Board of Education Round Table 4/2/26

001like meeting order. We have six board members present stand of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation with liberty and justice for all. Moving right along. Moving to our budget development presentation. Again, the goal of this presentation is to assist the board in making decisions and fund balance while being within that tax cap. Um, raise awareness that we are trying to keep a level budget, but the trajectories you'll see tonight do indicate that in the future we're going to need reduction. our revenue is not increasing quick enough to solve the issues we have here. and look at the reductions that were made that went for low student impact to consider anything that was added if it is a real return on investment for the school and again to

002allow to do that for those who may be in the audience elsewhere and a little summary of some of the topics we talked about last time about 200 $450,000 that was saved from roles when you see some of our wedding numbers tonight um only a portion portion of our service there's kind of the problem what if you buy service you get the money back some of the money back and it's not a straight percentage we have declining enrollment and that also impacts our transportation and gains that means that the estimated combined wealth with taxpayers is spread over those lower enrollments and the state indicates that we should be able to pay a higher student share then also some of the same thing. Some of that 450,000 that we talked about can be used in regards

003school year for one time equipment purchases or some of the repairs that need to be done. Not all of it, but wise decisions. Your state budget is late. So at some point they will release that budget typically has some kind of compromise number in it. If we do see an increase in state aid, it will not create funding for addition in this budget. It will simply reduce the gap that we have. Here's our draft two number 26,784,000. The levy remains the same. This time I separated out state so people can see how much our local taxpayers pay and how much the state and federal government pay and then our other revenues come from miscellaneous reimbursements um and some of the smaller things are not captured in those other two areas that remains a 1.8 million

004deficit. Our increase at this point over the prior year is just about half a million which is a 2% increase over the prior year while the consumer price index 2.63 Some of our revenue was adjusted. As we continue to look at the numbers, get new information, seeing where we can safely increase the numbers. We now have a total increase of project of revenue of 309,000. But that two boxes at the top, a lot of people say, well, you got this much of your tax levy and you got this much of your foundation, which is 340,000, which is not the same as the number at the bottom. So some years things go up and down and it doesn't always mean that that amount we get in our tax levy in foundation a is an overall increase

005something else going down our financial stabilization goals over the last year and a half two years we've talked a lot about this we're working very hard to reduce the stabilizer spending within a three-year window that last year what helped us to have another threeear window was that $450,000 that was not spent on bill goals. So it would have been a shorter window but now it's a little longer because you save that funding. Um and our goal is to get that level so at some point we can put money in capital reserves and maintain other reserves at appropriate level especially that retirement reserve as we have more people reaching retirement. The prior year's deficit was 1.6 million. This year's deficit is 1.8 million. So the growth in our deficit is about 28,000. So three kind of

006different scenarios. Revenue growth is great. We like to see that you could have revenue growth and a deficit decrease. That's the best. You have revenue growth and a frozen deficit where it stays at 1.6 or you could have revenue growth and a deficit growth as well. And that is where we are still. So to kind of think about our budget in context here, let's pretend that we got the same amount of revenue growth from three years ago. Where would it end? If we were able to do that to keep a totally flat budget with the current rates of revenue, we'd be just under a million dollars. And that million dollars is our sort of on the paper flexibility. If we were able to do something like that, we would be in a much better position

007moving forward. How are we going to close our 1.8 million? It's very similar to last year. I talked about maxing out some of the reserves. The intention is not to use those reserves. We try to control the budget instead of less than we budgeted for so that we don't actually use them, but to close the budget on paper. We are maxing out our work comp. That's the maximum anticipated to spend our third party management on our work comp and unemployment. Our quarterly is 10,000 we could take and our ERS is 550,000. Those are the maximum amounts I could take because those are the maximum amounts we anticipate spending in the year. Below that is our TRS which is about 190,000. We want to take the least from that because our bill for TRS is really

008$950,000. If this reserve were higher, which we've done some efforts to build it over the last year, then we could appropriate 950,000. but it has not been built up and so it limited our choices in the past and our goal is to continue to build that so that is available to us in years that are difficult. We had currently in the 25 26 year about a million dollars of appropriated fund balance. It looks like our projections say that we will not touch that money. So we are anticipating rolling it forward to close this budget gap. The 40% allowable is now at 1 miles. What's driving cost? Usually the same things each year on this slide. Our commercial insurance went up 7%. Our pharmacy is 22%. Our biggest plan, the high margin 5%. BHP is 5.1%.

009TRS is actually lower than last year, but still a increase of 3 and 1/4%. and ERS went up again and 17.6%. Where do those numbers translate to? We told you on previous slide that our total increase in the budget if I go back is 518,000 the total increase over the prior year. Now we flip forward again and look at our cost drivers. We're anticipating spending at least 35,000 more that was budgeted in 2526 at the beginning. Our utilities, we were doing better on that, but now we have some global issues that are costly spikes and benefits 400,000. So in a budget that only increased half a million dollars. We had to decrease more than that to cover all the rents. There are still salary increases. There are still general cost increases. But these numbers alone

010cover in this budget. So how did we get this number down? Couple of things. We looked at optimizing grants coordinating the funding between the two. We offset some advisor siphons. We had a teacher on special assignment who was funded through our title grants. We have one and a quarter special education teachers who will be funded through our grants. would like to do a special education program review that will be run into grant and our special education department has agreed to run all of their materials, conferences and some other things from their grants making those budget numbers zero. We worked with our administrators to pair down the discretionary budgets. So there's some nice to have money in a budget and we really tried to whittle that down every year to get right size and to also

011make reductions. We were waiting for our April one number which was very helpful even as of last night when I saw that enrollment I was able to reduce this budget previous to last night we were drawing additional money from our fund balance but by that prek enrollment going up which you'll see on the future slide it mean it will be dropped $50,000 from this budget so we reduce contingencies throughout the budget. There are some areas that just need to be right sized and it's best to kind of do that incrementally. Make sure you don't overwork correct and then there are some areas that did have cuts. We reestimated the revenue as new patient came in and got some increases there to offset. Where did the reductions occur? We are removing one day of our late

012bus run. In addition to being a savings has actually been very challenging for our transportation department staff Friday runs and then the people who do take it are usually the same people and it's incurring all the time. There's kind of a dual impact there. We have seven or more clubs that will not be offered this year. Again, we went the least impact, those of the lowest participation clubs. Special education, they did some updating of their district placements as they received new information and doing their annual reviews. We were some contingency funds and again the department agreed to put all conferences and materials and some other things in that. We removed the batting page that was on the prior draft. Uh athletics agreed to reduce their general equipment. Software is going to be redirected at textbooks.

013So there are some aids that can be in student materials anyway. That can be interchanged. Library money has to stay in the library. That one is absolute. But textbooks, software, and hardware can move between the lines. the total amount we receive for those three categories. We can redirect that software money and text money because that's the area of higher need. So less optional textware less optional software will be purchased this year in the Bose instructional software guardian ed puzzle brain pop new and those are the instructional the administrative side we remove super software materials and contract services in facilities we got some good news about our cost lines we're going to get additional savings there and also received fee on that so I was able to lower worldwide even more. We're going to remove some

014trainings and make sure we're optimizing our use of our in-house health and safety person from those to deliver those trainings in technology. it turned out where I put up the numbers last year saying within one year the return on the OCP for IT management was because people with where we had been well ended up being even better than we expected more things were included in that bundle and in addition to that the service they're providing reduces our need for other services in that cont budget is showing a negative approach which is great business office we removed reimbursement. Truth be told, that company was not fun to work with. So, you go library programming reorganization. We are going to remove the suggested library support. We'll have to look work on what this actually looks like, but

