001good evening good evening and welcome to the work session business meeting of March 13th we convened the work session business meeting at 6 o' and then had an executive session we are now um reconvening our work session business meeting please stand for the pledge I 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 I'd first like to open it up for public comment on any of the agenda items okay not seeing any is he an agenda sorry NE glasses good evening Joe feraro um thank you for the opportunity speak tonight uh in today's world many factors are beyond our control we can't predict the stock markets up and downs we can't dictate Federal
002funding for Education we can't single-handedly stabilize the larger political and economic uncertainties facing our country however we can control the kind of community we want to live in and the kind of schools we want to provide our children and grandchildren the capital project that is under review offers a unique chance to improve the sustainability accessibility and safety of our schools without raising the current tax rate strategic long-term planning has ensured that the timing of this investment aligns with expiring debt allowing us to proceed responsibly without imposing new Financial burdens on taxpayers even more importantly by acting now we can benefit from a 66% discount on the cost due to state aid for these essential improvements an opportunity we cannot afford to miss given the delay of moving forward from the failed vot it is reasonable
003to anticipate additional interest costs that's why I asked the board to allocate an additional $500,000 from the capital reserves to cover these expenses this will ensure that the project remains financially viable without compromising its scope or placing any unexpected burdens on the community it is a prudent and fiscally responsible way to safeguard this much needed initiative as a community we have the power to decide whether to invest in our future or let opportunities slip away I urge the board to advance the revised Capital Bond project and place this measure on the ballot let's make the responsible choice to ensure our schools remain strong safe and sustainable for generations to come thank you thank you Joe thank you Joe thank you any other public comment hi thank you my name is Megan Benet I'm a Community
004member here um we just wanted to let the board know um of a social media campaign that's happening right now around um trying to get 18year olds and uh seniors to register to vote um and it seems to be that there's a misunderstanding about the capital project relating to the turf and the capital project which um are not negotiating points they are completely UNR ated voting yes on the capital project is an opportunity to get 66% back in state aid for non-negotiable improvements in the school which is a phenomenal opportunity seniors have the chance to vote on school improvements at a time when New York is giving money back for capital projects and you 18-year-olds get the chance to leave a legacy of a stronger School in your wake voting no because of your disappointment
005in the turf graduation only punishes students who are younger than you some of whom are here tonight for if we don't do this now the burden to families in the following years to pay for these projects without the same kick back from the state could drive families to leave our school district reduce extra programs and in and increase class sizes why not graduate knowing you have had a positive impact on your school thank you thank you thank you thank you any other comments okay then we're going to move to the consent agenda Mr alario yes resolved on the recommendation of the superintendent of schools to approve the consent consent agenda items 2 through 7 as presented to the board at this meeting second questions or comments the consent agenda contains approval of the prior meeting's
006minutes approving an updated substitute listing csse CPS placements approving and or amending additional or unpaid time for different staff members it also includes postseason stiens and additional spring coaches for The Open positions in the spring Sports season approving agreements with um somr for Health and Welfare agreement joint bidding agreements with Southern Westchester bosis and pnw bosis and a computer service agreement with Southern Westchester bosis and we're amending the inservice course document for one staff member thank you any other questions or comments all in favor I I opposed extensions the resolution passes um student Representatives hello um overall not much is really happening in high school uh Spring sport start on March 17th we like to congratulate our cheer team for finishing third in New York state over the weekend prior and a big congratulations to
007Zachary Fitz morrris for becoming the class of 2025 solor and Naomi G for becoming the valoran nice um I was I had told Marissa that I was going to ask her about the triam music um induction because I I couldn't make it so I told her I was going to make her do a report when she got here and she's not here so um yeah well if she comes later I'll I'll pin her down I think they're rehearsing for the play they are rehearsing for the play Legally Blonde yeah yeah that's right great advertisement Theater Works here in P Valley thanks Aiden um okay Dr l so good evening everyone so the district held two very well attended facilities planning committee meetings um one um a couple weeks ago and one just last evening focused
008on revising the previous scope of the project uh I think there was about 100 people in attendance for the first one50 people in attendance last evening so I know we're going to do a presentation uh really recover or uh reviewing what was discussed last evening and uh having information to share with the board of education but that's something uh that we'll talk more about shortly I was able to attend the New York State Council School superintendence winter Institute and Lobby day in Albany uh so we attended many workshops and had an opportunity to spoke with some legislators uh I did have an opportunity to meet with a group of senior parents I know there's a lot of concern out in the community regarding the upcoming graduation and how that'll be held obviously the district doesn't
009want to um hurt our seniors we don't want to hurt our underclassmen who are going to be playing sports we are exploring every opportunity we can to figure out how to not hurt one side or the other um and I think what we're realizing is that's going to be an impossibility right there's no way to squeeze in our 14 we project in the nine weeks over the summer so we have to push it either towards the spring or push it towards the fall either one of those options is obviously going to negatively impact students um so I was very appreciative to a group of parents that came forward we met and discussed options and Alternatives um while there was certainly no final decision reached uh I thought it was a very productive conversation uh some
010of the things we spoke about as we explored alternative dates and the possibility of moving the ceremony to a different date alternative locations is there another place in town or around town that would be better suited for it and be able to hold it on the same date uh we discussed the use of risers as a way to better view students if the ceremony is held indoors uh one of their biggest concerns about being in the pack or the gym is that the students are all at the same level and it's very difficult to see their children so one of the things that the district has been exploring is renting risers so students would be able to sit up on risers making every student visible from uh the seats either in the gym or in
011the pack uh there was a large conversation about uh processing students at the end of graduation when we when we're rushed inside in the matter of hours when we deem like we have the last two years the last two years it's rained and we've moved students inside there's not a lot of opportunity to really maximize how we can make that special for the students and one of the uh concerns is when it's over everybody floods into the hallway right outside of the Performing Art Center which gets very crowded very fast so one of the talking points was uh we discussed having students processed directly down to the wellness center so everybody would stay in their seats the students would process back up the aisles um out of the pack and down to the wellness center
012once and then we would exit families afterwards in the same way that would provide a central meeting location direct access to the courtyard and direct access to the field outside of the wellness center so we spoke about ways to make those um sort of the month that are buildings and grounds guys put into prepping for a graduation ceremony outside they can put that same effort into prepping those areas and making sure that they are conducive and create photo opportunities uh another thing we spoke about was uh scheduling a parent and graduate evening out on the turf and that would give parents the opportunity we do this in May so it would give parents the opportunity to sort of get those photos done students could process down the hill if that's sort of something that the
013parents wanted to capture parents and students would be able to take their pictures with the sunset out on the turf uh sort of reproduce What the photos would otherwise be and we would schedule two dates with a rain date so that would still be a possibility for um at least to capture those photos um the other piece is the district remains open to any other options and we're willing to meet with any other parents or groups of parents if they want to discuss options and what else the possibilities are uh we really want to make this as special for the students as possible uh we're willing to consider or do anything that anyone could come up with to make that possible um and we're welcome to we welcome any feedback we receive from the community
014as to what other options maybe someone's got another idea that we haven't considered and we still have time and we be gladly consider anything uh the final pieces that we're going to provide an opportunity for our students to proide to provide input and see what they think and want out of their High School graduation and what the options are so certainly a conversation that'll continue and I know that there's been no final decision made but i' did want to share that we did have a very productive meeting with a group of senior parents and remain open to continue those conversations with others uh who may want to come forward in the High School news Aiden already stole it all uh Naomi gay is our valid dictorian and Zachary Fitz Morris is our salutatorian and our
015cheer team finished third in the state championship so congratulations to all them I know last meeting we spoke a little bit about our wrestlers uh telina gretz finished fourth in the state in wrestling so I did want to remind everyone of that some of the events we held high school had a science research uh and Engineering Fair practice night here at the high school we had the triim music Honor Society or Elementary School hosted their annual science and maker fair and we have several students that'll be moving forward to uh countywide Tri countywide to a tri count uh science fair where they'll have an opportunity to share their projects and those same students will actually have the opportunity to share their projects before an upcoming board meeting so it'll be good practice for them and
016for anyone attendance will have the opportunity to see what those projects are and seal by literacy presentations took place here at the high school so always impressive to see our bilingual and sometimes trilingual students uh earn that distinction that will appear on their diploma and my final piece is that I know the Board of Ed trustees had the opportunity to visit the tech center with uh Jackie LaVine visiting some of the Career and Technical education programs that are available to our students I know Sam's a huge proponent among others and so I did want to just recognize uh that that opportunity you guys are happen welcome to jump in if you want to share anything about it hi prise did you sign up for something we had a great I mean yeah I highly encourage
017a tour of the Bose center and um just looking over the offerings that they provided it was an amazing tour and the students were so engaged and active in so many opportunities so um I was going to talk about it later but it was I'm still on a high from I can mention a couple more things um I was like wowed um I asked Steve so many questions um they both did such a great job there are so many programs that are offered that um come someone I'm not in education um and I went to private school so I never knew that these things existed and uh I think it's a wonderful thing that our students are able to engage in one of the incredible things is that some of these courses um it's called
