001I posted motion carries. Call for a motion to enter into public session. It's been moved and seconded. All in favor, please say I. I. Noain. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance. Pledge allegiance 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. >> Okay, we'll begin uh tonight with two presentations. Uh first for January graduates and then Falcons of the month recognition. Um afterwards uh feel free to treat yourself to refreshments in the back and you can take photos in front of the falcon wall there. Um, so I'll turn it over to Superintendent Thank you. Good evening, everyone. This is awesome. Right. I don't I don't know the last time that it was this full. These
002are by far my favorite nights. I know the board's favorite nights when we have families and students here, particularly for recognitions. And tonight, we have two really important um groups that we're recognizing. first recognizing our January graduates. Not everybody graduates at the same time. Not everybody graduates on time. Some graduate early, some graduate later. We want them to graduate. I'm really excited about that. That's first. And then we're going to be honoring our Falcons at the month. And I'll talk a little bit about more a little more about our Falcons of the month afterward. Um at this time, I'd like to call our principal of the high school, Mrs. Muich. And she's gonna start us off with our graduates. Thank you, Mr. Lanage. Will those of you from the class of 2026 please rise? Superintendent
003Lamage, as principal of the senior high school, I certify that the students presented here have fulfilled all of the requirements set forth under New York State education law and the Evergrafield district policy. They are now prepared to receive the recognition for the work that they have successfully completed. >> It's by the power vested in me by the board of ed board of regents of the state of New York and a superintendent of schools. It is my honor to confer upon these students the Niagara Wheatfield High School diploma with all the rights and benefits pertaining unto them. Ladies and gentlemen, the class of 2026, please rise. Ashley Day is not here. >> Oh, she Where is she? There she is. Okay. Sorry, there's a lot of people here. >> Congratulations, Ashley. Congratulations. >> You know what?
004I'm just going to I'm just going to leave the name. >> Yes. >> Alyssa Canonico, >> Bailey Maxwell. Thank you. and Nathaniel Patterson. >> Oh, so yeah, we did know that. Thank you for coming. No, please. I'm in the That's really awesome. That's really awesome. We are so incredibly proud of all of your accomplishments and the hard work it took to get you here today. I would really love it if you could give a round of applause for all of our January graduates. >> Thank you. Okay, it is my pleasure now to introduce our Falcons of the month. Tonight, we have the distinction of honoring our next group of Falcons of the month. Each school in our district celebrates numerous students each and every month simply for being outstanding. We have asked our schools to
005select one individual from the many who are honored during that month. Therefore, the students we will be honoring tonight were selected because they personified the trait or characteristic being celebrated during that month. In other words, these students represent the best of the best. I'm going to read to you one of the certificates. They're all the same. The certificate of recognition says whereas the philosophy of education of the Niagara Whitfield Central School District calls for aiding all students in the development and achievement of their potential and whereas the primary goals of the school district include encouraging each student to develop a sense of values values instill a feeling of responsibility to self and to others as well as an appreciation of good citizen citizenship. Be it resolved that the board of education of the Niagara Wheatfield
006Central School District hereby recognizes the following students. And our first student tonight that we're going to be recognizing and each student when you come up, you saw what our graduates just did. We're going to ask you to come up. You're going to shake my hand. Then you're going to walk along and shake each member sing along board of education's hands as well. Okay. So, first up we have Emerald Rickard. Baby girl. Next up, we have Julia Gunnison. Next we have Gabriel Ueski. Good handshake. Next up, we have Millie Printer. Next up, we have Calvin Sherm wasn't ready. Next we have Leanne Chhate. Okay. Next we have Juliana Schlitz. Next we have Kell Robinson. And next we have Dylan Phillips. Next we have Alisandra Patterson. And next we have Oliver Lion. That concludes our welcomes of
007the month month. One more round of applause for our graduates. >> I turn it over to Mr. Myers. Congratulations to our graduates. It's about this month. I will take about a 10 to 15 minute recess. Please help yourself to refreshments and take some pictures and thanks to everyone for coming out tonight. Appreciate it. Back to order. On with our budget presentations from our directors. >> Okay. You know, I think you should reward people who choose to sit up front because nobody ever wants to sit up front. That does not seem fair. >> So, why don't we start with Matt McKenna's on the end and he's up front. Oh, Steve just moved a seat up front. That is a really smart guy. I heard I heard help with that. So >> worked either way. >> Dominic,
008don't worry. Steve jumping ship like that. He's >> last either way. >> Folks, once again, thank you. Uh we will obviously be speaking about our 26 27 already um proposed athletic budget and um what our budget here for uh and I agree with athletics consists of uh obviously for again the 26.7 school year again it's combination of the levels of varsity JV modified unified um and then one account for our hall of fame but we have a total of 69 nine um athletic teams that we oversee and that we have the budget for. Our first count is our uh athletic equipment code which is 2011. Uh as you can see there in 2526 we had a $36,000 uh budget code this year working excuse me working at looking at 30,000. One caveat to that is
009um I think we had a number higher number of items that we needed last year. The only big thing we'll need coming up in this school year is a new diving board. Uh not the whole um actual council of the whole thing, just the actual board itself. So um that's that's really the only thing. in all uh we we'll we don't we'll decrease that budget by 6,000. Next we have our contractual which is 410. Uh this one's obviously always kind of tricky. Last year it was 232,000. This year 244,000. Uh examples to go into here is all our reconditioning for our athletic equipment. uh increases in uh slight increase in trainer salary, official fees, official travel fees. Uh league, state and section dues have all increased. Um I would also anticipate just as of a
010meeting that I went to on Tuesday, our outside venues, ranks, bowling alleys from what I'm hearing is you guys know better than I electricity and power is going up. So cost of that, you know, obviously trickles down into everybody else, right? So um that will be I'm assuming coming our way as well in in regards to the fees that they charge, but they gave us a heads up on that debt um will be in addition to as well. So you see a little bit of an increase from last year to this year in our contractual line. So it's always kind of stayed similar. just kind of does the do here with u just $500 for different types of things that we need to take care of all our equipment. Uh, of course, disinfectants for a
011wait room, any type of supplies stuff like that for cleaning, more custodial than anything that that we have. So, that one's pretty self-explanatory and very simple. Uh, usually stays the same for many years. Uh next big one is our intercolastic supplies. Again this are more of the balls the um nets the little things like that typical supplies that we do. Um this budget has increased substantially by 20,000. Um it's hard to believe but we're already at 10 years of our modified programs and one of those modified programs is modified football to where um after 10 years the helmets are obsolete. So we started with I think it was 56 new helmets 10 years ago. We've gradu gradually were be were able to replace many of those, but it came down to I think 28 to
01230 or 31 of those that need to be replaced this year. Um, so cost of the helmets are expensive. We got to remember freight. We got to remember a lot of other things that go along with that. There's the equipment uh supplies um that go along with those new helmets that are new, new helmet, new supplies, straps, stuff like that. So, you know, unfortunately that that adds up. Um, and then again, like anything, all our supplies, all our vendors, all our prices of the simple supplies are going up. So, it's all part of the increase with the basic supplies and asset. Uniforms is your next code there. Uh, 25 26 with 13,000. Same this year. This one we have a lot of uh conversation about. very tricky. As I stated from the beginning, 69 athletic
013teams that we oversee. I got uh a quote for some new uniforms for soccer. It was $3,000. Again, that's one team. We have 69. So, we're making do. We well understand that things are going to be a little bit challenging and a little tighter this year um with our budget. We're going to be okay. You know, I've said that to our teams. Uh we have a good rotational basis, but the thought process as we go through this is more of varsity, new uniforms, varsity JV. You know, we kind of have to do the hand-me-down thing for a little bit. Um it always works out pretty well. Sometimes, like I think in the last couple years, we've had to replace some modified uniforms. You know, you can go so far that sometimes those varsity uniforms won't
014fit into the modified level. So, we'll be in good shape. Um I'm I'm comfortable with that number. However, I think it's something that we'll really truly have to examine for uh 2728. Um because those numbers are increasing as well. Next, we have our wall of fame. That's always right there at 8,000. Again, another wonderful um exciting event. And I think we're I shouldn't jump the gun, but I I think we're excited that we're going to have our new auditorium if we can continue to use that. We're going to be awesome to see that uh return there, but we'll we'll cross the bridge we come to, but that's 8,000 for our Hall of Fame. So, you can see there there's our grand totals. If we add everything up from last year, again, the big increase came
015from the, you know, a little bit with the supplies there. So we jumped up a little bit there because of the the number of different things that we need and again the supplies uh the basic uh increase in all supplies the simple things you know are increasing in a lot of those that was the big thing. So uh each one of you obviously received that but that little pin came to me I want to mention that because Leslie always beats me to it because she gives you guys buses so I give you guys pins. I just want to make sure everybody knew they got their pen this year. But again, thank you. Any questions? >> Very good. Thanks again, General. >> We're actually going in a different order. >> Oh, you're going. >> Hello everybody.