015plan for now is to share between the two buildings. We're going to add some library automation to ease up some time for our librarian. And we can consider as we build the master schedule because we are building a budget when a full schedule has not yet been built to consider what we can do with coverage for assignments of the library on time. So netting that out we could add something to the budget to do this which is that library automation. We would have paid 1500 anyway in the in the software we were already using. We will receive about 3,000 in a in the following year. And then we reduced our cooperative library service books leaving a $600 increase in budget. This slide is the same as it was on the last slideshow. There was a

016financial mandate in New York. We did already offer some things and we did already have half of a math teacher that was unfilled in this position. We still needed to hire that half and we essentially added another half because of that molded area. really need some math academic intervention services and use our six assignments that had previously been other reductions or increases. This unified sports is new to this budget. Although we did have unified sports in 2526 at the time of budget last year, it was not included. We just kind of resort that and we're expanding a little bit. So the estimate on that with travel materials officials and the nursing required of some students is about 5,000 5,500 range. Break room equipment is fill in this budget. Um they have to be inspected and

017certified each year and this one is in danger of not being safe or being not safe anymore. The batting page has been removed. So soccer remains in this budget. This is where we're offsetting the software textbook issue. So BES BES needs to renew their literacy curriculum. Their funding in that line if I split the textbooks in half was about 14 or 15,000. So if we move that software over, we can cover some of the difference um and get this covered for our regular aues. We have five students who are continuing in STEM high school. And another issue we talked about a lot in the 2536 planning was CT visions. Anybody who has applied to those programs and been accepted is anticipated to go into distance learning was also a topic of discussion in our 256

018budgeting. We didn't know where that would land but at this point the total impact to the budget is only 27,000. So it cost for that bill component of our service was 87,000. The return on reimbursement that I just filed for was about 60,000. Unknowns in this budget are our unsettled contracts. Here is our current or almost current current as of yesterday morning I guess 24. So this is the year where the aid increases 10,000 per student and we ended up with $240,000 worth of funding. So of course my budget numbers there are a scenario. It assumes teachers at a certain step or it assumes the maximum we can enter a TA and put up an advertisement that job assumes they're all taking a family medical some not. Um these numbers do bank on some assumptions

019but if you look below that the reason we are not continuing with posties is because with this new funding mechanism it no longer makes sense financially to do so. So if we had two prek sections and 24 students we would still be able to get um $10,000 for each of those 24 students. The total bottom line would be about 150,000. We worked diligently to get community regarding food this year and thank the community for responding to that in a timely fashion. It's important for for the board to have the information hand in terms of numbers to budget for it. We're currently at 25 students right now. So that's going to allow the board to make some informed decisions regarding continuing two sections versus considering a reduction like last year. And as I go able to

020continue that program, as you probably point out, the aid has changed quite a bit. It's $10,000 per student and we're also able to claim all those students ourselves if they're in house program. So would have to purchase some things to make that happen, including curriculum, um the technology in the classroom, desks, chairs for students. But those are things that once we purchase them, they'll their hours will us to keep those for the program. We have the space there already. Um we have to work with the uh the BTA in terms of um you know contracts and you know opportunities for those teachers whether they stay west or apply here some other things going on behind the scenes. Big piece is financially it makes sense for us to to move in house for this program. So,

021one of the misconceptions that I took a little time to demonstrate up here is last year there was discussion around what TPK meant, whether or not it ties apply to is not money that comes to us. So, we have the regular prek, which is the 194,000. Then, we have the subsidized TPK, which is that 94,000. Whenever we picked up that TPK that disallows us from claiming any of our own aid against those students and so in this scenario half of those students were claimed by Boseies and half of them claimed by us and then our bottom line was wrong. So the situation there why TPK was cut first last year is because of the impact they received no funding for students who are enrolled under the TPK grant. >> I would also have this is

022an opportunity for us something to do with reduce operating costs. This is an opportunity to provide the same service to our students at a much more efficient cost to our students as well. So, we're looking at all these opportunities in terms of what else we can do to reduce cost without reducing staffing at this point. >> Put a couple of other scenarios or I built them while we were watching the TK prek enrollment go up. I thought I'd leave a couple on there just to kind of show taxpayer impact with the new funding. One full class is 18. You can't go over 18. We need one teacher, one TA to do that. Um, if we have one completely full class, the impact to taxpayers will only be $5,000. Is when a class does not get

023filled that we then can't collect about 80 students. That makes it more expensive. There's another scenario. This current year, right now, we have 28 students enrolled. So if the same conditions apply this year as will apply in 26.7 this is what our previous slide showed you about $110,000 impact taxpayers if we get more kids enrolled it can drop us more money in our budget I mentioned we would need to make some investments locally I had our head maintenance mechanic go and count the furniture look at what was in there and give you details and then I went on school specialty and some of the other popular purchasing sites to get an idea of what it would cost to replace. So we have hardwood chairs, maple chairs if they're not I go and buy the cheapest

024equipment to make a nice number up there and that's about $20,000. Of course we might get you know something that's more or less what we actually purchasing but somewhere in the $100,000 range. do not yet have an answer about what we're doing. We would select some are free, some may be part of other like software that we already use and the prek students could also use. We're exploring that a bit still other prek considerations. When we bring it in house, there is a requirement that we spend 10% with a community based organization. That could be a Boseies. It could be a not for profofit. It could be a local daycare or free. We are not required to be file a waiver. If they accept the waiver, which there's a very high likelihood considering the number

025of days in our district, which is at best maybe one that I know of, um most likely we'll get a waiver in that. Another costs that are not counted or not calculated in that spread I showed you are if we provide professional development somebody goes to conference if teachers are sick and they do substitute those numbers are not included but there's a lot that we actually already cover for the low prek the daily supervision the class space the custodial for those rooms art gym music library lunch all the operation of the plan is already provided Oh, we've had a survey out as you may know about our capital project go and one of the results of that was a lot of uh commentary about what the school could do to help stabilize our crime. So,

026this budget, this is where we need some feedback from the board, suggests and includes one full-time grounds keeper or some similar uh type of position. That's what I'm calling out on the slide. We would under this scenario we're about to present. We would still purchase the plow truck that was already approved by voters for the current 2526 budget. We would or could purchase a mower, trimmer, some vent track attachments. Prices of those will be included on the future slide here. We would bring inhouse mowing athletic field care. It would help us um by having a flex schedule for that employee. If they were hired, they'd be hired under that condition. When I spoke to the custodians over the last several weeks, we had a difficult time filling subs. They're doing overtime. They're trying to fulfill

027two jobs in one shift. So, that would be a use to them as well to be able to say, "You don't need to vote today, but you do need to you can go tomorrow." Having that flexibility with someone in house. Here are some of the expenses that would allow us to fully service the athletic fields. This past year in 2042 25, that's the full income fiscal year, the service that we performed on the athletic fields was 8,000 and change. That was not considered the full service. When we look back in time to the most recent contract that the district held with a full service, it was 15,000. I imagine there would be some price escalation from years that have passed. We're suggesting that we make an upfront $15,000 purchase and perhaps do it in this

028school year and knock that out of our current budget and save that money as well. And we would purchase these three attachments, the airator, the spreader, and the other notes about how we will take care of the athletic fields if the scenario. We have already purchased some parts for our water cannon. It does need to be serviced still. So we have that anticipated to be fully functional this spring mowing. So our equipment estimate upfront cost is about 28,000. That is a zeroturn mower 72 in a trimmer and a trailer. I did ask why do we need a trailer? We have on our asset list. And so Darl explained to me and invited me to see the trailer. It was a 1998 trailer. has issues with his brake, rusting, wiring issues. It's kind of rickety. You

029get to that point. Sometimes with a car, you're like, that doesn't really feel safe, but past inspection, so we're going to keep going. That's kind of the situation with the trip. So, he is suggesting that we need to replace it anyway. Let's do it now and set it up to where will we keep the stuff? Well, if they're mowing between buildings and they need to stop because it's raining or something, we don't want to load it back on the trailer to bring it back to the old garage. We do have some room. Earlier this year, the maintenance staff and I tored all of our out buildings. So, we have some room in the garage and in the green comics box out here in the field to put the not included in this price is the

