001So, please. Good evening. I call this meeting to order. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. It's behind you. Yep. 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. Additions, deletions, and changes to the agenda. Dr. Chanel, uh this evening you do have additions to the agenda. You're going to see there some of the treasures reports and um some of our finances that
002Mr. Nardone was able to finish for us this past weekend. Thank you for your patience on that. Thank you. First order of business is our consent agenda. Resolved that the board of education upon the recommendation of the superintendent approved the following consent agenda 1 through nine. Minutes from 311 2025. General warrant number 57 and 60. Lunch warrant number 14. Federal warrant number 11. Extraclass treasurer report from February. CSE recommendations. budget transfers from February, appropriation and revenues, I'm sorry, appropriation and revenue status from February and district treasurer report from February. I have a motion, please. So moved. A second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? That motion is carried. Moving on to communications. Tonight I um would like to start communications with a recap of the work that our group did um
003for our board retreat uh mentioning the five principles that we came up that sort of model the greater five. Um but I we had talked about mentioning these at every meeting and we never got around to it. So I'm going to I'm going to start doing that or be better at it. Um the five principles are respectful, united, inclusive, intentional, and on mission. We are committed to listening and asking questions to inform our decision-making. We will honor every voice and speak with one. We will ensure that all board members have the information necessary for good decision-m. We will acknowledge all measures of success across our school community. Students will be first in all our decision- making. Those are the five principles that we developed in that work group that we did late winter early winter
004winter time. Um next we're going to go on to correspondence and marking period 5 honor role. Dr. Chanel. Absolutely. So tonight uh in your board packet you do see that the honor roll for marking period 5 just in comparison uh year-over-year you will see that we're holding very steady. 66% of our of the students in grades 9 through 12 were actually on one of the honor roles whether it be honor role or high honor role. So our students are hard at work each day u making us proud much to be thankful for there. Look at them all right now. I can't not you guys. You want to move to the tax levy before I go into my my No, let's do that and we'll we'll come back. So, in front of you tonight, you'll see
005this packet that I had um Sue print out for everybody about the upcoming law that is asking or telling us that we need to have a student member as part of our board. Um this will be in effect July 1st. This uh NISBA packet was just sent out to us um and has more information in a question and answer format. Uh I'd like you to review it. Um there's six different options I believe that you can do in terms of how to elect a student rep to the board. Um so we have to decide which one we want to do. This is a non voting member that doesn't go into executive session um but offers their input at the table with us. So please review that. Can I just add to that that the we
006do need to have a policy meeting. We get all of our policy updates from Erie Boseies. There's not currently a policy available to us. Though NISBA has put out a sample policy, we do have some other policies that we need to review. So, in terms of moving oursel forward, I think it would be worth it for us to look at NISSBA's sample policy and start to kind of wrap our heads around it as a governance body, the direction that we want to go. Some school districts are going to use their student council president and vice president as a backup to that. other schools are going to run elections um and let their ch let the students actually appoint or or vote in a representative for the school. So, we have some decisions to make there
007which I think would be imperative before the school year ends. If we need something July 1, we definitely need to activate our student body before spring is over. I am signed up for a webinar April 23rd that gives more information on this. And I just learned at the board president meeting that Jennese Valley School Board Association is putting together a training for this student um government person that they're hoping to have in place in June for so that the the training can happen before the July 1st um implementation. May May I ask two questions please? Yes. I recall this uh to me this isn't new. This is something that was floated maybe 10 or 12 years ago and for for whatever reason it failed. Now I'm curious what what we're going to do different and
008um and when you say the young man or woman will have a seat at the table for for discussion. Is that Did I hear that right? Yep. They will be an active participant. That that being said, um not a voting member. No, I understand that obviously, but I I don't you see there they're Never mind. I'm I'm all done. Thank you. Okay. I don't want to come across as negative. Yeah. No, it's it's definitely not new in that there have been lots of school boards that have had active members of their student body on the school board. What is new is that it was an option and now it's not. I'm not it's but you're it well when when Mrs. Dah and I originally talked about it, I think to your point, the struggle is
009especially if you're talking about your student council president and vice president. I'm looking across at your vice president right now. She's a member of Brainstormer. She's going to graduate in the top of her class. She is completely all dressed up in this moment, ready to be lead in the musical that goes on this weekend. Like the idea that your student council president, especially in schools our size, are not already so steeped in everything that we do in the school, I think causes the challenge then for them to be at your Tuesday board meetings. And I think that that's where we have to be very thoughtful about how we do want to gain student voice in a way that means a student could be at the table with us without that kind of interruption. So it
010might be in our best interest to actually ask across the student body who is interested in this from a civic responsibility standpoint. It's a good idea, but it but it puts a added stress on the student. It puts added stress on seven board members because seven board members are now going to um go go out of their way and be extra polite to be to try to continually include somebody in a conversation or a discussion that they don't want to be included in. You follow me? It's definitely going to have its challenges. Okay. Yeah. We'll have to figure out and and to that end, I think the goal is to make sure that at this table when we're making decisions that we're capturing student voice like that's Yeah. So I but you're you're not wrong
011that there's some logistics in there that we're going to have to work out to make it feel a win-win situation for the student too so that they don't feel that they come here and their voice still doesn't count. No, I agree. But when but when you said that Boseis has this thing that they're going to shove down our throats by July 1st, that that's what got me. They they want to have it. So the the student can be can be trained. Yeah. Like a training or onboarding similar to what a new school board member does. That I don't want to come across as negative cuz I'm not. I suspect that there will be a transition period as that new member is added and sitting at the table with us. Uh directly speaking to what you're
012saying like the awkwardness of some of it. I think over time it will become more natural. That's my hope. Time four. Thank you. Um, I miss it. Uh, I missed the Raider points of pride. This is horrible. That's what we normally start with. So, I apologize. I'm going to go back, rewind, do Raider points of pride. Um, Dr. McNeer, would you please start us off? Okay. We are thrilled to announce that two Raiders will represent us at the 2025 Greater Rochester Ronald McDonald House All-Star game on Saturday, March 29th at Fairport High School. Hazel Nickerson and Kate McGawan will join the top seniors in basketball and cheer from across section 5. It's with great pride and excitement that we recognize our Raiders who received and won winter 2024 2025 LCAA and section 5 season honors
013and championships. Cheerleading was Kate Macauan. Boys basketball Colin Foot. Girls indoor track and field Emma Broen. Wrestling, Jacob Bishop, Colby Burns, Simon Martin, and James Patnella. Girls basketball had Ava Amarice, Olivia Amarice, Hazel Nickerson, and McKenzie Pereé. Our National Honor Society hosted a Red Cross blood drive for our students and staff. We had 19 donors and 10 of them were firsttime donors. Our archery club traveled to the New York State Fairgrounds in Syracuse to compete in the 2025 New York State Bullseye Tournament. We were well represented at the 2025 Glow with Your Hands healthcare event at GCC. Raiders enjoyed career workshops, face-to-face interaction with healthc care providers and companies, a hands-on demonstration with first responders, a career expo, lunch, and so much more. Last week, the elementary Raiders had an unforgettable experience with a motivational
014speaker, author, and character educator extraordinaire. From the moment the music started, our primary and intermediate students were engaged, laughing, and learning with Jim Basketball Jones. Raiders had a chance to spin basketballs on their fingers and their noses. They learned the importance of showing kindness, being a good listener, and living the Raider 5 values. Jim gave students a chance to demonstrate being kind and doing the right thing through interactive games and activities. Even our teachers joined in on the dancing and fun. The pictures from that were pretty amazing. Everybody had huge smiles on their faces. Um I'm sorry I missed that earlier. So now moving back on to correspondence, the tax lobby, Dr. Chanel. So can we start first with um the guests of the board? Just I see my team that's completely dressed. We're a
015little out of order this evening, but um the musical is in tech week and this evening um the board has invited our brainstormers team to join the board so that we could celebrate them. So I would first like to introduce Miss Christy Pope. She is the team captain adviser of this team. Mrs. Mrs. Pope, would you take over please and just share with us a little bit about brainstormers and if you want to introduce the kids or have them introduce themselves, whatever makes you comfortable. Japa, curtsy, no bowing, whatever makes you feel comfortable. Um, so brainstormers is like a team trivia almost like college bowl. So we do two rounds per game. Um, four kids each round. You have to play different kids and it's timed. So there's general random knowledge questions for five minutes.
