Board of Education Meeting-Tuesday March. 24th 2026

001Good evening everyone. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I call this meeting to order. >> I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Good evening everyone. Thank you for joining us. Please be advised in the event of a fire emergency, an alarm will sound. Please note all emergency exits and evacuate well away from the building. At this time, we request everyone please turn your cell phones to silence. Thank you for your cooperation. First on our agenda tonight is going to be additions, deletions, and changes. I do not believe we have any Dr. Chanel. >> We do not. >> No additions, deletions, and changes to the agenda. So, we're going to

002move right to the consent agenda. Consent agenda resolved that the board of education upon the recommendation of the superintendent approve the consent agenda items as listed 1 through six. May I have a motion, please? >> I'll make it. >> Second. >> All in favor say I. >> I. Any opposed? That motion is carried 40. We're going to move to communications and we're going to start with points of pride. I think Dr. McNeer starts. >> Yep. >> There are less than 100 days until graduation. The class of 2026 enjoyed a short celebration with donuts and breakfast to kick off the countdown. >> Congratulations to our archery club and their adviserss on a great performance at the New York State Bullseye Tournament last week. They finished third overall in the high school division highlighted by 12 season

003best performances. And thank you to Mrs. McKay who organized a memorable trip to Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida for members of our senior class. students enjoyed two days at the theme park. A special thanks to Mr. Hoy, Mr. Youngs, and Mr. Shelton, who also cheered the trip. >> The League of Extraordinary Middle Schoolers made history as the first students to represent Calonia Mumford at the History Day regional competition. League members worked collaboratively to research, script, record, and edit documentary films about historical topics and then present those films at the competition. One of our teams will advance to the state competition in April. Congratulations. >> The elementary school is gearing up for the return of parents as reading partners park later this month. This year they are leaning into the school spirit with the theme reading

004raider Olympics. It promises to be a high energy week of literacy driven events made possible for our students because the collaboration between our parents, faculty, and staff. First graders recently completed a descriptive writing project. They celebrated their hard work and shared their writing and illustrations at a publishing party with fifth graders and special guests including Dr. Chanel. The students received valuable feedback from their readers during the event. There was true Raider pride throughout the classrooms. Next, we'll move to board committee reports. I believe facilities compact and athletic committee met. Could we start with facilities? >> Sure. Um, sorry, I'm trying to think. We just carrying on with the with the capital project with you know meeting deadlines and what's you know what's happening >> we are pushing in that space right now for this project

005to get back on schedule stay on schedule uh so Mrs. Dedric gets to watch the baking happening in that room um one thing that that I will say is that this room gets the temperature in here gets a little warm when we're not meeting deadlines uh and I appreciate Mrs. Dietrich being present. What I would tell you is we're probably about a month out or so from me requesting campus construction and Hunt architects and engineers being present at a board meeting to talk about where we're at in our current scope and sequence and what the expectation is. Uh I'll start preparing you guys on the back end for that presentation. I think it's probably time for all of us to apply a little leverage. >> Thank you very much. I know you've been working very

006hard at monitoring that situation. >> I'm ready for it to end. It's a lot to walk into that it is. >> Um that's any compact >> not before last year. >> Um we met um we are wrapping up our um year year by year. Middle schools 6 through 12. Okay. Here's what to expect this year, this year. This year in terms of meetings you should have, what you should look for communication wise, uh career-wise, college-wise, whatever. Okay. >> And then we talked about how we're going to finish up the year with events getting involved in camp raider and all the May and June kind of activities. >> Yeah, good stuff. >> athletic committee. So, we went and met went over numbers that were really similar to last year's numbers about number of students participating. We

007really see great participation across 7 through 12. We have really high numbers for both the boys and the girls, which is excellent. And we kind of highlighted there were a whole bunch of milestones this year. Some records broken, some events won and people. So we just kind of went over some of those and celebrated that. And we also noted that the indoor girl, the girls indoor track and field, the boys indoor track and field, the boys basketball, the girls basketball, and the cheerleading all were scholar athletes. So all of those teams were wonderful. So that was really really exciting. It's all right. You guys got a >> You guys were really close. You were I mean we did know that the wrestling was like super close. >> So you're almost there. >> All right. On

008to what we really enjoyed for the meeting is guests of the board. We're going to start with our top top 10. Morgan, can you please start for us? Thank you. >> So if I could have I've got my friend here in the back. If the four of you could stand up and come join me up here, that would be great. We got Gary finishing up. These are the last four of our top 10. We met some of them prior, so we wanted to make sure that these folks got to join us quickly. And I'm I'm going to just ask a couple things of you. I promise not to make it too painful. If you could start by just your name and if you have plans yet for next year, what those are. I'm Neil Wilson

009and I'm going to uh Brockport for medical technology. >> Fantastic. >> Uh I'm Gary Johnson. I'm going to RIT next fall for software engineering. >> I'm Sen Williams. I'm between St. Bon and Jio and I want to major in adolescence education history. >> I'm Jacob Wy and I'm going to Jio for chemistry. >> Very good. And then just tell us one thing if you if you wanted your legacy to be or something you loved most about your time at Kale Mom. What have you really enjoyed? We'll start with Jake this time. We'll give you a second. >> I would say my athletic career has been uh the main uh my main joy school. >> Uh I would say being able to spend time with my friends and being a student athlete. Uh I would say

010that our teachers here have given me a strong understanding of my academic career which is very helpful. So I mean this is I don't really know what to say but >> I'd say all the people I got to meet and like become friends with. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> So these are another congratulations to these guys. They've worked very hard to get here. >> Yeah. Thank you for coming. Um, and thank you to some parents I see in the background that have uh supported these wonderful students through their careers with us. We appreciate it. Next on our agenda is the varsity. Thank you. I'm looking at him. Varsity wrestling team. Jim, can you start with Coach Day? First of all, thank you for having us here this evening. Really appreciate this opportunity. Um, this year we

011had 24 student athletes on our team. We have half of our team here tonight. Um, just a quick um, synopsis of our season. Um, this year there are over 240 um, D2 teams here in wrestling in New York State. We ended up ranked number 26 in the state this year. We also came through where we won our division. We won our county championship. We also won our sectional championship this year. We also beat the division one champion. Um we did not lose to a section five team this year. Did not lose the county team this year. We actually um had lost six by six and a half points last year sections. We came back and won by 81 and a half this year. >> It was just a a great season. We had many qualifiers

012going to the state qualifiers. won champion in Jackson P who then went down to um New York State and finished um eighth in the state. So all in all it was a really good season for us. I'd like to thank coach Patell over here and um coach Kesler for the hard work that they put in like thank the board and the school for the support that they have given me and um we had a really good season and for the way things look we're going to have another great season next year. So again, thank you for your time. Thank you. Thank you, Chip, on your uh dedication to the student athletes and everything you've done. >> I had to bring my work down to make sure I didn't commit to anything else. >> He already

013promised me he was going to say driving bus. So, there's that. >> Have a good evening everybody. >> Appreciate you. Sherry, I didn't see a public forum. There was Thank you. >> Thank you. We're going to move on to superintendent report. >> All right. Well, I'm going to jump around here for a second. So, I'm going to ask both the principles to come up. We'll start with compact committee reports. Um Michelle can get us >> sure >> started. All right. Well, we have two more compact meetings uh coming up. One on May 7th and June 4th uh to wrap up the year. I can't believe I'm saying that already. But we did have three goals that we focused on. One was marrying our literacy goal with the community and seeing what we could do. So,

014our Reading Raider program has been amazing up until this past weekend. Reading Raider must have been tired. Took a little break. So, I mean, I feel like I do need to look at the camera and say like, if you want to be a reading raider, please send in your readalouds. Um, >> it's my turn. >> It is your turn, Dr. Chanel. We would love that. But we have about 22 weeks going strong. So, I can't ask for anything better. It's been an amazing program and um every every single week it's been a a new a new exciting face whether it's one of our students or someone from the community or a PTO parent or of course one of our teachers and soon to be maybe the superintendent. Okay, perfect. Um the other two goals, one

015was again we can always be better communicators. So, we wanted to make sure that we were ironing out any feedback from our parents. And one of the things that came up was, we hear from our teachers a lot, a lot at the elementary level. We hear about our classroom teacher and the things that are happening often, but what about the special areas, library, music, uh, PE, STEM? Um, so we had that cohort of teachers put together a monthly newsletter. Um, and that's been going out at the end of every month. uh I think two or three times so far. Maybe this will be our third. And um we've received some great feedback about just the readability of it. When you have that many people putting in one newsletter, what does that look like on Parent

016Square? So that's been very helpful. Now it's going to be hopefully two pages. They were trying to figure out the formatting and then the links. The way that it works in Parent Square is that if it's not a PDF format, you can't click on all of those amazing resources that teachers are putting in. So, I've asked for them to share it with me that way so I can post it. So, um it'll probably posted in two versions. One with a P PDF that is clickable links and the other just as a picture if you're a parent that just wants to get the the short um summary. So that's been a a a very um productive goal that we've moved forward. And also um the PPS uh department special um all of our intervention services have

017also been putting a weekly or a monthly right monthly um newsletter out to everybody which I think everybody seems to enjoy. So communication always on the docket for improvement. And then also the the third goal, probably the one that was the largest lift was taking a look at our guidelines for homework. I've heard a lot of feedback from our families over the years and it was one thing that uh we just wanted to start the discussion around. So we started the discussion with our our compact committee and with our students and with our teachers of course to get some feedback and the consensus was we don't want to get rid of homework. That's not the purpose of, you know, that that doesn't match our mission, but we did want to create some clarity about the

018consistency and what is expected at each grade level. Also, we wanted to come up with some language that if a parent or a family is feeling overwhelmed, that there are ways for that family to reach out and to get support uh in the realm of homework, that it was never meant to be something that is high stress. the um it goes along with elementary homework research of creating those good habits. So, we wanted to keep that going. We changed the language that will be uh making its debut in our uh parent and student handbook this coming year. So, um thank you to everybody that has kind of put in and uh yeah, we'll keep refining it each year. I don't imagine that this will be the only time we come back to the table to

019discuss homework and and how it meshes with the lives of our families. >> That's it. Thank you. You're welcome. >> Your turn, Morgan. >> So, great. For middle high school, middle senior high, junior senior high school, um I can speak. Uh the the message that came through from the parents in compact was that, you know, they know that we do a lot to prepare ourselves for college and career readiness, but parents don't necessarily get that message often. So our major goal was how can we improve our systems to kind of make sure that all that information is consistently shared so the parents can partner with us and we can hopefully create more opportunities for our students. Um so what we decided to do was first look at what we are doing and kind of organize

020it in a chart that's 6 through 12. So we have kind of a timeline of what students are getting as they work their way through our school. Um, from there we we noticed some some big points that are are helpful for parents to have and we created what we'll callformational flyers that are organized by grade level that will go out each year. So, if you have an eighth grader, you're getting that eighth grade flyer and it talks specifically about what you can expect this year for them to get. Whether that be a scheduling meeting with the counselor, whether that be there's a a field trip to Boseies that you should be aware of because parents felt we knew this was coming, we could then have those conversations with our students and then go from there.

021So, I do have just kind of like a I'm just going to share it with you. It's not finished yet, so I didn't want to give you the actual full-on thing. We've got some editing to do still. Um, but you can see that they're, you know, really pretty on the eye and visually appealing, and they give you the nice checklist of what you can expect for each year. So, That's kind of been our work this year. Um, we also plan to expand on that a little bit. We've looped Director Pete in and we're hoping to create kind of a hub of all this information right on our website and the counseling suite kind of of the website. So, we've been exploring some other websites, district websites, and what they offer. And that's going to kind

022of be our next step as we move towards this. So, we'll have the flyers, we'll continue to send things out on parent square still, and then we'll actually have the website where everything lives. So excited about that and the opportunities for our students. Um and then as Liz mentioned, we're also just getting into end of the year celebrations and bringing compact in to be a part of that and helping us celebrate our students. So it's been really rewarding work. I'm excited about it. >> Thank you. >> All right. So let's talk about mark period 5 honor roll. Uh this is just for your 9 through 12. So, in a semester block school, every 5 weeks the children get another report card. It just keeps coming. Um, so this is typically, I would say, the time

023of year where kids are starting to get into the thick of this semester. So, you're going to see marking period 5. It'll be likely a little stronger than marking period 6, which gets a little tougher as we go through. Uh, but you will notice uh in this particular data report that we are up in terms of number or percentage of kids that are on both the roles. We're at 69% for March 2026. Last year at the same time, 64%. So, the Raiders are engaged and getting it done. We love to see a good honor roll number. That high honor roll is that much more impressive to see. Um, you know, I often say that when you're thinking about the block semester schedule, you have to realize that the kids basically get two lessons each day

024in each class, right? So, the curriculum moves pretty quickly. For them to hang tight academically is a beautiful thing to see. So, congratulations, Raiders, on all your hard work. Um, next up for me, I want to talk a little bit about the budget development survey. I won't get too deep into it because I did build it into my budget presentation for this evening, but I think important things uh for me to note here that I that won't show up in my presentation. We did have 231 members of our community participate in our survey which we might think is low but actually is a good representative number uh in terms of looking at the statistics of that being able to spread what we learned across the the larger population. Um my plan is to complete and

025I've I've shared with the board everything you've seen the entire thought exchange every single comment with no editing. Uh I'm in the process now in the back end of doing a little bit of a deeper dive into some analysis. As I build a few more analytical tools, I'll start sharing those out with you. Uh so that you guys kind of learn alongside me what I'm seeing inside the data. From the analysis, I intend to come out with at least one more if not two more questions for the community. So I would argue the conversation isn't over. So, I am going to put out another thought exchange that will allow the community to maybe help us better understand some of what we're seeing inside the survey. So, for the sake of clarity, I think some of

026the comments and I'm sure you guys as you were looking at it probably read a few things and thought, I wonder what they mean by that, right? And so, as I'm analyzing it, so qualitative research like how often does that comment show up? How how prevalent is that? I really want to take the things that are more prevalent and make sure that we can get another round of communication so that it becomes very clear what people mean when they use particular terms. So, um you will see another round of that coming back through. So, hold tight. By the end of this week, I should have good data analytics for you, a little bit deeper dive, and I'll make suggestions around the next two questions I want to put out. So, that's my that's my next

