today, which um we expected it to be July 1st, 2027, but now it's uh official from the commissioner. So really, really good news. Congratulations. All right, Mr. Denovo with the March financials. >> Tonight's agenda contains the March Treasury reports. Fiscal year end projections are still holding steady with no changes from the previous month. The picture will become much clearer for April's report. In the next few days, I'll be scheduling the rest of the debt service payments for the rest of the year. Once we get through the budget vote and it's certified, we will
005proceed with closing and rolling purchase orders to the next fiscal year and begin to gear up for our fiscally end fiscal year end uh processes. And that's all I have. >> Okay. Thank you. All right, Mr. Carmelo, our budget hearing. >> Excellent. >> Thank you. >> So, tonight's the budget hearing. And also uh this week and next going around to the parent groups for our budget presentations. We have Carol Hill on Monday. Uh we have school 18 tomorrow and the rest of them are next week. I sent those uh dates and times to the board last week. If you're available and want to hear this again, come on in. Uh the Troy City School District will provide a strong educational and social foundation to graduate all students college and career ready. Uh you know that
006we start that uh every presentation with that mission statement. That's what we're here doing each and every day. And this budget uh really excited about this budget. This budget is going to allow us uh to really continue in that grow. There's our district achievement highlights. Remember that's really just the state the 3 through eight state assessments which are actually going on this week and a couple weeks ago was ELA. This week is math. Uh we expect those uh results to continue to improve uh each and every year. You'll get I'll get to a slide later on where I brag about all the things going on. But this really is really really great stuff. So that was from our Mr. Styles and I presentation uh a few months ago. really all great stuff happening in the
007district. We're committed to building on those successes, doing what's necessary to continue to improve and grow as a district. And we've developed a budget that will allow us to meet the needs of all of our students, help to ensure that each student has the necessary tools to succeed. Once again, done that in a fiscally responsible way. So, there's the budget that we agreed on. Uh you approved that budget. The board did on the April 15th reading 146 348609. Proud to have developed a budget that is certainly fiscally responsible and educationally sound. The fiscal responsible piece is right there. Another 0% tax levy increase on the right side. There is our tax levy increase over the last 10 years. Uh even before this zero, you see there's uh five zeros in that last 10 years. Uh
008and then with this coming zero uh you know we're talking about six zeros and a total that's a total increase there of 7% over that time less than 1% a year. Uh and really really uh I I said LA yesterday or Monday at the Carol Hill one I think I said it here before I don't know if any district is doing fiscally responsible as well as we are doing it. Uh and now with the merger money coming uh it'll just uh be even easier. Uh our tax cap we talked about during our budget presentations was 2.23. That would have given us another $862,000 in revenues. Uh but we didn't need to because we ended up going out at zero. Uh we've been under the tax gap the last 14 years, always mindful of our over
009taxpayers. uh and we have been conservative strategic with our choices through our attrition plan over the last couple years and always looking for other funding sources and educationally sound. So, this budget is going to allow us to maintain all of those things. I wrote some of them down, but I think I remember what I wrote. Uh but I'm going to brag a little bit on this slide. Uh because this budget with a 0% tax levy increase still allows us to maintain all the great things we're doing. So, great quality instructional programs, the programs that are allowing those highlights to happen, right? PreK through 12, uh, all maintained, right? The programs that allow our graduation rate to be in the high 80s and and to have hit 90 a few years ago. Um, and Mr. Monk
010promises me we're going to do that again. Um, all those programs are still here in this in this thing. Everything that we've doing uh is maintained in this budget. the small class sizes, especially at the elementary level. At the elementary level, we're averaging 16 to 17 per class, right? Really, really great numbers. Um, there are a few bubbles that we take care of, but really it's pretty consistent across all buildings and across grade levels that we're in the mid to high teens. Really great numbers for individual uh attention for the students. crucial support services for our students including and maybe especially social emotional supports. We have in every school uh at least we have four social emotional workers. So a counselor, couple of social workers and a school psychologist at every single school. Uh and
011at obviously at the middle school and high school it's even more than that. Mr. Styles added it up for me. What did it end up being? 42 >> 40 >> 42 social emotional staff districtwide, right? It wasn't that long ago where we had no social workers even in the whole district, right? And uh done a great job and thank you to the board for supporting that along the way. When COVID came and and postco, we really talked about the mental health and emotional uh needs of our students and our staff uh coming out of that. And so we've really you've allowed us to put our money where our mouth is. And so, uh, we have great, great supports in all of our buildings, and they all remain, uh, in this budget. I always brag about