018New Horizons what it called no um New Vision New Vision um New Vision is um college level courses and they graduate with 18 credits um so there's nursing there's engineering um there's so many options so kids who want to pursue we we walked into a intro to construction class um I asked the guy if he would if my husband could attend um they don't offer for for adults yet but they they're considering it um it was incredible they were learning Plumbing um they had installed a fully working working bathroom where it was tiled electrified I mean it was just incredible um so they have things for people who are interested in trades and then they have things also for like Med medical professionals um which as a nurse I was really impressed by um some
019of it like count uh was equally as impressive as what I learned in my nursing practicals um and there was nursing Sports Medicine even the enl programs yeah there was also an enl program with Incredible teachers I mean it was just the it offers so much to so many of our students that I think it's just a great thing it's not the old time bosis it's a new improved and very exciting bosies and I highly encourage um review of it now that the program is is one of the best I think New York State ever had the wisdom to create I I've been a fan of it since day one because I truly believe not every child wishes to go to college they want to go into the trades and this provides the best foundation
020in the world for a young person young man young woman to pursue a career outside of the Collegiate entity though they can go to college later on but this gives them the basis and uh I I I can't praise the Bose tech center enough they they are really that good a lot of them come out with certifications like theology Pro uh program after you graduate you take a test and you are a licensed cosmetologist same with barbering um actually one of the ones that we looked into a lot of the students who go to this program are still going to college um one of the ones that we looked at was engineering and um they you're using like really practical things and the students one of the students was going in for interior design at
021one of the sunis um and it was while it's also good for Tech and you can come out with um you know a certification after it it's also really just another Pathway to college and you get real practical 92% of their students are get internships yeah 92% um which it's it's just an incredibly amazing opportunity that we have yeah they U the you tell we're excited the the law enforcement courses they have a like a virtual Smartboard type of um item there's only two in the state and one's at disposes yeah so our students have the opportunity to use that the there's closest one's in Maryland I mean it's very impressive the materials that they have supp well and I will say that um on the fiscal side the the one house budget that the
022Senate and House are working on includes making sure that um Bose's administrators are fairly compensated for their work because they had a salary cap which was low before so they're working on taking that and raising it so that hopefully that Vision you know you still get people a vision to to take over those positions so I just want I want to say one more thing about it I wasn't able to be at the visit and I'm really sorry that I missed it um but having a child of my own who knows what she wants to do knows that she wants to get experience in that area as a mom I'm not sure that that's really what she wants to do and this will give her the opportunity to try it so that she doesn't waste
023her entire college career if if she maybe doesn't like it after all she got some experience in it and maybe she wants to do something different but she didn't spend four years of college getting a degree she's never going to use right and so that's another Plus for this is um that career change path change if if maybe you have had the experience and you don't really it's not what you thought it was right um and I I think that that's really critical I also think too that um for people who've heard the term bosies over time it means something very different today than it used to mean back in the day when when we were kids and I think that it's important that we talk about that because there is a little bit of
024a a stigma to it sometimes for some people and I think that's you know having the understanding of the opportunities that are available to our children to Branch out and get the experience that that they're able to get in in this particular bosies opportunity is just absolutely amazing so thank you Jackie for arranging that visit yeah thank you maybe I should have saved that for my last item uh just a quick thing many many of us up here had the opportunity to just attend the Elementary School Musical The Jungle Book um it was amazing it was a dress rehearsal the actual performances tomorrow evening it is so well attended by parents and grandparents and siblings they encourage all of the faculty and staff to come to the dress rehearsal so there was many of us
025there this evening um it was the highlight of my day and then I thought about it my week and maybe my year um to see these kids up there who could not be happier and huge Smiles on their face and watching them sing and dance it was truly amazing so uh whether you have a kid in elementary school or not I would certainly encourage you all to attend and I promise you will leave with a huge smile on your face as well uh just a sort of uh look ahead I know that we have some visitors with us here this evening so I expect at the end of the meeting to hear from our volunteer firefighters speaking a little bit about uh the tax exemption that's available to them and the plon valley library is
026also here so I expect to hear from them at the end of the meeting as well so if anybody's interested stick around to hear from those groups thank you okay so we're going to start on our presentations and we're going to start with the capital Bond project discussion so I had enough time to take one sip of water probably lose my all right so good evening again so so as the board had asked during our previous meeting we reconvene the facilities planning committee to rep prioritize what um really we thought were the most essential aspects of the project and we did that at our first meeting with nearly 100 community members in attendance and then shared those results and came up with a plan during our last meeting with nearly 50 50 community members in
027attendance I do want to stress that the work of this committee that started well over two years ago those committee members um were fiscally responsible throughout the process during the initial phase of that we met with the financial adviser who advised us we could spend up to $22.5 million and still remain tax neutral other options they gave us were 19.5 million and 16.5 million and despite those possibilities existing the committee brought forward a $4 million project to the Board of Education um again they could have they had an opportunity to spend more but instead they just included aspects that they thought were essential into that project so I do want to recognize the work that went in uh prior to the unfortunate defeat of that so this is just a quick overview of how this
028process works for our schools uh building conditions survey is a state mandatory uh survey must be conducted by Architects every 5 years so actually our 2020 survey is now up so we'll be doing another one this spring that leads to to develop of a 5-year Improvement plan in Pam Valley we are lucky to have amazingly talented staff members so anything in that plan that we can do in-house we do in-house and I promise you it's more than any other District around us does uh just considering the staff that we have if we're unable to do it in-house the first thing we do is look to make it part of our operating budget and contract it out to a local contractor again amazingly talented local contractors who will come in and do a fantastic job at
029a very reasonable price for us and then what happens is if we can't do it in-house and we can it's too much for a local contractor to do then we're forced to that last piece which is a capital project now there are three ways in which we could fund capital projects one is through a bond another is through our capital reserve and the final is through a transfer to Capital those are the only three mechanisms we have to accomplish these capital reserve these Capital Improvement projects and still receiving the state aid the state aid is obviously a huge driver uh right now we currently receive 66% of all expenses back in state aid so as we mentioned the initial Bond vote the results with was defeated by 42 votes on 226 we reconvene a facilities
030planning committee we reprioritized what was in the project on 312 last evening we met again and came up with a new scope for the project and here we are on the 13th to present those findings to the Board of Education [Music] this is a quick summary of The Pri prioritization that each of the groups did uh during our first meeting each group was asked to identify their highest three priorities and what they thought were the lowest three priorities as you can see just like some of our students some of our adults don't always follow directions um but we did the best we could so this just captures everything that was submitted on the chart paper this is the final tables and at the end of the evening the community commity priorities so those that receiving
031the most votes in the top three was the high school middle school parking lot and retaining wall I don't think that comes as a surprise anyone the elementary school geothermal the high school roof and the elementary school playground and high school accessibility in the courtyard the items that received the most votes on the lower end of the spectrum was the fitness dance studio the Performing Arts lights the elementary school library and the middle school all room instructional space so if we take the budgetary numbers that were set for those spaces that comes up with that comes up to its total of $1,125,000 if we remove those four items from the sa from the project now it's important to not out of that million dollar 660,000 of it would have been covered by the state so
032the true savings to the district by eliminating these four things is four $340,000 so this is just a quick visual of what that updated proposal would include so those four aspects of the project have been removed from this flyer and this is just sort of a onepage visual as to what would still be included now one of the complicating factors that arose during our conversation is this idea of timing and escalation throughout the winter we discussed the importance of voting in the winner to keep us on a timeline to start the work in the summer of 26 or the entire project was built and budgeted based upon that start date so if that was still possibil still a possibility our new project would be 12, 975,000 with a summer of 26 start date but what
033we know is many of the aspects of this project will not begin on the summer of 26 and instead we'll start in the summer of 27 the graphic on the right is the Turner building cost Index this is sort of the industry standard to predict escalation cost and construction and for the calculation cost for this year is predicted to be uh 4% so that it would add another $519,000 back into the project just because over that Year from the summer of 26 to Summer of 27 Union contracts go up labor costs go up material costs go up um so there's a wide range of uh factors that factor into that escalation cost so this is what part of the conversation that the board is need going to have this evening what we don't know is
034so that that would raise the project cost that whole 519,000 would raise the cost back up to 13,498 th000 now the unknown is and we won't know this for some time is what aspects of this project can we begin before the summer of 27 maybe the most uh straightforward one would be the drilling of the geothermal Wells that work can happen well students are in school uh that we can close that field provide them access to that space on our campus and still be able to do that work maybe starting in the fall of 26 uh but much of the work cannot be done I can't tear up and pave a parking lot while there's buses coming and going each day I can't replace the roof of an occupied building so lots of that work
035is likely going to put push back to the summer of 27 so one of the things the board's going to need to decide if they do decide to move forward with this project is how much of that 519,000 do we want to budget for escalation and how much do we want to sort of risk or hope we can get started sooner than later one of the other topics we spoke a lot about last evening was our communication strategy so this slide just captures all of the ways in which we communicated the first project electronically in person paper and social media so all of these will continue I won't bore you reading it since most of you heard it last evening but these are some of the new ways based upon the feedback we've received that