016When that time's up, then there are four categories that each team gets to pick a category and it's how many questions on that category can you answer in a minute and then the the leftover questions go to or the missed questions go to the other team. When that's done, there's another three minutes that round is over and then the next group comes in and they do the same thing. So, we had five competitions over this um over this season and we were undefeated. So, then we were I know It's so great. Congratulations, you guys. 20 kids that did Brainstormer. So, I think I have I counted six seniors that are leaving us this year. Some very strong seniors, some very strong captains, but we had four new people come and join this year. Um, a
017junior and some freshman and a sophomore. So, that was exciting. And they're helping me to recruit for next year. Um, and then we were undefeated in the semi-finals and obviously the finals. This is our second year that we placed first. So, it's very fun. It's very fast-paced. You never know what they're going to ask. And um I think the kids really enjoy it. I love coaching it. It's a lot of fun. We do practice during lunches. We use the buzzer system like they have at like Yep. So they have the buzzers. They get locked out. Um you cannot beat Aillaa on the buzzer. I don't care I don't care what team you are on or how fast you are. You cannot beat this person on the buzzer. You can see them all going like this
018and he's already lit up. So yeah, he is on. Mrs. Phil, how many years have you done brainstormers? I want to say four or five. I don't know. I used to Kathy Kalin before she retired used to coach brainstormers and then I used to just go and watch with her because it was always kind of fun. So I help keep score and that kind of stuff. So I've been doing brainstormers unofficially and officially for probably eight or nine years now. Can I ask some of the students what they most like about it? Don't be shy. It's okay. No wrong answer. You have to give them a buzzer if you want them to respond. Well, I I appreciate all the hard work that you guys have all put into this and um it's certainly an accomplishment
019and thank you for coming out tonight and your parents should be proud and the community's proud. So, good work. Thank you guys. May I ask a question about the dress, Ryan? First, first of all, I'm not a good ginger. First of all, the the the dress is beautiful. Oh, thank you. You're beautiful. I'm just I'm just I'm curious only the the the history of the dress. Was it was this in a in a closet that was used in a musical 21 years ago? Is this was this yours? Is this So, the musical takes place in the 1920s. Okay. We ordered this on Amazon. Like you went on, you Google 1920. That's I was just wondering. I mean, it it's it's truly beautiful. I'm just curious how it came about being in this room tonight. So,
020thank you. Thank you all for coming. Um, now is a good time. Everyone is welcome. It's a public meeting, so you're welcome to stay and watch, but also we know that you are doing multiple things. So, if you have to leave, now would be a good time. And a good luck this weekend, you guys. Thank you for all you guys doing. [Music] There goes our audience. The audience is down. The audience is done. All right, back to me. So now I would like to take this opportunity to introduce the board of education and community members that may watch when we hit the replay to Mr. Robert Banzer. Robert is our current interim middle high school principal. We are glad to have him. Rob, will you just stand up? Introduce yourself to the board. tell them
021a little bit about you. Good evening everybody. Um I'm really happy to be a part of uh Calum at least for a short time. Been in education for over 35 years. Teacher, coach, assistant principal, principal, assistant superintendent, superintendent. Um and I I can just tell you just from what I saw here and what I've seen since I've I've gotten here, what's today? Seven days ago, eight days ago. Um, clearly the priorities are are in place and and focused on the right things in my opinion in this district. I mean, all of what you do, this is what it translates to what you saw tonight and just my interactions with the staff, my interactions with the students, and and I'm just happy to be a part of this transition so that you can get a an
022all-star, you know, to continue to lead the the the middle school and high school. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Now for the big conversation. Um, as the board knows, we've talked about our tax cap and we talked about our tax levy and what we would be able to set our levy at this year. Um, as Bruce and I begin our conversation around budget development presentation number three, we're going to get to a slide where we're going to discuss revenue. Uh, when we get there, I just want to remind the board that our part of our revenue projection is the amount of money that we will collect in taxes. And that's a conversation when we get to that slide we need to be ready to have this evening if we're going
023to go out at the tax cap uh or if the board is going to challenge us when we get to that revenue slide to to think uh lower than the tax cap or possibly more than. Um so just wanted to prep you for that part of the presentation, get us ready for that conversation. Um we talked a little bit already about the the student board member. Um I do want to encourage you guys to read some of the information that NISBA is putting out if you haven't already. And I'd like to take a second and just thank Mrs. Dah. She has been doing quite a few webinars. Uh she's staying on top of some of these things and it's been great to have her part of the team and just reminding and prompting us to
024keep paying attention to what is headed our way. Um and that's it for me and correspondence. Thank you, Dr. Chanel. Um we're move on to board committee reports. I'll report off on the meeting that just came from, the Jese Valley School Board Association board president and rep meeting. Um Patrick Longo was there. if as you recall he was at our last board meeting presenting on NISBA and he was there talking about the importance of the board and superintendent relationship and what that entailed. Um Patrick Burke talked a little bit about um some concerns at the federal level around funding although nothing's been really done. Um they're keeping their eye on that and waiting to see what happens. Um there's pretty status quo with everything else. I don't think much came much more came out of
025that meeting. Who else had uh or has committee reports to report on? Been quiet. It's a quick meeting back to back. All right, we're going to move on to public forum. There is no public forum. So, we're going to superintendent report. Uh Dr. Chanel. Uh so, at your place setting this evening, you do have a couple of things from Kevin McGawan, our district our Bosey's district superintendent. uh you are going to see the preliminary administrative budget for 2526. Also in your backup notes for this week, I did include uh Kevin's presentation. It's about an 8-minute presentation where he does a pretty thorough job of explaining how Bosey's budgets are built. So we will vote on the Bosey's budget when we meet together on April 21st, uh which I imagine you'll hear a little bit more
026from as we get to the budget presentation that that's when we'll also be uh asking the board to vote on our budget. uh as what we vote on for the Bosey's budget is their administrative budget. The rest of the budget that Boseies builds really comes from the services that we buy from them. So, you're going to learn a little bit about what we intend to buy uh from them for the upcoming school year um when we get to our budget development presentation, but all of the documents to help you really understand the budget are here. uh in a conversation with um Kevin, he did share that if the board would like him to come out if there are questions that you all have about the Bosey's budget, he'd be glad to come out to a
027board meeting and speak to the board of education about the Bosey's budget. Uh so any follow-up questions that you have, don't hesitate to ask and I will make sure that your questions from our Bose superintendent are answered. Thank you. There is no old business, so we're moving on to new business. Number one, budget development presentation. Dr. Chanel. All right. Thank you. Get out of here. [Music] The clicker might need to be turned on on the side. I think I just did it. Just waiting for us in here. Remember it. Okay. Uh so this evening's presentation we are going to start off talking a little bit about that Bosey's budget. Um, so we'll share with you our Bosey's budget that we will vote on on April 21st that you all will vote on in April 21st.