016Thank you um for taking some time to listen to the proposed changes for the facilities 26 to 27 budget. Uh >> oh, get the long way. >> We can uh just some fun facts before we start here. Um the district has seven buildings that make up roughly 728,85 square feet that the men and women take care of and have to maintain. um they plow 88 or they mow 88.5 acres of grass and they plow roughly 26.2 acres of snow. So just something they wanted to add this year for one of our increases for the maintenance contractual uh UNS services and Stark for our building controls um an increase of $1,400 um Sonetrol for security fire monitoring cameras and a big one of this is for um adding cameras to the auditorium along with the maintenance
017agreement uh for $3,673 for that total increase of 5,73. three. Uh we're looking to replace two more plow trucks next year. Um a 2014 and a 2017. Once and if this goes through, we'll be back on our 10ear replacement cycle. Um and we'll be in good shape moving forward. We'll have our whole fleet. Uh the next one in line would be uh 2019 to replace. So we would have a little bit of a cushion going the next couple years. Um the trucks and plows these days, everything's gone up. One truck is 67,000 for a total increase of 134,000. Uh over the last couple years, we had quite an increase in costs uh for everything, supplies, parts, um even charges for the basic day-to-day stuff. Um we made cuts in other areas over the last few
018years trying to cap this off, but um we had to make some changes this year to try to get back on top of things. So for the custodial supplies districtwide, we're looking to have a $9,500 increase to our supplies for the cleaning and a $32,000 increase to our maintenance supplies, which is basically parts, hardware, tools. Um, it translate to about a 4.5% increase over both of those figures on our annual costs. The last thing we have here is our bulk salt that we ordered through New York State on contract. Um, they've increased the prices again per ton and we had a little harder winter this year, so we don't want to get caught. Um, we just bumped that up to $2,400. And thank you for your consideration. Anybody have any questions? >> Yeah, you know,
019I'd like you to speak to Mike Lee. I just replaced I was able to buy two trucks. I replaced them 1985 and a 1991. You're replacing them 2014 and 2007. >> I voted in favor. What are you doing? >> I just said talk. >> What What are you paying for salt? I'm just curious. >> Uh it's 8250 a ton right now. >> Treated salt. We do >> now get >> Wow. >> Thank you. Thanks. Good evening. I'm Leslie and I'm transportation. Thank you. My budget review for 2026 to 27. The equipment is stays the same. Buses stay the same. Equipment it lowers to 50,000. Tires are 55,000. The bus ride supplies are the same. Our map and routing is the same. Our fuel costs are the same. And hopefully they are the same due to
020the increase in fuel, but we've been doing well because most of the fleet is gasoline and the contractual. I'll let Deanna handle that. >> Um I just wanted to speak on the contractual. um we added this to Leslie's presentation this year, although she's not actually um responsible necessarily for the cost of our contractual transportation. Um over the last few years, um they've had to add more um contract busing through first student or transpo because of um the inability to uh attract drivers or have I I will say we attract drivers and we maintain them and and when they retire they stay but >> and they come back as cells. It's been difficult to get all the routes for our non-public runs and special education runs. So, um that's one of the increases in the overall
021budget. Okay. I have 47 drivers, permanent unassigned subs, and congratulations to them for this was the hardest winter we've had in a long time. 20 attendants, three mechanics that are doing a wonderful job, two laborers that are doing a wonderful job. um a head bus driver that's having issues because we're short of drivers and trying to get it taken care of. Two clericals that don't threat. One fleet coordinator that's out on sick leave right now. Myself out of the eight, six of us drive. Our current maintenance schedule is 60 buses, one shock truck, and one two Durango, 14 building and grounds vehicles. Our mechanics provide a maintenance with a three-month a six-month routine checklist. School bus dot profile this year was 98.7 out of 100 and it's updated at March 31st, 2025. We will continue
022to recruit maintain safe quality drivers and attendant monitors. Thank you for the safety and the support of our children. Please stay safe. Any questions? Okay, thank you. Kristen and I are happy to be here tonight to present the budget for the Department of Curriculum, Instruction, and Technology. And we'd like to acknowledge that our colleague Jessica Smith was not able to be here tonight, but she was integral in putting this presentation together, our goals together, and preparing for our long-term budget and planning purposes. So before we start talking about numbers, I always like to try and put in the big picture and think about the goals. Particularly, our goals have changed this year. So I want to make sure that I talk a little bit about the technology goals. so that you understand when we're talking
023about 3D printing where that's coming from. So, um, overall our department is really aligned with equipping educators with the training, the resources they need to effective effectively instruct our students. Um, we want to make sure that our students have the support and the opportunities to succeed all the way through their educational journey from preK up through grade 12. So, one of the things that we are doing as a department that we worked on this year was our new technology plan. Every year, New York State requires districts to do a three-year plan. Not every year, every three years to do a three-year plan um and submit that to New York State and have that approved. So, this fall we had a stakeholder committee and we have four brand new technology goals and an approved plan from
024New York State. So, in your folders, we passed out white folders at the beginning. You'll have a white folder in front of you. On one side is the presentation that we're doing tonight. And then the other side is the full technology plan that's been approved by New York State that we're not going to talk about tonight. Um but we did want to give it to you so that you would have it um and be able to look at it at your leisure. So those two things are in there. So these are our four district goals which will be the four technology goals for the next three years. Um, first is a goal around the New York State digital fluency standards and making sure that students have equitable access to exposure to those standards across the
025district. So, we'll be looking at those standards and seeing right now what where they're being exposed to that over the course of their career and looking to see u particularly at the elementary level that it's equitable amongst the buildings. And the second goal that we have, I wish Jessica was here to explain this, um, but is to enhance cyber security through implementing something called MDR, which is managed detection response, and EDR, which is endpoint detection response. Um, to ensure that we have secure and continuous access to digital learning resources. So when you have something on your computer probably at home, you have anti virus software on your computer that can detect things that are known. So it had to have happened already and then your computer sees it and then it it takes action. But
026we know things are happening. There's hackers out there right now and they are creating new viruses that nobody knows about. So what EDR and MDR is something that we put on all our devices that monitors our systems 247 247 and we'll notice if in the middle of the night a printer starts talking to a server that it shouldn't be talking to and it'll shut it down right at the point of time. So it's giving us the ability to detect things that people don't even know exists at the moment. Um, so hopefully I explained that well enough, but if you have any questions about that, um, we can certainly get that information from Jessica. Uh, our third goal is to enhance student engagement, collaboration, hands-on learning. Um, we're going to be replacing the outdated projectors that
027are in the classroom and installing interactive panels. So, we'll talk about that. You'll see that in the budget. And then the last one is to enhance our K through 12 steam student competency through the systematic integration of media arts in the arts curriculum. And that will start right away. And then the creation of a designated K through5 technology class taught by a certified teacher. You won't see that in our budget request this year because next year we're going to be doing that assessment that I talked about in goal one looking to see the equity across the buildings. And then we're going to strategically create that position based on our findings. So it's kind of a preview of what you will see in a request coming in the future. >> Good evening. This next slide relates