036we plan to better communic unicate regarding the potential new project rather than one mailing that goes out to all residents of putam Valley we're planning to send three that includes a postcard sent to every address in pner Valley a trifold sent to every address and the budget and bond newsletter again sent to every address so residents have three times uh the likelihood of seeing something come through their physical mail than they did last time where we only sent a single mailer to all residents again all residents not just parents of partner valy students signage will continue the use of our electronic boards we'll rehang the banner around the Four Corners we'll install wood signs on some of our uh more trafficed areas and the district is looking to purchase yard signs uh again as another
037way to make sure all Community residents are aware of the upcoming vote social media platforms will continue to use Facebook Instagram X we've already started to create short video clips news stories and other ways in which to get information short Snippets of information directly to community members we talk about the retaining wall we're going to give them a quick shot and narrative about the retaining wall we're talk about the roof we're going to send poor Dan Up on the Roof uh to record a quick little video and then do a narrative over it so everyone could see exactly what these things are and what the importance is for them to get done and obviously we'll continue to hold additional Community meetings listening hours uh any group that's willing to take us in and hear a
038little bit about us we would be happy to BL even the fire department we spoke a lot about the financial uh factors that drive this state aid as we mentioned earlier 66% of the project would be funded So based upon that 12 million we anticipate getting a little over $8.5 million do minimum state aid we would get back it's important to note that if we start performing or conducting these projects outside of a capital Improvement we would lose that Aid so a million dollars work will cost us a million dollar or it'll cost us $340,000 depending on whether or not we follow the rules to access that state aid capital reserve fund is something that the district set up many years ago the voters approved 10 years up to $10 million there's currently a balance
039of $7 million in there a majority of that was uh deposited in that account in the last two years um two years ago there was $2.5 Million that's when this work started that was the balance of the time uh so it's been able to grow over time but that's that can only only be accessed for Capital Improvements and it could only be accessed to with voter approval so we cannot touch that money without voter approval and we cannot utilize that money for anything other than improving our facilities so our current plan is to use 36% of those Capital reserves to support this project we also have retiring debt so the final piece of this puzzle is an existing bond that we're paying off community members are already part of their taxes so our hope is
040to continue to to make those payments as a way to offset this new uh project with the onset of the capital of the capital with the tax levy cap it doesn't allow school districts to continually make improvements to their building so in the past if a roof for the high school went we would say we're really sorry this year our taxes are going to go up 6% we need to fix the roof next year they'll go back down that's an impossibility now so now districts are forced to schedule this work part of our 5-year plan to coincide with retiring debt so now is an opportunity where we could do work where it's not going to cost the taxpayers more money if two years from now we try to do this work there's no way for
041us to do without saying I'm sorry your taxes are going to go up if you approve this fond so we're not unique in the school district in timing these projects if Dave spittle were here he could already tell you what's on our next list of items I know the elementary school roof above the first grade Wing is set to be replaced probably seven years from now another 5 years before the next debt retires so for anyone who's still here you can project that um but that's the amount of time that the planning that goes into this so quick breakdown 12, 970,000 plus whatever escalation the board wants to put in there the district expects to receive a minimum of 8, 500,000 back in state aid those are both principal costs obviously with interest the project
042cost will go up but with interest sod does are building Aid so both those numbers will vary based upon what the interest rate is the higher the interest rate is the more Aid we get back the higher the interest rate is the more we pay for the project the $25 million of capital reserve comes off the top so that money is never bonded and no interest is paid on it and that remaining sort of $1975 million is what the community is being asked to cover and that they're covering it through by continuing to pay uh their tax bills and continuing to contribute to the debt payment that's already existing because we lowered the scope of the project that was tax neutral this new project if it were to stay at 12, 975,000 would actually be
043a tax decrease of $2.13 for an average value home of$ 415,000 that's not my number that's the number we were provided I know many people live in homes that are more expensive than 415,000 uh but if you do live in a home it's exactly $415,000 $2.13 would be what you would expect to save each month after approv this project some of a quick Financial facts these aren't numbers that we make up in isolation we consult with fiscal advisers Bond Council Auditors Architects and the New York State Building facilities Department must approve not only the scope of our work but also the finances if State education department doesn't think we have enough money budgeted to complete the work they will reject our project and we will get no Aid on it so we have to send
044them both our budget as well as the scope of work that needs to be completed project calls cannot exceed voter approved amount this isn't a capital this isn't a public works project where the $100 million Bridge costs a billion dollars by the by the time they're done building it uh we would have a really narrow bridge for that cost $100 million if that was the case uh because we cannot exceed what the voter approved amount is so rest assured that a $1,975 th000 project will cost under 12,975 th000 or it won't happen taxes are not a percentage of your homes assessed value there was a long conversation last evening about this and I will show a graphic that helps demonstrate that the school's maximum tax levy is Capp by New York state so New York
045State limits how much we can tax which is forces us to use these funds for Capital Improvements I spoke about the capital reserve only being utilized for projects uh once we receive state a approval the state aid is guaranteed there's a fear of what happens if the state goes broke and the district doesn't get the money we're expecting well in order for us to start the project we need approval in order for us to get approval we're locked in for the state aid so that's not something that we have to worry about um we only borrow the funds necessary to complete the project so the project maximum amount is 12, 975,000 it's not to say the project will cost 12, 975,000 if we can get it done for $1 million we only ever borrow $11
046million there's not an extra $2 million laying around waiting to be used um we borrow money it's called short-term borrowing Bond anticipation notes so as we have to pay contractors for the work they've completed we borrow a little bit of money we borrow a little bit more a little bit more a little bit more when the Project's done we take all of those small loans wrap it up into one big one and finance that over 15 years the same 15 years that we get the state aid back on so think about you get a bill every month to pay off your debt and you get a check every month deposit into your account that helps you pay off that so that's sort of the balance that happens between state aid and the project Bond cost
047um so we talk a lot about estimates all of the estimates that we use are budgetary numbers they're based upon per square foot they're based upon industry standards we don't have individual contractors come price out the project because we don't have the plans they need to do so in order for uh an electrician to come in and price out a project they would need to see what the architectural drawings engineering plans are for that project in order to make it a decision those things cost lots of money and take lots of time something that we don't have without voter approval so we must get voter approval those budgetary numbers are what guide us but ultimately the project will cost as little as possible whoever is willing to do that work for the least amount of
048money and is a and can meet all the criteria we have for our contractors that's who gets to the contract so we may have $100,000 budgeted for something someone could come in and say I'll do that for 25 we'll say high five you get the job um so it's not we don't want to advertise how much we're willing to spend for for each of these components which is why we're hesitant to put these numbers out there every contractor would love to know what's the maximum amount of money I could charge for this project but really what we want is competition we want many contractors interested in this because competition is going to drive down the price and we want the person who's going to do it quality job for the least amount of money and
049as time passes we know each component of this project will become more expensive as the escalation costs continue to drive um nobody pays less for anything as years go by so we spoke a little bit about we go from conceptual to bid prices and we don't really know the final cost of the project until after the project is complet but we do know it cannot exceed what our maximum allowable not is these are two actual tax bills for two actual homes in putner Valley we did this analysis on 12 but 12 didn't fit on the SL so one of the things you'll notice been a lot of conversation about assessed values of homes in puon Valley not my cup of tea not responsible for that um but you can see this home on the top
050from 2017 to 2024 it's gone from a value of 313,000 to 523,000 um I guess that's a good thing if they ever want to sell their house but you'll notice uh if you look to the right their school taxes over those years have gone up $250 $240 $120 and so forth and on the far right column you'll see that's a percentage of their home value paid in school taxes so one thing that you notice is as the value of your home goes up the percent percentage of your home value you pay in school taxes actually goes down so where 2024 2.01% if you go look at the house on the bottom right went from 245,000 to 344,000 so a house with a lower assessed value but you notice those percentages are exactly the same as
051the home value went up the percentage of their home value they pay in taxes went down so they went up $100 $100 $130 $280 and they went from 2.57% to 2.0 1% there's a lot of concern of this flat tax so if the 2.66 was the value of everyone's home the percentage of everyone's home they paid in school taxes so if that first home was 2.66 every year that top number would be $13,900 so it' be another $3,400 more in taxes they would be paying if that percentage didn't go down with the increase in assess value so that's just an example of when I keep saying that it's not a direct percentage it's always a percentage but a percentage changes each year and as I mentioned before puton Valley is not unique in terms of
052school districts in our area that seek these opportunities to bond money so puton Valley we had a vote on 125 we were tax neutral for $14 million and everyone's aware was defeated by 42 votes hdan had a vote in no in November uh for $28 million which included a tax increase and it passed 7 24 to 445 Lakeland had a vote in September it passed $57 million it was tax neutral 444 to 173 you'll notice that nobody has nearly as many voters as we do um Brewster 82 million tax increase passed Yorktown 57 million tax increase passed ausing $210 million tax neutral passed Pak skill had two that passed Harrison croen how Pleasantville is the only other one on here they had a tax increase so was going to cost taxpayers more money and they
053were introducing the one thing that nobody wants which is new lights around their turf fields which are not popular if anyone's looking at the dudos be careful uh and I know that Pleasantville is currently working on a proposition that does not include lights that um sure they will put back up for vote as well so obviously every school district's in the same boat that we are the ability to just continually do this work year-over-year is not a possibility and um people wait for these opportunities to capitalize on retiring debt so anything that's tax neutral that's exactly why they did it the way they did because they had retiring debt they were looking to reinvest in and just again our total project costs minus the capital reserve minus the state aid and the retiring fund would