028Tonight we're also going to discuss the refinement of our budget for 2526. We've got some proposed um gap closing measures that we can take and some proposed adjustments to revenue which you'll hear about this evening. We are definitely going to spend some time having Dr. Capron speak to us about our reserves, our reserve plan and our thinking for the future around reserve planning. uh our next our next budget presentation on April 8th. Um we wish we would be in a spot to tell you that we would propose a budget, but we I will say Dr. Cap will speak to a little bit. He was actually on a call today. We do believe that sometime in the week of April the 8th, we might learn what our revenues will be. Maybe we are going to get
029a budget uh within that time. Uh but just based on what we're hearing, it doesn't sound like we'll have revenue, true revenue, quick enough to turn it around for an April 8th budget vote. So stay tuned on that. So this evening um as you are used to seeing what our but what our Bosey's expenditures are um I've tried to spotlight in some of our slides some of our student work. So you're actually looking at uh what it looks like when our kids are in cosmetology programming and they're beginning to learn about um the art form around makeup applications. So this is our this is our young lady right here, Miss Johanna Hall. She's a senior this year. Johanna has definitely en enjoyed her time in career and technical education. Uh and you will see as
030you go down through the services that we purchase. Boseies helps us with all sorts of things from our technology infrastructure. Uh we pay Boseies for every computer that you're touching uh literally every service that we can purchase through Boseies. We do we rely very heavily on Bosey's aid as a way in which we make every dollar in our district stretch. And so every piece that you see here in terms of our u budget development if we can put something through a boseis coser and share that and be collaborative around that service we are doing that to stretch every dollar. Our Bosey's budget for the upcoming school year is actually very small in terms of the percent change. We will be increasing our Bosey's budget about 3.36%. Uh mind you these are these are projections of
031what we believe we are going to spend. As you know with Boseies uh when we get into a school year should we need to send a child to an out of district placement through Boseies you actually see our Bosey's budget sort of fluctuate um depending on the services that we need to buy. So we will continue to u maximize every single dollar that the that the district has. Um in terms of the Bosey's budget itself, our biggest um increases are definitely in areas where we are increasing in technology which you know our hardware and software just continues to grow as a district and you can imagine that that budget line will continue to grow. The difference between our revenue that we are projecting and our forecasted appropriations, this is still that number that we've been
032looking at. The gap that we need to close is $550,149. How are we going to do that? We're going to talk a little bit about refining some of our revenue. So, I will toss it to Dr. Capron for him to speak to this particular slide. Well, one of the things that we do know right now is that, you know, both there's an assembly in front of New York State, there's a governor's budget and we have her estimates. We have in front of the assembly. They're working on a budget. The Senate is working on their budget. Both of them have small increases in foundation aid and in the changes in the formula. So, we're hoping that will help us. We're also looking to refine, you know, we're also looking at some of the other um revenue
033lines, some of which are estimates and not known or forecasted even when the budget is set. For example, the amount of sales tax the district will receive in terms of its share of the Monroe County sales tax revenue or what the how Boseies is doing. So for example at the end of the year if Boseies Boseies isn't allowed to keep any extra savings or fund balance. So at the end of the year they refund it to the member districts if they have any. So there's a few items in within the budget that with a little more time and a little more detective work we may be able to refine on both the Boseies the interest income and of course what we get from the state in terms of refinement to appropriations. Um, when we build
034the budget, so when we're talking about that gap that we're trying to close, I just want to remind everybody that each year when we build a budget, we are building what we would refer to as our ideal budget. It allows us to fund programs that maybe we don't have. Uh the budget had administrative priorities in there which would have built in for us equipment replacement plans. Um technology replacement plans, uh additional monies in our facilities department to be able to handle equipment purchases that we've not been able to um build into our budget that maybe we've been hoping at the end of school years. Should there be the ability to do some endofear spending that we are at that moment trying to buy a lawnmower, trying to buy, you know, what dollars can we stretch
035right now to get us through another year or another couple of years? uh we're trying to get out of that practice and each time you see us build a budget, we're trying to build a budget that would take care of the needs of the district without having to hope that we um that we make it. So, a very planned and strategic budget. So, this year in the administrative priorities, we did ask for a STEM teacher at the middle high school, a position that we do need. Uh, as the board is aware, we are also working with our science department and with the with the University of Rochester to build another elective that would be offered to our eighth graders, which is a spot in our schedule that we've been most concerned about. Our eighth graders
036do have at least one semester of their eighth grade year. They have a study hall that runs every other day. It's too much downtime for them when you include home base. So, we know that we have that issue. We also know that we don't currently at the middle level have any true STEM opportunity beyond grade six. So all of our students in grade six have a STEM opportunity actually right here in the library with Mrs. Barber where they begin to learn how to code and they are using the 3D printers. Then in seventh and eighth grade they they no longer have those opportunities. When they get back into nth grade they can begin to choose classes again that allow them to get back into the STEM world. So we have a little bit of a
037gap in our program that we need to fill. We don't have the staff at the middle high school to add STEM and add it in a in a real way. Meaning, if we were going to offer a class, let's say, to seventh graders, and we were going to have Mr. Hoy from the high school teach the class, Mr. Hoy is only going to be light in one semester in one block. So only the kids who had a study hall at the same time that Mr. Hoy was available could get the opportunity that Mr. Hoy would provide. that's not really providing program. So when we build this next round of programming, we actually do need to dedicate a person to that to ensure that we have the availability for seventh and eighth graders regardless where their
038schedule sort of has a hole or pops them out that there's a real opportunity there versus giving opportunities only to kids whose schedules happen to align when that exists with a teacher. Right? So program development can't be spotty like that. We are definitely in need of a full-time teacher if we're going to grow out a STEM program at the middle school. This budget cannot sustain the addition of that particular full-time position. At this time, we would estimate that that position would is increasing our budget right around $90,000 by the time we pay the teacher and pay the healthcare and the benefits. Uh so that is something that I am putting back on the table now is something that we hold out for another year and try to get creative around how we build and grow
039programs with a budget that remains tight for us. Um we do have an open academic intervention position at the elementary school right now. We had a resignation and we've talked a lot about what will it mean for us if we don't fill that position. So right now across the elementary school and I I've got Mrs. Pete with us today. Uh, actually Mrs. Meyer is not here because she's in Albany. She's at a training that she'll be at for the next two days digging in deeply and learning more about EXL, the assessment tool that we're using to help us drive our literacy initiative. When we're looking at our data, sometimes you have to sometimes you have to undo things in order to put them back together. And and I guess how I will explain that to