028to curriculum and instruction. And you'll notice there is a decrease of $77,945. However, that will be uh used in a different capacity. So, it's not exactly a decrease in the amount of money that we would need to support this section of our department, but I'll explain that in the next slide. But, nonetheless, um, in terms of curriculum and instruction, we won't have many changes in terms of what we need to budget for. You'll see professional development is reflected on both sides for this school year and then for next school year. Uh we also need to support our teachers um after school and during the summer with funds for time that they do for curriculum work. Um conferences are still something that we plan to offer and of course materials and curricular materials whether they be
029paper or digital. The main focus though uh looking to next year would be for curricular materials that will support our three through five English language arts program. We started with our pilot process last spring in which teachers looked at a variety of programs and then settled on two in particular. So coming into this school year, we had a fleet of teachers that used those two programs and they just finished wrapping that up this January and came to a decision on which of the two they favored. And now John and I are looking to um over the next um in the future to purchase this particular program and the capacity that we're able to uh to complete that that task pilot. Uh this is the software that we're moving to Bosei. So I had mentioned in
030the the slide previously that you see a decrease of $77,945 but technically what we did is we just took some software that we were purchasing separately with thirdparty vendors and we just moved it to Boseis because we can purchase certain software through Boseies and then we get aid back. So that's why you see the difference here. So it went from general budget to the Boseies budget. So that budget increased for Boseies but decreased for our general fund. So for technology last year we expended across the technology funds 1,875 or can't read 187,447. Um, and this year you'll see it's up about $11,000 roughly and that's due to an increased state equip equipment allocation that we have. Um, so that will be nice. Um, so proposed purchases that we have from that are some audio video
031equipment for our gyms and our large instructional spaces. Oftentimes you'll see assemblies where um they're holding a microphone up to a computer that's projecting the sounds. We want to make sure that we have spaces in there um for when they have large group instruction um where kids are able to hear. Um the other thing is UPS's which is uninterrupted power supplies which we usually buy several of those every year so that we have them to maintain our networks. 3D printers which is aligned with goal four with our steam. We're going to put 3D printers in our art classrooms um K through 12 uh so that we have the ability to as I said the goal is originally to tap into some of the the A in steam so we're going to be um putting those
032in next year and then we have our computer repair supplies our Chromebooks talk about this a little bit older are getting a little bit older so we're seeing a lot more tickets come in for repairs for that so um that budget line is very important and critical our tech reserves which again I always want to say thank you for establishing that and funding those um just keeping that at $200,000 and some of the things that we would do would be to install those interactive displays which was goal number three that we talked about right now our committee has had vendors come in and we are in the process of once they pass the committee we'll we get demos in and we're moving them around the buildings to try and have teachers try out to determine
033a model that we'd like to purchase. And then once we've determined that model, we will be purchasing 40 of those and installing those um throughout the course of the year. and we're starting down at the kindergarten level and then we'll be moving up through the levels, but it'll be 40 of those device replacements for Chromebooks um or any of the um uh Windows devices that need to be replaced. iPads also for the art rooms um so that they have the ability to um do some digital work. So, we'll have those as well for the art. and then 3D printers as we mentioned before. Right. So, our new request that we have is um a budget line that's an equipment line which would be used to replace instruments. Right now, we have some instruments at the
034middle school which are 20 years old. Um and we don't have a designated fund. We're always kind of like, oh, do we have anything left over in equipment to buy them? So that's not really the best practice for our students in who are in music, particularly when we have a beautiful new auditorium and we want them to sound wonderful. Um, so we want to establish this fund which would start off with $30,000 to replace it, but next year we plan it would go down to 20,000. Um, so that we could purchase and we'll take all the instruments and we'll look and we'll start replacing the oldest one first and just keep going through. But if we had that pot of money, just like we replace buses every year, we would be able to replace instruments
035every year because they are costly. Then the other thing that we wanted um to request was a summer technician, two summer technicians to help out over the summer. As I said, our Chromebook fleet is um aging and last summer we weren't able to take every Chromebook and power wash it and make sure all the keys were working on it. So we would like to increase our summer help so that we would be able to make sure that every Chromebook was ready to go uh for the start of the school year. And then on the right hand side looking at this these would be to Bosey's requests for the EDR and the MDR that I spoke about um to make sure that we are catching um viruses discovering them right away not after they have been
036in our system for months. Um so that would be a cost. And then the other piece of that is a point to an extra day for our network senior technician Brian Mardino to be here because at the start of this process if you look at our tech plan you really have to teach the system what is normal so that they know that this is unusual behavior. So it would be for him to be here an extra day so that he could work with Sedera in order to help under help the um the system learn what is what is normal for us. The next piece is not part of our budget, but we wanted to take some time to shine a light on this topic. Uh particularly because we do have the beautiful new auditorium that
037is up and coming. Uh it was brought to our attention that we might want to look at our staffing needs in our music department. And we started off the process by speaking of course with our music staff members and then creating a survey that they were able to disseminate to the local school districts, our neighboring school districts to get feedback from them and how they support their students for in particular lessons. And so what we determined after the survey data was collected is that to be to air on the side of caution and to be responsible if we were to have funds in the future, we think that a 6 band teacher would be the first place to start. So we would be able to provide three periods per week, which would equate to 28
038lessons extra per week than what our students are already getting. And this next slide has four we we had a full presentation um that we discussed, but these are some slides that we thought were the best to share here in this capacity to show you uh what our neighboring school districts are offering their students in terms of music lessons in comparison to what we have here at Niagara Wheatfield. And you'll see uh bottom left Newfane is a close comparison in terms of population of students and they're able to offer their students um one lesson every 5 days. And right now we are working with one lesson every 10 days. And so you can see the the graphics there to show that or demonstrate that data. And then I would say probably the top right is
039a nice way to look at that as well in terms of um a weekly schedule for a student. On the left there you can see that a typical Niagara County student has about two lessons um over the course of 10 days. And as I said, our students right now have one. So again, this is not something that we have in our current budget, but just something that we wanted to highlight for you to keep on the back burner should there be funds in the future to support more lessons for our students. >> Any questions? Yeah, thank you very much. Dominic, come on down. All right, we have the next contestant. Good evening, board members. Dominic Belli from service director here for the N we field school district presenting the 26 27 service budget. revenue. Most