030year toear cost that would be associated with fuels and repairs and service. So, why would you suggest this? So, looking at the numbers making some assumptions about the title that is selected and what the payments might be. It leads us taking that service amount up there that nearly $70,000 counting not only the salary but the T the ERS and the FICA what it leaves us with is the medical insurance would be an impact to 267 budget. >> Can I comment quickly? So this is year year over year we're spending 40,000 mowing 20,000 plowing almost 9,000 film every year annually. So if we add we add the grounds keeper we we purchase these items obviously purchase mostly onetime purchases we're talking about investment something that's going to Europe you're eventually savings versus spending on outside vendors

031every year bring this in house by investing in these items bring in so we're adding things we're really adding things in order to bring efficiencies to save the district money bring in house does require more manpower does require investing in in materials to have them and also storage of materials as well this is another area where we can reduce operating costs in the long term short-term purchase long-term saving money for the district and bring things in house and also have a greater oversight in terms of how things are done when people come in here and do work here frankly knows our staff we'll be able to you know have greater autonomy to be able to make sure it's on the way we need to have the work done as well. So that's why these additions

032it looks like addition is really in our minds not really additions in the long term in terms of what we're thinking here. >> Yeah, there will be a further offset. just not a number that's easy to calculate if that person is doing some overtime they're able to have that also we've talked a lot about the many items on condition which pieces could be done in house be able to tackle more of them with an additional person some flexibility >> coming also the board of last year before I was here the board also had approved the plan for plowing um in house we did change course uh some different scenarios this year that occurred that the plan was house previously. So that that's something we want to pick up with the with the budget there and

033then also adding in the the other things mentioned there to meet the fields. >> We also have a retirement so we will be hiring a director of facilities. This role the civil service role description is presumably more involved in the day-to-day maintenance and less administration. So my office has taken over a lot of the paperwork and the processing and even the ordering and purchasing and that person could be more actively involved in repairs. So with that in mind, not knowing what that looks like because this is kind of a new definition to this role for us, I would suggest that we include the groundskeeper in the budget and maybe wait to hire that person to kind of see what the offset in work and the productivity is with the director of facilities on board. if

034we purchase if we um hire a grounds keeper up front of course we'll be able to tackle these things sooner but I have spoken to Daryl and he is definitely on board for doing the fields and we'll see what we can get into everybody else's schedule as we hire this ro see what it looks like >> so the community is aware we have interviews later this month for the position I I also think it's important that when that person gets the position they have um you know look at things and be able to have say in ter terms of the how the department is run and hiring there. There's also a secondary position with people who left maybe in a position that's not filled. That's something that looking at right now. Um you know it's

035important that there's support for facilities director who we may think about some ideas for looking at other ways to support that outside possibly hire that person. So that's a determined as well in the budget but something that look at as well in terms of all of our administrative support as well. whose budget includes a halfway as it did last year. That's part of the financial plan to get the school back on target with its annual repairs $100,000 maximum project that receives full building aid each year. What we are proposing is that we remove the damaged middle school high school lockers lockers mechanisms that don't work. They don't close all that. uh we would only replace what current enrollment and then of course there would be some speckling and painting to first of all prep the

036space but also to clean up the space where lockers are not being replaced. We are also suggesting that the middle school auditorium doors be address locking mechanisms are broken currently. So we would either replace or repair. We're under discussions about what is the best investment? What is the best return on our aid under that scenario? An alternate consideration is water fountains. So replacing some of our bubblers with two more bottle fillers. And what an alternate means because I know this has come up in the history of it means if money remains in this $100,000 budget after accomplishing the other two higher priorities, then the money will be spent. It's not a guarantee that those done. It's if money remains to become the alternate and you have to put that in there because when this goes

037on my budget hearing only the things that are covered by the scope of the project can even be fixed. You cannot fix something at the other end of the building. You can't fix something in BS. We can only cover what has been presented to the public in the scope of the project. And that is why you would add an alter. >> To to be clear, the locker piece, just so community is aware, the board's aware as well there. the lockers in the middle school wing in the front of the building. Those have been replaced right in previous capital project. They're very nice and in good shape growing up along district offices all all new. Um that's not that's not being touched unless something broken or whatever. But the back hallway the lockers the old blue

038lockers in the back of the building those lockers the ones that there's 300 lock we totally go from back of the building all the way back this way 400. So, we're looking at the rotal enrollment and and um you know only preparing or placing the ones that need replacement. It would be a full replacement based on the budget that we have on $1,000 to fit that in there. But we already covered this somewhat tell you why why would I add something to the budget when we're in a position I told you that we need to start thinking long term about how we're going to address this. So, it's part of our sustainability plan when as we let things go, they continue to get worse um and turn into bigger problems, more expensive problems. It helps

039us as we address more of the things in our buildings and grounds department make our budget more predictable because as things occur, if we're not being doing preventative maintenance, doing replacements, they will pop up whenever they decide to pop up. And that makes us have uneven financial impacts in our budget and looking year to year and trying to plan what happens. We have a recent community survey as I already said that overwhelmingly indicates there is an expectation for this district to improve in this area. We are building trust within the department and the school community. Uh there may be some things in the past year and a half, two years that we have addressed and the public might know not know that we are working toward improvement. So I'll show you some of those in

040a moment. Um, in the last two weeks I've gone around and spoken to many of the custodial staff, all the custodial staff and staff multiple times. And there really is a true willingness and desire to do the work and see the improvement in these facilities. They have great ideas. They point out things that are small. Some of them might take care of right now. Some of them might require some planning, but they do care about our facilities. They want to do work. Last year, here are some of the things we accomplished. We did an electrical upgrade to the IT closets. We installed happy oven that had been uninstalled for some time. We repaired the debunk security systems in both buildings. We flushed and returned the bubblers to service that had been out of service occurred.

041We did water testing on those to make sure they're safe, which they are. Uh we did repaving out here in the front of the high school. We added black down blackout curtains to all of the bathroom doors in both buildings. We did the emergency asbestous project. It wasn't a choice. It popped up. It was emergency project, but we came in under budget. And because we came in under budget, we were able to add something which was the insulation around the piping and crawl space, which was projected to have a long-term savings for us. They also suggested lights. I said no to that because that does not return on investment like the insulation. In 25 26 our efforts are as follows. You see the ones that are in black those are the things that are basically

042done or done and the ones in green are in progress or there's something that needs to be finished. We have done a cooperative for electric and mostly telephone services. That telephone service was a very wise investment. It includes a five-year replacement, full maintenance, full service, plus we will pay the same amount for the actual telephone service but receive 40% back. So in addition to having a replacement plan totally taken care of for the same exact cost or less. Uh we reduced our uh garbage prices quite a bit. We have some staff efficiency. Before we had a staff member transferring the garbage from one location to another and having garbage picked up at that location entirely. And now we get it all for a flat rate at each building. Plus recycling. We replaced the 44 broken

043slates on elementary school. We added eear preventive maintenance tracking software. So we had them come in and go around to all the major systems. Took pictures, wrote down serial numbers. And what we can now do with that is set a calendar date that reoccurs to remind our maint generate a ticket to go inspect the roof or go perform service on the boiler and that will be automated so it's not >> can I just mention the word broken 44 tiles were replaced were not broken or missing tiles actually was on the roof two days ago and there are I would say in the hundreds of broken tiles up there that are cracked have holes in them. Um, just to be clear, in terms of conditions, those were tiles that were completely missing from the roof that

044they they put new tiles on. There is a lot of damage in terms of of tiles that have um thinned out and are are just in not good shape, but right now there's nothing missing that we can see up there right now, which is which is good. >> There is new fencing installed in the playground area of unfortunately. incident that's in >> that's something too I just want to comment the fence yes fence broken that's waiting for new facilities director in place and we're we're looking to get that fence repaired also relocated back to the back of the parking lot as well so that's in the works insurance >> that was due to a private citizen who hit defense after he was placed Other things we are working on in house of beginning efforts to