040you is that when we think about teaching, we talk about teaching in terms of tier one, tier two, and tier three. And in tier one, that's basically every single student in the grade gets this exact same instruction. So let's just use sixth grade English as our example. If I'm a student in sixth grade English, I'm reading the same book as all my sixth grade peers who are also in a sixth grade English class and this is the unit that we're teaching. That's how you would define tier one. Tier two is basically I'm reading this book and I'm doing this work in the classroom, but I need more support from my teacher than my peers do. And that's where you see wind time at the elementary school, home base at the middle high school, where we
041begin to pull kids to either give them added added instructional time, more direct instruction, or that we're giving them opportunities to learn and grow and be pushed in an area. So, what do you need from us and how do we help? That's tier two. Tier three is that the teacher in the classroom has already delivered tier one and tier 2 and the the child is still struggling. And so now we need to add another layer of intervention which is when we start to get to that tier three intervention. The second we start talking about an AIS position. AIS in our structure at the elementary level is actually delivered by somebody that is not the classroom teacher. That's tier three. What we need to do for a little while and I'm going to say let's talk
042postcoid. Let's talk about the the um gaps in kids ability to read and their understanding of literacy. We really need to focus on tier 1. We should have about 5% of our student body at tier three. When you start to feel that that triangle that you've created where tier one is the base, it's the largest component. Now, let's move oursel up the triangle. Tier two in the center, tier three at the top. The fewest number of students should be in that tier three. When your tier three is starting to be the size of your tier two and we don't look as much like a triangle as we should, we actually have to start talking about the fact that we need to reinvest in tier 1 and tier 2 to get tier three right sized. It
043is not a terrible idea to let this position go unfilled while administratively we focus for the next year and a half, maybe two, at really putting our money and our time and our energy into tier one instruction. And what does that look like? And then tier 2 instruction and what does that look like? Maybe after that we say, "Okay, board of education, we think we need we have enough kids still that we need to go back to a tier three and and add an additional tier three model." But for right now, based on the data that I'm looking at, I am going to suggest that we focus our attention in tier one and tier 2. Do you have questions about that? We still have three and a half, I believe, three and a half AIS
044providers at the elementary school. So, we are not talking about cutting our tier three. We're talking about being far more strategic about who gets to tier three and what happens once they get there. Now, with this eliminating this position and you said you want to focus more on the tier one and the tier two, this would provide teachers some coaching and some guidance as to how to help those kids in tier 2 that they have historically just been sending off to the AIS and having those teachers really figure out how to help them, which they might not need to go off, right? the tier two is all they need, but the teachers are going to be getting some help and guidance as to how to identify and what they need to be doing as well.
045That's that's definitely the direction that we are thinking. That's our data suggests that that's where we need to spend our time. And I actually think through conversations with teachers at the elementary school, there are many of them that say like our current system because we do have the AIS providers, the lever that causes a child in their data set to go off to tier three. There are a lot of teachers that say, "I just want to keep that group with me. I just need to keep this one through in time because if I do, there are other kids that are not being pulled for tier three that need that same direct instruction from me." So, it would be great if I could keep my instructional groups running the way I need them to run to
046get us ready for tomorrow and that I'm feeling good about that. So, to your answer, yes, I think they need staff development. I think they're I think they desire it. Also, I think when you build a system, when you have interventionists, sometimes when your system gets too big, it sort of drives who goes out of the room. And I think the teachers are all also asking the question of how do we readress that so that we can keep our kids and more of them in our space. So, I think it's twofold. I see it in the data set and I think teachers would say exactly what you just said. Are you sure they need to go? Feel like I should be able to keep them for just a minute. Dropping us down a full position
047in tier three will mean that those levers can't stay where they are. They have to readjust. So it will give us a time to to rightsize our system. We have had a strength and conditioning coaching program. And I say that with a dot dot dot. So the first year that we put this in place, we actually set aside $35,000 and we partnered with Leroy Central School District and we hired a strength and conditioning coach through Boseies making that expenditure eligible for aid. We have been unable to sustain that model. Um in order to go through Boseies, you actually have to have they hire itinerate teachers. So we are not just hiring a strength and conditioning certified coach. We actually have to hire somebody that is a certified physical education teacher and has strength and conditioning
048as something that they are passionate about. We have not been able to fill that position through our Boseies with a with a certified physical education teacher. So the challenge this year was we have the $35,000. We had already we'd already invested that. Do we attempt to hire our own? And we have been unable. We've attempted to do that through the University of Rochester. they actually offer this service. There are several school districts in the Rochester area that are actually purchasing this service contractually through the U ofR. Uh I'm Mr. Reid and I met with them over the summer. We looked at the contract with them. They felt strongly that they could provide this service to us and our athletic training service that we've been getting through UVR only to find that they just like all
049the rest of us are struggling to find people um to fill all of the positions that they that they had contracts for. So, not only have they not been able to give us a strength and conditioning coach, but we definitely have not had athletic trainers at all of the events we had grown accustomed to having trainers for. So, I'm suggesting that we eliminate this particular position um to put that $35,000 back toward our programs. I'm also recommending that we reduce some of our curriculum, our summer curriculum expenditures. So, we have a fairly decentsized budget at the U for the summer curriculum work. And what I'm suggesting is not that we cut summer curriculum work, but that we become very strategic about what we will fund for this summer. So often we've allowed teachers to create
050proposals of things that they want to learn. Um the kinds of things that they want to do with units of instruction in their class. we met as an administrative team and we are going to start looking for at this summer around what goals do we want to move and if that summer work is driving the goals that we feel we need to move in this moment around literacy or numeracy that we would fund those particular things but for this summer we will back off on some of those individual teacher projects we would maintain our technology budget so the increases that were asked for and the administrative priorities uh we would just take those back out And the same for the facilities budget. Questions about any of those or how they will impact us. The first
051two, the the STEM teacher and the AIS, they are not currently filled. Correct. Okay. So, you won't be removing a person. You just will not be filling it. Correct. So, everything that you're seeing on this slide, there is not a human being with a name attached to it. I have not had to meet with a single person to say in order to close our budget gap you will you will not be your position will be eliminated. That hasn't had to happen. So right now in the refinements that you're looking at they're all things that I would consider the the lowhanging fruit. Right? If we have to continue and you'll see this as we move on where our revenue where we're projecting our revenue to be when we come back on April the 8th. anything that