040revenue comes from state and federal reimbursement. Other revenue comes from alocart sales. There is no local taxes being used to support the food service program. Under program expenses, I have a line in the uh budget for food uh projected this year 900,000 asking for an additional 50,000 increase in the food line for next year. Supply line remains the same and government commodities. Uh last year we uh expensed 140. It's an even wash when it comes to the the amount of dollars that we're receiving in government commodities. It either turns into um your brown box delivery or the other opportunity you have is pilot program for Wagner's farm apples and uh favors produce through Latina Boulevard produce or processing turning cheese into pizza, ground beef into burgers, items like that. Having done the government commodities just
041last week with my team, uh we were entitled $165,000 going into next year and they ask us to expense that plus an additional 5% over continued program expenses. new equipment budgeted this year and next year 200,000. Uh a small increase in equipment repair from 15,000 this year to 30 for next year. A small 5,000 increase under contractual and conferences expected to be about the same. Just wanted to show you what it's been like for the last few years uh since we've become community eligible C free meals, free breakfast, free lunch for all students. 22 23 to 23 24 we increase by almost 60,000 meals. 23 24 to 242 25 an additional 18,250 meals total increase that we have provided for these students uh 77,537 meals C will continue uh the month of April I will
042sit down with my uh staff my team to reapply for community eligibility once approved you're approved through for four years and possibly a fifth year of the grace period. Any questions? >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> I think I went last last year through Yeah. So next year >> I am gonna go first. Who's going to remember tradition? >> So thank you everyone. Um Steve Mezer, director of special programs and this is my 2627 budget. So we had two areas as you can see most of the areas in our um budget were not increasing. We never really have had to. we've been able to maintain them like the cse contractual expenses, the travel expenses, materials and supplies. Um the two that are highlighted are the areas that we are increasing this year.
043Um for cse legal expenses, we've noticed in the last couple of years in the unfortunate event when a a parent might file a due process complaint, they don't happen that often when they do. You know, they get an attorney and then we have to pay the attorney's fees. And um we've noticed in the last couple of ones that we've had that they've gone up. So we just wanted to raise that $10,000 just to have a little bit more wiggle room. Um the big one is and this is no surprise. This is something that we see an increase in every year and that's the private placement tuition. So, um, if you see at the bottom the grand totals compared between 2526 and 2627, um, overall we're looking at like a total increase of 579,783. And to
044break down, you know, how we figure out the tuition for each of the placements, these are all the private schools that we use that we have uh, students refer to through the CSSE. Um, I looked at the last couple of years and I just did an average of, you know, percent increase. We really have no way of determining exactly how they're going to increase it because it's based on uh the needs of the students and the number of students that are placed in that particular program. So, this is like a rough estimate. you know, we do pretty good or pretty well of coming close, but um the far right yellow is the increase we're looking at for each of these programs for the upcoming school year. So, just to kind of break it down, this
045is what it would be if we maintained all the students, the all the students that are currently placed in all at all of these different schools. Um this is what it would cost for each student currently that are there. So, they're currently at that school. So, you know, we're looking around 3 million. Um, we got to plan for next year, though. We got to plan for how many students, and this is always the tricky part because, you know, we don't know which students are going to move in from other districts that are already in these placements. We would of course try to maintain that placement if that's where their needs are best met. Um, but also we look at incoming kindergarteners. Um, right now, um, you know, we do have a number of them that
046are in private placements through the CPSE at the preschool level. So, we anticipate they might need programs as well when they come to school age. And last year, you know, we were in a situation where um we had kiddos that did not have a placement and that's we have to make sure every child can go to school regardless. So, we did open our own 813 which has been a great success and a wonderful program. But um we want to just you know make sure that we don't have to fall in that situation again because it is much more costly to have like programmings in house. You know you got to hire the teacher and then the health insurance and then um you know an additional speech therapist. There's a lot that goes into that. So
047in the grand scheme of things it is more cost effective to really get these kids placed and eventually we can stack them and get this back. You know they're it's fatable. And that number down there where that's not including Boseies. We do anticipate a lot of these kiddos will get placed at a Boseies placement which of course is the private placements are more costly. So um so I estimated around seven and that is that's what the increase is for the private tuition. Any questions about that? And lastly, one position I am looking to I am asking for for next year is an additional speech language therapist. Um again the number of speech mandates we have seen has consistently increased over the last 5 years. Um this is like prevented our speech therapists to provide speech
048improvement groups which those groups are wonderful but they're not mandated. You know they have to cover the IEP minutes of the students receiving speech first. uh but the speech improvement groups really target some of these skills which will prevent them from coming to the cse and then getting services. So you know we are looking at that and we are also looking at the high speech mandates in our new 813 class. A lot of these kids are non-verbal um and need like a high level of speech therapy and um additionally the kids in our 1211 classes also need a high level of um speech therapy. And I'm just you know I chair all the preschool meetings and I just I see what's coming in terms of the language and the speech. So we just want to
049make sure we have enough providers in this area uh for the upcoming school year. And that is my last slide. Are there any questions? Thank you. Thank you. >> Thanks everyone for sticking around guys. Uh as a group moving on there are no residents comments from the floor. All right. With that, I'll call for a motion to accept the consensus agenda items 1 through eight as presented. So been moved and seconded. All those in favor, please say I. >> Motion carries. >> Call for a motion to approve the personnel items as presented. Numbers 1 through 30. It's been moved and seconded. All those in favor, please say I. I >> opposed. Motion carries. Moving on to our standing committees. Um Bob's not here. Any capital projects, please? >> No, just that we uh in the
050in next in the week or so, we're going to have a meeting at our campo project committee. We're going to bring that group together to meet with the contractor for the auditorium. >> Now, if you're sure, I'll leave, but I'd just like to say a couple things. What we appreciate is putting the budgets together and I know special ed was went little high but we understand the reasons behind that but for whatever everything you do with whether equipment and trucks or computers your budgets seem to be pretty reasonable. I mean they really haven't gone up a lot considering everything that we're doing here. So I I do appreciate that. >> Thank you. Any update from our audit committee? >> Policy committee. >> I'm go ahead. You have an audit committee. >> I think it's the
05118th. >> Audit meeting on the 18th >> and the policy committee. Um, we read through some policies tonight. They'll be on the next board. >> Okay. >> There is a external communication to the board of a fundraiser. It's justformational item on the Eric Road family statement. Exicial student is not here. I don't have anything for president's report. Superintendent's report. Thank you. Thanks. Must look funny. People here didn't read the superintendent report. Um March 10th is the electrification seminar. I know that um we're going to have a few people from our district attending that seminar. I it's really important for us to get together with the local leaders and the people who really understand um electricity and how and what those what costs are, what the um limitations may be for electricity and the grid in