012our extensive advanced placement and college and high school courses. We're up to 27 of those courses. We have three new ones, forensics, college algebra, and college English. Uh, and we're going to add an an AP business next year. U, so, you know, we continue to get better. We continue to try to uh add things for our students. Uh last year's graduating class, Mr. Morgan, I'm not sure if you did it this year yet. Don't want to put you on the spot, but last year's graduating class 2280 college credits uh among them. Uh with some upwards of, you know, mid-30s to 40. Uh in fact, I found out yesterday we have a junior that's already at 60 going projected to be 60 when she graduates. Insane. Insane. Uh did you let this year's graduates yet? >>
013It'll be in the same ballpark. We're talking about over 2,000 for several years ago. Really, really great stuff. Uh again, um we have great partnerships with Hudson Valley, U Albany, and others. Uh and you know, I don't know if there's a high school around that has many college credits that we give out each and every year. Our extracurricular clubs and activities always something for every kid. uh every um interest, you know, from sports to uh the new ones we added were the, you know, gaming club and um Dungeons and Dragons Club and a walking club. Those are just things that were are added recently. Again, always trying to reach more and more kids. Uh in this section, I also always brag about our masterminds team. They're so great. Uh actually been undefeated seasons in our
014masterminds. That's our like trivia trivia team. um undefeated for the last four seasons, haven't they? Uh and then they're going to go down to Atlanta again uh Memorial Day weekend, I believe it is, uh for the national tournament, which they do very well in that as well. Our elementary after school program is maintained in this uh besides the academic program for kids that need a little extra support. We have karate, lacrosse, soccer, basketball, and flag football. in every single one of our elementary schools. Every day after school, something is going on in our elementary schools. Uh, and that's one of the things we bragged about to Governor Dickson. When that merger happens, those same programs will be over there for their uh fourth and fifth graders as well. Our athletic programs, always proud of our
015sports programs. Our football team made it to the Super Bowl this year. Uh, our girls uh basketball team made it to the sectional finals. Our girls volleyball team was undefeated. uh for the regular season. Uh we have a golfer and a swimmer that both were state qualifiers. Just really really uh great accomplishments throughout our athletic programs and our spring uh season is going great and uh we expect uh some more successes as those seasons wind down. Our music and art programs. Um our select course at the high school sang at Radio City Music Hall this year. Uh the middle school play was Little Mermaid Jr. The high school uh musical was uh Charlie Brown. If you've been to them, you see the talent that we have in our music and theater departments. Our art is
016on display still right now at the art center. Some really great um some great artists at Troy High School and actually the art center has uh kindergarten on art. So it's really really great to see u the wide range of art that's at the art center. If you haven't been down there, you should go. and our strong partnerships with our community organizations, trade unions. I wrote down Regeneron as the main one for our partnership with with some uh businesses or our local trade unions, especially with the new tech wing that's going to be up uh starting in September. Um, we have partnerships with carpenter uh unions and all the local trade unions to start doing apprenticeships, official apprenticeships and internships and a really really great pathway for some of our students to get out of
017school and start making a really great salary right off the bat. So, that's a great slide for me. Again, this is our 3 through8 assessment highlights, but this one really talks about every single thing that we got. And this budget, even with a 0% tax levy increase, um maintains all of that stuff. What are our additions? So, our additions are one is the 5-year contract, new 5-year contract with Student uh Transportation of America, STA. We had the um RFP out and they're the ones that won it. Really looking forward to that. We're going to have all brand new buses, all with air conditioning. Um, it's going to be a a a company that we're really looking forward to. Mr. Otan has had many many uh meetings and conversations with them already. Uh, we're really excited
018about what they're going to offer us next year. Uh, some expanded special ed supports. Uh, these were tier one requests from either our principles or our special ed department. Uh, most of them are in that range. Uh we have a self-contained class that's starting at school 14 uh based on some of our younger kids needs. Uh that also uh will be the speech therapist why that happened. Two secondary so that's one at the middle school, one at the high school and a secondary uh TA that's at the middle school. And then our attendance liaison, we've had them for a long time now and they're really pretty impactful on helping students developing relationships with students and families. Uh up till now 16 and 18 have shared one. Uh but um with this budget, we're going to