052we do beyond the refinements and appropriations that you're seeing here would begin to impact differently. I'm really curious to see how it plays out and I know it's a a long game, but the AIS position there's such a need for support and we've obviously facilitated the support previously and it's still tough sledding. So, I'm interested to see what the new proposal brings and I guess it's going to be a while until we know. I will tell you that it is not uncommon and I myself have deployed this strategy as the director of curriculum and instruction. When the triangle gets misshapen, the only way sometimes to fix it is to create pressure in another area, but then to support that pressure appropriately. Right? So, if we provide the right kind of staff development, it shouldn't be
053that teachers are feeling overwhelmed. It should be that they're feeling like, "Oh, I needed that. That was great." I I personally feel like as a teacher in a classroom, it will give them a little bit more control over some of the instructional decision- making for their kids. Will we feel that? We will. We are going to feel it. We are going to feel it. Um more so if we don't get our data where our data is telling us what we need it to. And I think that's what you're going to watch from this administrative team. like how quickly can we refine as I look back over at them how quickly can we refine the data set that we're looking at which is why Mrs. Meyer is where she is right now and she has two
054teacher leaders with her that are also in Albany and they are learning so how quickly can we use to help us identify the areas that we need to identify and to build groups now we have in this building there is one academic intervention provider just Mrs. patch. So this building 400 and 400 kids, let's say, and there's one academic intervention provider outside of the classroom teacher. We want early primary school. I will I will say this I will say this out loud. Even if we weren't going to cut that in terms of we had the money, we should really start talking about the research around what it means for children to be pulled out and whether or not there's any research at all that suggests that tier three is the most productive way to provide
055children education versus maybe looking at some of the other things that we know have a larger impact in terms of research suggesting that if you really want to get underneath achievement. There are things that have a larger impact than pulling children in tier three. Staff development is one of them. If there's a once once in a while on April 8th, we find out that we've got an extra $67,000 that that appears. My my I'm just throwing it out there. I mean, what what would it take for instance like the the AIS position? What what if let's just say we got an extra $60,000 for conversation sake. Mhm. And let's assume that we're going to go out at at cap, which I I I hope we do. What if we decided instead of knocking the 2.35
056down $60,000 we just got a gift from from what's her name? We put it towards the AIS position. That being said, is there is there a dollar? Can can can you put a It's going to cost what? $90,000ish. Yes. About $90,000. Let's let's just say we got 60. Mhm. Would it be possible to rethink it for only needing $30,000 knowing that we have five um five retirements coming up next year or not next year, right? We got to get through one more after next year. No retirements. The year after that, we're back. We'll have breakage. I guess I I'm just wondering. Yes. How would we get that back? And would that be my pri would would that be my recommendation to the board if we all of a sudden got $60,000? Honestly, I believe wholeheartedly
057that the most important thing that you can do as a school system is to give your teachers really great professional development. If we got $60,000 that would still have us short of the 90 that we would need to maintain a position, I would be enthralled at the opportunity to hire some really great staff developers to come in and out and to coach our teachers around literacy acquisition and make sure that we're ready for the big moves that are coming our way in terms of the science of reading. It's been a while since we've really done that in a very systemic way and it's it's time. That's a big time for Thank you. It's time. Is there is there any way to incentivize the staff to go for literacy specialization? Would that be something that's in
058is that a part of professional development or would you what does that look like? I mean in terms of in terms of if we were to send folks back so we do pay if if teachers have a master's degree if they want to go and get um credit hours above their masters we do have provisions where we can reimburse them to go take college level classes. I would say the difference between that and actually having them become literacy certified versus providing staff development is that most of your teachers especially at the elementary level and their common branch certification they have had to take coursework in the teaching of reading. So what I what I always um when I think about what staff development is and I'm I was a staff developer in the area of
059lit literacy for seven years. If if I was to try to talk to you right now about the science of reading and what makes it important and the research behind it, my brain is going to have to go I'm I'm back right now. Today I was reading about pesticides. So I've got to go way way way back in my brain to find this filing cabinet that I would pull out that was say the big five. Let's talk about fluency. I did spend a little bit of time with Dr. Rosinski today in a podcast because I need I need fluency. It was a conversation Lindsay and I were having and then I just had to go and relearn that no matter the the knowledge and information that you have it stores and when we are reminded
060of those things that are very very important that information actually goes from the back of the brain to the front of the brain and it becomes the most recent information and now everything that I'm doing is being funneled through this core area of my brain that has just been refreshed on how do I teach fluency what makes what makes fluency instruction really good instruction instruction. You've got to bring staff development back to the front of the brain if you want your teachers to be prepared every single day to do what they do. The research says that teachers make, we believe, and I'm sure that it is more, but we believe researchers believe a thousand instructional decisions a day. A thousand instructional decisions a day. Their staff development has to be current and in the front
061of their brain so that when they're making those instructional decisions, they're doing it with the most most up-to-date research around the teaching of reading. I still would lean that way. I've seen nothing else work than to create teachers that are making the best decisions every day. All right, I have a question. This is this is it's convoluted. Um, so the the savings of eliminating the first two positions, the cost savings of that, how is that balanced against providing the cost needed to provide staff development to fill tier one, tier two versus having an AIS position? And is it I mean it's a short-term savings long-term gain kind of a so if I if we were to provide staff to volunt our teachers I didn't come prepared to this data in my head so I'm going
062to I'm going to use random numbers right let's say that we have 50 educators at the elementary school let's say that we spend $60 and we give professional development to all 50 of those teachers and we do so for you know like a three-year long you know commitment around the teaching of literacy and we're going to Dr. Dr. Caper will talk to us a little bit about what what kinds of things we can fund out of a reserve and when when he doesn't suggest we use a reserve. Staff development is not a bad thing to fund out of a reserve to get a really good I'm going to call it a blood transfusion. We need a good kick like we could do that. So how many kids would be impacted if we did staff development
063for three years with all 50 teachers? Well, almost 400 academic intervention teachers, small group instruction. I'm going to venture to say maybe an AIS provider is seeing 20 kids a day. So, it's investment for the whole team. Yeah. Yeah. So, like how does that work, right? How do we how do we year after year after year, right? That the that the teachers will have it to use in this group and the next group. Yes. It's a good question. It was a great question. Not convoluted at all. It was it took a minute to get out. You move out of your space. So, let's take a look at the current revenue budget and broken out into a few more categories. The biggest one, you know, obviously start right with the one of the items the board