045clean out all of those storage spaces and consolidate what we have in them. One of the benefits there is if we consolidate and remove the things that are not in use from the trailer at BDS, we'll be able to reduce our electric bill by $9,000. We plan to create more inventory in our housing space which will help us improve our purchasing practices. do some inventory tracking so we're purchasing in enough time for it to arrive and on hand for our staff members and to seek operational efficiencies. We are going to complete the service needed to get that candidate fully repaired although we have already invested some parts to get that going. We are going to repair a more recent popup issue with the buses over here. We are already have issued the PO which to

046fully take apart the Jim partition and have it repaired and we have amended our smart schools bond act for high priority need. previously that had those telephones in it, but because those were pulled out, we not only led to year-to-year savings and full replacement of our phones and we then reallocated that money to address the security systems and door access controls difficulty with this. Those will be fixed under our smart bond act as well. >> This is uniform. So, how history of how the district got here. A lot of it had to do with COVID times and grant funding and the way that those were coordinated general. And so that led to very large increases in that year, those seven years with the red box around then we have the interims arrived and then I

047arrived and we're starting to decrease the budget. And this is a closer look at that span of time. There are your co years. what was occurring in this district and here are the last three years with that last year being the current projection for this year. We've done a lot to manage cost. Some of it has um is just advantageous of filling those roles being unfilled help us make this flat line and we do expect that that to then ramp up again because those roles are not filled. Plus, we have normal cost escalation. That line probably will not stay flat in the coming school year. That means the follow the next school year, we are going to have to take more actions to get it back in line. So, in order to make the current

048budget or budget we're presenting tonight, the 2627 budget possible, you really need to plan two years in advance. What we did in June of 2025 was a plan to address a budget gap that we knew would grow. And had we not done that, we would not be able to close the current budget without taking off funding. That's just to let people know when I say that this spike is coming in the following budget planning year. We need to plan now for how we want to address it two years from now. So how did we do that? Part of it was the drawing down of the RS funds that the board was approved for us to use in the 2425 budget and we took that um to prepare for that budget gap. We dropped some of

049that into fund balance should we need to pick it up and in the previous draft of the budget we would have needed to pick up a considerable amount of that. Fortunately, we brought the budget number down and we no longer will need to pick up extra. result of that million in funds that moving forward. We were able to take some of those ERS funds and then fund that TRS sub fund I was talking about before. We really want to get that up to the $950,000 range because imagine if we could use that to close the gap in the year where it's needed. To be clear, the plan is to not use the reserves and get on a plan where we don't ever use them to close a budget gap. But in this transitional time, it

050allows us more flexibility for how we do that. uh we move funds into eval that is our employee benefit approved liability that's the payouts that occur when someone leaves for any reason sick time vacation leave or some of the contractual payouts so currently it is funded to cover maybe six retirements seven retirements that we know will occur in the next year it does not include all retirements so if we have that flexibility again this year it would be good to add the money 2% max of TRS as well as some money into that value. Here's the question the board needs to think about. I'm giving us feedback on our presentation on April 21st. We do need to adopt a budget number and a funding scenario. So, what action could we take in developing the next

051budget? If we are saying we're going to float this another year to continue to correct action, then we really need to be thinking ahead about what will occur in the 2728 school year plan. So to sort of put the choices of this budget in perspective, the amount of reserves and funds are suggesting to close the gap is about 7% of the proposed budget and that's 1.7 times the amount of allowable unappropriate fun. which is still a large gap. So obviously if we were to continue to do that and draw down as we did in 2526 to even make this budget possible, it would be an unsustainable thinking about how we will address that. It's not just one year. This has been multiple years now and so reserves will not be multi-year reoccurring problems. Each year

052is our goal to improve upon what we did the year before to lead to sustainability. Align the budget to our actual expenses. There's still some more work to do there and to have a schoolwide effort. Even if we put up this budget number, it does not mean we should spend it. We should still control spending for savings. Is it a good return on investment to spend money while we're spending it? The final piece of that puzzle is if we do fill up this budget, I talked about that three-year window. One of our largest reserves, the reserves, holds approximately three years of value. We drew down on it in the prior year. So, we drew down three more years, it would be gone. And we don't have the ability to maximize the other funds. The work

053rates comp,000. That's not going to do it. So we draw three years on ERS that puts us in is that final piece of our budget is our annual bus proposition which I do like to clarify is not a budgetary impact cause we have new debt coming on debt coming off the fiveear cycle with funding of a bus and if you look at last year's proposition the number that went up was 350,000 this year is 355,000 so we'll continue our existing fleet replacement plan. They will bring buses do bring in some scrap money. We have get quite a bit of that money with budget. You can auction the vehicles if they're in good shape. But in our future, again, something we need to be thinking about is the electric bus mandate. We are purchasing diesel buses

054to be clear in 26 27. We can apply and will apply for a two-year waiver which will bring us safely to 2029. We don't know what will happen uh in that in inter room. Hopefully they changed some of the laws around that. But we do have to it is not acceptable to not plan. We also have to start thinking if this remains the expectation what will do. Um one of the choices could be to remain diesel but that means that we'll be funding it entirely locally on taxpayers. Can >> I comment on the electric busy? So last week in the state senate they there was a effort trying to fully repeal the electric bus mandate and that was rejected. So we do have a waiver. Um last summer I had submitted it with Janette and

055that waiver said basically that we're still exploring our options and looking at our you know community and infrastructure here. I don't know how long the waivers will still go for. To be clear that by 2027 is when transition is expected to begin for districts start to begin to bring in electric buses. This is not something right now as an option for us. It's a mandate from the state at this point which my understanding if we don't follow it will bring consequences in other areas financially in terms of aid that could penalize us for. Um this is this is a very challenging situation especially given our geography and what we believe the community's wishes are to this and we certainly put out more service to that but I surmise right now the community largely is probably

056not looking for electric buses for a lot of variety of reasons. Uh but I do want to be clear this is not something that we're exploring it is because the board is directing it or asking to do so. It's something right now that we have to explore in event that the state holds firm on this mandate 2027. We have no option otherwise we will be likely financially penalized for not doing what we're supposed to be doing. Um there is a requirement for the full fleet to be transitioned by 2035. So it's initiating 2027 and fully transition every single bus by 2035. Um I've spoken with a lot of area other schools about the Bay Area Questar elsewhere couple schools do have them. I won't name names um through grants and I'll say that in the

057Questar region it's it's not favorable in terms of what they're seeing right now in terms of building the buses to complete the runs. Uh the cost to charge them the technology is really not quite up to par yet. Um I do know that the capita seats of those districts are much more favorable. they they've been very happy with them, but they're bunch different districts geographically. Um, so it's just something right now we have to keep thinking about. I want the community to know that as we're thinking about it, we're not thinking about it because it's something that's coming from from my desk or the board right now that we're saying is something that we want. It's something that right now we have to at least be looking at and considering. But again, last week this

058being turned rejected right now is is big news in terms of the direction the governor is still going with with the mandate. So all these things are in here to try to help the board and the public to see a full financial picture of where the school's at, where it is going, and what we need to do in that year. So larger buses not happening today, not happening tomorrow, might not happen next year, but it has to be part of the whole solution when we're thinking about what could come. Many of the surveys said that we have to be more proactive, less reactive, and that's part of the might never come. We hope they change the reg. We have two open board seats. If you would like to pay attition up there, you can contact