027goal. Keep people talking to us for another two weeks. Help us understand what >> two questions. Dr. Does thought exchange function in a way where you can push the new questions out to everybody that's completed this current survey? No. So we'd have to push out again that there's another two questions. >> Yes. I think the difference in this one. So the first survey when we talked about if we use our social media platforms to push the first survey, how do we ensure that the feedback that we got came from voters, came from folks that live in Calonia Munford? It it's kind of challenging once you push it out on social media. you lose control over who just jumps in. So this first round I think we know we mostly we I think we can't guarantee

028but I think we mostly got taxpayers because it did not go out on our social medias. It went out through parents wear. It went out in a postcard. We went to events. We asked people to scan the code. Right? So this first round of data is probably what our community is saying to us. The second round of data in order to turn it around fast I'm going to have to put this next round of questioning out on social media. So, we could get clarity from folks in different ways. Um, I try not to read body language, but if I don't if I don't put it out on social media, the only folks I'll reach are parents. >> Yeah. >> And I feel like that leaves out a a pretty large section of the community. >>

029I guess I wouldn't be opposed to thinking about um are there ways that we could push it out on social media. I >> if you get responses say can you when the responses come in can you tell from the IP address if it was >> no >> it it doesn't gather like if it's from >> it doesn't track that I'll ask >> demographics we use like a >> a VPN too so like mine is often coming saying I'm in >> UK really >> really >> I have to turn it off sometimes because I do I'm all over >> you learn something new about your schedule you know how to use VBN >> I Yeah. So like I like so my like that protects me but it would come back as you'd be like oh she's

030not even in the country. Why are we getting these responses right? >> Yeah. >> Well we're just going to do the best we can. Right. That's what we've done all along and we're going to push it the way we can. I just didn't know if there was a function on thought exchange because I I can't remember if I put my email in. I thought I did. >> I don't think so. >> That would make it very true. Yeah. We didn't collect anything through there. Um, I'll keep trying to brainstorm it. I'll run it through thought exchange to see if they have any ideas, but I don't I don't think so. I think in order to do another round of communication. So, let's say, for example, one of the threads that I see in there is

031like people want more they want more budget information. So, how are we what do they want that is more? Like what does more mean to them? Like, I don't know that that would be my follow-up question, but let's say that it is. So what if somebody from another school district says more information would mean this like it might just grow out good >> to learn from. >> Yeah. I mean I don't see how it impacts us because our big key data that we generated I I think which you'll see in my presentation is around when our community says what their priorities are. I think they made their priorities really clear. Right? So when you're looking at the the rankings of those priorities, if we needed to cut, we now would have a data set that

032would say, listen, our community cares very much about this and this and this. Everything else seems to kind of be on the table for them that if we cut in these areas, people would say, we understand. >> So we all have that data, but are we going to share with the community at le I'm not saying all of it. There are things that I think need to actually be edited out. >> Comments. I'm not going to share. There's a way to share out the analysis of the survey results without giving the individual comments. That's my thought. >> Yeah. I think that it'd be good for the community to see what we saw. >> My intention is to send out as much as what >> you've asked for that as well. >> Mhm. >> Yeah. The

033more we can share the better. >> I agree. >> There's nothing there's nothing secret. >> I agree. >> Um I I'm trying to formulate a question like if you're asking questions about questions about questions, how does that skew skew the results long term? That's not that's not how I want to phrase it, but I don't know. >> So much questions about questions. Let's go to some of maybe the more conceptual things. So when I sent to you the analysis of the report, let's say for example, the community wants to see more fiscal accountability and you see certain terms in there like frivolous, >> like frivolous spending. And instantly I read that I thought man I >> I wonder what people mean by frivolous like what do they see that they think is frivolous that we

034might think like one of the comments said and camp raider for example like we could cut camp raider >> and I instantly thought well if we cut camp raider that's we could we're not we're talking about I don't want to say pennies like obviously it cost us >> very small percentage >> it's funded somewhat through the the student councils um the high school principal line has always paid for the two blow the two inflatables. Most of what's there isn't really costing us a ton of money. So like the the student council buys the hats, purchases the hats, they sell the hats, the kids buy the hats. So like there's a lot that kind of happens for the day, but not in terms of our budget. So if we're going to define frivolous, I'm really curious

035and how I viewed it as boy, we do that event and I think the event is really cool, but we never really talk about what does that actually cost us. So maybe the the maybe the communication here is not that I disagree with the word frivolous. It's that well we think that that's social emotional learning and we only do it one day a year. >> So how do we how do we do a better job of communicating why we do camp raider? Like what's at its core? How was it developed? Why does it exist? So I saw it as like there are things in there that I was like oh I see opportunities to communicate some of why we do what we do but also if there are other things right so frivolous what does

036that mean >> and if people then identified for us like well here are things I see that I think are frivolous so I personally have been asking folks for the last couple of days like let's use the word frivolous like what would you say >> helium balloons >> lots of them >> and lots of them well I only just know that my husband pays a lot of money for helium or for gases at the college. >> Yeah. So it so like I don't know if is that when the community sees certain things do they think frivolous and what are those things and have we we're kind of good at throwing a party. >> I think we do it pretty economically but maybe maybe from the outside looking in that's what they say is frivolous. >>

037A lot of disposable stuff. The question when I asked it this week of of a taxpayer, I said, you know, say that you thought the word frivolous, like what about us when you look at our spending, what about us would you say frivolous? And this taxpayer said, you know what? I actually the only thing I really get upset about is knowing that the that the 1998 building was built and there were so many more kids at the time. >> That's right. >> And we don't need them anymore. So frivolous for me is the size of that building, but I'm not sure what you could do about it. Think how different that is, right? Frivolous is a helium balloon. frivolous is you got this big school. So then I said back to the taxpayer, let's say

038that the other the the thing I could do, so say we have we have too much space. We could take some of our special education teachers and we could say you actually don't need a full-size classroom. So we could have folks kind of share a classroom space with some wall dividers to give privacy for kids. You could do that. And we could rent classrooms out to Boseies. They would bring special education classes, kids from all across the region. They would bring them in to build special education classes and put them in your schools. They then pay rental fee. So, could we take a space and if we were to take that space and rent that space out, would that help somebody that thinks that that building is frivolous feel like that building is not frivolous?

039That same decision might make somebody in that survey that said, "Don't bring kids from other schools," right? >> Go, whoa, you're going to change the culture of our school. you're going to you're going to pull on the resources of our principal, our assistant principal, our social worker, our guidance counselor to try to support a classroom, right? So, you do have to think about >> what do people mean by frivolous? And then as we begin to say, okay, now how do we build a solution for what you think is frivolous? Well, then we'd want to know that that is a real solution and would have a rate of return versus a draw to our own local mission. So it's to not understand frivolous for me like I like obviously it's a question I'm now wanting to

040know more about because we can't adjust for the community if we don't know what they think frivolous is. >> I have a comment. >> Sure. Um because you had mentioned this me to me at some point in time. There was a there was a big concern after co that kids lost a lot >> and they lost a lot of uh socialization and everything like that. And I remember you saying something like we need to have dances or something like that. I can't remember exactly what it was. >> Well, you had me reading that book, The Anxious Generation. That's right. >> Yes. >> Yeah. Right. And and so I think there's been a lot of um >> thought probably on that in terms of how do you get, >> you know, you've been away for two

041years or whatever and you want to try to get >> campus uh what am I trying to say? >> Lively um >> vibrancy. >> Interactive. Yes. >> I want to say patriotism, but that's not the right word. What am I trying to say? school spirit. >> School spirit. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. >> And you want to do that. And yet there was a comment that somebody made like you know you you look at you look at the pictures that get put on in Facebook and it's almost all sports which is wonderful but we're also having wanting to have academics you know here and so we need more pictures of the math team doing their thing and you seriously >> you know things like that because >> we saw that I Well, we definitely saw

042that in some of the conversation. I agree with you. >> Yeah. Right. But anyhow, but I think that's that is an important thing is is that we want to make us cohesive and one of the way to do cohesive is doing spirit week and getting dressed up and funny things and stuff like that. >> Yeah, I do think we do a great job. I have people all over everywhere I go tell me, "I love watching your school social media because I can see like everything that your kids are doing." And then I had a PR person say to me, "Well, guess what? You're showing everybody everything that you're doing and it looks really good and it looks really flashy." And in all reality, what we don't do is a tagline that says paid for by

043student council, paid for by the PTO, paid for by right at no cost, right? But like in the end, a lot of what we're doing that you see here is exactly what you're saying. It's kids came to school dressed like that today. There was a lot of hype around that. There was no expense to the district. Although we did pause to take pictures this morning of kids dressed that way. But so I'm I'm I'm curious what people mean by frivolous because whatever that is, we can't we can't adjust to it unless we understand it. >> I I can't understand the the school thing. >> Yes. Because years ago, my son Mark was on the committee as a student that was dealing with before the new building got put on, you know, and it was all

044to get more classroom space and stuff like that. And that's when there was 100 kids per grade level and now it's like half of that. So, you know, you can understand. >> Yes, >> you can understand. And and all of a sudden, 30 years doesn't seem that long ago. It was yesterday. But in the end, I think that's I was not expecting when I asked what does frivolous mean to you. I wasn't expecting us to go back to the build of the 1998 school, right? But we did >> because we did that. And I think sometimes where you're at is and I'm going to do a little bit of this today. When you in my budget presentation, when you try to project out what's going to happen in the future, how are you really supposed

045to know? Right? There's you're making some estimations, some educated guesses of what you believe is going to happen. At the time of that bill, I wasn't here. Um, but at the time of the build, teachers were sharing classrooms and kids were it was overcrowded and they needed the building. And do we need that much square footage right now in terms of space? The the answer is probably no. That doesn't mean every room is not full and that there are not kids in every classroom learning. It just means it's not as full as it used to be. So that is a frivolous that I'm I appreciate and I understand that when people are hearing us talk about our budget and our finances, right? They always go back to well we we built a building we thought

046we needed and now we don't need that, right? So how 30 years how would how would they have known that we would be here then? Right? So I think in general with understanding in the second round of communication, I don't know that it would matter how somebody defined frivolous for us. It would give us an idea of when you're looking in at us and you use the word frivolous, what would that mean to you because we can't adjust what we don't understand. So it's just another round of just tell me more. Tell me more. >> Well, I think that putting a tagline on this was sponsored by the PTO. No, very serious. I think I think that's a good thing. I and I don't see anything wrong with that either. >> Yeah, that that maybe

047that's the issue. Maybe it's not. So, that's where I'm at. I don't know the answer, but >> Well, then it gives the each club or organization within the school a little spotlight, too, to say, "Hey, look at what we're doing." >> Yeah. Who organized it, funded it, all the things. >> Yeah. >> Thank you for doing that. >> Absolutely. Absolutely. It's actually intriguing. I wish I had more time in the day, but I love the concept of creating the two-way conversation. So with this next round of survey that we'll also use some artificial intelligence analytics. I know Becky I thought of you before I started in the next round based on the answer AI will actually ask a follow-up question to dig a little deeper. So because everybody is going to say something slightly different

048with this new qualitative research tool. Does it feel better when I tell you that I should be able to we should as a district be able to have a little bit more of a conversation back and forth with folks so that we we definitely come away understanding what people were trying to say to us. So >> I the researcher in me is excited. I did want to point out just one or two things because I I wrote down after I read through all that >> thought about it overnight woke up and thought what are a couple key things and and even though it was mentioned only once or twice I think it's important for us and we talked about this of looking at our meals >> food you saw you thought of me like you

049thought of me >> and and somebody wanted homeck >> and somebody wanted personnel management I think that's a and somebody talked about uniforms and I thought that was interesting because I remember those debates back in the kids. So, you know, cuz that seems like a fairly small output of money >> and that's a big >> Well, maybe I'll ask a follow-up question. Why uniform? I would definitely survey the whole community before I would move in big directions like that. But that's the fun I would say in us as a as an organization >> beginning an a conversation, a two-way conversation that's happening between the school and the community, the school and the community, so that we don't just move in a direction without really hearing people and understanding what they're saying to us. But yes,

050I saw a couple of those comments and thought the same thing. >> And I would I would I would say that this community engagement and our our engagement with community is not going to stop this year, next year. This has to be ongoing >> forever. Agree. um >> a new habit. >> Yes. >> Actually, we didn't speak to that in terms of the board communication. I I actually would encourage us maybe for a second to go back to that because we did also have another community night. So, do you want to talk a little bit about that that we So, our second our second We've done this twice already, >> right? The one over in the chorus room. >> The one over in the chorus room. So, folks from the community came in. So, it

051was our second come and have a conversation with the board about budget. >> Yeah. Um there were what four or five community members plus compact committee and I think the what resonated most was the assessments and people are panicking about how that will affect their wallets all all you know across the board doesn't matter if you were raised 20,000 100,000 500,000 whatever it might have been. >> So we need to be very cognizant of that anxiety in the community. >> Agreed. >> And people also It felt like they want clear definitions of the budget terms like what what do you mean when you're saying this? How does that how does that affect me? And how what is it really? What is it? >> What is it? >> Equalization, >> right? Equalization rate. That's >> Yeah,

052if you don't if you don't know those things, it's >> Yeah, it sounds like very much a back and forth. >> It was It was a very comfortable conversation. >> Yeah, people they people talked. They asked us questions. Great questions, too. So, it did feel good. And I would say I also hosted my first budget ambassadors. So, we're in the process now of having a community group that's working alongside myself and Mr. Cowwell. We're going to both be teaching them about the budget while we build the budget newsletter. So, you'll you all will see when we move our way into executive session this evening that we took newsletters from across the region and we actually pulled them apart and hung them up and we did a gallery walk. You know, what are we like? And