052our area. So, um we're looking forward to that presentation from these the leaders in in that sector. The prek registration um it's up and running. it's through March 6th. It doesn't mean after March 6th that we won't take prek students. It means that um if if all of the spots are filled on March 6, then we would then have to have a lottery. It doesn't look like that's going to be the case, but March 6th um it is the last day that we're we're taking them to be involved in the lottery. Again, we're below the number of spots that we have. So, please register uh if if you're still interested. The kindergarten registration will start March 9th and run through April 24th. Um the the date of births uh for those who are registering for
053preK are from 1221 to 12122 and the date of births for the kindergarten are 12220 to 12121. registrations between 8 a.m. and 3:30 for both of those both for both the prek and kindergarten and that's in our district office. One item that we need to talk about is the board of education walkthrough. Um we were hoping that that board of education walkthrough would take place um at the completion of the auditorium. The auditorium date um has been pushed back again. I'm waiting for a final day. I'm I'm almost feeling like we should probably pick a date um and and schedule it and you know we can always do a little walk through of the odd afterwards. That's my thought, but certainly up to all of you. The Ecoampus Wellness Walk and Wellness Fair is scheduled
054for April 25th this year. Um we're really excited about the event as we are every year. We are also excited that the um Buffalo Niagara Water Keeper um I want to thank NWA um because we've come to an agreement on um the the land on the other side of the creek which is owned by NWA. Um we've come agreement in which we're going to take care of part of that property um while um building a bridge over that property that'll connect our property to theirs. We're going to have a You probably heard me talk about it before where we're going to have little step down areas where students and our science classes can take samples. We're really excited that for that boardwalk to go in. That work couldn't be done until this agreement was reached.
055It was just reached. Um so the next steps will be buffer water keeper is putting out an RFP. That RFP is going to get a consultant in place. that consultant, the first thing we're asking them to do is pick the location on the creek where that bridge is exactly going to go over. That way, we can utilize the funds that have been that we've set aside from Greenway to build that boardwalk and that bridge. Um, so I was hoping the work would start this spring, this summer. Um, it just took a little bit longer to get through that agreement again for them to select this um this consultant. So, I'm going to guess more like later summer, fall. Um, assuming the approval time periods at the education department stay right about where they're at now.
056But again, really exciting. I was I wanted all of you to know this is why I put it on the handout. Next year, the NISBA conference, you probably see this in your emails, but it's October 22nd through the 24th next year. That's in Buffalo. Okay? So whether you liked it or not, you don't have to go to New York City. Um it's here local um next year and with the dates on the 22nd through the 24th. And the last thing I have um is that um this year again our students participated in the environmental ambassador program. Uh last year we took our group took second place that we set. The first place team was also from Niagara County last year. Um by the way this is an area county event but you know county last
057year was first and second place. Uh this year um we took first place uh for the um presentations on batouses and uh we also took third place uh for a presentation that had to do with elderberries. So um pretty exciting that um we we've been now involved in this for a couple years and our students are not surprisingly doing incredibly well. So, we're really excited about that and I want to make sure everybody knows. That's all I have. Oh, wait. Did I Did I mention I didn't. Next weekend. Uh, next weekend is the musical. Uh, it is Friday night. Uh, that's that'll be the 13th and the 14th. It's 700 p.m. on Friday, 1 2 p.m. Thank you. >> on Saturday and 700 p.m. on Saturday. Okay. Next week. Pretty pretty exciting. If you don't
058know, high school musical this year is Greece. >> Good. Thank you very much. Moving on to our reports to the board. Finance budget recommendation. budget presentation. So this is the first budget presentation this year. So One thing I want to share is some of the initial slides that are going to be up there are actually put out by Niscus, the New York Council of School Superintendent. There's an advocacy group of things are actually put out by Niscus and um they help kind of break down the um the state budget. So, we'll flip through these kind of quickly. Um this is good news. That's probably not good news, right? That wasn't the um if you're looking at the slides, there's good news. And that is that there's been significant growth. And this has happened the last
059couple years. Significant growth um in in the projected state revenues. And you can see that the projected state revenues went all all the way from all the way up to 130.8 billion. Uh what what's really interesting um in in New York and many of you probably know this is that um revenues are really driven by um you know like the the the revenues that come in from um New York City. Okay. and New York City particularly the financial sector. So you know I I think honestly one of the reasons why it's a little bit harder to predict and that there's such great volatile swings is that a significant portion of the revenues come from a very small section of the population and it really has to do with you know what are their increases in
060that what are the increases in the financial sector. Um that said, there are some risks that are still out there. Okay. And and these things all impact the financial sector significantly. Um certainly the federal government. Um where's the you know where are the parties going to you know agree disagree? How does that impact us? That's something we're looking at all of the time and I think many of you probably follow a little bit. Um there's it's been seems like it's been more difficult in in recent years to come come to some agreements and sometimes that can stagnate um decisions and and those can affect education. Uh a faltering or stagnating economy the GDP growth is expected to slow. Uh the economy is stuck in a no higher no fire phase. Part of that is, and
061a lot of you know that it's hard to find people to work, to fill positions. Um, so it's a little bit harder to uh uh maybe let somebody go because of that. Um, there's interest rate reductions that may not uh come until mid year. Unemployment rate is expected to actually increase a little bit, but peak at 4.6%. For those that don't are really familiar with the unemployment rate, um, you you never have or would want an unemployment rate of 0%, right? So that, you know, unemployment rate that unemployment rate is actually fairly low um because you still have some competition for jobs, but there's not a lot. As we know, we're constantly looking for people to fill positions that are open. Um natural disasters, international events. Um you probably tuned into the news recently and
062and saw what they were talking about with the cost of oil. The cost of oil doesn't just affect, you know, gas that you put in your pumps. it affects many many things and so that's a can be fairly volatile um especially when parts of the world are involved in crisis it can certainly impact the price so after all those things the one positive the state has built up some some significant reserves okay everybody at the table knows that u the board table knows that we're only allowed to keep a 4% in reserves right that the state has a reserve res of 9.8%. Um, so there's a significant reserve there that they can certainly utilize should any of those things above come into play. I know that they will, but when they build their budget, we'll
063certainly know when they finalize that. Okay. Um, here is just a breakdown of the bud of the excuse me, the governor's proposed proposed budget. You can see that um there is a uh 4.3% increase in overall school aid. That does not mean that Niagara Wheatfield's getting 4.3% in increased state aid. Okay, we're not um and you'll see that you'll see that in a minute. It means the overall education budget um is being increased by 4.3% with the executive budget. This is the money the district's getting. For those, you know, who are listening, who don't know, um the executive budget is just the governor's budget. Now, the legislature is working on their budget. Okay. I'll be talking about a few of these other items in a minute. Again, here's just a little bit further breakdown of