064started to talk about a little bit is the property taxes. So, at the tax cap levy limit, we would be able to collect the $8,15,000. That's about a 2.3% increase over the previous years. Um, I would like to just comment that and remind everyone that the tax cap every year is based on what you actually collect in the previous year. So any school that doesn't go to the tax cap means they're actually impacting their future tax revenue and their tax cap limit in succeeding years. And you've se I've seen schools that have said, gee, we've got a budget gap, but boy, if we realize if we've gone backwards five years and actually gone out at the tax gap every year, we wouldn't have as big a problem or wouldn't have a problem at all. So,
065it's important to really think about the fact that, you know, you're get if you can get around two if you can get that 2.3% you know, you're at least working toward keeping a greater sustainability in the budget. Obviously, state aid is really big. that includes both the biggest component of that is the foundation aid which is what the state provides as its share of the sound basic education and it's the one that you know I think we have the most hope for that will increase when the final budget is released by the state. The pilot payments are actually of course things where the economic development council provides um a tax a special a special contract in lie of actually paying property taxes. It doesn't actually create any additional revenue necessarily for the school district because
066in effect you have to remove from the levy every dollar that you collect in a pilot payment. So it's part of the revenue but if it wasn't there it would actually be in the tax levy. Sales tax as we mentioned is an estimate from Monroe County um for the D school district share. Um Medicaid is one of the sources of revenue um that's budgeted here. And then of course there's the appropriated fund balance and restricted reserves and transfers that you know are kind of rolling forward from the previous year's you know amounts and helps provide some cushion and support in the budget. Any questions there before we move on from that slide? Can we have a conversation about the property tax the levy? Like are we in terms of this slide and our revenue is
067the board feeling comfortable with going out at that 2.3% increase? Yes. I think long term it's probably better to bank to have it right. I think if you didn't go out at the 2.3, yeah, it would feel good next year in your tax bill, but then we're going to be saying, "Oh, I'm sorry. we really have an exceptional circumstance that we're faced with right now. It'd be a problem. I actually appreciate that logic so much. I think in the grand in the grand scheme of the way we should be thinking is the same way that our community, you know, I know for for us like in our own households, right? You see maybe maybe you get a cost of living adjustment, you know, in terms of how much money you're going to make or what
068your revenue is going to increase at home. If we all of a sudden are having this this varied tax rate where we're just all over the place, sometimes we're going up to four, we have to go to five in order to make ends meet, you really are not giving that sort of steady increase. I think it is something to consider. Also, I think you've said two our last meeting and this meeting you said kind of the same thing twice where you're looking at efficiencies within positions and we've just shed a position and and found a way to slice it differently. In last meeting you talked about the uh administrators taking on more tasks. I think that's what the taxpayers expect. We need more efficiency any way we can find it. Uh maintaining academics and I
069feel like our first 20 minutes of conversation was strictly focused around academics and successes. So y we will move forward then with our portion of the revenue being something that we're no longer guessing at. We are going to say that our portion of the revenue is going to be at that 2.3% increase. And now all we're waiting on is for the state to tell us what the rest of those revenue streams will be. Yes. Thank you. But if they give us more, we're still going to keep it at 2.3 though. We we should. Yes, we should do that. Yes. Okay. Yeah. It's not. So one of the areas we want to talk a little bit about and make sure you know that everyone is in that's been included in part of the budget discussions and
070kind of the thought process is you know a quick discussion of reserves and one to kind of frame it in a little maybe a little different way but as a quick reminder reserves are essentially savings accounts that the district's district is able to maintain for specific purposes and they're provided both under general municipal law and under educational law. And so there's a whole series of these savings accounts that the board can decide how to fund and how to use them and but there are some guidelines particularly from the state and the controller. So one of the core reasons for having these reserves is to manage uncertainty and risk. You know you think about the actual amount of the budget that is fixed and it's small or that's within control of Calum district. You think about
071it, even things like the pension payments are largely driven by how well the stock market does, which you know, so it's completely outside of the district's control. Other macroeconomic, you know, macroeconomic features include, you know, how much we get for lunch and how the agriculture department does and all kinds of things. So I just wanted to highlight that because of the uncertainty having these reserves can be a really strong management tool for stability in the district and really supports you know if you have reserves then you can weather changes in timing or amount of federal and state funding, new student enrollment, storm damage, excuse me, um other facilities failure or new mandates from the government that are unfunded which seem to come along continue to come along at a pretty regular basis. It also provides
072cash flow and we're going to talk about credit ratings in a little bit too. So I want to take the perspective of the controller who I know also sends out auditing teams but there's another side of the state controllers's office and that office of management budget perhaps there's a controller really looks at a metric and also identifies all kinds of municipal governments towns counties and schools as to whether they're in fiscal stress and their measures for fiscal stress are largely in four areas. low liquidity, operating deficit, how much fund balance they have, and reliance on short-term debt. And in particular, I want to talk about these two middle ones, the operating deficit and low fund balance. So, you really think about how much you should how much should you have in reserves. And it's interesting
073to take the states take some metrics around that. The first is if you actually look at the metrics that the controller uses for scoring a school as to whether they're in fiscal stress to avoid points in fund balance or reserves, you need at least 10% of your budget in reserves. If you look at another important part of reserves and that's maintaining a strong credit rating because when the school issues bonds to for capital projects or other things, the better its credit rating, the lower the amount of interest it pays. So just like it's basically going in to get a mortgage, if you've got a great credit rating, you might get a better interest rate on your mortgage than someone else. So if you look at the actual credit ratings from Moody's and there's a supplementary
074slide in the presentation, it highlights that most schools that have strong credit ratings have over 30% of their budget in reserves. So these are a couple of metrics that are worth thinking about, you know, when uh when planning when creating a reserve plan and thinking about what you have. So I'd highlight and I like highlight two things here. Calmous reserves. I've broken out into two components. What are what I like to call operational reserves. These would include things like an unassigned fund balance, the amount we have on unemployment insurance reserve, the amount in um a pension, the pension reserves. And that amount comes out to a little under $4 million and is about 18% of the school's budget. The district also has capital reserves. And you've already approved um the voters approved many of a