053so, looking at how other school districts are building their charts and their graphs and like I I don't know this information about Calonia, but I about our school, but I would like to know it. And so everybody kind of went through and starred what they loved. So we're going to we're going to our newsletter is going to look different. And as we're building tables and graphs and charts, taking them back to these budget ambassadors to say this this is what this information means and letting them challenge. Well, if that's what it means, why not just say it like this, right? And and help us try to get it out of what I would call our jargon, the way we do it. Um there are definitely things in the budget newsletter that you will still see

054because they're required by law. And so already our budget ambassador said, "Well, let's do really good communication in the first three to four pages and then we'll put all the stuff we have to put in it like toward the end. Like let's try to engage the reader at the front." So I think engaging the community and getting people in, which has always been like my habit in my compact committee. You're watching that right now in both buildings with the compact committees that you bring people in and you let them give you feedback while creating something that in the end goes back out to support them. like let them help you define what it is that they need. So, I'm excited about the change up for the budget newsletter, too. It's it's nice to get other

055eyes on that. >> Back to the board shift and doing that. It's going to be, you know, there's multiple layers to that. It's not going to be one year. It's not going to be two. It's going to it's going to take the new way. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Absolutely. So, next up for me is the Boseies Capital Project vote location. So, um this has been going round and round even at our superintendent table. Uh, so just to give you guys an idea, I think I had mentioned to you, I don't know, a couple meetings ago anyways, that some school districts have their own u capital project vote that they're going out for in the spring. People are a little bit nervous about it's been like 20 years since we have voted on a

056Bosey's capital project. So, it's going to feel kind of foreign and not wanting communities to think that the school district is doing two capital projects or that the Boseies project it belongs to the school. So, it's been kind of railing around now for a bit. So what do most Boseies in the state of New York do? According to Mr. McDonald, most Boseies actually do voting on their own campuses. So our Boseies has a campus in Danville, Mount Morris, Leroy, Betavia. They're talking about hosting the vote at all four locations. That they felt might be too much of a distance for some people to drive. So they are then looking to put one in Byron Burgon and they are going to do one in Leavonia to make sure that anybody that wants to vote on the

057project doesn't need to drive any more than like 15 minutes. So that's what they're looking at right now. If you guys are really adamant to hold one here, I want to talk about what that means. It means we have we would staff it. Um your district clerk would be responsible for the vote. So everybody that's holding it takes on an added component. What we're learning is that there's not a lot of election workers for us to run every single location because there's a state vote. There's other things that are happening in the county. So, Boseies needs to figure out the date that they're going to do it and try to avoid some of the other elections that are occurring at the same time. So, they don't want to go everywhere. But, if you guys are

058really determined to have to host here, I would be willing to go back and advocate for us to be a voting site. The flip side of that is Leroy is 10 to 15 minute drive for us. Burgon, depending on where some folks live, is also not very far. So, if you're thinking that that that is good for you, it is good for me. But I I will advocate if you feel like you want us to be a site. >> I would love for us to be a site. Um, personally, I walk out of the barn at night and come and get my vote in, and hopefully it's like a 10-minute process. And I feel like a lot of the egg community here, the only time I see them during the year is when we come

059to vote on the school budget. Um I know a lot of people would be hardressed with their schedules. You know, the 9 to5 employees who have kids and you know, if you drive by the school and there's a line, well, I've got to make a point to get back later. Uh whereas uh I think we went to Leroy for the superintendent uh interview process and going to a foreign place is kind of intimidating. I know the first time I went, I had never been there and it, you know, I had to be there. It wasn't an option. Um, so yeah, that was I feel like it's a barrier and I don't think it's intentional, but I would love to see us have the ability to host our community voting here. I think we're in the

060clear with our capital project. >> There won't be confusion on that and I can understand other districts having that concern. Um, it's just a matter of cost. the cost to staff it is obviously we don't want to pay for anything we don't have to but I don't see more than 15 or 20 people from Calonia making a trip to a different community to vote. >> I think you're right. >> Yeah. I I personally I wouldn't drive to Leroy to vote for something that's going to happen anyway and that I feel like I have no like if I'm you know my husband he's not going to say okay let's go to Leroy and vote for this project that I don't understand and I don't know how it's going to benefit me or our kids and they're

061going to do it anyway so why would I drive >> one of the questions that's still unanswered is the date >> still unanswered >> so I am worried that if we were to host it here and it's close to our own budget vote what what does that mean I don't know what it means. I'm just I'm Do we >> The only thing I glitched over honestly at the thought of it being in early June and I'm not the only one. Oakfield, Alabama also went down their first budget last year. So there is that piece for me honestly that's like man I would really hate to have our first budget vote go down. Us be trying to go back out for a second vote and host a Bosey's vote. >> If I felt like we were

062free and clear and felt like this was going to be smooth sailing this spring in terms of our own budget. I I probably wouldn't I probably would have advocated all along. I I don't know where we're going to situate. I would feel better if what happened last year hadn't happened. So, I personally would like to see us get the district's business done, but I but I will I will do as the majority here sees fit. That but that would be my only >> that's my only my only hesitation. >> I say I agree with Mike and Liz that like having it here is way more convenient for our community. they're more likely to come and have their voice be heard. However, if it is close to our budget vote, it will be cause confusion in

063the community as to what they're coming to vote for, which one's Bose sees, which one's our budget, what does it >> I'm just going to say no to everything and go home. I'm not going to vote at all. And so that like that's the concern that I have with both having it here. >> Those are very valid >> as well. like it's you want it here because you want our community members to be engaged and you want them to come and vote. But also having it here can cause confusion especially if there's >> we don't have to decide tonight still because there is no date, right? So maybe in the next couple of of days we get a date and then we look at that and then I can tell you what the revote date

064is going to be because that's in law. So I can come back to you and tell you what that's going to be. we could look at how far apart those are. I wish I didn't even have to say that to you out loud tonight, but I feel like the community is in upheaval again, right? And so, we're finding ourselves needing to be very thoughtful about getting the work of the district done. >> One nice thing to address Dr. McNeer's concern is the budget vote is always on the same date. It's the budget vote. >> And so, that would be and we come first like we we sell that to the community. Um and then it's up well is it up to us to sell the postse budget or that's Mr. McDonald's? >> It's it's up

065to it's definitely up to them to sell it. I mean obviously they're asking for all of us to be in support. I mean our our kids attend the career and technical education campuses. We rely on Boseies not only for our special education services but for all of our for all of the training and the trades and even the professions as we're sending kids intomies. So, you know, for us, they're a major portion of of what we do. We'd like to see their them be able to fix their infrastructure. >> I think a very hard part about that too with the Bose side is we had the benefit of listening to Kevin McDonald for what 45 that was a that was a conversation. >> Um, so we understand they haven't done one in 20 years. We

066understand this is a big lump project whereas a community is going to say, "My goodness, >> why not?" >> Right? And we understand the percentages that each contingent is responsible for. We know that. Um, that's a lot to communicate. Look at how much work goes into our it >> capital project and they're not we don't know. >> No one in the community even knows this is going to happen. And so if here the camera's running but if if word gets out that oh they're Boseies is trying to do a project and they're only going to have a vote at Leroy. Why is that? What are they trying to pull? And and that's the wrong message. >> Similarly to us they're going to be hosting events on their campuses as well. So they're going to make

067sure that families whose children attend career in tech are drawn to the campus similar to how we do our art show like please don't forget about us tonight. Come and vote. >> Yeah. >> You know unfortunately people don't just go and vote to vote right so you have to try to get people to come and engage with you. So they will be doing that on their campuses which is why I think they're leaning toward their campuses because that is their job to sell it. >> I am not opposed to us being a location. I definitely feel >> you get the sentiment of the board right now. >> I do. I I do. I just We'll I'll get a date and I think we come back and have the conversation about >> I just need us

068to look at it in relationship to ourselves. >> Thank you. >> I mean, we talked about the building condition survey and I got peppered for probably a good >> week or two afterwards with questions just around are we going out for another capital project? Like what was that conversation? So, it doesn't take much for folks to not necessarily understand what's happening. And and I wish I was already in a position or we were already, I should say, as a district in a position where our communication was so stellar that people know exactly what we're doing and why we're doing it. So, if I felt really good about that, I would say I'm not concerned at all. I don't I don't feel really good about that and I wish I did. I'm you're going to see

069tonight that we need to make we need to make gains in how we are handling that kind of communication. But I don't feel I don't feel like we could put something out and not have misinformation around it and be able to control our communication enough to handle misinformation. So I'm I feel nervous about that. All right. Winter sports participation. Um you already talked about it a little bit. We did have great participation uh for winter sports. We had 100 students participating, 712, which was actually up a little bit from the year before. Um, winter is usually your lowest participation rate just by the nature of how many kids are kind of on a sport. Uh, and the sports themselves, let's just say basketball, for example. You don't carry the roster that you carry for a

070lot of your fall sports. So, to see your winner numbers nice and strong is always fantastic to see. U, we've been able to do that by adding indoor track a few years back, which really increases participation for both boys and girls. So, congratulations to all our sports teams and of course, I'm always super excited that we are talking about them as student athletes and that they brought it again this season. So, thank thank you to the Raiders and their families for all that goes into that. >> All right. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> There is no old business, so we're going to move to new business and we're going to move on to budget presentation number three of the proposed 2026 2027 annual school budget. Dr. should know. >> There we go. >> It's

071right there. >> Okay. >> The clicker has to be plugged in and charged, you guys. We learned that today. >> Is everybody able uh board members able to pull it up so that they can see it? Because this is far for us to see. Don't change that. Don't move it. I'm just saying give us a second to catch up, Becky. >> It was in the >> Well, I've made changes since you guys in our email, right? >> Slides. >> Um, do you want me to Is it changed since you sent it to me earlier today? >> Yes. >> Do you want me to have >> Yes, please. Okay. >> So, I may suggest the board members move if they need to see this better because it's not We don't have an actual >> Great idea.

072Yeah, that's mine. >> There's plenty of room over here. >> Yeah, there you go. That's better. Thank you, Becky. >> We don't bite. >> Well, and I will add that, you know, typically we put the presentation together. It goes into your board packet. I'm usually done with the presentation by like Wednesday night, Thursday morning. Board packet goes out on Friday. Because we've been holding community events and chatting with people, there was no way that I could build this presentation and not address some of the concerns that came out in our last community conversation. So, I definitely am prepared this evening to talk a little bit about re-evaluation, what that looks like in terms of how it impacts um our taxpayers and of course to assist the board in being able to make really good decisions

073this evening as we talk about the setting of our tax levy. So, to get us started, uh we are going to jump right in and talk first about the Bosey's budget which is what we normally talk about and budget development presentation number three. go off our paper copies just in the in the um for efficiency. We need to go off something. We need to move. >> She has called us back to orderless. >> Ian's ready to switch. >> All right. Are you ready, Becky? >> Yes. >> I'm sorry, but I think we need a motion to get back into our our meeting, please. >> So moved. >> Got a second. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I. It is 7:07. That took us a lot a little longer than five minutes. We're going to

074move to our budget three presentation. Dr. Chanel. >> All right. So, in tonight's presentation, we're going to do a couple of things. We're going to review the Bosey's budget. Uh just a a reminder to the board that we do have a board meeting scheduled for April 27th. That is a Monday instead of a Tuesday. April 27th is intentional because it is the night that we must come together to vote for the bus the Bosey's administrative budget. So uh our board meeting moves from a t from a Tuesday night to a Monday night for that purpose. So just a reminder to you there. We're also going to talk about the refinement of our 2627 budget. Uh Mr. Nicole Well and I are going to talk to you about where we stand right now in terms of

075the gap between appropriations and revenue, how we intend to do some gap closing, um some revenue adjustment. We're going to be seeking input from the board this evening on the tax levy. Uh we are also based on our conversation at our last meeting going to do a quick look back at foundation aid and the tax levy to give us an idea of how we look in terms of foundation aid and the levy, how those two things interchange in terms of our revenue. We are definitely going to dig in this evening to re-evaluations in school tax and how those how those two things work together. We will speak about the reserves and the district's financial health both short-term and long-term. I'll speak about the budget survey results a little bit in this presentation and again then

076just wrap up at the end talking about our next step. So let's get started with the Bosey's expenditures. I'm going to let Mr. Powwell uh speak to this to get us started. Right. So if you take a look at the Bose slide, you'll see that the year-over-year uh is pretty flat here in terms of an increase from the 2526 budget to the 26 27th proposed budget. There's a couple increases in there that I just want to call out. I won't go line by line with you, but um the uh if you look down at the edge techch subscription software, hardware, phones, etc. line, uh you see a small increase there. That is just reflective of some increases in the admin costs associated with our early college coaster that we're entering next year. Then just some

077standard increases um to Edgitech and also Bosey's administration um which we talked about briefly in the last board meeting. um their rent capital expenditures went up by about $6,000 and that's reflected in that line as well. Um the other line I want to talk about is you'll see a larger increase in the software and hardware line. In that line, we capture everything from our contracts with day automation that help us administer throughout campus. We cover all of the hardware and software um that we use for students that we use for staff subscriptions everything from go guardian to parent squareear to incident IQ and also telecommunications and all of our network printing charges are in that line. That's where we see that the the one notable thing to to just say about that line before we

078go to the next slide is this is a line where a lot of efficiencies exist because a lot of those subscriptions could be purchased outside of Boseies. But by purchasing that all of these things through that 874 number you see we're generating revenue at 74% because it's a Bosey's expenditure. Any questions about that? In terms of just looking at the last year's expenditures or this year's expenditures, this is one area where obviously we don't want to make cuts in any line that we're generating aid in. They're things that we need in order to manage the day. Um, one thing that we are getting better at each year, especially in terms of software, is making sure that we are tracking the use of that software. So, if we're buying something because teachers say they need it

079for instructional purposes, are we then actually using it and getting getting enough use out of it that it is worth it? So, that's something that um Director Pete pays pretty close attention to in terms of usage. Um when folks ask for things, we're always looking at what do we already own that can do what you're asking for. So, we definitely have some checks and balances in terms of the subscriptions that we use right now um for instructional purposes. So this evening I want to talk a little bit about some district-wide priorities. So you've heard from the administrative team what their priorities are. Their priorities have been built into this budget. At this point we're starting to lean into some district priorities that I think um that are that are reflected inside the budget that you're