019have one in each. Then the annexation with the W and skill district. So uh I just read the PL proclamation. So this is old news for almost everybody here, but in August uh our board and their board approved the feasibility study. We had multiple community forums and stakeholder meetings. The feasibility study showed that the the annexation would result in the positive benefits to both districts and communities and there was a vote on March 31st that passed. After the positive vote, uh we passed a resolution uh approving it and then we sent all that to SED and then you see that fifth bullet. Uh we're waiting final order of the commissioner. We got that today. So that's good news. We can update that slide for my uh you already did it. Uh and we anticipate it
020July 1st. So we don't have to say that is going to be the official start date. Uh the incentive as you know is 241 and I think I've said now um it's probably a little bit higher than that even now we've heard um it's great news for students, staff and community. It's actually outstanding news. Uh the future is bright. a 5x submission once there is really really going to be uh so great for uh mainly the students but for everybody involved because that uh July 1st 2027 there's a lot of work that we have to do we need to plan for a seamless integration that's um you know cover centralization students and staff but that's all the records all the data systems all the operations s there's a lot a lot of stuff that goes
021on all the contracts everything that's happening we met over there Mr. Styles and I met with the principal today, you know, just talking about u school day times, um special ed supports, who's doing the annual reviews next spring for the following year. Just there's so many little things involved that the 14 months seems like a long time, but we have a lot a lot a lot of stuff to do in that 14 months and uh looking forward to it. It's be it's going to be exciting work to do, but uh there's going to be a lot to do. Um, so, uh, we asked for a million dollars in this budget and thank you to the board for that. Uh, that'll help us do all that third bullet stuff. And then we also added a few
022things. So, we're going to add an instructional coach. Our, uh, buildings all have at least two instructional coaches at the elementary level. Um, and then three at the middle school. So, we're going to start that program and kind of phase it in over at Gardenner Dickinson this year to get ready. And then we talked last meeting about uh rebringing bringing back the co-e model which was so impactful for us uh with the co money a few years ago. Uh and we don't want to be hiring them all at once. So we're going to phase that in over the next few years. It is an evolving process. It is new and unique, something that no none of us have done before. Uh and so we also uh may be coming back with some additional positions as
023we figure out what is needed. capital reserve really more important than ever now. So remember, we have a lot of capital projects that happen around here. I just talked about the tech wing. That's phase five of that huge capital project, 56 million. Uh we have five phases to it. That's the final phase. We have the 40 plus million one that's out there uh that's currently going on as well. Uh all of them we do without impacting the taxpayers. And so we're gonna and there's two ways to do that. Transfer to capital, which we've done a couple times, or capital reserve, which we've done a couple times. So, uh, we talked to you about this during the budget development process, but the community will vote on just establishing that reserve. Um, and now that our aid
024ratio is going to be 98% for the next 10 years, it's it, you know, we have to do it. It's it's it's almost free money, right? Uh so it'll allow us to do um capital projects with no additional cost to taxpayers. We'll do it fund it up to $6 million over that 10 years. That $6 million because of the 98% uh aid ratio will allow us to do $300 million in capital projects and that'll be all of our buildings uh as well as uh the Garner Dickinson building. Uh and we really only have to get the the vote in within that 10 years to get the 98%. So, uh, right now the plan is to plan next year, get a vote in the fall of that first year of the merger of 27 and then
025do another one three or four years later vote and then another one right in that ninth or 10th year uh so that we can take advantage of that 98%. Again, really that means for every $100,000 we spend, we only have to come up with $2,000. is really unbelievable uh opportunity for us to have state-of-the-art buildings uh throughout our district. So, for this reserve, the uh public is just going to be voting on establishing that reserve. There's no there's no tax increase involved in it or anything. It's just establishing it and then we'll put aside uh any extra monies as they happen throughout the year. Uh I didn't even want to put that slide in, but you have to. Uh, so if the budget gets voted down, uh, you can put it up for a revote
026or adopt a contingency vote. Contingency budget, excuse me. If it gets voted down twice, you have to go to contingency. We've had contingencies here. If you've been on the board long enough, you remember them back in 0809, I believe it was, uh, and 910. I just, it's bad. It's bad for the district. It's, bad for any district. Uh, you you have to have a 0% tax levy increase, which we're already doing. But there's certain restrictions on things you can and cannot buy and things you can and cannot do. We would have to come up with a million dollars in reductions in our budget even though it's already zero because of the rules and restrictions on it. Uh certainly uh not interested in doing anything like that. So hopefully that's nothing we have to worry about.