064where all of the funding in the governor's budget is expected to go. Again, this doesn't mean this is where the funds will go. This is what the governor has laid out in in her plan. UPK is a big one, but this is a big change as far as um what the governor's proposed. The initial reaction to this by a lot of people, especially if you you know coordinator is a big smile and people are happy. I don't know that I feel completely that way. And here's why. Um that number for UPK has been stagnant for a long time. Okay. Um it really is just been enough for us to keep our our work with money bunch going. Quite frankly, this is a fairly significant increase. However, and one of my concerns is that $10,000 per
065pupil going to prek isn't necessarily the amount we need. We won't utilize all of it and it'll sit there as a, you know, in the reserve at the state level, and instead of some of those dollars could be going to the foundation aid, which we could utilize and we would benefit from. So, we'll see where this ends up in the end because it was a pretty significant jump. There's no question that we need more money there. One of the reasons we need more money there, we've talked about this before, we haven't increased, we haven't put any district funding towards UPK, but one area that we said we would have liked to is with transportation costs. We haven't had the money to do it. This would allow that or potentially allow that. Again, this hasn't been
066put into place yet, but this could certainly help get kids to UPK who currently can't get there. So, that's why they're not part of that program. Um, here are just some deadlines and events. I I just would jump right down to uh the week of March 16th to the 20th. Um, today's March 4th. Our next meeting is March 18th. It's possible that that week be nice if it was before our board meeting that we'll know what the one House budgets are. Okay, which is the they're the budgets of the Assembly and the Senate, right? Um, for those that don't know, uh, there's a significant u addition um, at the federal level as part of the one big beautiful bill. Um, it includes a tax credit and that tax credit was is really intended to support
067private schools. That tax credit is 1,700 per pupil for $3,400 for couples. And you're going, what does that have to do with public education? Right? Here's my worry. My worry is this that if this is a if this is a tax credit at the federal level, those tax dollars then are not available to come back to states for public education. I don't know how it would be handled, but I can only imagine that if you're giving out the if you're giving these tax credits at the federal level, so you're not bringing in those tax dollars anymore and it's for education that the decision is going to be made to then not fund education in similar dollar amounts. And by the way, this so this is this is law. States have the right to make the
068decision as to whether or not they're going to sign on to this. New York State and has not made a decision yet. The Assembly and Senate could certainly decide that they wanted to say the way that it's written federally is that this is the governor's decision. Now, some people might go, "So, what? It's $1,700 or it's $3,400 for a tax credit." My worry is this. That's the starting point. And in a few years, is it $12,000? Is it $30,000? If all of a sudden someone could write a check, in essence, make a donation as a tax write off fully to send their kid to whatever private school they wanted and could write all of that off. Those are tax dollars that are not going into the federal government. and now they just were able to
069pay for private education. And what does that mean to public education in America afterwards? That's frightening for me. It really is. And and I believe there's a lot of thought put into this and and I don't think um it's good for public education. the um a few of the other legislative priorities that are out there. Then these legislative priorities are shared by NISBA and and NISCUS um HSBO I think you know many of these as well um NIST many of these as well the uh 211 waiver extension uh this needs to be a more permanent change there are so many positions right now that school districts can't fill that if somebody who's retired wants to come back and take them let them take them and let it be for multiple years. There's there I I
070don't know where it would come from. There is not this huge insertion into the workforce coming. Quite frankly, everybody I think here knows how populations increase, right? It's a long process. Takes a while. Um our population isn't what it was before. um especially when it comes to working age people because we never replace the baby boomers the same way that they you know were produced. So this is a real thing. It's a real problem. We're hoping that they can help with this. Um they've already done some things that are not permanent. We we would hope it could be a little bit more permanent. Zero bus emissions. I already talked about a seminar coming up just I all I'm going to say about this right now for our district is this Dan and I have seen
071a presentation that was provided um we haven't received the final the final information on this I would imagine this summer we'll be presenting to the board a little bit more because we're going to start have to making start having to make decisions about this to to put it most simply over the years that it would take us to turn over our fleet. The total cost of transportation if we electrified in the phases that we knew were realistic that are part of this plan. The cost of transportation for the district double 10 million to 20 million from about $10 million to about $20 million. Okay. Um, so I think that's important for everybody to know. Um, there's obviously a lot of discussion and that's it. All of the prices that are currently in play. Obviously, there's
072a lot of changes that may could happen, a lot of things that could affect all of those things. But that's the most that's the report that we received in a study that was done for us. Okay. >> Including vouchers and rebates. >> That includes the Thank you. that includes the vouchers and the rebates that we would be that would be available to us. Really the significant cost difference is going to be the buses like it's just huge. So right now um civil service that the first item there transition provisional provisional appointments to probationary this just needs to change permanently. We need to make it so when people decide, hey, I'd really like to work at Niagara Weedfield, I'm going to jump over there and I'm going to start working and if I do a good
073job over the next six months, they can give me the job instead. No, you come over and I agree with you. We give you the job and potentially depending on the job, they're going to give a test a year and a half after that. Someone else is going to take that test. They're going to do better than you do and they get to take your job. Who wants to make life decisions about their occupation and where they want to work when that's the reality with civil service? Now, hey, civil service was given tests every two months, then that wouldn't be an issue. That's not the case. It won't be the case. So, this needs to change. And there's been some work in this area. We need more work. Um, special education. Um, I know Steve
074had to go, but Steve presented on this. The costs of special education are significant. Um, they're they're needed, but there's some that could change. The first one up, there are statute of limitations for due process challenges. I think I've said this before, we're we're the only state or one of the only states, if not the only state, that allow this a two-year process for that statute of limitations. Most states are one year. This leaves school districts open to these costs a lot longer. You saw in Steve's budget, extra $10,000 for legal costs. He had budgeted for special education. um we spend way more on legal costs for special education than any other state out there. And it's because of um the rights and the timelines uh that that are afforded. Um just makes it incredibly
075latigious. um charter schools, you know, um there's, as you know, we have a charter school um within our district that is actually um uh attended by students mostly not from from our district. However, every time funds go to charter schools, those are diverted those funds are diverted from public schools. And I've always said, you know, like my biggest complaint about that is that they don't have to live by the same rules, but they're still getting state funding, right? So they just live by the same rules to understand a little bit more. Um just a few other other items. Um Diana, could you just talk a little bit about the pilot situ situation? >> Yeah. Okay. So, pilots should be something exciting for a district. A pilot, if you don't know, is a payment in lies.