080that you've been looking at uh and things that we should consider. So I do believe that we need to increase our communications with the community. I think we've heard that pretty steadily. I think it's something that in my time here in Calonia, we've heard periodically uh in terms of at board meetings, even conversation long term around a newsletter. Uh I surveyed the superintendents in the region just to get a sense of how many people do still send a newsletter home. There are a lot of districts that do mail newsletters home, nice printed versions. Almost no one is doing that monthly. So we had talked maybe a meeting ago, maybe two meetings ago now that we need to develop our own pattern. uh maybe sending something out quarterly would be the way to do that. We

081can purchase uh communications through BOSIES. I would actually go into a cross contract on this one and cross contract with Monroe to Boseies with their PR department so that we would have someone assigned to us. So built into this budget is a person that would work for us one day a week. They would be responsible for assisting with our communications, assisting with um our social media and posting on social media, which you see they're doing a little bit for us right now. They're managing just a little bit of that uh the budget conversation for me. Uh as you know, we used Jese Valley Boseies last year during our budget season. They assisted with our newsletter development. So, we're just taking that exact same money and we've moved it over into Monroe 2 uh for this

082season. They also once they're on campus and working for us one day a week will be able to assist with some of our web master work. So that's that's something else that's come up. It has not been a huge district priority for us to maintain the website. Um but definitely something that we've heard from community members. The other thing here which I think is probably you're going to see it twofold. It's definitely something that uh we we piloted this year. So I want to talk a little bit about a pilot. So we were able through our local Boseies to join a coser that allows kids to earn college credit through dual enrollment and actually have their dual enrollment courses paid for by the district and then generate Bosey's aid on that college tuition. So much

083like we pay for our students to go to career and technical education for the trades, we generate aid on what we spend there, we're now able to do something with dual enrollment. So in the first semester, we piloted it and we did not go out strong saying that we would pay for every college credit. I wanted to see like how many kids actually in Calonia are their families are going through the GCC dual enrollment process paying for college credit to earn that college credit. So, we went through our normal process for kids getting involved in dual enrollment. We then did not have parents pay for GCC courses. In the second semester, we rolled that out slightly differently and we came out with some messaging that said you won't have to pay for the college classes.

084The district will do that to see do is it about money from the first semester or is it about kids just are not interested in earning dual enrollment credits. We got into the second semester and we said, listen, the district is going to pay for it. were in a pilot and we saw it participation increase significantly. So once we are paying for the dual enrollment passes through GCC, we actually are not only going to generate aid on the tuition that we pay for students, we are also going to generate aid on the portion of the teacher salary for the time that our teachers are teaching that course. That is huge for us. So just in running those numbers for this year while we are in pi in pilot, it's also same year aid. So we

085are going to have a little close to $100,000 of aid that we're going to generate this year that we were not expecting for revenue. >> Salary and benefit. >> Benefits do not run through. Okay. >> Salary does. >> And that's dispersed the current school year that you earn it or >> That is correct. Okay. Wow. >> That is same year aid. Same year aid. So we're we've generated aid this year on teacher salaries that otherwise would not be aidable. So I've been we are constantly looking for ways to create efficiencies. That's one of the ways that we we are hoping to create efficiency. Uh what I will not do I will not turn our entire high school and every class that we run into a GCC class. And let me tell you why. We have

086our own curriculum. We have our own courses. We have our own unit design. Once you start to switch over into some of the GCC courses, you might would have to change everything about the curriculum that you teach in order to align to their curriculum. So, I'm not in a hurry to change everything that we've that we do and that we've done. Well, what I am asking right now is all of your department heads across the high middle and high school are really studying what courses do we offer when we map those courses over to the GCC catalog. How many I'm calling it lowhanging fruit. How many more GCC dual enrollment credits could we pick up? So, you're talking about two things here. The one that's most important is that we offer kids lots of opportunities

087to earn college credit. Why is the state of New York doing this? Well, because there's research behind this that suggests that kids that earn college credit while they're in high school are more likely to graduate from college. So, you're trying to give kids a good solid base. It also really has a great benefit to taxpayers. Right now, between our dual enrollment courses and our advanced placement courses that also um earn college credit, we have students that will go off to college and be sophomores by their second semester. So, what we're getting ready to do will just be in addition to GCC does have some stipulations. So, in order to teach a class at the high school level that is connected to GCC, dual enrollment, you must have 18 credit hours in that content area in

088your masters. So, you basically have to qualify to be an adjunct professor in order to offer the dual enrollment here. So, we also have some teachers that do not have 18 credit hours in their master's program. So, they would not be able to offer dual enrollment through GCC. So currently this year we offer dual enrollment through GCC and through RIT. So all of our project lead the way courses run through RIT. We have agreements through Boseies with both of those colleges to pay for the students college credits to generate aid on that and to generate aid on the teachers that are teaching those courses for the portion of time that they are teaching it. So our teachers can teach three classes. Let's say two of those classes, we have a handful of teachers that two

089of the three they're actually teaching dual enrollment. We're going to generate aid on up to $40,000 of their salary. So you're talking about a revenue source that we would not otherwise have and a lot of access to dual enrollment courses. The second phase of this besides looking at GCC and what more could we do is which other college can we partner with? So, there are other colleges that schools partner with. Some um some of in some folks in our region partner with Syracuse University and they offer SUPA courses. Supa kind of like AP. They're going to dictate your curriculum. They're going to dictate your textbook. It's very similar. Uh there are also a lot of schools in our region that partner with privates. And so, we've started to do just a little bit of a

090research research into some of the private schools. So, while their tuition might be a little bit more than a GCC tuition, colleges like uh let's see who are we talking to right now? You just did one H Hotton. We just Morgan met with H Hotton. Hen will allow teachers to teach dual enrollment course as long as they have the credit hours, but it can be in their undergraduate work. Now, once it's in their undergraduate work, you're talking about most of our content area teachers across our high school. We're going to continue to look for partnerships to really take this next level of dual enrollment for us. Um, not only to offer to kids, but obviously here we talk about both the opportunities to children. How are we going to do that and have it be

091cost-effective, we're not only going to generate aid on the on that college credit that we pay for, we're going to generate aid on the teacher salary. That it's huge huge. It's just huge for us. >> Questions about that? >> Yeah, go ahead. >> Go ahead. >> Okay. Uh, so it's a $100,000 uh reimbursement and that's at half capacity or full swing. Do you think that that's a representative of like the second semester? >> That's more representative of the That's the full year. That's the full year >> as it ran with a a slow intro or >> Yes. >> That's just what it looked like for us without >> trying to do a lift. >> That's nice, >> isn't it? I'm excited about it. >> What's your net cost to the program though? Um, is it

092cash positive or >> It's very cash positive. >> Really? >> Yes, very cash positive. I can share those numbers out. I want to say tuition was right around I'm going to say 12. Let's say $13,000. It was a little over 12. So, let's say it was tuition was $13,000. We're going to generate eight on that. >> Yeah. >> And then on our teacher salaries, we had I want to say six teachers, seven teachers. of those seven teachers that we normally pay out of the general fund, you would never generate aid on that. We're generating aid on almost up to 40 on all of them. I think there was only one that we're only going to generate up to 20 because that teacher only taught a college level course in the fall. I I'm going to

093fight that a little bit as best I can. We're structured a little bit differently than other schools because we're semestered. Um so I've got a plug in for like, hey, we're different, right? So, I should still be able to get up to 40. I'll see what I can do. I can be fairly persuasive from time to time. And I just wanted to make a comment about it as a parent. So, I had multiple students that did dual enrollment this semester. One of them, no matter what, we were going to dual enroll him. The other one has always said he will never go to college. And so, I didn't want to fight him with it. He didn't want to do the paperwork. And if I'm having to pay for that out of my pocket, I might

094I probably would have because I would, but I can see other parents if their child is saying, "I don't want to go to college," >> not wanting to pay that money. >> So, not only is it a benefit for the school's finances, it really is beneficial for the students and the families in the district because I signed him up and he's a freshman. In three years, he might be like, "Oh, I really do want to go to college. I wish I had those three courses that I could have had credit for." and there'd be no way to go back and get that. But now without having to make that financial choice as a taxpayer, I was able to get that. And then it also benefits the school's financial because we get aid on him being

095in that class. >> Yeah. I I there is no wrong side to this in terms of of benefit positive. So, oh, I I want to do let's talk a little bit about the the gap first. Okay. Okay. So, we're going to look here now at your I I went forward a couple. I apologize. I'm going to flip back and forth. Um, so this this is now kind of looking at the entire budget. So, you've seen bits and pieces of the budget. This evening, you'll look at the whole thing. This first one here, we're showing you appropriations uh down to that total where we right now with everything in the budget, all of your administrative priorities, the district priorities, everything we've put in there, you're looking at 23,843,877 on your appropriation side, your revenue side, this

096first slide is showing what our revenue would be if we went out at our cap. So, let me back up one slide. I want Brennan to speak to this a little bit because the last time we were together, the cap was 1.93 and we are now up a little bit. So, let's talk about why the tax cap moved. >> So, the Boseies exclusions came in and they had some rent increases which were about $6,700. So, that had to go over that had to be redistributed across all the districts in our Boseies. So that bumped up our cap a little bit um to 2.0154 from 1.97. It changed it a tiny bit. Um so what you'll see here is what that translates to in terms of an increase and what that translates to in terms of

097the total tax levy from 0.5% up to the full cap. Um so full cap now would be a $159,000 increase or an $8,83,166 tax levy. So that first scenario that you're looking at there takes us to the revenue side in terms of the levy. As we're looking at revenue, we're projecting what our what our revenue would be if we went out with the 2% at our tax levy, which puts us $123,752 and change in terms of the gap between our current appropriation projection and that revenue projection. Next slide. For that, we went ahead and said, "Okay, let's show the board exactly what that's going to look like if we were to go out at a 1% tax levy." So, if we go out at a 1% tax levy, that takes our total tax levy to

098just over $8 million and it leaves our gap at $24,25 and change. So again, no change in appropriations, just watching what happens to revenue. And last, looking at that gap, if the board decides that we are going to go out at a levy of 0%. Going out at a levy of 0% means we return back to the exact levy that we used last year. So we're collecting no more funds from our community, just under that $8 million mark at 7923478. This puts our gap at 283,440.38. And when you say zero increase, that does not mean zero school taxes. >> That is correct. That is correct. >> Because some >> that would be a gap. >> Wouldn't that be >> because you know there could be that confusion. Well, they said 0%. That means zero. >>

0990% increase on the levy. Yes. >> On the levy. >> Still the amount though. >> It's a good point. >> The language we use is um can be misconstrued and we use it so often, but I I I agree with you. You hear zero. >> You think that >> No, we're still collecting tax. >> Yes, we're still collecting tax. I mean, I feel like this evening I'm also going to cross over into talking about the tax bill, which I don't like to do. So I want you to keep coming back with the clarity around that in case I start talking kind of natural because in the end as a school district we are responsible only for setting the levy. Every other component of that tax bill exists with others and so I'm going to dabble

100in it but I don't like to talk about the tax bill itself because I think in the end I don't know what your tax bill is going to be. We're going to make some predictions here tonight. The reason why we're going to make those predictions is to really help the board understand when we're setting the levy, what it means to set the levy, how the levy impacts the tax bill. But there's so much that goes into that tax bill beyond the levy. So, I love you asking that question and taking us back to what is the levy. All right, I'm going to hop around here again. So, if we're going to try to close our gap, we know that regardless what you guys decide here tonight on setting a tax, setting the levy, we know

101that we have a gap regardless. So, I want to talk about what our what our strategies are for refinement and efficiencies before we see you next. So, depending on the size of that gap, it will matter how many of these strategies that we have to deploy. Similar to last year, uh we will be looking to add both maybe some less conservative estimates in our revenue and to maybe look at some of our expenditures and try to see, you know, what what we could cut. So it is principles, close your ears. It is always easy for us to cut something that we don't have yet. And so typically in these refinements, you're going to watch things that the administrators have said are pretty important to run our programs. I can't look that way. So, quick cuts

102for us really would be that we don't do additions. We don't add a STEM teacher. We don't add monitors. Uh I was really cognizant this year of not having any of the department heads come in here and ask for more that we didn't look for recycle plans for computers. We didn't look at added increase in facilities. You didn't see that this year because Mr. Cowwell and I have been working very strategically on the back end of this budget development to try to get us back to a zerobased budget. So when I look at expenditures for the last few years and I say okay well for the last couple of years we have been able to handle we've cut them but then been able to handle our replacement plans with fund bounds. So instead of asking

103for those this year I'm saying I see three years worth that I' we've been able to handle that with fund bounds. So instead of asking we'll give it another role. If we get in a predicament where we don't have our budget becomes too conservative and we don't have fund balance ever, then we can't manage endofear spending, which is how we have taken care of not doing additions in this budget for equipment recycle plans, computer recycle plans, right? We've just managed very tightly in that way. We've been able to pull it off because we've been pretty lucky. So those would be the first things that would go in terms of efficiencies. the things that we have asked for that are new, we would not add new. Also, we have talked about how could we with our

104current staff and where we have our current aids placed in the building, is there room for an efficiency where we don't hire another aid for UPK, we actually make a transition from another area of the building into that UPK aid. So, reducing there as well. We also know that right now inside the governor's proposal, she is telling her projections are that for every student that enrolls in full day prek that we will get $10,000 in aid. We know that that is the proposal. We're still waiting on the one house bill. We see it on both sides of the one house bill, the increase in prek. What we have done so far in terms of revenue is we've only booked to about $251,000 because that would have been our federal money had we been UPK all

105along full full day UPK all along. So we're trying to be conservative in how we map that number. By the time we see you again in midappril as we're doing refinement maybe we know the one house bill. Maybe we get a better sense of what that's going to be. Maybe by that time we had a pretty decent pre-registration for UPK. Maybe we see we had 47 families in that original survey tell us that they were going to come to full day prek. So we'll see if we get that resolved. We should be able to talk about what that means for us in terms of revenue. How is it revenue? Because every dollar that we currently pay for UPK is coming out of the general fund. This would be us switching money that we have been