059her. The deadline for nominations is Monday, April 20th. And if you'd like any more information on running board, you can go to website. Which leads us to that April 21st date. This is a time if the board has feedback for administration. We would like to hear that and any adjustments we have to make by April. But if there were significant adjustments, we might have to have another board meeting. If there are minor adjustments, I might be able to work within the flexibility of the numbers to get that. >> I have to make a few comments before board comments just so we have all the information. I want to emphasize, thank you, Colleen, for putting this PowerPoint together, a lot of hours for this and a lot of time just fine tuning things. Um, going back

060to I said earlier, reducing operational costs. We have to begin looking at how to reduce operational costs. Um, this year the board's committed to not not uh cutting teachers and staff. I think that's commendable and I think that's something that we want to continue to do is provide the best education possible to our students and retain the staff that we have. That's going to become very challenging as Kelly pointed out given the potential outlook on things. Um there are some things um that we have to look at. For example, right now one thing is why is our cost per pupil so high? We're the highest in the area when it comes to expenditure is $37,000 student. Um maybe that's okay, maybe it's not, but we have to look into that in terms of why our

061number one in the area local schools. Our cost for people for special education is number two in the area. Why is that working? Is it not working? That's not going to happen this second, but there is a review that we're going to be doing looking at these things and saying, is this working for our students right now? Are we providing the best education possible given what we're spending? So there are some things we have to definitely look at in terms of the long term reducing operational costs things this year that colle have looking at and just to highlight again you mentioned here areability of the grounds energy uh instructional software clubs extracurriculars field trips some curricular work master scheduling efficiencies eliminating six sections unless absolutely necessary department supplies um technology software programs even programs affected

062office like super super Now for administrators, we're not using it anymore. We don't have to pay because we have to. We can't afford to program right now. It's just it's something that's frivolous given right now our budgetary circumstances. So teachers are impacted by this. We say administrators are impacted by this. Division offices impacted by this. We're all making sacrifice to try to reduce our cost. Transportation the big one we should mention as well. There's other areas I'm missing here, but we just continue to look at what can we produce other than teachers right now to make this budget um yeah come down. Kelly mentioned also the governor's budget's late. It's the seventh year in a row that's late. We are, you know, right now hopeful the 1% that we're slated to get will increase, but

063it's not going to be, you know, probably anything that's going to be a major change, but any any increase now is better than the 1% that we're slated to get now from from New York State for $88,000, which is not a whole lot. Um, infrastructure is a huge concern. I just want to point out recent things and be very transparent with the community following the project. Um, we had a vote, sorry, we had the survey went out. Thank you to the community filling that out. Something that we will be looking at and discussing more after the budget. Um, but we do we do have some recent things like water right now coming in under school in the basement. Um, actively looking in. We have also a sinkhole in the parking lot. The board did not

064include the parking lot in the project that was proposed. However, something is on our fiveyear building survey as a concern. In fact, the sink hole did appear in many parties. is also suggesting that that parking lot that needs to be attended to very seriously. So we have some big time infrastructure needs here and that we have to maintain right now in the short term and considered as well. The library librarian as well we don't have a library this year elementary school plan is to add a library to have have them there. We won't be full-time. We will look at community based partners to continue to back fill some of that and hopefully have five there and then have library services there as well. the addition of the math teacher is, you know, adding a teacher

065is difficult, but we do have a mandate to meet there as well as um needs of our students based on the data that we have for MTSS data and where students are struggling in middle school. So, that's going to support that as well. So, there's a lot going on right now, but I just want the community and the board to know that really what Colleen has been looking at and we've been talking about a lot is just where can we reduce our costs, where be more efficient, where can we, you know, help to long-term create more sustainability. We have a lot more work to do in the coming years. Um, so it's just areas to to look at where else we can we can save money by way of but in terms of the the

066state right now I'm not all optimistic we're get much more than maybe the 8,000 we're getting maybe a little bit more to close that gap >> questions I guess for us >> I'm curious community would be curious to hear the clubs that are potentially being on those are >> yeah speak to that. >> Yeah. And exactly what I said lastly important. The decision to reduce clubs attend looking at the impact on students. For example, clubs that have the highest enrollment are the ones that are not going to be touching. ones that are being uh kind of ones that have the lowest enrollment um looking at that in terms of impact on students obviously. So just be a great thought about that. Dave working with the teaching staff as well and we actually came to the

067middle school faculty presentation today just talked back a little bit. So we will get more information from the board as well once final decisions are made. Recognize that's a hard one especially when it comes to students that have access to certain programs but they can be brought back in the future and that's not something that's permanent. Um just trying to prioritize. >> Any other questions? >> I have a few questions. Um so in your slide about the grant funding for um offset advisor mentor, one teacher, that whole slide. Um, how much money is that grant? Is all of that together? I would have to look at it. I wouldn't want to know that,000. >> So that's I mean I was trying to find and just like the the revenue source there's a number in that.

068>> I did not put that one. >> Okay. It's under everybody it's under a million dollars because otherwise you want a different type of audit. So >> okay I think it's it's near that but not and you have to apply every year for these grants. >> Yeah. So these are allocations they're not competitive grants. They are state assessments and allocation. We get that money once we apply for it. Um but you always have to keep what was not done in this district or not done well was looking at the coordination of that. If those staff members are sitting in grant budgets and that might let it down and we have seen some reductions, especially in the IPA grant, then something funding needs to come back in. We also had some restrictions placed upon us. We

069had title one review this year where they questioned what we had some funding through it and we have a portion of our funds that need to be set to address local issues. So those made us draw things back out and you have to be very careful about that coordination. So you're not depending so heavily on those grants that you can't we lost the reant. It would be advisor stipens but it would be no direct to our core instruction. Those are the type of things that you can put in response. >> Um you mentioned the CTE new vision students and do you know how many have been accepted for Savannah has a list which has not been public I don't yet have the number and that's a rolling fiveear average the cost on that. So we

070already have our budget number for this year. That is our budget number. If we have more students, if that is a growing population, then the future rolling average for that. >> When when are we going to know how many students first find out then too or that's when it goes to students and um for the prek program um what happens if we have right now we have 25 kids what happens if in October two drop out we still get the 10 grand so there's beds day in October's day is the day in which we report our enrollment to the state the number of students enrolled on beds day locks in our funding for that we have another cap that occurs in March and if there is a higher number of student then we'll also those

071students but it will go down Wednesday um and for the lawn all the lawn equipment I'm trying to find the slide for that one um the ventra attachments do they attach to the mower so we have the ventra machine that was purchased so years ago before my time that we currently use for brushing parts parking lot. It has a plow on it. Um brush hog attachment already have a little red tractor if you ever seen it. >> All right. There's many many attentions available for it. >> Okay. So, um I'm not sure how big the airator is, but I actually think about refurbishing the home that I used for my business and selling it and I would donate to the school to that particular part is a proprietary product. So, I'm not sure whether it's

072stand on it. So, that's an entire unit. So, it's not use the bench track at all for but just see what it is that we're proposing and welcome suggestions >> and I don't know um why we have to spend $3500 a cater like maybe that's just to save an hour of time to for employee or something but you know you can give walk 20 feet you know you can cover a field within in probably 20 minutes if you walk fast. I mean, it's just like it may not be worth it to buy a seed. I don't know. Just depends on how much you're trying to see. You're just trying to see the athletic fields and maybe that cost that this year. >> I think that's a special Thanksgiving. >> It is. I don't offer a

073lot of other >> just have to make sure the stuff is basically ready to run. I have a little tiny ones at home for the bigger ones broadcast. They don't just go also think about how often you see right al weekly as well. >> Hight traffic lawns you you actually you're willing you have the budget for the seat which is very expensive. We might not have the budget for getting seed, but for hight traffic lawns like around gold posts and things like that. Um, Cornell recommends that you actually seed a lot like very often, but that also wouldn't require a machine because it's just certain areas on a field that have the most damage that you know the center and the goals. So, >> another area too. So director we get some feedback on once