054equal a slight decrease in school taxes so that's what I have for the presentation I apologize for everyone who heard it again last evening but uh an opportunity for the board to discuss um I guess one is the scope of the project two would be the escalation cost that we want to add back into that project um and I think three would be I think the consensus would be if the project goes back up for a vote that vote would happen alongside our budget vote on May 20th questions comments discussion well I think it's imperative that we put it back up for a vote in including the um you know the items that were taken out need to remain out of the mix uh you know there there's always that expression uh we have to
055take care of what we need what we really need and we need a new roof on the high school we need that parking lot and that collapsing retaining wall to be fixed we need the boiler at the elementary which is over 20 years old that could fail at any moment got the bit if ever happened in the winter we need that replaced and we need a nurse's office that is contemporary and I made a joke the last time we were here that you could put a plaque on the front of that and it would represent a nurse's office from the 1950s 1960s there's no isolation room there's no ventilation really that is appropriate for uh GAA bit another pandemic or anything like that so these are all Necessities this board was unified in putting up
056the original Bond we all believe that every single item there was needed but the community has spoken they spoke very loudly and we have to hear that and we can't ignore that so the uh current proposal Dr Lu that uh the committee facilities committee has put together especially through the last meeting deciding the know the top items to B bottom items I I think is is a go and we need to get that on the uh the may vote as as quickly as possible as far as escalation I go with your 4% I think that's a wise number uh for escalation costs unless our financial advisers recommend something else but uh in in talking and and researching a little bit on my own 4% seems pretty adequate I you know there's a lot of fear
057of the turffs with aluminum and steel uh components of some of the things we might need wood also but those tariffs aren't going to last very long I really believe that I believe that there will come a a unification of common goals between Canada Mexico Europe China and ourselves and uh I I I think it's a negotiating tactic that's my own personal belief so uh the 4% I think would be good to go that's that's my opinion thank you um I have some comments um I do want to mention that I think that everything that the facilities uh committee brought to the table was necessary you keep seeing things like needs um I do think it's all needed um in public education we are here for all of our students um so while people think
058that maybe the playground is low priority people we we need to be able to provide for students who are young for students who are disabled every students deserve every student deserves the same ability to have these things so while some students play baseball and really want a fantastic baseball field we and we have other students who do dance and IB dance and they also need a place to be able to practice um so while I do understand that the taxpayers don't want these things and I'm I I do want to take them off the table and listen to the taxpayers I want to mention that I do think that I think they're necessary and that unfortunately with the capital budget going down we're probably going to have to I we are going to have to
059put these things into the operating budget in order to provide the same opportunities for all of our students so the unfortunate part about that is we're not going to get 66% back on the improvements that we're going to have to make through our working budget um and that's a bummer and either that or another Capital project what you can do through the budgetary process include one of them as we did the high school roof originally so that can be done I agree with you all the things we agreed on were necessary I think that I agree with this that um but we have to listen that looking over all the data um and I I do appreciate all of the facilities the people that came the people who may not have voted um yes the
060first time I really appreciate hearing those things that um they didn't think should be included in this vote um I agree that with what was proposed here of of the things that we should take out and um I think that we should put it back up in May and uh I'm just I just want to re really reiterate that we're only voting down that no we're we're really only now saving $500,000 because we have to wait um so I just hope people you know think about that in the future and now we're going to have to wait to fix the roof and the instruction and the everything else to so just my thoughts yeah so I agree with both of you and I think that that we have to find some sort of middle ground
061right between listening to um a a portion of the community that you know um loves putam Valley so much that they don't ever want to leave it and they want to be able to live here forever and um taxes going up for whatever reason make that very very challenging for some people I'm also a parent of three children in every school in this district and I feel very strongly that we as we sit on the board we represent every single child in this District every single family not only the ones that are here the ones that have passed through and the ones that are to come and I think that we must have that Forward Thinking of ensuring that not not only that our buildings are safe but that our kids have the very best
062that we could possibly give them in our community and I think that that's got to be a shared Vision in our community as far as wanting to give our children who are literally the leaders of tomorrow you know I'm not going to sing the Whitney Houston song right now but they are the future and so we want to make sure that we um pour into them and that we to your point Sasha pour into all of them there may be a future Rockette sitting in our building right now there may be a future airplane pilot sitting in our building that's going to use the VR tools that we have to figure out that he wants to be a pilot right we have to be able to to support every one of our families in the
063very best way and that's not always going to be easy and it's not always going to happen perfectly we know that um but again to Sam's Point we have to listen to our community as well so we've been trying racking our brains trying to figure out what does that middle ground look like and I want to thank every person that has come out in the last couple of weeks to those facilities meetings because your presence mattered the collaboration mattered I certainly learned some things from people that I was sitting across from a table at that I had never met before who had a different perspective Ive on not necessarily the items that were proposed but how they were proposed um with not fully understanding the why right when you see a nurse's Suite you just
064think that oh you know maybe puon Valley just wants to be impressive with their spaces well no actually that space really needs to get done cuz it's not a safe space right now for children who are not well um or for children who perhaps are totally fine but they go to the nurses office to get a Band-Aid we don't want them walking out of the nurses office with the flu right so it it's important that we take care of those spaces in that way and that we communicate well with our community so I will say my piece of this right now the one that I'm really really happy to see is that the district is making a concerted effort to be able to communicate um in a different way not that we weren't communicating before
065I think we were I think that we've had a lot of discussion in the last couple of days uh weeks months of how do we communicate different and better and to all putam Valley has a very wide um uh range of community members some members who don't own a computer some members who that's all they do all day is they look at the computer or their phone for information right and so we've got to meet all of those needs uh as far as communication goes and so I'm really happy to see the way in which we're going to be communicating um with families with community members because all of it matters um I also want to say that the the recent push from the district on social media also matters if you've been following social
066media from the district lately you've seen many more posts of what our kids are actually doing it has to be contextualized the work has to be contextualized in what it actually does for children and you do that through showing what kids are doing on a regular basis in the high school in the middle school and in the elementary school on the field on the stage all of it matters and that's what this work is for so that they can continue to engage in those particular activities and learning opportunities right and so I'm super excited that the district is making that effort um my uh my hope is that the community will really start to have a deeper understanding of the amazing work that happens here um and the reason why we are lobbying to give
067our students and staff the spaces they need to be able to do their job um it's a need and so uh you know I I do support us making those changes because we want to listen to our community and as a good faith effort we want to show that that is the reason why every year we come below the tax cap is to show that good faith of we don't want to max out our community members we don't want them to feel stressed we want everybody who wants to stay here to be able to um at the same time as providing the needs for our children so thank you everybody for your hard work no go ahead I don't have a lot different things to say than every that everyone else said um um I'm
068disappointed the vote went down I'd loved what was in it I think it is all needs um I would love to put the same vote up but we have to listen to the taxpayers and they said Joe said failed vote we had a failed vote we need to listen to those votes and um readjust as necessary um although that does hurt um I as an individual I would love to put up the same one but as a board working for our community I we have to make um some concessions here I think um or I think we should consider that Joe did bring up a good point regarding um taking out additional funds to go over the costs and I I think that was a good point I'm just curious how from um additional funds
069from the reserve took over the increased cost that we going to exhibit so I'm curious everyone's thought on that also on raising the cost of the project include take out 5 $500,000 more from the capital reserve due to the increased um from now to 27 so is that so is that right you wouldn't put it as part of the project we would yeah part of our conversation this evening was how much escalation cost we wanted to add into the project not knowing what work would be accomplished within the existing escalation estimates versus what would be essentially a year later than what was budgeted for so if we assume the entire project gets pushed back a year then we estimate it being $519,000 of escalation costs yeah it's a good point Joe yeah unfortunate it's unfortunate
070yeah so we're essentially getting less and paying more correct corre I just want to make it um clear because one of the challenges here is that uh funding that's based in schools is very challenging to understand it does not work the same way it works when you are improving your home and in this instance um while I see the silver lining in this process I really do I think there's a lot of good that's going to come out of the process that we've gone through since the vote failed um and our district will be better for it as well I believe our community um it's costing us more money to do less work and I think that that has to be something considered especially when in the past our our Reg General budget vote has
071only passed by 4% and I think that that really needs to be a message that our community hears we need everyone to please vote regardless of how you vote please just come out and cast your ballot and if you can't do that please get an absentee ballot if you possibly can because your voice matters and it's evident that your voice matters because like we said the board is listening to the community but we want to make sure it's the entire community's voice that's being represented in in the vote so as parents as community members as board members um as people who love this amazing Community we've got to go out and encourage people to cast their ballot it's not just a presidential election that matters every election matters every vote matters and so please um