106paying out of the general fund out of the general fund and over into a grant. >> Say that again, please. >> We currently pay for our UPK program. We've been paying for it out of the general fund. So, we budget for it and we pay for it. We get some money back in aid, but we're only a half day program. >> We don't get enough back to cover the actual cost of running our UPK program. We are now going to take what the taxpayers have been paying for UPK >> out of the general fund and we're going to put it over to have it be paid through this grant. >> So it frees up re frees up revenue. >> Got it. >> Okay. Next up, we talked a little bit about that increase in Bosey's

107aid. So originally as I jumped into the pilot this year to see what could I do, I was honestly and 100% looking to create enough revenue that I could step in here today and say I we can generate enough revenue and these two quick moves. The second move we made this year, we moved our teacher leadership stipens into a Bosey's coaster and we generated aid on all of those. So your grade level leaders, your curriculum leaders, they've all gone through a training in curriculum leadership at Boseies, put them over into the coaster, we generated aid between the increase in the early college dual enrollment and moving teacher leaders over into aable line. I was really hoping to get that STEM teacher. I was really hoping. I'm trying very hard to find ways to create efficiencies

108that also allow us to build out programs. We know we need to build out that program. Depending on where we go with the levy, right, it will change how that money is being spent. Questions about refinements and efficiencies? I I trust that uh you have uh conversations with your team. I know some of the things they brought to you uh us as proposals, their wish list. Are some of those higher uh priorities for them such as like the lunch monitor than other things they might already have? And would that conversation are those conversations you have with them where there might be low hanging fruit of something that they don't feel as as necessary as these? They strategically didn't ask you for anything this year that isn't where they're feeling necessary, >> but something they already

109have. >> Give me an example. >> Would I don't know. Would they would they want to give anything that's already a cost in exchange for? Is that a conversation you have? >> We Yes. So, in terms of exchange, that's actually why you see like even in the UPK, like could we could we take something that was functioning in one area of the building and actually move it into another to create efficiency? So, the answer is yes. I think one thing that we you probably all need to see a little bit more data from us. I feel like we have a ton of it and I don't want to overload people. We talk often about um how many teachers we have at each grade level and how many kids are in each class. And while we

110might be able to handle two or three more kids in each of those classes, we don't have enough kids to go to four teachers and we definitely have too many kids to go to two. >> Right? So in the end when we're looking at ourselves straight across the board for how we are staffed there isn't any place to wiggle in terms of your teaching staff. So for them to try like I'm thinking in particular about STEM because I'm pretty invested in that building still too like we know we need that. So if we don't do that, there isn't staff to teach courses that we need to offer and there isn't anybody we could offer up to then have the STEM teacher. Whereas like a few years back, if you recall, we we had a retirement

111lease daily retired driver's ed teacher full-time taught fizz one block. When Lee Daily retired, we didn't replace Lee. We went looking for efficiency. We train two teachers in teaching driver's education for us. We move most of our driver's education, all of our driver's education now actually into the summer. So there have been times where we've been able to swap out for efficiency and create a new model with what we're asking for right now. There is no efficiency to create. So the the lunch monitors, lunch monitoring in the middle high school is all happening with core area teachers. So, h how do we make sure that kids that need math support get math support? How do we make sure if you got behind in science that the science teacher can pull you? Right now, that's a

112little challenging. And that has happened because we we took an aid from the building and moved her over to transportation department to be both a secretary and a driver. We didn't replace her in the building. Right? So every time we've created those efficiencies, every time you do that, you save money in the budget, but then you create another spot where there wasn't anybody there to backfill. So once that aid switched over two years ago now to the transportation department, you're you're down a person. I do think at minimum we probably should look at an aid but I'm not asking for more budget money for that because one of the things that we did is we transition from the aid over to a worker from center for youth put that through Boseies generate aid on that

113full position not as flexible as an aid is what we're feeling this year so you might see us go back to our old model but at no cost in terms of it's not an addition to the budget But we will lose revenue on the Boseies end. >> Going back to my high school, our our lunch period and our study halls were manned by like seniors. They were the monitors. Is that anything anybody would ever think about doing? In other words, you would have a senior, actually sometimes it wasn't even a senior, and they their job was to come to the the and they were they were monitoring their own kids. We could do it over third graders or something like that. You know, you have older kids come and read to younger kids. We definitely

114have older kids over in the elementary lunchroom assisting with lunches over there. But >> Oh, you do? >> Yeah. But at the elementary level, I don't know. I don't know how that would go over if we tried to move lunch monitors that were students into the middle high. >> And yeah, I I flinch over. >> Well, I I can see you flinching, but as I said, that's that's what we did. and and this was a huge high school with >> with uh thousands of kids. >> I would just have to like I guess what I would need to understand is would >> Well, I suppose if you hired a student to be a lunch monitor, they'd have they'd have to for us, right? Because if not, we aren't we aren't meeting our own policy around

115supervision. So now you don't have school staff doing supervision. We don't in our current policy, we don't leave kids unattended without supervision. So we would have to look at that. I'm not opposed to researching it. Maybe maybe juniors and seniors could support in the sixth grade lunch, in the seventh and eighth grade lunch. Maybe maybe in the seventh and eighth grade lunch. When maybe it's a that's a busy place. Um but not opposed to looking into into the support of that, >> but like almost like uh the honors the honor students. >> Absolutely. >> You know, doing it and getting it for their community credit that they have to do. >> Yes. >> As opposed to getting paid for it. idea. >> Okay, other questions about refinements, efficiencies. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. All

116right. So, next up, maybe the one at the bottom just Just keep talking, Dr. Yes, I'm definitely going to I'm going to take you um I want to take us back to the tax levy. So, I think it is important for us to discuss the levy. I'm not going to ask you in this moment to make a decision before we leave here to before we leave this presentation. We really do need to have the levy set. Maybe not in stone, but we got we've got to get there in order to be able to make our refinements. Um, so what I want to do is talk a little bit about what that gap looks like. So hard to keep track of where I am in this. Um, I want to talk about what the gap looks

117like. So no matter what, we have to make refinements to the budget. And if we're going to talk about the the refinements, I suppose this would be a good time for us to at least start to have the conversation around your sense. So what are when you're thinking about this tax levy and the upcoming vote 2% 1% obviously anything in between or looking at going out at zero which you don't see in my chart but like I'm I'm I'm feeling it right not not just from individual communications and questions that you all have asked but also from the community we're feeling that right now there's some pretty open pressure around people just don't have the money so I think in general I want to get started by talking about the fact that to Liz's point,

118we we definitely still will be collecting school tax. So, what your tax bill was last year with a re-evaluation, your tax bill, if we go out of the exact same levy >> could still go up. It's likely still going to go up, right? So, tonight I'm going to run us I want to run us through some scenarios around, you know, kind of what happens with re-evaluation and how it plays into a tax bill. But when I do that this evening, I want to be clear that I cannot tell folks what their what their tax bill is going to be. So the whole next portion of this conversation is really going to be me talking about some scenarios. They are scenarios. So if you guys will go to I believe it's slide 20 in your slide

119deck. I I already can't use a clicker, so I'm giving up on it. Um slide number 20. The following scenarios are not a complete picture of what? Yes, ma'am. >> What should it look like? Because our slides aren't numbered. >> Right there. Right there by your thumb. >> I'm sorry. >> This one here. >> This one right here. >> Oh, jeez. Okay. >> I am so sorry. This is like This was already going to be the one of the hardest things for me to teach to now you don't have your tools. >> Not be able to Yeah. Not not have my tools is not not making me very uh happy. All right. So, the following scenarios are not a complete tax picture. So, let's talk about what we don't know. There's a lot that we

120do not know. We have no idea what equalization rates are going to be. >> Can you please tell us what that means? >> I can tell you what an equalization rate means. That I think the best way to describe an equalization rate is to tell you that every community that pays tax to Calonia Mumford Central Schools. Each one has to pay their portion of the pie. So we're >> So when you say community, you mean Calonia and Mumford? Calonia, Mumford, Leroy, Rya, Chili. >> Oh. Oh, okay. So, there are there's a lot. >> Any of the communities that have students that come in here enrolled here enrolled in our school. >> Yep. >> Okay. So, we take the tax levy and in order to collect the tax, whatever it is that we set here in

121terms of the levy, let's let's go with $8 million just to talk in big numbers. Let's say that we say $8 million. that $8 million is going to get paid across all of those communities. There are some functions that have to happen in order for those tax rates to be set. And those functions have nothing to do with us. So, when I start to talk about what the bill looks like, the closest I can get to that is to say, we can use last year's numbers for all of the municipalities and try to hold them tight as if we're living in a vacuum and time just stopped. And that the only thing that didn't stop was a re-evaluation in the town of Calonia. So, the re-evaluation in the town of Calonia has happened and the

122letters have gone out, >> but it's not in the other communities. >> Some communities in not ne Not in our school district. No, >> Livingston County. Yes. >> Almost everyone in Livingston County has either already gotten their letters or they're expecting them. There is a countywide re-evaluation occurring in Livingston County. It is our understanding that there will not be a re-evaluation in the town of Wheatland >> till 2027. >> Yeah. >> Right. So what where we where we have to stay though in this conversation and not go too in the weeds is that every single bill has lots of functions that occur in it that are outside of our control. >> Okay? So we're going to hold as if everything else is the same except that Calonia, the town of Calonia and village was reassessed.

123Okay. So this is a scenario that shows you what happens when the assessed value of a community goes up significantly. But this is a taxpayer whose assessment, although it went up, did not go up at the same rate as the community. Okay. >> It is my understanding, so write these numbers down, but they're just for you. Block the camera for a second. It is my understanding that we are somewhere town of Calonia. We are somewhere between the value of this community, the whole community's value, every taxpayer saw an increase in their assessment on average 40% increase. Wow. Last week, I believed it to be 30. >> Yeah, that's what >> I now think we're leaning toward 40. You'll be surprised to know that the assessor is not as available as she would have been a

124couple weeks ago. I I am told that there is a wait list, right, to meet with her. So, there is a wait list. She is currently meeting with people pretty consistently and there is a wait list. So, I did play phone tag with her a little bit today, but today I'm hearing through the grapevine and I'm still waiting for confirmation that really it's 40. My numbers show what happens if the average of the town is 30%. So let me tell you what that will impact. If it goes to 40 instead of 30, this number will get lower. When your assessments go up, your tax rate goes down. So this is an example of a taxpayer whose assessed value went up but their assessed value went up by 20%. In a community that went up 40

125in a community that went up 30. So when that happens this taxpayer is actually going to see a decrease in their tax bill. This taxpayer is going to see a decrease in their tax bill if we go out at 1%. And certainly if we go out at zero difference about $35 >> and you're explaining that because it's below the 30%. >> Yes. That's >> this one is a tax decrease because this property did not go up in value at the same rate as their neighbors. >> That's hard to understand. >> Oh, I know. I know. >> You want to talk about equalization rate now? >> Nope. We're not going to talk about equalization rate at all this evening. Put a pin in it. >> Let me let me. So, Calonia, the people who live in

126Calonia, their reassessment should take their equalization rate to like 100%. That means your true tax is on whatever the number you have, >> which is I like that because then you get when you go to the grievier assessment, you can truly say this is what my parcel is worth. Whereas if and it's because your assessments are current. If you're in Wheatland and your assessment is 10 years old, but they've incrementally adjusted you last year. So, Wheatland's going to have the additional burden this year because there was an issue with the equalization rate. Okay? So, we remember that. >> But our equalization rate could be as low as 55%. >> So, if my house is currently assessed at like what a fair value is, I'm still getting taxed at a 45% increase over what? So it's

127really it's it's an advantage to have a current assessment >> to the community >> for >> Yeah. >> I don't >> Yeah, we're >> if you wanted for Wheatland I don't know if I want to say that out loud. I feel like it's going to be a double whammy if you've not been assessed recently, >> right? Because the equal you >> if you've been if they've incrementally I can't grieve my assessment this year because it's actually accurate. But according to the the equalization rate, >> equalization rate is going to take your market value to what it market value and you can't argue it because it's being inflated at a state level, >> right? >> There's nobody to go talk to. >> So Calonia is actually I mean they they did it's painful to look at,

128but like Dr. Chanel is showing your tax rate per thousand is >> falling. We're not spending more money because the the value of the properties in the community has gone up. Our budget is very consistent. >> We would not. So I think that's where people are confused, right? So people think my assessed value went up, the school is going to collect more. We are we only collect as a function of how school tax works. We only collect what we agreed to levy on vote day. So again, if it was $8 million, we're only colle Not only, that's a big number. We're collecting $8 million. Whether your house went up by 20%. >> Whether your house went up by 40%. >> Or whether your house went up by 100%. >> But that last one instead, >>

129I mean, that's $426. This is an example of a property own property owner whose assessed value went up slightly more than the community average. If the community average is 40, this person's assessed value goes up at 47, they're a little bit over. This number is based on 30. So that I don't want to confuse you, but this if we if it's if the average is really 40 and not 30, this number is going to go down. Where it gets confusing is if we go out at 1%. I'm going to say we're going out at zero. We go out at 0% and collect 8 million million >> approximately. People's taxes, a majority of our community's taxes are going to go up. >> Probably 50% of the community's taxes are going up. Even if we go out

130at zero, that I wanted you to see that this evening. Mhm. >> So even if we go out at zero and so you're, you know, you're back to whether we go out at zero or whether we go out at one, you're back to the difference for this property owner is $35, >> maybe a little more, >> but it's not a huge tremendous jump like you would think with >> they're going to get they're going to get the jump anyways, >> right? But because of their reevaluation, they're going to get the jump, which he has no control over, >> which we have no control over. We don't control that. We don't control that. This one is probably the worst case. This is the worst case scenario. This one right here. And this one I think is

131probably was probably the hardest one for me to hear. And it wasn't from one taxpayer. It's from several. >> So there are a handful of roads in the town of Calonia where almost everybody on the street saw their assessed value go by 100%. >> There was a family at the meeting last week. >> Yes. Yes. >> That doubled. >> Yep. They doubled. So, the examples you have in here are are real examples from our community. >> They are. They are. We can see we can see your property tax your school tax bill from last year. I can see your property taxes. I can see all of that by going to the county's website. So, I went in and pulled real people's bills and said, "Okay, now let's let's look at what that would look like