074they're in place and see what what times take the staff to do it and once we know whether something that's working or not working >> just hold off until one of my slides says that the suggestion would be that we save the money we would otherwise invest and purchase at least it some of that $450,000 we saved a one time equipment or purchases and that's where that money would come from and that would al because we can actually use it in this year it's allowable to fund it otherwise we have to go in next budget but we could certainly if amenable to purchasing the most important piece leaving that year out we would have all this spring and summer to see how it goes and then know whether we can purchase um the medical insurance

075that would increase the budget for a new groundkeeper. Do you have an idea how much that would be? So the family plan if you look back to the previous slide I included sort of the maximum impact plan there,000 Three more. >> Yes. Um, capital. Um, could we um when we remove some of these lockers, can we scrap that? Absolutely. Scrap any kind of metal that we can great job. Let me know when something is val. So when you said you're thinking about replacing for current enrollment which is right now 225 students would you um replace more than that? probably a little more than that just have you with with enrollment transition we have a little bit of buffer there in case you have increases but we don't we also need exact numbers uh I think

076first the priority first the doors and right now looking at the doors in terms of whe the frames are replaced whether we do full door placement fire rating or just do the hardware some option there and once the doors are two four six eight nine foil doors once these are budgeted for then we'll get the remaining budget um and how many lockers would be able to potentially do, but we definitely need a little bit of a buffer above what current transition. I don't know if that come anywhere. >> Could you keep old walkers and just replace whatever you have the budget for or whatever kind of makes sense based on the section the lockers take up or >> something's going to be the architect. We already walked halls the other day with them, but they're

077going to give us recommendations in terms of on that piece even which ones we take out. Exactly. But likely we'll leave just leaving those in place as it's >> um >> that's something we can certainly come back to the board with feedback once we get a little further along with that. >> Yeah. Um you in the last meeting you said that the door cost like 48,000 or something. >> Yeah. We had we had a cool and then we had a different quote. It's in the 40s right now is where it looks, but there's some the piece that came today was surprise was potential. We want to do it right rightly to make the door be completely firated. But now there's potential that the whole frame may not positive may have to also include which is

078going to significantly change the budget. So we're back now to talking about maybe just leaving the doors we have and focusing on the hardware so that the safety component of locking the doors which is the main concern that we had is back. Right now none of the hardware works those doors anywhere. that would keep the keep it much more within the budget that we're talking about. So there's still some decisions that have to be made. How many though at this point needed to put this in in there forward to for adoption for the 21st and then ultimately for the community while these decisions are still made. >> I think these two side doors too long. I think it was just these these doors of the problem. >> We told all the Yeah. Everyone needs to

079replace it would not replace doors if they didn't need to be. So they were telling you that even the metal frames will have to get replaced too >> if they're going to be fire rated the frame have to be replaced as well because of the latest information that we have. It would just be buying fire rated doors are much more expensive but now there's another added cost with those frames if that's the case and probably that's the case and the frames have to be replaced we probably won't do brand new doors because it's just not going to be able to do it. >> Yeah. Um, and in terms of the water fountains, um, you mentioned in the email that you had might actually have one of the water fountains. >> We did talk about when

080we turned the bubblers back on and flush the tales, but not positive on that. So, there is obviously we'll just do the installation and then purchase one additional to make that happen. Teacher feedback was this found and they don't didn't believe there was even a filter on it and they didn't think it was safe to drink. So if it is safe to drink then we had that test done it twice fully incorrectly. So we had it done again. And so we know for sure now himself and walked around a participant in that he's the quest health and safety head of that department. So they've all been tested. They've been marked unfoldable if they are unfoldable and that's why the bathrooms have bathroom sinks out there have the sign then the water fountains which are right

081on their side of the wall there's some free education we can do that yeah um and also um this state told me that class of 2020 donated their leftover funds of $1,200 to purchasing water fountains from high school >> yeah so that's not something to my knowledge to explore. >> Yeah. >> Right. I mean, if that is the case, we should try to do it some kind of sign or something. >> Yeah. Just I think that was it for my notes. Anybody else? I don't know if that's also something with the budget once the doors are budgeted for and then the lockers then also architects aware of that that's something that >> we'll provide more information once we get numbers >> I just had a question about um the prek I know that the deadline

082has passed you anticipate more people enrolling because it feels like that 25 is kind of a low number I know that it's we're getting 10,000 the student. But >> yeah, the statuto and also that number seats remain. Yes, we'll be able to also build those seats. Do you feel like there'll be more people coming forward? years. The year before we had started 23. So we had 28 back in someone else. There's still three remaining. Um 24 was the target number that we felt comfortable. I feel recation board that this is now all week watching this and we're working hard to get communications out. Rachel was very helpful with that to the community. But the towns also the towns are also putting things on their Facebook pages and and whatnot. they want to leverage more of

083those town pages especially without newspaper but uh right now with 25 I don't recommendation the numbers that it makes sense if you went dropped down below 24 it was it was a little more questionable but again this year to year can fluctuate the fact there's 28 packs out there still could be few more out there and I put a letter out to the community just thank them for getting information to us a lot of parents understandably wait until summertime I think until you know they want to register wait what they don't understand sometimes is up for the budget schools need to have information now the budget for it so today the letter went out I went out to the community just basically saying there's you know right now we have numbers which is going to

084help the board make a decision and that we still do have space we will still accept the registration quickly we have people still move in and out things can change there daycare situations can change so will it will it go up it could I would say it does go up um you probably would be right They're projecting the highest in 28. >> Let it go out to I mean are you actually targeting families that you know have young children that do know those demographics or >> no it goes into school messenger and those out to the local towns Facebook pages. So we try to every communication needs possible other than mailing the cost of mailing it's quite a bit but um we had local newspaper go there as well. So, any ideas for additional places

085we can put it? We certainly will add that. I had a mom speak and spoke to me about how she's new. She her first child is youngest four. She's new to the district and she said, "No, I'm not messenger." I said, "Well, how do you get information?" She's like, "I heard I saw Facebook page or something." So, right away, you know, Rachel and I talked to me got it out to some of the accounts and Penny Penny helps Penny. Um, so it's just it's that information to hear is like how people get their information. You know, some of the senior citizens I'm hearing, they're like, "We're not on Facebook. We don't see that at all." And so they were replied to the newspaper, which is now gone, unfortunately. A lot of places go back. >>

086What about churches? >> Yeah. Well, we have the story hours. We go to the story hours. Um, I think some of the people that I connect with are part of the churches, but I could do it directly to them as well because we have the pantry here that we talked to, which is run out of the church, but I could be more also going to be um Tuesdays. They wait for us to come up. We're going to be doing four uh community town presentations each of the four towns coming up next four Tuesdays. I think the first first one is Tuesday after break from 6:00 to 7 o'clock. The next one is here Berlin and then town and uh Grafton Persburg. So we're going to also go out to the community as well recognizing that

087sometimes communication have to go right to the people themselves to talk about the budget and certainly that's an opportunity to mention the prek program as well. Yeah. Well, yes. We don't know exactly logistically. We know we know the dates. It'll be on Tuesdays coming up next, but we don't know exactly what location other than the Berlin one. I don't sure the 21st other will still be determined based upon the towns. So, >> well, it's hard to advertise for those too. If they're not getting the information, they're not on Facebook or they're not on the website. Um, I talked I worked at the library. I talked to an elderly woman who came in um and she's like, "Where am I supposed to get this information?" So, I actually I gave her I think um the invitation

088to the message or the Facebook um and she did get on it and she's like, "Oh, okay. There's not so much information here." So, I it's fine though. >> Yeah. >> There's a lot of people doing the project that senior says, "No, I just don't use I don't use that generation use social media." to today the kids went up to the Grafton Senior Center and I brought this presentation in draft form and handed it out to the seniors there and talk to them and had extra copies and ask them to spread it around. Unfortunately, we don't have a lot of gathering spaces and even that senior center doesn't get a lot of people there, but I'm always looking for feedback. But I think word of mouth is a very important part of this community. And