072if you're listening to this video tonight if you're here tonight go and grab 10 parents to just come out and vote or 10 community members that maybe weren't able to do that um um encourage them to let their voice be heard so that then we can really see what the Comm what the entire Community is really looking to do I have a question about just want to clarify what you said are you proposing that the new budget that we put up so or that so I think that the one that the district presented um is actually a great summary of everything that people said so I looked through all the tables I think it's great um are you suggest based on the feedback that the what Joe said basically um that we add $500,000 to
073this budget from the reserve from the reserve from the reserve from the reserve so increase from basically 2.5 to three from the reserve but it wouldn't be that much money because as our cost increase the state aid increases so we wouldn't be looking at the full 500,000 cuz I'm always leery about pulling money from the reserve that that's our you the bid something happens uh it would be more like correct me if I'm wrong uh DRL somewhere maybe uh 300,000 so if the project cost were to go up 500,000 we would still get 66% of that money back in needid I would disagree with taking out more from our capital reserve I would not want to do that um I think I hope that the budget is a good budget and that um it wouldn't
074like that our our cost wouldn't go over it I think that we lose out on money if it came in lower like you know if we had extra funds I I agree with that leave it as is and and don't pull any more from the reserve I'm I'm Leary about taking from the reserve you know the last night Grace really exp say that why it's important to leave money in the reserve so that our our ratings our bond and our interest correct is lower because we have you reserve yes U the the irony of this whole thing is that even if we were to include everything that was voted no on everything we'd still have that escalation cost there's no ifans or buts about it so uh that's that's the sad part of this but
075let's deal with what we have and and I think the recommendations from the facility ities committee Dr Lu and um all involved is is a solid one and and hopefully it will pass this time I I in my mind and I can't tell people how to vote vote just come out and vote we're going to be reimbursed of our tax money that's been up in New York usually you know sent down in New York City or or Buffalo or Rochester but never back to here we're actually going to get 6 6% of the cost back from our taxes that have been going to New York and never helping our town well this is going to come back royally to help our town so I I you know I mean for me it's simple I mean
076those are the facts Barbara yeah yeah um one of the speakers last night at the meeting said and Dr L referenced um that we didn't all of our groups did not follow the directions to pick the three priority items and the three uh lower priority items because it was really hard to pick y three they had already the facilities committee had already gone through a list of I don't know a hundred items to formulate the list that we put up and all of them were essential um for a group of students for future students for for the community for safety for whatever but all of them were essential and to say that these are the three we think are less essential I mean essential means it means essential um and I'm sorry that that work
077will probably still have to be done and the burden or the cost of those projects will be borne 100% by our taxpayers instead of only 33% um but that was the way the voters indicated and so we out of respect for that um we cut the scope of the project down and I think that the suggestions that the facilities committee made and that Dr L um and his financial advisers have suggested is a good compromise um and I would agree to put 4% into the cost of the escalation cost yeah yeah so one thing that's important to note even if we were to add that 4% into the escalation cost of the project it'll still ultimately be a tax decrease so maybe it'll be I mean I'll make up a number rather than 213 maybe
078it's a $173 right but we're never going to go back to the original project cost of 14 million so that was tax neutral so less than 14 million without touching any of the other finances would still be considered a decrease in taxes as it relates to this uh project so I'm not telling you your taxes are going to go down overall what I'm saying is that this project will actually result in lower taxes than it would otherwise be yeah okay okay all right thank you all tonight on this no so what our plan is it sounds like we have a consensus is is really what we need we'll prepare a resolution we'll have a resolution ready to go for the next meeting and that still putss us on the timeline to be able to vote
079on May 20th great what about that mailer that was mentioned last night that's supposed to go out in March yeah so we're already working on a save the date mailer that's really just the date how to get registered to get more information sign up for electronic newsletters so that's we don't need the project details in that the next two Communications will have more details on the project what that will have is a link to our website which is the easiest way for individuals to get details on the project anyway excellent is this is this presentation on the website too it will be yes will be okay can we also add to the mailer information about early voting orente voting voting um not not the one maybe in March not not not the postcard postcard you
080can't the problem is when when you could sign up but we definitely will share that information in every way possible at least even if it's just letting people know that it's going to be available and this is how they would access it yeah something as simple as look into absentee voting if you cannot be here that day cuz we understand if you have children who are in college who can't be in there here that day yeah we I mean we get it people leave really early they come back late like I'm a working parent I get it um you know but there are other ways to vote so that's that's a really great opportunity for people we just want to make sure that they have that information so now what about the facilities committee are
081we calling them back at all for anything or have they done their work or what so I think right now we are um what we did is we had individuals sign up for sub committees so we're having a communication subcommittee that will continue to meet to make sure we're maximizing our outre to the community and we have a finance subcommittee that'll be formed and their job is to help collect Financial questions and then disseminate financial information about the project back out to the community so that'll sort of be the work of that community members who sign up for those uh subgroups moving forward and you you'll send that out to everybody that was that was like at the yeah I mean anybody who was there last evening had opportunity to sign up but anyone who's
082out there and is interested in signing up would certainly be welcome we wouldn't turn anyone away okay good all right thank you okay thank you so that concludes the facilities presentation we'll move on to our proposed 2025 26 budget presentation and I'd like to introduce Dr Grace Chan thank you okay thank you good evening good evening Board of Education Dr Love putam Valley community members that are here and online this is exciting time for me because it's is my first time showing you the glimpse of the budget next year but first I have to thank my staff who collaborate with me that's Moren Karen Debbie and my uh Treasurer Matthew who is here to give me support tonight um first I just want to tell you a little bit about what my job is here
083uh we have a budget to put together for the district and there's a lot of balls in the air because the budget has to equal the revenue that we receive in order for this to be a balanced budget to present to the board and as you know the magic happens in the classrooms I'm just doing their numbers and I'm trying to support the people that do the work in the classrooms um as an analogy I consider all the principles and the department heads like my children and they each come to me with needs and wants and then I have to look at all the revenues and see what I can do and I have to try to satisfy the superintendent and the board and try to move the district to where it wants to be
084in the future so um I am a numbers person so you're not going to see too much narrative in my slides most of my slides will be repeated in a different format from experience I see that people ask me me the same questions in a different way so when I present to you the revenues or the expenses you may see them in different ways but they all boiled down to the same thing so first I want to show you that this is the New York State formula for determining the tax levy limit it's very complicated and my job is to try to simplify so the normal person can understand what I am trying to do this is my simplification we first start with the prior years's tax levy which on top is 41 milon 330
085762 then we multiply it by the tax-based growth factor which is specific to putam Valley it has to do with the quantity change in the taxable properties in putam Valley it's based on actual physical changes on taxable property such as new construction homes stores offices and changes in the assessed value uh these taxes are added to the allowable Capp Levy in the first year after the value of the change is reflected on the local tax role this number is given to us after we multiply that we have a subtotal of 41 mil 413 then we come into accumulation of a lot of numbers that come to the prior year Capital exclusion which is a minus a million 204 then we come to the adjusted prior year tax levy 4,208 to that we multiply the thing
086that you read about in the newspaper all the time the 2% cap we are only allowed to in this formula put in 2% or the CPI some years the CPI has been lower than the 2% and this is where every every District gets that number so this year it is 2% this is what you read about in the newspaper when we multiply that we come up with the tax levy limit before exclusions which is 41 m012 then we have a current year Capital exclusion which is a multitude of numbers that goes into that this year it's a minus 2,195 this becomes my maximum allowable tax levy limit that percentage comes out to 4.54% that's what I'm actually allowed to go out to ask the taxpayers to give me for next year the the uh limit
087that we're allowed to subsidize however as was previously mentioned puton Valley has never gone to the maximum tax cap this year we're actually going all the way down to 2.99% this is one of the revenues that I need one of the balls in the air that I need to balance to my expenses so in order to live with that limit I have to make sure that I have enough money elsewhere to balance B my budget so I do want to point out to the community that we are very sensitive when we decide superintendent and I what is the percentage that we're going to tax people at and you know superintendent has mentioned before his mother lives in this District so we're trying not to tax her as much as we can this is accumulation of
088what happens between what we're taxing you at and what we could have taxed you at the tax levy in blue that bar is the 4.54% that's what I am allowed to tax you at this is the cumulation over the next couple years the money that I would have by the time we get to the 2030 year however it's orange the orange bar is where we're actually taxing you at and that is the difference of what we are leaving on the table this is a comparison of the tax cap between putam Valley and six other districts in our neighborhood as you can see we're not the highest and we're not the lowest we're right in between over there at 2.99% one of the things that I have to look at beside the tax cap is where
089am I getting my other Revenue in order to balance the budget I look at State eight so here are the same six districts that I'm comparing to ourselves to show you what has happened between the increase of the state aid from 2024 25 to 2526 bear in mind this is the executive budget the final budget is not going to come out until the legislative budget gives that to us that usually doesn't happen till we're all done with the budget maybe April 1st at at the earliest I do want to point out that the difference between last year and this year shows that we have a state a increase of 41,382 400 we can't touch that money unless we and we can only use it for that so if we're not touching that we actually have
090a net difference from last year to this year of $968,000 that's not a lot money this is another way of looking at the last year state aid the breakdown between ourselves and six other districts and you can see that we're pretty low down there we're at we only got 17 million 540 last year this is a chart that shows you that 2% number that I was telling you about in the tax cap formula the column that uh is in the middle called the allow able growth factor is what we were actually allowed to use and you'll notice it is never more than 2% it's either 2% or the CPI that year look at the difference in the year 2023 24 when the CPI was 8% we had to live with the 2% even this year