132for our taxpayers." So, again, you're not taking into consideration equalization, all of that. I can't do any of that. Everything held as if it were last year except I want to show you this is the correlation. This is what happens when that tax rate when we get reassessed this tax rate is going to go down. The tax rate goes down but based on your increase in assessment at 100%. This person's tax bill is going up $4,000. Their school tax bill an estimate $4,000 if we go out at 1%. 3960 if we go out at zero. No matter what we do, no matter what we do, no matter what we do, we can't solve the fact that their re-evaluation caused their portion of the pie to grow. So, I don't love the term fair share. I

133don't love it. It's not usually how I like to talk about money. This is how property tax works in the state of New York. If your home is worth more than your neighbor's home, you pay more than your neighbor. It's based on the value of your home. This example, I think, is challenging because now you're talking about folks that live in your community who >> maybe built this house with their own hands. It didn't cost them a million dollars to have that home. Last year, their home was $4.99 and they could afford to live there. This re-evaluation, they're very concerned about living in their home. We can't help them with that. But is that real? That's real. That's actually happening to people. They're they're going to fight their their evaluation. We just we have no

134control over that. No matter what, their bill is going up. These I think this one was like $114. The difference between for this p for this taxpayer the difference between us going out at zero and us going out at one is another $114 >> which is minor compared to $4,000 that they're paying. >> Yes. Because no matter what >> Yeah. >> No matter what no matter what they're paying it no matter what. >> At least 4,000. >> Yes. No matter what. Zero or 1%. No matter what. >> I think your slides showed that really well. And they also help me understand how some people that even though their assessment went up, their taxes can go down because that's very confusing for me >> because it's the average across the the the whole municipality. >> Before

135these post on the internet, I feel like I'm going to get a big red stamp that says sample because I think in the end there are so many more numbers that really factor into what this is going to be. But I tried to make it concrete because in the end we have a big decision to make in terms of the school budget and I see this as two things. I'll go back to the beginning of our conversation. I see it as I can't control that this is going to happen. We can't control that this is going to happen to you anyways. We can't we also can't control some of our own expenses. And so if we don't go up. So now I'm going to take you to a couple samples. My slides. I am so

136disoriented from not having a clicker to get started. I apologize. I want to take you to a health insurance example. >> Let's go look at our health insurance example. Health insurance is one of our largest increases in terms of our um appropriations for the coming school year. It is not unlike any other organization in the state of New York. Health care costs are off the chart for us. We belong to two consortiums. So I want to talk about that for a second. We don't just go out and buy our healthcare. We belong to consortium so that we get buying power. So that already exists for us. We're in consortiums with buying power. Our consortiums, similar to our own local reserves that we have as a school district, we pay into the consoria. We have a

137reserve account over there as a consortium and we pay for health care. So we all unite and we pay for healthcare. So, it mitigates some of our own liability, right? If you have a you have someone that is very ill, someone that works for you and needs a heart transplant, right? You're talking about a very expensive employee to have. We mitigate one another's bills by making sure that we have big buying power. There are a couple of factors that are happening right now in this market, in our local market. We use Excelis. Excelis will tell you if they were sitting in this room right now that one of their biggest issues is that you have two very large hospitals in Rochester, Rochester General and Strong that are buying up every little hospital, buying up every

138practice, buying up everything. It's getting harder and harder to negotiate price because you have no one to pit anyone against to keep prices down. Prices are skyrocketing. We can see in our data that a knee surgery three years ago, what it cost versus what it costs today skyrocketed. We can see that drug costs, our pharmaceutical costs have skyrocketed. What are we doing about it? All of the consorcia are looking at ways to honestly limit access to certain medications. How do we control cost? That's how we control cost. We say no to that and no to that. So definitely there everything that's within our control we're trying to do. So we don't have a lot of control in the places that we have control we're trying to maximize that control. So let's just stick with healthcare.

139Here's our healthcare example. So healthcare for us this year went up at 17.17%. Overall we're right about there with the town and the village when I talk to them about what their expenses are going to be. That gives us that total increase right now 328 to47. Celebrate, ladies and gentlemen, because we got 4.6% increase in our foundation aid. You see that increased revenue from foundation aid? Guess where it went? Guess where it went? We got lucky. We got lucky this year. I don't love this slide. Brendan and I, we have been going round and round for a couple days on this slide. I'm going to try to explain it to you. Hopefully, it makes some sense. No matter what We start off with our tax levy. You know that. So tonight, let's say we're going

140to do a round number. We're going to go with $8 million. If we don't collect anything more this year, we go out of zero. We collect that same $8 million. We don't get any more money. If we collect 1%, we get another 79235. If we collect 2%, double that, we get 1596. This is just the projection of where we will start at this same time next year in terms of a gap between our revenue and our appropriations just for healthare. Just for healthare they're telling us to expect one more year of numbers that look like this. So, if we go next year with numbers that say we're going to see another 20% increase in healthare, our health care costs, the gap between what we would expect to get for foundation aid next year, which we've

141escalated at 2%. We have no idea what we're going to get in foundation aid next year, we're going to escalate it at 2% because that's what everybody else is getting right now is 2%. So, let's say that that's all that we get. Our levy doesn't go up. So that's all that we collect is the exact same levy. You start out next year at this time with health insurance alone with a gap of almost $300,000. We collect the 1%. We still have a gap but our gap reduces to 193. We collect 2%. We still have a gap but our gap just to health insurance reduces to 112. The community is asking us in our conversations to think about the right now the increases in their own costs at home. We have our costs too. They're increases

142at home. The increases in utilities. We heard utilities in both meetings that we were in. Now we're hearing the re-evaluation increase in property tax. We are in fact their largest tax bill. School your school tax bill is your largest tax bill. They're saying we can't do it. I need us to understand when we're making our decision, we could start off next year like this. Maybe this doesn't happen. Maybe next year we see an increase in foundation aid. I'll be the first one to celebrate that. Maybe next year health insurance is magically fixed and we don't see this massive increase. This is just health insurance. This isn't us looking at the increased cost of our contracts. It's not the increased cost of our own utilities. All the things that you know are also going up in

143in our house. This is just healthcare >> questions. We have an uphill battle regardless. >> We do. >> It's just the the gaps closed a little if we go out at 1% or 2%. >> The risk is mitigated just >> a little bit. >> But $100,000 is $100,000. >> It is. It is. But then when you hear before the reassessments, I had some thoughts on what we should do in terms of what we should go out at. But since the reassessment, I'm really concerned that our community can't tolerate that >> any increase. >> But then which I agree, but then say in one year, two year, five years, what do we do with the money we didn't try to get this year? >> Exactly. It compounds, >> right? because say we don't ask for that,

144you know, whatever $80,000, $100,000 more, then we don't have it and we've got to fill it back up somehow. And how do we how do we do that and still be sensitive to what a community really does need and deserve, >> short-term, long term, >> all of that. All of that. And we want to present a budget to our community that they can vote for. >> Yes. >> And we're coming off a season where we were unable to do that the first time around. And Right. >> Yes. >> Lots of things true all at the same time. >> So they're going to ask the same question they had last year. What about the reserves? >> Yes. >> Is this re are the reserves for a rainy day? Is this a rainy day >> or is

145it going to get rainier? Yes. >> And how do we refill the reserves in some capacity? Because we keep if we empty the piggy bank when it's gone, it's gone. >> I think that's what other districts are running into now. All in the news, I see cuts, cuts, cuts, cuts, cuts, like significant to where parents are having meetings and and people are throwing a fit at these other places that have found themselves in that unfortunate position. It's raining. Yeah, I think it's going to keep on. You know, we we feel it. >> So, we had our first reserve workshop. >> When was that? The beginning of the year. It was the reorg meeting date. >> Yes, it was. It was summer workshop. >> We were in the music room and it was really hot. >>

146Oh, it was really hot. You're right. >> So, July and I remember >> that workshop was so productive and there's a lot of conversation that we didn't get to everything on our list. I think true. We didn't talk about like what is the board's sense of how how much do we what is it an appropriate reserve balance at this time? Am I wrong? Be back. >> No, no, I would say you're there. We we worked on capital mostly because it was the most concrete for us to come up with a way to really think about what the reserve is and how you begin to maximize reserves to to offset tax burden. >> So I think that matters to me because we now might be using them, right? So what is we never really came to

147a consensus on that. >> Yeah. Big picture. So let's work through that. Let's take a look at this slide. So I had Brennan do this for you. This slide that we're looking at, this goes back to a question that Mr. Bellick asked in our last meeting. He said, "Well, let's take a look at what foundation aid has done for us in the past. What is foundation aid looked like and what has our tax levy looked like?" So I we created for you a table so you could really see that data. the board got that in advance, but I wanted to make sure since we talked about it in public that it shows up now in this presentation so the community gets a chance to see that same data set. Uh so really what you're watching

148happen is that we got gap elimination like everybody in the state got some money. So you see that we start to get some pretty big increases in foundation aid. They don't hold though. They're like let's call it reimbursement. The state owed us. They they had underfunded the foundation aid formula. They were trying to put some money back into the system. So you see some increases there. Now this year you're seeing the increase and what we know from this increase is that we saw an increase in our wealth ratio. Meaning the district now is showing up in state data as we have a little bit more need. So, it's both our students with disabilities, our English language learners, and our students that uh meet the threshold for poverty that are showing up in our numbers a

149little bit more, which is generating for us a little bit more uh foundation aid. I would also tell you that that same trifecta, that same component is what you're going to see when we start to get over into some of those survey results where people are starting to talk about we need more special education services. We need teachers to better understand students mental health. We should provide professional development. You're starting to see and feel a little bit of a change in the community. And with that comes some foundation aid. So what Brennan and I did for you is we wanted you to see what this kind of looks like in wealthy communities. Wealthy wealthy communities don't rely on foundation. Although they get it, they don't rely on it because they generate quite a bit of

150money on their tax levy. So they go out with a 2%. At 2% they're pulling far more than $160,000 for us. You can see and how these lines go from 2016 to 2026 how we always this the red is our levy. So our levy was always above our foundation aid. You watch the little intertwinement that happens. We were getting a little bit of give back money and now watch how we're pulling away. We are more reliant on foundation aid today than we've ever been. We have no control over foundation aid, but we're now more reliant on it. Questions about that? >> Do you want to add to that? >> Um, yeah, I would just add that just to kind of piggyback off what Dr. Chanel said there is that inflection point where the blue and

151the red meet and intersect is where we increase our susceptibleness to volatility in anything that could happen to the district because of how our state aid runs come back every year. So if we're purely reliant on that and that levy is flattening out, then the only way we can actually mitigate risk is to reduce expenditure or increase reserve use. And at that point, it's hard to replenish reserves when there is that gap. When you're living in this world where your levy is higher than your aid and you have reserves, good for you, you're really healthy. If you start to live in this world without reserves, every single volatility you would have to have the reserve to get yourself out of. So, it's a it is a bit of a change in landscape and I I

152needed you guys to see that this evening. I'm skipping all over the place today. So, let's talk about our reserves. You guys do have at your place tables here a reserve handout. It's got all of our reserves. It's got the health of each reserve, what we use it for. Again, this is this is linked on our website. It's out on our budget page. It's on the budget page. It's on the budget page. It's on the budget page. >> Business page. Not the budget page. The business page where all of our reserve uh information is. So we we did last year and again in the building of this coming budget, right, you've been looking at a couple years now of us doing a reserve um notation for revenue. So we've been pulling in reserves and doing

153the notation for revenue. You're going to see that exactly the same in in uh our plans moving forward. So we go back to the revenue slide, you would see that we're earmarking reserves this year, too, to keep our gap closed. Why are we sometimes at the end of the year we spend out of reserve and then we put the money back. So I want to talk about that. We have been very lucky to have a budget that is built that has contingency in it for the unknown. I want us to think back sitting in this boardroom of times where as a board I haven't had to come to you, but I was in the room when Superintendent Malani had to to say things like, "We had a water mane break. We have to pay for

154this repair. This is going to cost $170,000. This is how we're going to do it. This is how we're going to fund it." You've been in this room when a new family moved into the district and they had a child that needed a lot of support. And you could see a bill for a child that needs support as high as $230,000 is one of our one of our largest right now. We build a budget that takes care of every child that walks through our door, takes care of our facility, handles the ups and downs and the es and flows of the kinds of things that could happen here so that we can stay mission critical. I just said I haven't had to come and say any of those things to you again this year. Everybody

155knock on wood. Everybody knock on wood. So, this budget was well prepared to take care of some of the things we know could happen and we haven't had to do that. I'm going to knock out what some of you did. I meant it. We still have months to go, months to go in this budget. When the budget performs as well as it does, we get to the end of the school year with some fund balance. We're going to take care of Mrs. Pete's technology replacement plan. We're going to buy some things in facilities that we would otherwise not be able to afford. We're certainly not going to buy them in September. We're going to get through this year and make sure we got through the year. And then we're going to start talking about, okay,

156what are your needs? How do we brace oursel to go into next year better than we're leaving this year? So, end of year spending. It's intentional. We do it with intentionality. Our furniture replacement plan happens at the end of the year. We come out okay. All right. Let's take care of those couple classrooms that are on the list. How do we decide what we're buying end of year? every single department, every single teacher has an opportunity to talk about their program and if there were money what they would dream to have so that we can continue to build program. Anything that is earmarked in red that is considered a health and safety concern gets bought first. So we work through a process at the end of year for end of year spending. We also earmark

157some of our reserves to handle contingencies that we would not want to add to the budget and have to increase the levy in order to have that kind of contingency. So, we have some reserves that we move over and say in case we need these, you'll see in our plan right now that we'll earmark to pay our TRS bill out of a reserve. We're going to earmark to pay ERS. We're going to earmark to pay um we're going to we're going to spend down some of the unemployment. You're actually going to see that unemployment line with in the reserve which the controller did not like that for this budget. We've already taken $200,000 out of that reserve and put it over into a revenue line to meet the needs of this budget. So, we are