027We are committed to continuing the positive trend of improved student performance, ensuring we meet the needs of all of our students. We could not be more excited about the future of Detroit School District. Again, only one exclamation point. There's our uh locations. Uh and we have a new system where we use the iPad. It's really really smooth. Assume that we'll have another smooth uh polling situation. 19 to vote questions. >> Do we as a district have influence on the language that goes into the voting ballot around the the establishment of the reserve? Do we write that or is that >> Well, we write it with our um bond council. Right. >> Right. It's uh it's somewhat >> standard language. It is somewhat general standard language because it's large and all-encompassing. >> Right. You know, some
028districts will say, you know, for a roof or something specific. Ours is much more general because they're large much larger projects. So, it has to >> And we want the flexibility. Exactly. >> I just want to make sure the general public understands it doesn't vote it down because it sounds expensive or like they just don't understand. John, along with the along with the businesses that you're planning to do, um, >> was it for the merger talk that we talked about putting something up on like the district page for people that couldn't make it >> the video? You mean? >> Yeah. So, last year we actually did the video for the budget. >> Okay. >> Uh, do that again. >> When remember we just made a made like a two-minute clip or something look >> sure
029Mr. would like to be involved in that. >> Yeah, we did that last year. >> I think it did help actually. >> All right. Nice job. >> Thank you. >> All right. Um motion on the floor for approval of minutes from April 21st, 2026. Second >> discussion. All those in favor? >> I >> opposed. Under superintendent recommendation, human resources staff matters unclassified and classified. Under classified motion on the floor for consent agenda items 1 through 7. >> Second. >> Discussion. All those in favor? >> I >> opposed. underclassified motion on the floor for consent agenda items one through four. >> Second >> discussion. All those in favor? >> Opposed? Under superintendent recommendations programs motion on the floor for consent agenda items 1 through six. >> Second. >> Discussion. All those in favor? >> I >>
030opposed. Under superintendent recommendations, business finance motion on the floor for consent agenda items one through four. >> Second >> discussion. All those in favor? >> I >> opposed. Under budget vote and election motion on the floor for approval of item one as listed. >> Second. >> Discussion. All those in favor? >> Opposed. Under board resolution. Motion on the floor for approval of item one as listed. >> Second. >> Discussion. All those in favor? >> Opposed? Okay. District announcements. All future board of ed meetings will take place here at the middle school at 6 p.m. On May 20th, we will meet to certify the budget vote and election. June 3rd, we will host our retirey and tenure staff recognition. And on June 17th, we will honor our Tri High School honors um through recognition here at
031our board meeting. Um from a budget perspective, we will start meeting with the we started meeting with the PTAs this week. So tomorrow we will meet with school 18's PTA at 6:00 p.m. On May 12th, we will meet with school 16 and the Troy Middle School PTO and Troy Booster Club. On the 13th, we will meet at school 14's PTO. And on May 14th, we will meet school 2's PTO. And then we will have the budget vote on May 19th. Our polls are open from 7:30 to 8:00 p.m. And then if any of the board members can make any of the presentations, that would be great. Under Troy Triumphs, um I just want to wish everyone a happy teacher appreciation week to all of our educators and everyone who touches our students. We sincerely appreciate
032you. A team of students from Troy Middle School comp competed against 15 other middle schools and the what's so cool about manufacturing contest for the first time this year and they came home with the award for outstanding creativity. The students created a video featuring Ross Valve Manufacturing based right here in Troy that showcases the company's work and the career opportunities available to young people. It's amazing. 16 Troy High School seniors recently earned the New York State Seal of Biiteracy after presenting capstone projects to world language educators in various languages such as Greek, Spanish, Mandarin to name a few. This recognition honors students proficient in English and another language. Kicking off our fouryear kicking off our year-end honors and awards. Troy High School has announced the valad Victorian will be Jerry Zho and our saludiatoran is
033Jackson Murray for the class of 2026. We are so proud of all they have accomplished their high school years and can't wait to see what the future holds. There are some exciting end ofear events coming up. School 14 will celebrate its annual multicultural night on May 19th. And then later this month, we'll honor the annual National Honor Society induction ceremony and junior awards night on May 21st and celebrate the class of 26, the class of 2026 at class night on May 27th. Our spring concerts are continuing across the district in the coming days with school 14 next up tomorrow night. School 16th will be on May 13th. Detroit Middle School on the 14th, Carol Hill on the 18th, and Troy High on the 19th with school two being the last one on the 20th. Does
034anyone have any other updates? Okay. Motion on the floor to agenda meeting. Adjourn the meeting. >> All those in favor? I >> have a good night. >> Thank you, everybody.