089I think just like you did, letting your friend know, come follow here. >> Yeah. Yeah. We also with the budget, we send out a um mailer that goes to every single it's a it's a bulk mailer. Um we could definitely put the a little prek note in there about signing up because that will hit our entire community in the mail. So we could use, you know, that big piece in there. to get a little feedback about um when a mailer goes out, maybe be a little bit give them a little bit more time to digest that information, make sure they get to the budget. >> I know that has to do with >> six day like the six day notice. I think that's >> after the problem in budget timeline if you want budget approved

090then you have to get the newsletter created by goce to get created then they have to you know have to go through to make sure it's correct then it has to go to the the printer which has their own time adds up I know I can understand >> no I was just gonna say that was just some feedback that I got just that there was not enough time to process the information given to them. But obviously then you say well then all these workshops are going on all these things and you know >> so there is information out there it's just hard to tell people where >> and these um live streams are also available you can always share them these presentations like coming presentation it will be on our live stream page and just

091sharing that link if people want information they can watch the the presentation as well >> and I ask a question for does that if you're sharing it are you like assuming they're on Facebook and sharing you can yeah this is through YouTube so you could just text a link they don't have to be part of anything and these are also on our budget page each time there's a presentation I post it on our budget calendar and then a link to this exact presentation >> I also just want to point out that this budget u does stay within the New York state tax cap um it's 2.32 where we're at the cap just to be really really clear. Sometimes people hear 2%. Is that actually 2%? There's a there's a formula eep formula that gives a

092tax calculation. So, we're asking the community uh and the board, this is adopted, especially the community would be to the budget that's going to be within the New York State tax cap that's been set. Um that would require 50% 51% majority of voters to approve. The only comment is on the services we're going to bring back went back into the district mowing and plowing. Uh the last go around on the truck for the maintenance department. No one paid attention to specs. So see the specs of the most appropriate vehicles purchased. The last one was not. I complained to the superintendent. Nothing's done. So we're invest in house. We got to make sure we have the right equipment. I need the specs because uh they didn't pay attention. The body was mounted excessively high. One, you

093can't use the body efficiently. And two, if someone falls off, you got a big complaint. I complain about it. They've got a ladder going up the sideways, which is terrible. So, in the specs, inspection truck, they're very detailed. If you're going to make it work, parking lots a hard commodity to plow, and it needs to be the right fit. was a prior superintendent. >> Yes. What was what was the just play that I'm going back to what was the the truck? >> It was a state contract truck. Nobody paid attention spec bought it and that was it. They came here bodies way up in the air and it's worthless to the people that are using it. And so the mowing you need to buy the right equipment if you want to have it in house

094or you're going to keep repairing it or someone's going to get hurt. That's so I think the board should see the specs. We were locked out of the specs last time and it was totally inappropriate. Any other questions in the budget? >> If New York State doesn't pass it budget in time, how does that move forward for us right now? It doesn't because we will use additional money to reduce the budget gap. So we go forward with the budget we have. If more revenue came in, hope anything. >> There's a my whole man's a lot. They don't all run annually as right now's there's I didn't realize that historically been there but administration does have the right to run or not run each year. has the agreement in terms of determining whether they want or

095not. >> So the next meeting is April 21st. Is that when we it has to be there are desired changes know them and prepare them for April 21st especially if it involves any of that equipment. Something to know about school budgets is that once the equipment lines are set, I can't add I can't make a transfer into an equipment. I can only transfer equipment equipment otherwise action to increase equipment line. So that number has to be safe. But you're saying too that it might make sense to get the equipment this year because we have something until the 21st, but this is opportunity for us next week or two. Is there any feedback you have in discussion with Colle and I know in terms of something that you feel strongly about that you want to move

096or add something reduction with something? >> This is a really specific question. Um last year the the budget for the um Rose was cut and so the music cards have been raising money all year trying to get enough money this year didn't grant it I didn't want the grant that was in it was improperly be money was improperly being allocated that's why it was it was cut to LA grant so we weren't allow it was a title grant that it was not supposed to be spent on line with the with the grant purpose of the grant. So we had so then we had to go back to the advisor to discuss other alternative means to be able to fund ways for it to support the grant. If we were able to do that but there's

097rules to the advance in terms of how they last year will be that time we're working on very carefully those conversations. So what about this year? Is it in the budget for this year? >> Yeah. I mean, if they're not putting all their fundraising into this field trip or something else, we would have gotten the funds if we got that in there was saying no to us. That got bounced. I think I know a few times from starting like August we're working on that through like took us several months to get that grant finally actually July to start it correctly. Um, and trips in general, I just be transparent, trips in general, Dave looking very carefully at trips and um, not that we don't want to have trips. We believe in the value trips are

098very important. Um, however, there's other ways to look at funding field trips other than everything. And again, going back to talking about producing staff or producing programs and and some other things. We don't want those opportunities other ways to go about them. We have to rethink things how we're doing things right now, not just coming out of the general fund and spend on it. The concern there I would say is just balancing that keeping those opportunities but not make sure we're paying for the run the right way. Stephen Hill came in this year was a great program that was paid through a grant. We would have had $5,000 that wasn't there. You just can't can't afford that. He's actually come back this fall. Um Mary Donn was funded again reached out to come back. It's

099a great program but again it's grant funed. Um so those are things we have to keep looking at is those grant opportunities again how to how to spend money wisely other ways without taking opportunities. Yeah, it's part of the enrichment, you know, school like they're going to get outside of the classroom. I guess the lesson here for all of us, you should advocate your supervisor. Make sure that things are the budget. So, it's not a surprise. When I get the budget number, it's not always itemized. I would not know what principal necessarily each time. I can itemize and do itemize it when I'm given that information inside your budget not just more of a communication issue advocate for yourselves and building the budget right now and make sure that you communicate that to me your

100supervisor is >> I would for Dave to do he's not here and we're doing but I put the screws to both of them to say we have to tighten up some things and I just ask them to really look close very carefully so there are things that you're concerned about them produce I just Please let me know. I know what Jacob said with principal thinking that they're looking to. It's just something from top down. We're having discussion about all these areas where we can be again more efficient. But again, not taking away things, but looking at other ways to maybe be able to fund them. In some cases taking away, but depends on programs and software, but certainly field trips and things. It's like there's other ways that we can certainly fund raise those. Certainly

101some of the work I mentioned that our budget needed to be rightsized down a little more and a little more to tighten it up and have less contingency, less flexibility. But part of that is getting every department to itemize exactly what they expect to be in those lines so that each time they make a decision to add something then say which of these things are switching out or which of these lines are transfer from. So as we continue growing our budget practices, we'll get to that level of detail in every >> software. We looked at, you know, users working with Ariel, how many people are using each program and then, you know, is it cost effective based on the number of classrooms and teachers that are using it? Can we afford it? Things like Bill

102Guardian, which is a filter of use, about $18,000, but it's duplicative. We have two other filtering systems, which we apply. Don't need all three. So eliminating one of those which is a Cadillac plan Bardian. The other two light speed and last um they they do the same thing essentially. >> Um will we be able to find out what those clubs are that are going to be cut before we have to decide? I mean not that these are maybe minor costs, right? But they're also important for morale and students. >> I would say they're not minor. They're actually pretty significant clubs. Um and we certainly can get a list but I just caution about not touching clubs. We looked very carefully at again number of students in enrollment ones that have been touched. We can get

103those once states communicated it but if we're going to balance the budget and reduce things and not be looking at teachers and staff $ 1.9 million gap we really have to prioritize in terms of making some tough decisions that are related to people. So um yes we can get that to you what they got to comm the teachers but I just where how we did I want you to say it's not through this is my favorite club I like this a lot you know or so salary it's club it's based on enrollment of participation students the impact in that case that's really way way to do it >> how many how many kids >> well depend yes how many kids participation in these clubs every year in terms of of that because that's feedback from