158most certainly going to earmark. Let's say next year this time we decide that the budget we we could handle paying the ERS bill. we we handled it. We survived the year and we handled that bill. We won't take the money out of our savings account. We'll leave it there because the budget performed and we were able to handle even that. So, I think the the the use of reserves is both that we are going to earmark them to use them and then we're going to try to also use our savings sparingly so that we're not being frivolous with the use of them. So we we earmark it. If we don't have to use it because the budget is performing really well, we we won't. But it is earmarked in there right now as revenue. We

159know that by the time we get to June, we want to try to make a deposit into our capital reserve of $400,000 that we did set as the expectation that we if we've got money, we've got to try to do that. Why do we need to do that? because that that particular reserve pays for the local portion of any capital project. We just met to talk about what it's going to look like when we close out this capital project. I've asked Brennan to get himself organized and ready to have a finance committee meeting because we it's time for us to start looking at the financing of this capital project long term. What we can see in our preliminary budget is that our reserves have done such a nice job for us that our interest rate

160is not only going to be so low, but that we're going to be able to go out to what is called public market. You heard me say we don't want to use DASE for the Boseies capital project. We are lucky that we don't have to use DSME for ours. We're going to go out to public market because that interest rate is going to be so low and we're going to be in the public market. We have the potential as it stands in this moment. We won't hit the we won't sign the papers until June to finance this thing. If everything stays as is, we are going to make an additional million in revenue off the aid of this project. I know, wrap your head around it. So, there are definitely things about the way that

161schools function, the way that municipalities function, the way that we are financed. The how I like to describe it is the state of New York already came into your paycheck and they already took your taxes up to the state and they put it in a pot. A pot of money. There's one big golden pot up there that's called capital project. And the only way to get to that pot of money is to do a capital project. Once we launch a capital project, we get to go up into that pot of money and we get to say, "Give us back the money that you took from us. Please put it right back down into our community." These capital projects is how we keep this facility up and running. It's how we create innovation. It's how we

162increase the security at our at our main offices. Wait till you see how secure the elementary school office vestibule is. It is a beautiful thing inside that building right now. The line of sight. I cannot wait for you to stand in there. What a difference in the security of the front end of that school. If we don't do capital projects, you think the state of New York is going to stop taking the money out of your paycheck? No. I didn't think so either. So, the pot of money is still going to go to the state and if we don't do it, if we don't do a capital project, we don't go get to try to advocate for our school district to get our money back into our local economy. In order for us to do

163that and not have to do additional tax, we need that capital reserve. That's what it's for. What we're doing right now, which I think is very strategic, this this capital reserve has us not looking at just the next capital project. it has us looking at two projects out. So when we're looking at that deposit of $400,000, we know that not this capital project we just did to do this same one in five years will not be cheaper. So we are planning for our future in the way that we are making deposits into that reserve question. >> Yes. Um does this budget account for the potential of a Bosey's capital project? >> So that's the other reason I'm ready for our finance committee to meet. Uh we Brennan and I have a preliminary conversation in the

164morning with our auditors. So both our auditors and our financial planners are ready to look at our overall assets to talk about how we manage this. So our local share for the Bosey's project 1.7 I believe was our share. We have that unemployment reserve that we really need to do something with. The controller wants it to go someplace. So it's time for us to start looking at our reserves to say what's our financial health here. What's the best strategy for us to fund our portion of the Boseies capital project? The project is same year aid. So we pay it to Boseis in July. We'll get our aid back before June. So really it's about cash flow. We have reserves to create cash flow. So I I want us to start looking at the strategy for

165how to do that. So, do I have in this 20 in this 26 27 budget a line item escalating our current budget for the project? No. >> No, I do not. I want us to talk real strategically about cash flow. Other questions about the reserves? I think the big one. It's the big one. The big one is whether or not I don't know what happens once I hit it then it doesn't go. It's like it goes to sleep with my computer. >> Oh, it's you. >> Well, I not actually try. >> Okay. You guys have you have a slide that talks about reserves. I have no idea where it is because I can't find it. I appreciate you guys bearing with me. My brain is in a hundred places. Hopefully, I'm making sense to you.

166There we are. Why do schools have reserves? We have reserves to mitigate those financial components that we cannot control. They're meant to be things that spiked that we were not prepared for. They're not meant to be things we could have prepared for. Um the question I got about reserves over the weekend is actually also in here. So like what is our fiscal health? Our fiscal health is so good. Our fiscal health is so good. So the controller really likes to see about 10% of your total budget in reserves. Credit agencies like to see us at that 30% in reserves. That 30% in reserves and we had it last year got us some really we're in a really great financial standing. The reserves are benefiting us in so many ways because it's increasing our credit score.

167It's dropping our interest rates when we do need to borrow. Not to mention that our reserves generate revenue in while sitting in these accounts we're we're generating interest there is interest revenue that is being pulled from the reserves and accounting over in our revenue slide. So there you we're we are seeing the benefit of the reserve whether with whether we are withdrawing from it or not we're using the reserves to maximize. So overall right now, your operational reserves, those are the reserves that are either a little bit easier to use because they're not they don't have to be voter approved in order to pull them out. They might need to be board approved in order to pull them out. Some of those operational reserves, the only way to use them is to put a bill

168towards them. So TRS, for example, the only way to use that reserve is we got a bill from TRS. We have to have the bill to show we paid the bill with the reserve. You're at 15.91% there. Your capital reserve is currently sitting at 11.46% of your overall budget and your total reserves right now are at 27.37%. Down from the last time because we have used the reserves. We have begun paying for the capital project. Local share has come out. Local share has been used. We've gone out to ban. We are now starting to use borrowed money and generating aid. questions about that. That is the slide you have in front of you. And now I want to go to if I can find it. Let's go to our survey. So we did engage the

169community and we asked the community to talk to us about the budget development process. So I do feel like we've heard their voice loud and clear. So here's here's the very first slide that I think we need to see. >> Yeah. Taxes. >> Yeah. For the first couple weeks as I was monitoring the the slide the or the the survey and I sent you guys an update probably maybe a month ago programs was the biggest thing in the center and it is not surprising that we are ending with taxes in the center. So really what this is you guys have seen the comments that live underneath this particular question. Uh what I'm showing in the community tonight is just like the sentiment. So the word taxes was used the most. Therefore, it is the largest

170and in the center of this particular word cloud. So the community is saying what is the factor we want you to think about most closely? We want you to think about our taxes. Second, we ask as we build the budget, do you expect us to sustain programs or to make cuts? >> Sustain programs. See how big cuts is? So close >> 6040, >> right? So this is where right taxes is playing in. You definitely get the sentiment in the comments that everyone loves their school. Everyone understands that the school plays a really large function in the community. We are the community. This is where the kids come to play. This is they this this is their home. They come here to play and to learn. But you see cuts start to come up. That's where

171people start saying things like, "Well, can't we do both? Aren't there things that you could cut that we would get to keep all the programs and have our taxes cut? That's where I think it's so interesting because what we all understand is that the only real way to make cuts inside our budget is to cut positions. So even though the community goes on to say maybe we don't care as much about athletics as we once did or we care about them but not more than we care about our top one which is our academic programs. We quickly drop down to special education and then mental health services as being our top priorities. If we were to cut athletics, our athletic budget in total is probably right around $250,000, maybe close to 300,000 to run all

172of what we do on this campus. That doesn't even take care of healthcare. So, I as I was reading the comments, I was thinking to myself like I I see where people maybe don't understand what it would take to cut. So, I appreciate the concept of a second question. Last part of this presentation this evening really just is open the floor for conversation around levy. Give Brennan and I some direction. I think two is too high. I like that. What are we not going to do? >> Got to narrow it down somehow. We're not going to do that. >> I concur. I concur. Unfortunately, I think even though you have shown us that there's really not much difference between the 1% and 2% whatever psychologically when you go in and say, you know, they're going

173to raise the levy. >> Is it foolish to go at zero to give away that you know, long term to give away that chunk of money that we can't recoup in another capacity. >> And that's a hard thing to understand >> for the lay person. >> It's hard for us to understand too. I think >> Yeah. Like >> Yeah. I mean, the the the best way I think to the best analogy would be that if last year you made $100,000 >> and this year you make $100,000 and the next year you make $100,000 and the year after that you make $100,000, that's the equivalent of us going out to zero. We just keep making our revenue continues to just be the same. And so just like your salary, like you need at minimum a cost

174of living adjustment or you're feeling really frustrated with your employer >> and and the tax levy would not even meet what a cost of living increase would be. >> Right. Correct. >> I think it's concerning that we've seen beyond 11% increase in uh foundation aid over the last two years and we're still hitting our heads. um contemplating here in this budget to and through Brennan you know the numbers how much in reserves you know what are we looking at 78 million >> 800,000 I mean in reserves >> in reserves air mark 6 about 675 I think is where we're at right now in that number >> and and and that's with a a conservative percentage increase on the community like it's not there's no win for us zero zero's a loss for the the facility

175and and the school >> and long-term for the community >> big time. Um, but I mean when you're using reserves to fund the budget, I know the town Wheatland is like a million dollars in reserves. Like the rainy day, I mean, if we're struggling now and and these government entities are using this much money from reserves just to make things okay. >> In fairness, our reserve use is the currently earmarked at the equivalent for the last couple of years and we've been able to refund them. So I would say in terms of our reserve use, I just don't I don't want to not be transparent in this moment with the community. So have we used reserves? We have. Have we've been able at the end of the year to make some reimbursements or to say

176we earmarked to use that reserve for this bill, but then we got to the end of the year and this conservative budget was managed really well. We didn't have those upticks and major things. We're not going to use the reserve because we can use we can use what we have. So we we get pretty strategic as we start to get to the end of the year around whether or not we're going to use them. So, our fiscal health in terms of our reserves are still strong. You analyze the reserves, you're going to see that that we're still sitting strong. What we also know about reserves is that when you have a plan to use them, you need a plan to get off of them. Which is why you watch us earmarking them for very particular

177things because >> even if we needed to not, let's say I I am not great off the top of my head. I think ERS, did we say >> 313 in ERS as the bill we would put toward it? our total. Let's say that we didn't need the whole 313. We only needed 75. We would just take 75, right? So, in the end, we manage as much of keep savings, keep it, keep it, keep it if we can. You're going to watch us start to do that in the next couple of months. You guys will be voting on moving things into places and keeping our reserves healthy. So, I think that's also very challenging for the community because you said you were going to use reserves, but then I look at your reserve balance and your

178reserve is still really healthy. It is. It is really healthy because it's a picture of our finances and we make really great decisions as we come into the end of the year around making sure that we're not doing that. So, we're not necessarily stuck on our reserves right now. If we have a bad year, we could use them and then we would we wouldn't have them to build revenue the next time. So, yes, that we're earmarking it, which means I want to say Rick Tims was here what, four years ago, maybe five years ago. I'm terrible at time. He came in and talked to the board about the reserves and at the time the reserves were not healthy at all and he was very very concerned for the funding cliff. Us having reserves puts us

179in a better place. Do I think we have too much reserves? No, I do not. Because you see how quickly with our bills, we could spend that amount very, very quickly. >> Well, and you know, I had sent a note to you this morning. I apologize for the short notice, but um the electric school bus situation, uh Leroy just approved >> with their vote what five or six buses, diesel buses to purchase them. >> They did. >> Yeah. But you think about um what we run into if we these are things that are we know they're coming, but we don't know what when it's actually going to happen. Um we're going to have to invest in a facility to house electric buses. And how do you plan for that? Like that's beyond the bus. >>

180They just go bankrupt. >> It's Yeah, >> it's dire. >> The governor is talked about moving implementation of the bill out by 10 years. I don't know what that's going to mean for electric buses. I can tell you the hearing say that this week, this weekend, right? Like that that's pretty important to hear. Um, I know they're under a lot of pressure not to slow that down, but people can't afford to live in the state of New York, right? So, do I think that they're going to have to take into consideration affordability? Of course they are. So, watching the politics of that, am I as nervous about electric buses today as I was even two weeks ago? Nope. I think reading the TVs, it's going to get kicked down the road. I asked at the

181superintendent table the other day. I I to everybody going to do what Merit did because we've got reserves. I want to do what Meritt did. the sentiment in the room from Niscus. We actually had some of the advocates from Niscus in and the sentiment in the room was everybody just you're good. Stay still. Just stay still. So the one gentleman says any Lowry, if you heard his name, he does a lot in terms of advocacy and um lobbying at the state of New York. He knows state aid and the budget of the state of New York like the back of his hand. And he said I said, "Where is it going to go?" I got my paycheck on it, which is like a phrase he's famous for. That's a that's a good sign. God, that

182was a good sign. I want to hold on to that for a little while. >> I'm encouraged by that. >> However, so the next mandate, the next thing New York State says you need to do this. >> Agreed. >> And that's why we need reserves. So yes, that might get pushed down the road and that's been on top of our >> It has we're just till the next thing. Especially when your funding is based on foundation aid, right? Especially when we need the state of New York to fund us. I don't think it's a win-win. I don't want to put everybody too too much on the spot. I think in the end, it's my responsibility to show not just you, but the taxpayers that will eventually watch this video, look, look at this presentation. It's

183imperative that people understand just with healthcare alone this time next year we used to be sitting in a really rough spot. We feel like we're in a really rough spot right now. And I will repeat what I said the other night when taxpayers were with us. In the end, it's only fair that as school board members who live in this community, who got the same envelopes in the mail, who care about this campus, who care about the children, your own children, your grandchildren, your family, your neighbors. No matter what happens with this increase or what it looks like next year in terms of the pressure, I just mean people will let you guys eat at the cozy kitchen if that's where you want breakfast. We either unite as a community around we're going out at

184zero and whatever that means for next year, we'll deal with it when we get there and we'll do it together or we go out at 1% and we rally right now for for the greater whole. But I think in the end our message coming out of the school and the community is whichever direction we go, it was meant for the good of the whole with the promise and the hope that next spring when we're here, every decision that has to happen still has that same we got you. We're going to take care of you. We're a community. We are on the same mission. For me, that's my greatest concern is that we make a decision that is shortterm. We get ourselves through this, which I believe we can do. I just don't know what next