091the time that I created this chart the CPI was 2.95% uh this evening I looked it up as of today it's 3% so this is the gap that I have to close here is another way of looking at the same thing again tax cap inflation Factor the orange bar is showing the inflation Factor the blue line is showing you where our tax cap was that difference is the gap that the business official had to make up at that time the next three charts are showing you the enrollment by grade uh I was uh lucky enough to have Michael Lee provide these numbers for me the this is just the students in the seats so this is the elementary school this is the middle school and this is the high school and he told me that
092the high school numbers include the Garrison students because it's the children who are taking the seat so here is the first big picture of all the revenue sources that I can use to balance the budget as you can see the school taxes that tax cap represents 67% of my budget the state aid at the moment represents 27% then we have all these miscellaneous pieces uh on the lower level what I did next in the next chart is to isolate these other pieces to show you what percentage they are of the whole local revenues and as you can see the Garrison tuition represents 37% of the extra money that we would receive if all those students do in fact come to our district next year again this is my Revenue source and showing you by uh
093comparing the last year's adopted budget to the proposed budget and the percent change the percent change in the revenue source is going to be the same percent change in your budget because the budget and the revenue have to equal each other I wanted to note to you that at the bottom right hand 4.58% sounds like a really big number that my budget to budget increased by 4.58% but there's a very big number inside that it is the transfer to Capital line it's about a, 209,000 if I remove that one number from my budget the budget to budget increase would have only been 2.58% now we come to to a question that we are often asked what is the cost to educate a child in our district I have to mention that it depends on what
094components are in this so you sometimes will get different numbers because it depends on what it includes so we chose to create this slide to use the transparency report which will be on our website and this is the uh most current numbers that we have to compare to the other six districts the transparent report transparency report does exclude Transportation Charter School tuition other tuition Debt Service and other and also on the lower bar I show you the student enrollments this is the adopted budget comparing from last year to this year so the bar that is in green is actually my proposed budget and the brown bar is what the adopted budget was last year as you can see that they're almost closed and where it where it increases the most is in instruction which is
095where you want it this is another chart that shows the same thing except numerically and again it shows the change from last year's budget to this year's budget is 4.58% and once again I bring you to the fact that the transferred Capital line if removed would show a budget to- budget increase of only 2.58% this is another way that we're required to report the budget to the state it's called the three-part budget and as you can see ad Administration is least amount in this chart the most is in program this is where you want all your money spent this Begins the first pie chart that shows you what the budget consists of and there's various components of that as you can see the orange part is the instruction this is where we spend most of
096our money this is a very interesting chart to me because I realize when I go to a new District that most of my budget is done once I work on the salary and benefits because we're a service industry our teachers are are what we're selling here I have to thank my uh building people and my department head because if you look at the lines underneath the Athletics business all those compare them from last year's budget to this year's budget they were very nice to me and helped me squeeze the budget so that we didn't increase where we didn't have to places where we could not help is when they have when they know what's happening in our special education department but just look at the top in red it's interesting that 7.92% of my budget
097consists of salary and benefits the total salary and benefits includes teacher includes all staff yes it is this I think is an interesting chart because it shows the Delta and the first chart is showing you from the budget last year to the budget this year I had a 4.58% increase which I told you before 1, 209,000 is due to this transferred Capital line however ever the salary and benefits was an increase of 2,607 but my tax cap is only an increase of 1,237 I did not even get enough money in the tax cap Delta to take care of my contractual salaries and benefits somehow we made the magic work with the numbers and gave you a balanced budget fast facts this is my my proposed budget 63 million 331 budget to budget is 4.58 and
098this is the last time I'm going to tell you that it's only really 2.58 if I remove the transfer to Capital line and my proposed tax levy increase is 2.99 you will see a couple of propositions when you go to vote the first one is always there it's the proposition to vote on the budget the second one is the proposition to vote on the bond which is going to be determined based on the conversations we've had this week and right before my presentation and these are the important dates to remember mostly May 20th but also there's a date April 22nd where we deal with the absentee ballots which our district clerk can help you with thank you does anyone have any questions Dr Chen uh I I have to applaud you and the department for
099putting this together this is an outstanding presentation one of the best I've seen thank you uh since attending board meetings going back quite a while really it explains everything C can you talk about how you made the magic work where did that extra money come from since you yourself said we didn't have enough to even cover the salaries right so we do have reserves for the um Employee Retirement and um it's there to be used if we need it and I notoriously take money out from that every year and if I'm so lucky at the end of the year that I have fund balance then I try to put it back into it for the rainy day for the future but if I don't especially a year like this year that I Ed a million
100something to balance that budget so whatever was in my expense line for the Employee Retirement I took that out to um to balance the budget that was one way I also use some fund balance in there and and uh and and we have the Garrison tuition coming in which is new we used I think you started in 2023 with three students and this year you went up another 10 or 18 13 okay and then another 10 next year yeah yeah so that's excellent I I also want to comment on a 2.99 uh if you take a look at the core CPI year toe what it is it's it's 3.1% so we're below that inflation rate at 2.9 and uh you know I've always believed that we need to be either at or below that inflation
101rate and we are doing that again this year so so thank you for that welcome uh this has been a fantastic presentation I think it is um probably clearer this year yeah I think because of the ways in which you presented the information that like saying the same thing multiple times but in different ways I think is really important right because some of us are are visual Learners and and other types of Learners here so thank you for that for being creative in your presentation of of the data um I want to just make sure that I'm clearly understanding so for the community so we were able to use funds that we had saved in a particular type of cap or Reserve account rather that can only be used to offset uh certain things within
102the budget so that we could then stay within the the lines of tax cap that we wanted to stay in because of the commitment that we've made to our community so I say all that to say that just summarizing our savings helped us to be able to do that is that correct that's correct you have established a number of uh allowed reserves from the past and when those reserves are established and funded they can only be used for those intensive purposes when you establish the ERS Employee Retirement Reserve you can only take those funds out to pay for ERS expenses you cannot use that for capital projects or TRS expenses or anything else so you have to be very careful when you have fund balance at the end of year to see what you're going
103to fund the reserves on and I have been following your board policy which allows me to fund each Reserve by a certain percentage and we follow those because we don't want to get audited by the state and have our hands left right and in this instance having those funds in this particular Reserve helped us to balance the budget without asking the taxpayer to do so right wonderful and I just want want to make a point out as I said before the legislative budget has not come out yet but I've heard some Rumblings that they they're thinking of giving us more money than the governor was trying to give us if that happens as you see I'm presenting you a balance budget but if that happens and I get more Revenue next year when all this
104unfolds I might not have to take that money out of the ERS Reser or maybe not 100% of it yeah but if we did yes it's there it's there and it's there as a cushion to ensure that we don't have to go and get that that money from elsewhere which AKA would be the community right right and when I take that money out I can only use it to pay the ERS Bill if my bill doesn't come out as much as what I took out in the Reserve I must return it to that Reserve right right right right so all of these are safeguards so that in any one of these savings instances right I have a savings account for this that I can only use for this I have a savings account for this
105that I can only use for this in all of these instances there are so many safeguards so that money cannot just be moved wherever we want it to be moved we have certain rules and obligations we have to follow right that's correct and sometimes people ask me how I like my job but there are rules I'm just a rule person I follow all the rules these rules are set down by the state the Auditors come and look at us every single year you can read our order reports if I did anything wrong they're going to tell you in the report and we're going to get slapped so I think the job is easy easier than a teacher because it's black and white this is what I can do and I do it very good thank
106you so much thank you you're welcome I question you got to wait sorry public comment you can ask the questions because otherwise no one from home be he I have one question is this going to be available on the website the presentation yes okay so just two things I wanted to clarify the the difference of the slide that was last up the 4.58% budget to budget which would be the allowable sorry the 4.58 uh allowable tax levy cap versus the 2.99 and I know we had shown the slide if you take those five years those figures range from 300 639 999 the first year to 698 3155 year five that's a total of 3,344 197 so that's how much just in a five year period we're taking out of our Revenue Source by not going
107to the tax levy cab now there's many districts that would take those threat gladly take that $3 million from their community and find something to spend it on but I do want to emphasize the fact that by coming in at 2.99% that's costing the district over a 5year period $3 million yeah um and and obviously the same would happen if it was a lower number so we're trying to find and an amount that is allows us to support our programs and our staff and but also an amount that is something that the community can afford and that's why we're leaving over $3 million on the table um without even seeking while still beinging below the tax levy cap that was one thing that was a concern I brought up a couple of years ago if
108you recall Dr L that I I I feared not going to cap would jeopardize us because when you don't do that the state looks at it and says that's unused money so we're going to give you less the following year and and that that that is always a concern but I I I could not with a clear conscience 4 and a half% and present that to the community right I'm must suggust that we do I just wanted to point no I I understand that like I say I we need to be at or below inflation and we've done that and and I applaud everybody who who was able to put this budget together so successfully Dr chanon your your whole department and and the department heads who contributed as well really outstanding thank you so