075good chunk of those moving from a capital reserve to support the local share of a capital the capital building project, but you still have about 10% of your budget here. So when you combine the two together, you're just just under that 30% figure. So you're actually in a pretty good position if you consider those other metrics, you know, target values of where you might want to be. So, one of the other things, so one of the key things is how to use reserves. And there's sustainable ways to use them and there's ones that are not sustainable. So, I wanted to just share hypothetically a sample of some what's happened with a few districts. And one of the biggest problems with reserves, particularly schools that have been told they have too much or they decide they're
076going to spend down their reserves and they use them to plug a budget deficit and they do it for recurring costs like wages and health insurance and other people, you know, basically anything related to the people they have in the district. As a result of that, that structural deficit occurs when your re your expenses are just outstrip your revenue and you have a finite gap. And if that's the case, take a school district that may have had say an $800,000 gap. So they use maybe use reserves to plug that gap. The next year they've got to not only make up the 800,000 from the previous year, but they've got to make it up. They've got it's presumably the the gap has grown in the next year and then will grow in the next year. So
077the gap just continues to grow and as a result it doesn't take very many years to deplete a significant amount of reserves. So having a structural deficit is one of the metrics the fiscal control controller said is a problem. It hurts your credit rating and obviously you can burn through an awful lot of savings pretty fast. So what are some sustainable uses of reserves? So basically it's they're one you need to think about them as short-term or one-time expenses. So funding first year startup costs. So if for example it was a new Boseies program that cost $150,000 but you were going to get $100,000 of aid back in the second year, you might use some of those savings to seed the first year of that program knowing that the recurring cost after aid was much
078smaller. that could occur also um with CAT with the annual capital outlay project. There are proposals that have been before the state before but are again there this year to potentially increase that to a $250,000 capital outlay project. If that was to occur, you know, the school might choose to say, "We want to get building aid on a $250,000 project." So that first year might require some reserves to get it kicked off and seated. um bridging operating expenses until you get um retirements, which could be a possibility where you say, "Gee, I've got some great teachers. I've got a a few too many, but I want to bridge myself over a year till when I know I'm going to get higher levels of retirements." And obviously emergency repairs. So, kind of the big part of
079this is when can you use reserves? you can use them when you have a plan to stop using them and and create a smooth landing in to a target reserve level that you and the you know public are comfortable with. So right now in the current budget just like last year there is a planned use in the restricted reserves of $670,000. And part of the budget though is to assume that we would if everything goes well, ideally at the end of the year, we'd be able to refund those reserves back to the target levels. So rather than just bleeding down reserves, we have to think about if we're going to spend reserves both as appropriated fund balance and restricted reserves that ideally the budget would say if everything goes as planned, we would be able
080to refund these reserves back to those target levels rather than being in that structural deficit. Any questions? I will quiz you. You ready? Sure. I just want to talk a little bit like obviously we had a comprollers's report and we know that the comproller pointed out that that we have some reserves and whether or not we have solid plans for how much money we're putting in reserves, how much money we're keeping in reserves and I'm sure that as board members similar to what is happening to me is that when you're out and about you might feel some questions around the reserves. So, we definitely want to take some time tonight to just if you've been if you've come across a question that you haven't known the answer to, like tonight is the night for us
081to really get a little bit prepared for what um it might sound like at the grocery store. Uh for me, I definitely wanted to understand the credit ratings. I think being able to talk about that at 30% of our budget being in reserves means that when we borrow money, we are not wasting taxpayer dollars on interest rates, right? Paying paying undue fees. Um, some of the other big pieces in here, uh, that I thought was pretty important tonight is that when we we might we might come back at some point and ask to use some of the reserves to take care of things that we need to see like staff development. Um, and making sure that you guys are starting to think about the reserves as something that we do use, that we maximize them,
082that we begin to understand them better as tools and strategies that that keep the community getting the education it's grown to expect. anything you've been asked that's about the controllers report that you think we should discuss this evening. there was one reserve in particular that came up in the report and I believe I don't have the report in front of me but I believe it was the TRS reserve. Is that correct? I think it was unemployment or I'm sorry unemployment reserve. Yes. And and I'm thinking about what Jeremy presented to us on the reserve fund and like there's certain ways that you can use each reserve like there's some limitations to that, right? What are some of the ways we could use the unemployment reserve fund? You could decide that it had too much in
083it and move a certain amount into another reserve or move it into the general fund. So you could that's one of the reser so some of the reserves. So let's break them up. Part of the reason I like to separate out the reserves into the capital reserves and versus the operational reserves is those capital reserves you can only use the money if voters approve their use. Yep. These other reserves you can move you've got the board has quite a bit of flexibility about moving the money between different reserves and potentially then appropriating money from those reserves back into the budget. So unemployment could be something where you might you might say, "Gee, you know, I think we're underfunded in our pension reserve. Let's move some money to that." Maybe you get a tax lawsuit, a
084taxertiary lawsuit in August, and you say, "Yeah, boy, that's a big We have a big employer with a big property that's got a pretty good claim on their assessment. We're going to move money from unemployment into the tax certiary reserve." I know that that was the one that um Mr. Malisani talked about needed some attention. Yeah. And I think that's because it's very those lawsuits are typically filed right around August 1st. And if you have no liabsuits pending, then there's not really any reason to keep money there, right? And on the other hand, if you get those lawsuits, there's good reason to move money into it. So, as a district, if we were going to take out of a reserve, would that be the first one we took out of? I but it's and I
085think that becomes part of the board's target. Would you take it out and just move it to another reserve? For example, we probably want to go back through and look at the employee benefit liability reserve, the Eilar reserve that's used to pay out sick days and things when people retire. So based on, you know, that one might be one that needs a little bit more. Um I think be the case. Okay. I know that one of the things that just happened because of the high flexibility of some of the reserves like the unemployment reserve because of the COVID grants, a lot of schools ended up building fund balance more quickly during those COVID years because of those grants and the accountants came through and almost universally around this region said unemployment's a good place to
086put it because it's flexible and it's legal for the board to do. It's it's a very flexible reserve because you can move the money around um from it quite easily. Does that does that help? Yes, it does. I guess just I just it's been on my mind since we've got that controllers. So, just to add to it a little bit, one of the things I think we want to do is just make this more transparent and have regular conversations about this. I know the board's got a reserve plan, but I think reviewing it regularly, making in public, making sure that it's re set. So that for example talking about how in public it's going to be used and where we are and how it is and in the budget for the budget then in June