185year looks like and neither do you. So if we end up in a tough spot next year, we just need people to rally and come out to meet with us and speak to us face to face the same way that they are right now and support what we have to do next year at this time to come up with the same balanced budget. Is the Senate at zero? I'm concerned our community can't tolerate much of the tax. I am very concerned. I am over 50% of what we're hearing is over 50% of our tax base in California is going to see a tax increase regardless of what we do, right? >> Yes. Think about that for a second. >> Next year, I think that's what we didn't pay ago. >> This year going to go

186up. So, I think we're going to be in a similar predicament next year with the town of Wheatland, which isn't as big of a >> year. This year, Wheatland is bad. Next year, Wheatland's going to be bad, too, because they won't reassess. And then the year after we're be on level at >> always be something. >> There will always be something. And I and I will say like more so back to that slide around, we need to get a PR person. >> We need somebody that's writing newsletters. We need need somebody in my office that I can say here are three things I'm proud of like let's market that and get it out. The community needs to better see the return on investment. I think what we do here is great every single day. I

187don't think we're doing enough of that. We need to do that. We don't have a good communication network for me to say to you that if you had gone to you go to you go I make a decision. If you go at 1% I have no idea how I'm going to get my voice loud enough to help people understand everything that you now understand. at zero and it doesn't pass, then what? >> I think that's a great question. I think over the course I honestly I think over I think over the course of the next two weeks I will start sending you guys some information for your consideration when we're together the next time we really should talk about what will it look like if we go out to zero and the budget goes down

188because in the end we'll come prepared to talk to you about what a contingent budget means what the ramifications are for that and and I'll be honest there's a part of me that says I would hate it I would hate to have to go to contingent budget your community voted on two years in a row. I think you also have to ask the question. It's wild that you're asking that question. If we go vote at zero and it gets voted down, right? But the same question is posed for if you go out at 0.5 or 1% if it gets voted down. I think you need to start those at least if you go say at five then you can back down to zero if you have to you have to do. >> Yes. It's basically

189where you go. >> I I don't want a revote. >> No. >> Right. I saw the stress that put on Dr. Chanel last year. I'm not sure that >> another revote is is a good idea. >> No, it's a terrible idea. >> No, I know none of us want that. I'm just trying to avoid that scenario. That was horrible. >> I need to teach us a little bit in our next meeting what a contingent budget means, right? Because things have to out of the contingent budget. Then the next year when you go out, you got to try to get those things back in. So what I'm learning is, for example, anything that's considered equipment has to come out of that line. So now you don't have a you don't have a line for that. You

190start back the next year at the ground floor. You've got to build your next budget. Not only do you have to build your budget with all the things that are now coming as an increase, you got to try to get all your equipment lines back in. So, it definitely has some long-term negative ramifications that I'm currently studying. So, I'm tossing it out there. I'm not ready to do that yet. Our next meeting, I'll be able to tell you exactly what it looks like in districts that have to go contingent and then try to get back. >> Could you get us information when you do that about what restrictions place on? >> Yes. >> Thank you. So just for my thought process on this when you're talking about just in the big picture when you're building

191stuff back into a budget after contingent that means that next year that tax increase is going to be significant or you go several years in July because you pulled so much out in order to get back you have to really So it's not as we've seen on here we've had small increases that we kind of try to keep steady over the years. So if we continue at this zero at some point >> have to climb out we have to get out of it and is it going to be when we get to that point that it's going to have to be a huge step out be a three or four >> right as opposed to a half% and then building that into a 1% like what type of exit strategy I guess and not necessarily

192this year needing to be that but also like we're talking about this We have to think down the road. So this is we have great reserves. We're healthy financially. So as a district doing a 0% is not going to handcuff up. However, a continued 0% as we look down the road will it will cause us to either cut or having to make those big jump. So, how do we structure this so that it's not something that every like, oh, we just do 0% again? It's not sustainable. >> I'm calling it an on-ramp. We need an on-ramp. We got to get back on the highway. >> Is structure in a way not knowing what a year, two years, three years um our society is going to look like. >> No idea. >> Right. So we can't

193predict the future and we're trying to trying to build an onramp to something that we don't know what it looks like. But no matter what it looks like, we what we do know and I think what is fair and the community can understand is that if your salary doesn't increase year over year over year over year over year, you're cutting cutting cutting cutting cutting. We're not there yet in the survey. They want us to tighten our belt, but they're saying let's not let's not cut program. Let's try to sustain. So what is the what is the teaching? What is the conversation? How much communication? What do we need to do between now and next year to build an ramp? You're right. Cleveland's going to get reassessed. The difference I would say between Cal is 80%

194tax%. >> So I'm looking at this kind of like a pendulum. You know, you see these communities, right? But But we're missing the hey we're growing program side. We're we're kind of we're only here on the pendulum and it could be over here where you're just spending spending spending. We don't have the tax base to do that kind of spending >> and and the community is like well you're here but we really need to way over here where you're making cuts >> man. >> Yeah. It's it's just got to be the communication because maybe the perception of the community is that we are over here and we're adding and and it's a luxurious program for students which it's a good program. It's it's a program that takes a ton of work to make it good.

195Um >> yes, >> you know, the luxuries aren't there like it might be perceived with what they say that accesses or what was the wordity >> if you work on the inside. I don't think frivolous is the word we would use. >> But I think that's a really neat piece that you gained from that survey. >> It is. I love it. >> And it does give us an opportunity to see what they mean and to communicate out what frivolous is and how we don't feel like, you know, that's happening here. Um, and I think we have to try to keep the pendulum, communicate with the community. We have to try to keep the pendulum as even as possible. And our increased cost, it's a 2% like minimum per year. Wrong way. >> Correct. In a

196row, we went the wrong way. >> And they're going to see >> it was >> Yes. >> They're going to see 2% is the pendulum swinging this way. But truly, the 2% is right. >> It is the center. I I agree with you, Mike. >> And that's all communication. That's And how do you convince somebody of that? That's a lot to communicate when you're not sitting in meetings for hours and hours and 70 hours to create a presentation. And also when you're feeling the crunch of all of your other bills coming in too and feel like it's just another increase and you can't take in any more information because you're frazzled with what you already have in front of you. Can you imagine if National Grid they would limit their bills to 2% per year?

197>> We'd be doing all right. >> When we come back next time, we will bring you a balanced budget with a 0%. >> Is that why I'm here? When's when this is this is the meeting where you need a decision. >> I would like a decision on the levy. I mean if you want if you want to say 1% you want me to cut and come back you want time to think about it we can trim to one we can come back the next time. We always give ourselves that second meeting in April. We could get to the second meeting in April before we adopt the budget. We could be busy on the back end. We'll do we're going to be doing all of our builds to be ready for that the newsletter and Could

198Could we wait? We could wait. Like if you're feeling like you need more time have you have a little bit more time. >> I think 0%'s healthy but it still looks it's still going to be a painful bill. I think that we have I I think we need to go out at zero and if we're going out an increases five and that's going to be a hard cell for people that are struggling to pay their bills and and I'm trying to weigh the schools the schools you know financial health and what our community is facing right now. Um it is not sustainable for us to continue that path though >> for a year or two. around us. They did it for too long. >> I don't know what next year's climate's going to look like.

199And I'm a realist. It may be worse than what we're sitting. This is a secret just concerned. She's concerned about expenditures. Like what can we do to eliminate expenditures? So she's asking about like inside of our How are we doing with contract negotiation? Are we being too liberal? I would say in general, you all know that we settled the teacher contract last spring. Our teachers are paid pretty middle of the pack. Pretty middle of the pack. So, we are not that is the largest expense inside of our budget is paying our teachers. That's your largest benefit. >> Yes. And their benefits. Of course. Of course. Their salary and benefits. Um and and just in general, it's people. So education is people. It's people >> and we value. >> Absolutely. So I do think that our

200contracts are Could we do more? No. Because we can't afford it, right? So our ability to afford the value that we get out of these people that dedicate their life to us, you know, they know that we work really hard on their life quality to make sure that they feel cared about here. But then outside of this, you know, community members talk about their cost of living increase and there's so many employers who are saying there's no increase this year. >> Wow. >> It's concerning that New York State is broke and that they're that's concerning. I don't know that they're broke. I feel like they're putting their money to very specific things. >> Their spending priorities >> spending priorities are different than ours. Yeah, they're different than mine, right? I said that to a couple

201taxpayers, too. Like I've never and I know it's probably because I work in a school, but I don't think so. I feel like when I send my school tax, I write that bill and I send it to the school. I know exactly what they're going to do with that money. I could see it. I struggle with taxes to go to the state of New York. I I I struggle with that. Where'd it go? Where' it go? What you do with it? benefit me. I never struggle with the school because I know exactly how it benefits me. You know, the kids that the kids that graduate from here and say living in this community and have children that live in this community, like every dollar that we spend in this school is literally setting up generation

202after generation after generation of raiders that live in this community that keeps you're living in this community a wonderful place to be. If you don't invest in this, you don't have the heart of your community anymore. The change in your face will be so very fast. So I just I believe that. So for me, my school tax checks, I don't even sweat it. My income tax though, I sweat that one. I'm really upset about that. >> There are people that sweat it and I think what you're hearing >> across the tables is that we need minimal to zero zero to minimal increase. >> Trying to sell a.5 budget for $40,000. I just >> So then People say that doesn't even sound. If we're doing it, we go with zero. And we we've got collectively as

203a team to build an >> next year is going to be just as hard. >> We need and I think part of the on is these conversations, not just at the table, but what we're doing in the evenings and >> we need more of that, >> right? And not just in budget season, but continuing these and being like, "This is our financial situation. This is how we're spending the money. Look at what programs we're doing. Look at how we're being responsible with this." And continuing that to the community see and then they can raise concern, oh, it was so privileged to have writer. And you can say, "Okay, thank you for sharing that. this is what actually cost the district to do that or it was frivolous to have these six places that two kids

204attended or whatever and whatever it is that is frivolous or whatever it's concerning we can then hear it and be able to talk about and that's how I view the comments like I'm reading these comments and oh my gosh we don't brag about that oh my gosh we don't brag about that oh my gosh we don't brag about that there's not there's not a Facebook post of like AP testing day, right? So, like how do we do a better job of sharing out the the return on investment >> and it it's we don't have a PR person. So, we don't have a we don't have a PR strategy. We we are not we aren't really selling necessarily the the mission, right? We do a lot of celebrating and we're very good at that. >> Like,

205how do we tell our story coming back and Absolutely. >> I learned what >> I did. >> Yes. >> Which they do tell us. We just don't ask you. >> But I think I think we need to, right? The number of families that come back and say, "Oh my gosh, Dr. Chan, guess how many?" She's already a sophomore. >> She has to enroll a sophomore. Yeah. Like it's it's a pretty big deal what we what we give kids. I do believe the diploma from Calon Mford means something. And how do we I loved that actually. I think John Dickford said it in one of our workshops. It means something. I think I' that stuck with me like how do we keep talking about what it means to have a publicity number? That's the return on

206investment. >> All right. Well, you see us on the 14th. We will have a balanced budget and we will be setting our levy at 0%. >> Thank you for your work, both of you. >> Thank you. Thank you. All right, we're going to move on to the rest of new business. Number two, approval of the 2026 2027 instructional calendar resolve that the board of education upon the recommendation of the superintendent approved instructional calendar for the 2026 2027 school year. May I have a motion, please? >> I'll make it. >> Second. >> Any discussion? >> Start after day. >> Kids after Labor Day, teachers prior. >> All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? The motion is carried. 5 Z. Number three, approval of legal notice resolved at the board of education upon the recommendation of

207the superintendent approved the following legal notice publication announcing the annual meeting for the school budget vote and board elections to be held May 19th, 2026. I have a motion, please. A second. >> Any discussion? >> Do you want to use 200,000 from reserves for that? >> We do. We didn't build the the bus The bus appropriation is not currently in the appropriations in this budget. So, if we were going to put the bus back in cash, we would have to increase our appropriations by $200,000. Whereas with the reserve, the voters are just going to vote to buy the bus and use the reserve. So, it's actually happening in like a separate transaction. It's not into the budget itself. So, that would make our gap inside the budget $200,000 more. Is that >> come straight out

208of reserve? We did it last year. Come straight out of the reserve. It did impact us a little bit on our exclusion. So when you think about the tax cap and the ability, the way that the exclusions impact the cap, it did impact our exclusion. So it brings our cap down a little bit. So we're noticing that. But you're getting ready to bring on a Bose capital project. to watch your exclusion go up. So, we're feeling like that there's a mitigation there, too. Any other questions, discussion? All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? That motion is carried. 5 Z. Number four, approval of contract. Result that the board of education upon the recommendation of the superintendent approve the Hunt Engineers architects, land surveyors, and landscape architect contract for additional services for the 2025 2026

209capital project as attached. And I have a motion, please. Second. >> Any discussion? I'll just note this is for the the development of phase two. So because we went to SED to pull a second permit and we're going to chase more work, they actually had to do the engineering and development of the actual work that we're going after. So paying them for service. >> All in favor say I. Any opposed? The motion is carried. 5 Z. We're moving to executive session. Resolve that the board of education adjourn to executive session at 8:56 p.m. for the purpose of discussing the following matters pursuant to public office law. Discussions concerning the employment employment history of particular persons and matters leading to appointment and resation and the discussions relating to collective negotiations with CMA and CMSS students. I

210have a motion please. >> Second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. opposed. That motion is carried 50. We'll see you in a bit. >> Resolve that the board of education return to regular session at 9:47 p.m. I have a motion, please. I'll make it second. >> Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. Any oppos? Motion carried. We're going to move to personnel 1 through four as listed. May I have a motion, please? Any discussion? All in favor say I. >> I. Any opposed? Motion is carried. 50. We're going to move to adjournment. Results of the board of education to join the meeting of March 24th, 2026 at 9:47 p.m. Motion, please. >> I'll make it. >> Second. >> Any discussion? All in favor say I. Any motion? my boat and