104principles and go to the teachers. So it's just very hard like I'm trying to look at and say well that's I like the club my neighbor's daughter does that club that make the case but neighbor's daughter maybe one four kids whereas keeping another club that has 20 kids in it. So that's just one of the cautions club is is sometimes it can be personal and there was there's a rhyme reason why we decisions were made it was made collaboratively with principles and um you know with teacher input as well. All clubs have um teachers or staff that um kind of run the club and get a stipen. >> They're all stipual of all the clubs. Again, it's very very larger than I've seen in most districts in terms of how many. Yeah. Which is a

105good thing in a lot of ways, but um there's some that don't don't run either year to year. It does can change. I give you one, you know, at the uh school of life. We're not pushing that but the school does have three people a director, assistant director and then there's another person that also is already expecting for for that. We can look at three people run that you know we want to still have that. So those conversations we had because there's a lot of cost there three people running something more efficiently. Um that's what this described to obviously very important for school is not being touched. So yeah we'll get over to you and we can certainly give you a list of ones that were produced as well. I'm not sure that >> I

106think also community members staff should advocate to politicians in Albany, they all have discretionary spending after the budget's done that we may be able to pick up some midyear grants next year to put some stuff together. I notic stuff out midy year after the budget's done. So they have discretionary money and we need to advocate for them. Hence you like to speak. >> Yes. >> Absolutely. We have a standing crowd tonight. Last time for one or two two now, right? My notes here. All right. Again, you can hear me or not, please. Uh, first of all, I want to thank Mr. Rizzo and Miss Mills for hosting me this morning. We have an extensive one-on-one to discuss kind of the future of the district, how to formulate objectives, plans, how to form a narrative that's

107going to help district customers, which are property taxpayers will support and fund this plan on basis. And while I'm encouraged that they and ICE have a common set of issues, I'm not convinced at this point in time the school board has the same vision. Let me cut to the chase. The district operates at a cost structure measured by total expenditures for the number of students is 25 to 35% higher in comp. The number that was referred to earlier by someone writing in the survey was incorrect. All this information is public. I looked at 12 different school districts in Washington, friends and counties that were similar size to grow. We take out the large school look at the more rural school systems. The uh average cost structure as measured by budgeted expenditures 256 divided by the

108number of students is $32,000. Berlin is $44,000. No one else was even close. we were the aberation in another state. Okay. The other ones were mo the medium was actually less than the average which meant that most of those districts actually operated less than $30,000 per state. Again, we're at 44,000. Now, that's not the actual cost because as was rightly pointed out, you guys have done a good job of keeping your cost down budget. But if you just look at your budget versus the number of students, you divide that, do that simple math, okay, you're at $12,000 more expense than the average. What does that translate into? 600 students, $12,7.2 million. That means instead of being at a $26 million budget, maybe you should be at a 19 or $20 million budget. Now, you can't

109achieve that overnight. That's going to take a number of years to accomplish. But one of the things that was very interesting in doing this analysis of all these different school districts was the number of rebates that had happened in the last two years. People are consistently turning down budgets and they're consistently turning down capital fun. Why is that? And they operate at a much lower level. Okay, imagine if they were operating at $44,000 cost level. Okay, they'd be uniformly turning up everything. What I'm afraid of is that this school district and the demographics of the tax base here is going to come to that same conclusion and then you're stuck. You don't have community support in order to achieve what we want to achieve out of the district. So my point is is one of

110the things that I think you guys need to do is look at all of these other districts. Look at how they're operated and then start asking questions. Why is our cost of transportation at $2,800 per student versus everybody else that's at $13 to $1,600 per student? Are we such an aberration from all these other rural districts here in Washington and Columbia counties? I think so. You do the same thing for instruction. You do the same thing for overhead. You do the same thing for benefits. Okay? And you'll find large gaps in the comparative analysis. It's very interesting. Most of these school districts, the numbers that are reported that they report on their websites are very consistent, okay? In terms of their cost per student, they all have declining enrollment conditions as well, too. It's not

111like we're the apparat going up. Everybody's going through the same demographic problems. Okay? But everybody's come to the conclusion that because of that they have to operate at a much lower cost base because what was pointed out on the slides before is declining enrollment okay means that the impact per local taxpayer becomes higher and higher if you don't function now you're not going to have it it's not going to happen right now you're you're a month away essentially three weeks away from having to approve okay ultimately this budget for uh 26 27 But I think as a board we need to set a set of objectives and I would suggest strongly to doing a comparative analysis and then start asking questions. Why are we operating at such a higher plus level than everybody else? Demographic

112profile of this district is no different than the five districts I looked at Washington County, three districts here that I looked at runs county and the four districts I looked at county. They're all rural communities just like us. Democratic profiles of the towns are very similar to the four towns that make up this. So we're not an aberration. I think it's a cumulative effect of how we've been managed for a number of years. The position that we're in and at a certain point I think you saw that at the capital. Okay. There's a lot of pressure on a lot of people right now financially. If all of a sudden somebody is saying, "Why are we not operating at least at the average in these other districts?" That translates into a 3 to4 million reduction in

113your tax. That's a 30 to 40% reduction in your tax. That's meaningful numbers. So, what I'm trying to say at the last meeting and at this meeting is do your long-term plans once this budget is done. Okay? have a narrative, but make sure that narrative has some intelligence behind it because it doesn't stack up to everybody else. Okay? Then it's right to ask the questions, why are we operating at such a high expense? I commend Mr. Rizzo and Miss Mills for admitting that we have to reduce cost. Okay? My concern is is that the buckets are so large to reduce. I think you need a larger vision to achieve that. Okay. And I think tinkering 20,000 here, 7,000 there, whatever everything while that's good, it shows detailed management doesn't fundamentally address what's happening. The cost

114base in this district is just way too high. If we were producing four-year graduates at, you know, Ivy League schools, I'd say something may be a little bit different, but we're not. And this district is not outperforming performance-wise all those other districts that I looked at based upon various New York scores that they published online. So we're in line with how they're performing effectively. Okay. In terms of what the educational experience is, but our cost is just too high. Thank you. Thank you. Uh with the last vote, I've got one resolution here for the board. The allegations of kickback and financial interest by board members board request a complete investigation to address these allegations. authorize the superintendent of schools to make the initiate a full investigation to set allegations and to report back to the

115board and the community on completion of its findings. Um these allegations are a direct attack of the integrity and honesty of each board member, the superintendent, business manager, the entire business staff. kind of derailed everything that we're doing by throwing everything to chaos with start presenting the facts and these allegations. So I like this motion front to make the motion. >> You read the first part of it again. >> The allegations of kickback and financial interest by board members board requests a complete investigation to address these allegations. authorizes the superintendent's schools to initiate a full investigation into the said allegations and report back to the board and the community on its completion of findings. I'll second Kim. >> Any discussion? All those in favor? >> I motion carried. It's just in transparency with the community

116and the allegations. We have nothing to hide. Bring everything out. I always believe that you have this type of stuff run a full investigation. You need the integrity and like Ein says the support of the community. If you have this nonsense going on, it just takes away from everything. at all. So we will look at an external auditor dependent of the school district on that finding someone and once I have a timeline for the board of the community I should report back timeline right now don't have to take but um that'll be uh anything else for the board for executive session Just one second. I have I have one question. I'm sorry. Before we jump to that, >> just going to what Hines was saying, looking at the um one of the slides from Colleen

117on page 32. Basically, um we had in 2020 2021, we had a budget where we were at 20 million, right? So since so basically since co you know numbers have just dropped dramatically. I mean you you must already have some idea as to why this is right at another time but you know it's dramatic students. >> Yeah. Just want to point that out. We actually were there five years ago. motion. All those in favor. >> Thank you audience for coming out tonight. >> See the 21st. >> Absolutely.