087there'll be some kind of a resolution that there will be a resolution probably brought before the board to say this is kind of the priorities for the fund balance at the end of the year which we won't know exactly until the audit is finished in August but the board would potentially create some priorities for moving the money around or taking fund balance for the end of this year and refunding some things or or creating capacity for it and then you know again in the fall potentially they say did any tax certiary lawsuits come in let's think about whether we need to move anything around or not particularly you know after the final audit is done in September and have the results in early October so regular discussion about this you know three four times a
088year is you know part of a strategic thing and I think would address part of what the controller wanted which is it should be transparent and clear to the public and you know straightforward. It it it is transparent and clear to the public. You've got a newspaper over in Avon or Jio that that that wants to write write their stuff and then you get you get somebody who doesn't understand it. I mean, we we haven't I'm asking you, we haven't done anything remotely wrong. Nothing. Nothing. And what Jeremy did, maybe he could have put a little bit here, a little bit there, but the the people of the 13 people that subscribed to this newspaper, three of them read it and they're like, "Wow, you you just can't you can't have it." And they they
089just don't get it. If if you don't get it, that's why the grocery store I'm not going down that aisle, going down the other aisle. But to Bruce's point, I think the more we talk about it, the more educated we all become and our community becomes, the less um misinformation is out there, right? So, if we're talking about this, so I think that that's that's good. No, this is all good. But I'm just she she's gonna get asked that in May, what why why did my why is my $150,000 property value going up $17 a month? Because you don't want to take the money out of the it's like it just because it's not what it's there for. Yeah. Right. And I think the part of the goal of all of this is we want
090to bring the best value to the taxpayers that we possibly can. And by having savings and reserves, you know, you're basically able to provide good value. Think about how terrible it would be if you didn't have any capacity in the budget and all of a sudden, you know, the state decided to cut back on some funding in the middle of the year and you were faced with cutting kindergarten or AP classes or sports. I mean because there was just nothing in the budget to absorb something. I mean those are terrible situations you know to be in. So they have capac having capacity to weather uncertainty is really critical. So from the presentation it sounds like we need to be committed to have no greater than 30% of our budget in reserves. That actually is a
091board decision. And I would say if you actually look at the table from Moody's and even similar one from SNP, they show schools with good credit ratings up to like 30, you know, with 35%. I I'm not sure what the highest levels are, but I know there's a few schools around Monroe County that have some pretty high reserve levels. So I don't think there's a hard number to say good or bad. It's what the board community tolerates. It's what we can tolerate. Yeah. And on top of it, you might just say, "Oh, we need we've got a special situation and we need some money. A few things went wrong during the year that we hadn't planned on and therefore maybe instead of and maybe you're at 30% now, but maybe you can't maybe something bad
092happens one year and you get down to 25 and then something on the optimistic side happens in another year and you pop back up to 32." I don't think I'd panic if you did that. Yeah. And is there a way to know what percentage of our current reserves were from COVID grants? Probably, but I'm not I mean, we could check some of that out. I I imagine and we know what we we know what we received. Mhm. And so for us when we when you think about what our strategy was that we deployed we we did not do anything that was not either a one-time expenditure or within the grants allowables for basically passing through. So typically like if we were looking at most of the federal grants that come out, we'll use like title
093one for example, you you can't you can't what they refer to as double dip, right? So we if we say this is what we're spending the title one money on, that's what we're spending it on. We had to do that. When the co money came out, we already had programs like we already had driver's education. We were actually able to take some of the funds that we had been paying out of the general fund and pay for those things through COVID money which left that general fund money on the table. We then put it over in reserves. Understand? and and in in in particular that capital reserve and I'm not sure I can we're not ready tonight but I'm going to I'm going to float a concept right here of like this is the the
094capital project that this community just approved is the largest capital project we've ever had and it has to do with the fact that we always want to do a capital project that has zero impact on the taxpayer and we were able to put more money over into that capital reserve which allowed us to get a larger project. So, we're going to have a project for the first time that's going to touch instructional spaces, right? Typically, we're talking about just maintenance, a lot of roofs, right? And you're getting ready to watch the libraries be revisited and STEM uh be be taken care of at the elementary level in here, things that we don't have. And the way that that happened is because we built that capital reserve up enough that we were able to do a
095large enough project that it wasn't just maintenance of our property. It's actually development of some innovation inside the walls of our school. I think that should if we're going to talk about when would we keep more money in a reserve. Well, in the years where we're gearing up for a capital project, let's try to make sure that we're the next capital project also has some instructional spaces in it. I I I think that I think once the community gets a taste of that like that's also a beautiful thing to celebrate that the co money did actually give us that opportunity. We haven't had that. I think one more slide after this that just says what's coming next. So, this is it in a nutshell. We do not believe we'll be ready on the 8th just
096based on the governor's the budget not really being passed yet. We're waiting on that. Uh so, you can anticipate we we told you to save the date for April 21st. Please do. We need to be here on April 21st. That is not a Tuesday. I believe that is a Monday night. So, a little off of of our normal schedule, but make sure you keep that one. May 13th will be our p public budget hearing. We invite the community to join us and ask their questions so that they are feeling good about all the knowledge and information they need to cast that vote on May the 20th when we will hold hold the annual budget vote and election of our board of education members. Thank you. Thanks for the presentation. Moving on to approval of athletic
097training services agreement. Resolve that the board of education approves the written agreement between the University of Rochester and the Calonia Mumford Central School District for the athletic training services for the term of 2024 2025 2025 2026 and 2026 2027 school years and authorizes the superintendent of schools to ex execute same. I have a motion please. I'll make it. A second. Second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? That motion is carried. We're going to move to executive session. Resolve that the board of education adjourn to executive session at 7:15 to discuss the employment and employee history of particular persons. May I have a motion, please? Yep. Second. Second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. Right. Any opposed? That motion is carried. Resolve that the board of education return to regular
098session at 7:56 p.m. Can I have a motion, please? I'll make it. A second. Second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? That motion is carried. Moving on to personnel. Personnel number one. Resolve that the board of education upon the recommendation of the superintendent approve the following as substitute teachers for the remainder of the 2024 2025 school year. Montgomery Kesler, teacher aid substitute. Megan Mitiki, teacher aid substitute. May I have a motion, please? I'll make it. A second. Second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? That motion is carried. Moving to adjournment. Resolve that the board of education adjourn the meeting of March 25th, 2025 at 7:57 p.m. May I have a motion, please? I'll make it. A second. Second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. That
099motion is carried. Have a good night once again.