109the other point I wanted to clarify Sor um we spoke a lot about transfer to Capital just for the community I want to make sure everyone understands what that means so transfer to Capital is one of the ways in which we could accomplish capital projects and still receive state aid it comes out of our existing operating budget right so it comes out of there's no additional Revenue Source that's funding that uh we could take that money and put it towards programs but that money was ear marked to go towards Capital Improvements which allow us to get the state aid back in this case those improvements include the high school Turf track and fencing uh why that's important is we're essentially paying for that out of our existing funds which means we're not going out to
110the taxpayers and requesting a bond we're not asking to increase taxes right we're using the funds we already have to pay for a project that would otherwise would have been added to sort of the $13 million project we were just discussing right so it's a way for the District to accomplish projects uh without incurring any interest costs we're paying for it UPF front and uh we're not asking the taxpayers for anything so anytime it's possible to do that we always look to do that we replac the majority of the high school roof the same way uh using existing funds uh put into transfer to Capital and we receive state aid back in that work we never went to the community and asked for uh a penny more of your tax dollars in order to accomplish
111nearly $2 million of roof work and and the same will be true for nearly million of fieldwork uh that's $4 million less than would have been added to the bond that we discussed this evening um so that's what that Capital outlay means when when we discuss it and also I didn't um tell the public that that amount on the line for transfer Capital this year is for the track yeah yes um so I do want to quickly thank Dr Chan and her department for their very hard work I I thought the presentation was awesome so I'm glad everyone else thought the same and uh this presentation will be repeated for the next several meetings and ultimately uh the board will have to make a decision regarding uh the propos the adoption of the proposed budget
112so thank you all will this presentation be given in other forums or questions be able to be asked in another form yes so as we do every year we'll have listening hours Q&A sessions uh similar to the bond project we'll go anywhere uh at any time to talk to anyone uh who's interested in hearing it so they'll certainly be more opportunities for smaller group discussions uh as we do for anything thank you okay thank you Dr Love uh and uh Grace um okay so we're going to move into new business we only have one um resolution okay resolved on the recommendation of the superintendent of school to appoint Carla Henry to a probationary appointment as a school monitor effective March 17th 2025 with a Pro probationary period of 52 weeks ending march 16 2026 at
113the elementary school on step two of the csca salary schedule second questions or comments all in favor I opposed extenstions resolution passes okay now I'd like to open it up for public comment on any topic I want to point out we got a lot accomplished in an hour and a half yeah yeah I thought this would be 10:00 we'd be starting this so well that's good cuz it's past my bedtime Yes mine as well good evening everyone my name is Karen Carol I am the proud parent of a graduate from the year of 22 as well as a current senior um I do want to thank you uh for the opportunity again to attend those facility uh meetings I did learn a lot um and I would just say that you know the the everyone
114was getting up to leave when you mentioned the FI the finance committee and the the communication committee I would say if we could extend that beyond the confines of the facilities committee I think there's opportunity for for those to permeate other parts of the um the district work so if I could so we will we would welcome anyone and we're actually preparing a communication that'll go out to the community tomorrow and we'll make that a we'll reference that in that communication that goes out that you didn't need to be president in that meeting in order to join one of those subcommittees well that's good because we were all packing the chairs were getting packed up and and we were kind of getting I got a reminder from Genie I forgot to say okay um speaking
115of communication to the district um a month ago when I for the very first time came up here and spoke one of the things I spoke about was security um and I'm just asking was there any communication that came out from the district regarding the enhanced or the steps that you mentioned at the last meeting has that and I appreciate your response by the way Dr Lu to my email um I would just say has that information been disseminated ated to everyone so that everyone knows what steps were taken to mitigate what happened before what we're doing to pre you know preventative measures and any other risk assessments that were conducted for the buildings sure also part of the communication going out tomorrow so that's part of our March update but I I was going
116to do it sooner but I wanted to wait to know what the outcome of the facilities project was so that's why we've held on to it before um but that's part of that that letter that'll be going out tomorrow as well okay and um as you had mentioned it'll be the same information that I had shared with you previously but just made available to the whole Community exactly it's just about again it's about the same thing I spoke about a month ago it's really about trust and transparency um and so speaking of um just topics that you know we did touch on a little bit um again as the parent of a current senior I will voice my concerns and my requests and my um thoughts around the graduation um I was unable to make
117it that night I got called into to work at as many nurses do so I was not able to meet with you um with the other parents um a couple of thoughts I know and and fortunately from the presentation that there are 138 seniors I actually was going to ask exactly what the number was so now we know there are 138 um while I do believe it should at every turn happen on the turf I would say that similar to what Sam said about listening to the community how about we put something out on a Google form so that the seniors themselves as well as the parents have an opportunity to say if there are three options let's say like on the turf but earlier than the than the set date or Choice B how
118about we do it in the gym now I heard something about maybe that's not feasible it has been done before it's certainly feasible um but I do think you know looking at the max capacity of what the bleachers hold on the turf looking at how much the gym would hold and the fact that we would be able to see the students that's the biggest concern for me honestly is I may have a child with a last name c but I'm not going to see him on that stage unless somebody really truly you know they're they're teared so that you can see them so that would be an option or the third option would be keep the date and do it in the pack and that would be three options that the community right the parents
119and the students would have an option right or an opportunity rather to get their voices heard and it's a democracy whatever the you know whatever they say whatever whatever vote comes in comes in um but I think that that's an opportunity that is then afforded to everyone else to kind of have that their voices heard um and again it just ties back to what I said about trust and transparency um I think I'll leave it there tonight all right thank you thank you so as I mentioned earlier that the concern you shared was a concern that was shared by by many of the parents who were in attendance so the district had already started looking at rental of risers and that would allow us whether the students be in the gym or in the pack
120to have them sit in a way that would make them more easily uh visible uh to the parents so that's something that we're already pursuing uh we believe that we can fit them all in either location on those risers whether it be in the pack on risers or in the gym on risers we would be able to fit all 138 students and in a way that the parents would be able to they'd be visible to the parents so that was something that emerged and we want to certainly um recognize that's something that we're we're exploring I'm a why I understand that pain thank you gentlemen next good evening president Parmley Dr L members of the uh Board of Education of course the community that's here uh my name is JD apalo and I'm honored to
121serve as president of the puton Valley volunteer fire department uh I'm also PR parent of two children who have attended putton Valley Schools uh Tori who graduated in 2011 she's a elementary school teacher now down in Long Island uh I do have a senior uh James uh who will be graduating this year and pursuing his athletic basketball career at College as long as well as uh pursuing his dreams of becoming a high school history teacher uh I'm here tonight with uh Chief Vito Rizzy chief of the department uh deputy chief Ed McCarthy who uh is on our board of directors um I'm here to speak on behalf of the dedicated men and women of our volunteer fire department and to ask your support uh in implementing a critical piece of legislation that will benefit not
122only our volunteers but our entire Community as you may be aware Governor uh hokel recently signed into law a property tax exemption program for volunteer firefighters and ambulance workers as outline in New York state law A10 155a section one uh section 466a interesting stuff right um this law part is that I have it memorized by now yeah this uh this law allows municipalities school districts and fire districts the option to provide a prop property tax exemption of up to 10% for eligible volunteers who live in the communities they serve it also offers for those with 20 or more years of service of Lifetime exempt may also be granted as long as they maintain their primary residence in the county they serve uh I have provided a brief overview uh of the law to the uh
123members of the Board of Education and staff that's here um and this will reference but simply put it's a meaningful way to recognize and support our volunteers those who dedicate their time energy and often their own safety of to protecting this community I would like to point out the the uh highlighted handout I'm not going to go in in detail but I think it's important uh it's highlighted in yellow it says through similar exemptions have been available in 30 counties under there's a bunch of numbers again and letters rptl 466a through 466k CH chapter 670 repeals those statues effective December 9th 2005 and this is kind of important to us the Jersey jurisdictions that have been offering exemptions which uh the school district does under 466 c um they uh those statutes will have to
124be adopted by local laws ordinance or resolutions by that date conforming their exemptions to the provisions of this summary uh basically what it's saying is that we're up against the timeline uh if if there's no action taken by the date of December 9th 2025 it goes away forever and we will not be a able to take advantage of the law that was signed into legislation uh so that's why that's highlighted uh Recruitment and attention of volunteer firefighters is a growing challenge not just for our department but across the state while people volunteer out of their deep commitment for service uh Financial incentives like this help us retain our dedicated members and attract new ones our fighter fire our firefighters excuse me respond to emergency calls 24 hours a day 7 days a week all hours
125of the night in every kind of weather often leaving their families and jobs at a moment's notice we spent count countless hours training to ensure we are ready when that alarm goes off just recently uh our department responded to a horrific motor vehicle accident on Sprout Brook Road where three residents had to be extricated from a vehicle and rush to the hospital last month some of you probably recall this recall this we uh battle in an intense structure fire right across the street from the high school um they our our members work tirelessly to prevent further damage and ensure the safety of those that were nearby uh and I would I will go I would be remiss not to say this uh we might be getting a new recruit out of the deal uh because
126Dr L was right there at the scene pulling fire hose up and down PE scale Hollow Road so uh Dr Lu we have a membership application waiting for you um I would love to uh beyond the emergency response we are deeply involved in the community helping with fire prevention education in our schools supporting High School athletic events with fire apparatus escorts uh we participate in the trunk Retreat uh we work alongside the putton Valley volunteer ambulance Corps uh we respond to every single Cardiac Arrest that's in town um that's to mention some of the things that we also do uh we're also responsible for 13 miles roughly 13 15 mies of the deconic State Parkway uh where we see a number of motor vehicle accidents extrications vehicle fires um and and that's uh we're at