076Um, we they're used to help with economic development. Um, maybe put a business on a property that was previously vacant, creates a higher assessed value long term, and can be used to offset the taxes for the taxpayers in the area. Um what's difficult is that school districts are um not always included in the process for um coming up with a pilot agreements. Um, and recently we had a uh two pilots in our district that um uh the with the reassessment of the town of Niagara's properties um was able to um reduce how much they're required how much they were supposed to be paying us by $800,000. So, we're going to have a revenue shortfall of $800,000 based on what we were provided by the town and county. Um, for the estimate of the pilot, what
077happened is that there's um an assessed value stated in the contract and it's stated that the rate of the tax rate for the town is to be applied to that. when the reassessment's done, it brings all of the assessed values to 100% equalization rate and um causes um balance within the town. But in this case, it actually because that drops our tax rate down, it actually dropped the pilot down. So um it's just something that I've asked our attorneys to be aware of in the future if we could put our input in on um pilots >> and and you know, no, very good. Um, and and what I would say is that that Go ahead. >> Just want to say and you know for several years I I thought maybe I misunderstood. I heard people
078saying the town needs to reassess because it was having a negative effect on campus. >> Yes. So it's it's interesting because a reassessment shouldn't impact us. it what um our tax levy is divided over the assessed values and that's how we come up with a rate. It really shouldn't impact us but somehow the pilots always have this extra oh but accept this. So that's what happened in this case that >> and and remember these are separate agreements and the worst part about that is this we find out about that after we've done a budget. So really >> a levy >> right right after we assessed the levy. So that was like actually a shortfall for this school year. So when people talk about you know what's wrong with the pilot there there's there's issues with
079the pilot. The idea of businesses coming into a locality is great that's really good but it doesn't mean that it's really smooth for districts. And by the way we don't end up having a say in the pilot itself. So, uh, let's see, uh, tellahalth expansion. To me, that's a really big one. Um, the we particularly through our family support center direct students um and families who are in need of some additional outside counseling to uh to health care providers. Tellaalth is becoming larger and larger and the it's it's really important for districts to be able to offer that as an option for families because it's sometimes really hard to get an appointment if you want to sit down with a mental health professional. Uh and the last one, the Child Victims Act, uh allow allowing
080uh allow claim to ensure to insurance liquidation bureau when the insurer of record is dissolved. So here's what that means. There were a number of school districts who the insurance provider that they had from these CVA claims from years and years and years ago that um they were debunked. They were gone. They didn't exist anymore. So it left the district even though they may have been insured. It left the district holding, you know, their hands out with no insurance to cover in some cases some really expensive uh claims. And so having a way to get to that was really important. And it looks like the state has made some I know that they made some changes on this that'll that'll certainly help, but there are certainly districts that have been impacted by this. Um, this
081has been one that I've said almost every year, so I apologize. As a district, we take school safety incredibly seriously and we spend a lot of money on school safety. Okay. Um, we've dedicated funding, as you know, to school resource officers, to equipment, to programs, to to um, uh, software. uh there's been a significant costs and I don't think anybody sitting here at the board we wouldn't change a thing. The problem is this. This has become the expectation for public schools and it's become a significant part of our budget but there has never been money to kind of help fill that gap. And you know some of these have become truly expectations and there's been no money to fill those gaps. So that would certainly help. The the other piece is, you know, we we
082do have a family support center. The mental health crisis is it's real. It certainly reared its head more than ever um after uh the the you know, the pandemic. So having funding to help support programs like that that's carved out for that would help districts. If if the state ever decided to do that, it would certainly help us. Okay. Diana is going to talk a little bit about um some numbers here. I just want to bring your attention first to that top line. And every year I say something along the lines of this foundation aid is the most important number that we receive because it's the number that's not based on what we've spent in the past like expense-based aids. It's based on what we can do in the future. Okay? So th those funds
083are what we use to further our programming if we can or to at least continue to maintain our programming. And what you can see there is that the foundation aid number that's been put forth by the governor is a 1% increase. And you can see what that um dollar amount is there. It's $275,000 in in in a budget that's the size of ours. That's that's not a lot. Okay. So, like Dan started um to mention is that the expense based days aids are um aids that we receive based on what we previously spent. So, building aid is based on our capital projects. Um transportation aid is based on transportation. Bosey's aids on um most of our Bosey's expenditures up to a certain cap for salaries and um different exclusions. Public high-cost excess cost aid and
084private access cost aid are related to special education. That's for um students with disabilities um that their the cost of their education and services go beyond a certain threshold. And then next are the instructional material aids which are um allocations um based on our enrollment and a rate specified for each of those types of categories. um we don't straight out get those instructional material aids. We do have to spend it to make sure that we will receive it, but we usually maximize that each year. Those rates haven't changed in over 20 years, I think it is. So, um really minimum aid there >> and obviously the costs of all of those things have increased over the last 20 years, >> right? So, overall including foundation aid, um the change is 664,000. Thank Okay, next we
085have our tax cap calculation. We talked a little bit about this last meeting. Um, a lot of times people think the tax cap is 2%. That's just a piece of the formula. So, we'll go through the formula to get a bit better understanding of all the components. Um, we start off with our actual levy from last year and then it's multiplied by a taxbased growth factor that's given to us by the state. that's based on the growth of the properties within our district. Um, next added back in is the pilot um revenue from last year and then subtracted is our capital levy exclusion from the prior year. That total is then what's um multiplied by um 1.2 1.02 02. Um so increasing it by 2% that's either 2% or CPI whichever is lower the CPI
086being higher than 2% that's where um the limit is. Next the pilot agreements are taken out of the available lobby limit um as another source of income in lie of taxes. And then um we have an exclusion available to us this to us this year for the um capital um it's our debt service payment payments subtracted by um our aid for building aid any reserve usage and um in our fund transfers that are to be used to pay for a debt service. Uh sometimes there is a pension expenditure exclusion for the employer's retirement system or teachers retirement system if they go over 2% of an increase from year to year. You'll see in the next couple slides that's not the case this year. So there's no solution for that. So overall we have a tax
087levy limit of 38,000 38 million 307,948 or 2.14%. >> Okay. So here we have the um teachers retirement system rates over uh a number of years to see the trends. um these are the rates that are multiplied by the salaries for our teachers or any certified staff and um to be the employer's contribution share and over the last I'd say nine years I think it is that the trend has been pretty um steady with this year's being the lowest um of course those are applied to salaries which gradually increase so it doesn't mean that we're we have a savings from year to year but Um, that's the TRS trends and then ERS. Oh, sorry. >> That's okay. So, if you if you remember, we we do have ERS and TRS reserves. Okay, we'll be talking
088about those later. That's been a really important part of this. It's something that we had asked for for a long time from the state to have both and it's great that we do have both for when they do jump, which is what happens with the ARS. >> So, yeah. So ERS is for the rest of our support staff. Um anyone who's not certified or and under falls under DRS has um the ability or are mandated to join the ERS system. Um that on the other hand as you can see over the last five years the rates have been increasing. um they've been staying under 2% so we don't get that exclusion but um uh they are gradually increasing and again as salaries increase that also um increases okay so this is our tax levy um
089tax levies over the years um with over the past nine years we've had an average increase of 1.8% 8%. And then this this is a look at some options that we have for our tax levy. Up in the right hand corner, you can see our tax cap, the $38 million we mentioned earlier, 2.1% 2.14% and that's a $800,000 increase. So, if we were to increase more than our levy limit, um that would require a supermajority vote from the public. Um then you excuse me, you can see the um 2.14% is highlighted and then below that are um other options for our tax levy. Um on the far right side you can see how that changes our 10-year average. So the 9year from the previous slide plus this new um increase to see how that would
090pan out for the 10-year average. >> So um just as far as timeline and and tax levy right we already um talked about it and we plugged in a number with the state one that can certainly be changed. So, we'll we put in the what the levy limit was. We knew that we wouldn't have all the information that we need. We have to fill a space. So, our thought is, you know, within you could obviously act whenever you would like. Um, you can ask for more information if you'd like. Of course, at the next board meeting, you could have some more significant discussions about it. Um the possibly the one house budgets will be out which would give you you know a little bit of an idea of of what the increases may be uh
091from them. You know, one thing to know whether it's whether it's the state fund or the levy, you know, if the when when the percentage numbers are small, one of the things that we of course be looking to is our reserves, which we're you'll you know, you'll see and we'll talk really more at the next meeting about what we're believing we're going to be um putting forward from our reserves to close the gap just with the numbers that we have now, right? looking at and you know plugging in the 2.14 plugging in the 1% increase right now from the state and you know the impact of those numbers on a budget and I don't know about all of you but there's not a lot of things that are that I know that are going up
092just 1% a year okay with the state budget or even 2.14% a year for that matter >> another point to make is that whenever we go below the tax cap um that has domino effect year-over-year because we use the prior year's levy as the base for the next year. So, something to think about as we move forward in our process. Here is a summary of our reserves. Um on the left is the type of reserve. Uh the next column has the balance as of year end last year. Uh the next column has what we have budgeted for the current year 2526 and the remaining balance that we would have to work with. It's too soon to know whether or not we would be using all of the reserves this year or if we would be
093um end up with a surplus and be reallocating it. But every year we take a look at it um with the audit committee and reallocate it in a way that makes sense to plan for the future. you know, just based on the last five years, let's say, we've we've continued to kind of narrow our budget with what we have. Um, you know, one of the examples of what Jen had in her budget this year, um, with with music and musical instruments, there were a few years ago, and you might remember this, where we were paying and buying with surpluses at the end of the year a number of musical instruments. The last few years, we haven't been able to do that do that. So, we've actually told, you know, said, Jen, we need to probably
094we need to put that in the budget because we're not we're not feeling as comfortable at the end of the year putting surpluses towards things like that because the the the gap has continued to decrease. I I don't believe that we will what we had budgeted for 2526 from our reserves will actually expend. Okay, we won't we won't spend all of that. That's good, right? you don't want to use all of those reserves that you put forward to your budget. My expectation is that a portion of them will be used where in some years in the past where we we made sure that we were we the best that we could have we spent very little of those. So, a lot of that money was rolling over. I would expect that we're using some of
095that money this year. Is that fair? Glad you went back on that one. But it that's the where we're where we're looking. Okay. So when you look at those remaining balances those are if you subtract that budget for 2526 however we don't we believe that those that remaining balance will be more than what it shows in that column just how much more. >> So t you don't get about this. I'm sorry. I apologize. I apologize. I'm sorry I push you out of the way. Um because this is nothing else tripling. This is my opportunity to thank you that and your department. Um this fiscal stress score is something that some of the people that are sitting on this board were here um when we were one of the if not the most fiscally stressed district
096in New York State. And there's been a lot of work by the board been a lot of work by the department uh that that you work in. Um been a lot of work by a lot of people who have worked to make sure that that fiscal stress score stress score is really low. And the way we do that is by making sure that we have good reserves by making sure that our that that we do a really good job with our budget and that um you know our our business office is doing the right thing and our audit committee certainly plays a role in that. But this is um uh you know kudos to the board and to really the school business uh official in in the school business office. >> So that's funny. I
097thought you were kicking me out of the way because you deserve a lot of credit for leading this result. So that's why >> not at all. This is for all of you and it's really really great. That's >> what you do. >> Do we have anything else? >> Is that it? >> That's the last one. Okay. But I wanted to talk about next time with you. >> Yes, please do. No, you're up. >> Okay. So, next time we will um bring to you a a total expenditure budget um total revenues and like Dan said earlier um a way or methods that we can fill the gap between. So, that's all >> good question. >> Yeah. Uh the presentations that we offer receipts, I'm assuming you receive them. Yes. >> Okay. Do we know the total
098increase of all of them put together compared to uh a year ago? >> I don't but I can >> we will. So at the next at the next meeting we we should have all of that stuff together. >> It would be easier for us to understand what we have coming in and and compare it to last year. >> What one 100% and we will you know this is our first budget presentation. Usually we go over the, you know, the, as you know, some of what the priorities are, the information that we have with the with the um the levy, what the that limit is, what what it comes up to. Next next meeting, we should have all of that stuff ready. The the one thing that'll still, I'm guessing, be up in the air will
099be what the final dollars are for this for the state budget. But everything else we we should have a really good picture of and we'll be able to present to all of you. Thank you. Thank you. >> Um open up any other items for discussion. >> Um I have two quick things. It's just more housekeeping things from this. If there's any way like when we have these these presentations, I'd love to look at them ahead of time as opposed to getting them here and looking up the slides and stuff. we have the ability in in on here to put power PDFs on, you know, let's get them before the meeting so that that's something we can review in the agenda also like the same thing with the budget presentation where you know that we get
100a PDF on there. We're not getting a copy that's cut off on every single page with every slide. >> So, are you talking about >> I mean both the presentations from >> it's it's easy to put them on there. Then we have the reference back if we ever need to look up. >> Yeah. Heart cannot be a soul of 1982. >> For some people they like 198. >> Understood. Now I do wanna I do want to bring it to extension aspect question any old business >> um the board walk through can I just make a recommendation do April 1 couple reasons why a little better weather hopefully warmer and it's also well for me it's it's new it's my break for a good two weeks like I just shut down at Easter >> so I
101don't have to take a day off. >> Think the 18th I'll probably unless anyone has any objections or >> good. Any other new business? Any public comments? Any other board member comments? Okay, just like to once again congratulate our graduates and felons of month and thank everyone for the presentations tonight. Now I'll call for a motion to >> move second. All in favor, please say I. >> I think motion carries. Hey Jack,