127leased out there once twice a week maybe three times a week uh especially in the winter time it could be every day we're out under the conic uh so tonight we are formally uh requesting that the Board of Education support and adopt this property tax exemption for our volunteer firefighters and ambulance workers uh this is not just about recr recruitment uh it's about sustaining the dedicated men and women who uh already has given up so much of their uh time to the community uh while no Financial incentive can replace the Deep desire to serve providing this exemption is a concrete way to show our volunteers that their sacrifices are valued uh on behalf of the members and families of the puton Valley Fire Department I want to thank you for your time and consideration in
128this important issue I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have I can always be reached at any time um and without further Ado Chief would you like to say a couple words ladies and gentlemen thank you very much for the opportunity to be here with you this evening I don't know that there's anything I could add to the exceptional job that President apostolico just did with explaining to you the commitment the dedication and the amount of resources and hours and times that is spent on behalf of this community for nothing more or less than pure love of community and the desire to serve we are out there 24 hours a day we are out there 7 days a week and we're out there 365 days a year often on holidays in the middle
129of the night yeah or in those terrible storms where everybody else is hunkering down at home I ask you to please keep that in mind if there is a way that we can show show our volunteers the appreciation this is this is a small token I believe they ask for what they what they Comm what they contribute to this community I thank you for your time I thank you for your consideration and have a good evening thank you thank you thank you Chief also Chief McCarthy has a long long history in the department with his children going through Buton Valley schools had anything you'd like to add yeah just clarify one one aspect of what you brought up it's a 10% reduction as the board members would know but the general public might not a
13010% reduction off our assessed value not percent not 10% off of our taxed amount but off the assessed value just to clarify that thank you for your time point Thank You Chief is there yes is there a limit it's up to 10% 10% is the limit okay but not a monetary value limit no it's on the assessed value of your of your the current law well the current law this is 466 C Dr Lu you want to U Shar so when this law first came into effect it was actually approved at County levels Pam was one of the counties that approved it each County got their own letter so it was 466 a b c putam County ended up being C so the previous law that was in place for many years and has been
131offered by the school district and we have several of our volunteers take advantage of was uh was capped at $33,000 so that was the cap of the previous law in 2022 Governor hok signed into a law that allowed up to 10% but remove that $3,000 cap so what's being requested of the board this evening is to Simply update uh what is now the expiring 466 C that represented puam County uh with the new 466a which allows for up to a 10% uh deduction and important point was made it's 10% of the assessed value it's not 10% of your taxes right so you you would just get a new tax bill that represents a home value at 10% less than what your home was otherwise valed so a $500,000 home would be reassessed that $450,000 taxes
132will be paid at the $450,000 rate as opposed to paid at the $500,000 rate what is the current I'm sorry go go ahead maybe the same question what is the current volume of volunteer firefighters and ambulance workers that may be that are would be currently eligible it's uh it's not exact we estimate around 40 it could go up to 42 43 or could drop to 37 uh but right now we estimate the uh as firefighters around 40 members could take advantage of of the uh the law Ambulance Corp I I I couldn't tell you that well I can get you that information I do know right now we have 11 firefighters that take advantage of the current exemption there certainly I'm sure many have reasons for not taking advantage of it but another important piece
133to point out is it's not it's not made available for every uh volunteer firefighter 20 service well 20 years of service is a lifetime exemption but there's other criteria that must be met in order to qualify I think it's a minimum of 5 years of service they must be considered active right so I don't know what the threshold for active is it's so many hours or so many reports yeah we uh currently have 63 active members in the department which is low when I uh 5 years ago we had over 100 so you can see we're we're losing members right so they have to be the primary owner of the house so if you rent or you're living with your parents or someone else you wouldn't qualify so there's criteria that the individuals must meet
134and they have to submit actually an application each year um in order to show that they meet that criteria to qualify for the exemption so it's not a matter of hey I'm going to sign up um and I live in my mom's house and my mom's going to get the discount it's not how it works uh they have to meet that all that criteria in order to qualify for it considering we're facing a deadline on this I I I would like to request Dr Lu that we're the deadline's December next December yeah I know but we're facing a deadline and I'd like to to move it along um get our financial and our legal people involved in this uh to to give us some projections on what the cost might look like but definitely I
135don't want to see this expire uh everything everything that the representatives of Department have said is true and I I've been sub my brother got in a terrible accident uh from a beasting he passed out crashed on an eonic and the first person he saw was Frank DeMarco staring at him uh you know and I was one of those people too Sam actually they showed up for me on 301 on the tonic when I got a and and fires you know when my mom and dad were alive um fireplace fires how many times they had to come to that I kept telling them to stop burning wood but they never listened um Valley bottom line is that indispensable and what scares me is that without these incentives we're going to lose our our our firefighter
136ERS over time and that that would be a just a terrific disaster so I'm in favor of moving forward but let's see what the costs are overall we need to investigate that and then come back so I want to point out I got the roar end of this deal you guys got saved I was dragging hoses down pahala road so um I said I'll drag the hose but I don't know how to hook it up so don't look at me like that um so I think the piece of information I'm happy to do as much research as we can and maybe you and and I could touch base what I would need to know is a list of members that you believe would qualify because I would need that information to look up their tax
137bill I need to see what their assessed value is to determine what the financial impact of that would be I can give you that tomorrow morning so if you can give me everyone who you think meets that criteria five years as a prim owns their residence and all that other stuff then we can work on coming up with a full uh fiscal analysis as to what that would cost and I'd be happy to do that that can you also include in whatever you're sending him the criteria um like all the criteria that makes you an active uh member sure yep I think that's very helpful information actually because um there's lots of misinformation out there and if people uh don't have all of the facts they you know they may uh see this in a
138certain light they make them up um I I have to share that I am I am 100 100% on board to support if we can in any way that we can your work is invaluable to our community um we all I think in some way shape or form have been touched by a personal tragedy that involved firefighters um and we're just grateful so you know if if if we can help we would love to be able to do that it's got to be financially you know feasible for our students in our district but um I certainly am am in in favor of of trying to do as much as we possibly can so I just want to clarify for anyone else in the community what the obviously this is an incentive that's offered by the
139state but the incentive does not come with any F funding right so the governor allows this to happen but what what really is happening is a redistribution of taxes so that $10,000 of assessed value that comes off of each of those homes is essentially spread out amongst the other 4,492 homes that are taxed in puton Valley um correct I see that as a very this is my personal opinion because I don't get a vote on this but I see that it's a very uh minimal fee that you are paying for the service that these volunteers are providing you ex uh if your taxes go up $6 a year because of this exemption you're paying $6 for fire and ambulance service 365 days a year 24 when they show up at your door you're not kidding
140um but I did want to be clear that this is not Governor hok is not ready us a check to offset that it's really redistribution of taxes across the community uh so in essence other community members are contributing towards the service of those volunteers and also keep in mind if it if it is enacted before the uh deadline doesn't take effect to 2027 we missed the deadline this year for 2026 so we're we're the existing one is still still in place for this year right the existing one will still be in place that's why it's important important to beat that December 9th 2025 uh cut off so yeah absolutely I just wanted to add that I may not look like it but I was a volunteer ambulance in Long Island for 4 years because my
141day job wasn't interesting enough where do you live now do you want an application to I live in putam Valley now all right we'll get you an application to we'll take it all right thank you all for your time and thank you even more thank you for your service thank you guys okay grace your thing back Stephanie Waters here once again um I H I wanted to ask uh Dr Chan about what is we you brought up this the screen but I didn't get a chance to really take a look at it I want to know how much do it cost for puton Valley to educate a student we could we could put it back up on the screen if you like so you're asking about the cost per people right and how and how
142we got to I don't understand why we take some of the expenses out of that to come to the cost so I just want to clarify that when people ask me the cost to educate a child there are many components that can go into that I chose to use the numbers that we were required to put the uh numbers together for the transparency report so one once we put this on the website you'll be able to come and see exactly where I got my number and as we follow that it excludes certain items like Transportation there's a list of things that it excludes and I mentioned them before it's Transportation Charter School tuition other tuition and Debt Service and other right I I I understood that when you said that but from my standpoint if
143our budget $60 million just round numbers and we have 1,500 students that's not a simple math calculation I can answer the why so the the why the the state uses as transparency report and the word transparent is important transparency is in Apple's the Apple's comparison across districts if we don't use the transparency report we would compare ourselves to a school like croen similarly sized school but they don't transport any students within two miles of their school they all walk so their transportation costs are significantly less than ours Pleasantville similarly size school no Transportation so the reason why they call it a transparency report or you look at other schools in more urban settings where they have Charter Schools some schools lose millions of dollars in Charter School tuition and that would be an unfair assessment
144of those schools it wouldn't be an Apple's apples comparison P doesn't lose any money to Charter Schools so what the state does is they take out variables that differ between districts and then they only cover they compare districts based upon those core expenditures teachers benefits completely understand all that but at the end of the day as a put Valley resident what does it cost us to educate a child in in our community we do have transportation because we need it so it is an expense right so why wouldn't we add that in like why what because the point of the slide was to compare us to other districts and we can't do a comparison unless we're comparing the same I know and that's why I'm asking you how much does it cost us to educate
145a child in putner Valley I'm not asking us to compare to everybody else to find that number do I take 63 million and divided by the amount of kids I have here yes that would give you what so be that's that's all I'm asking because that the chart says we're we're it cost us 29,000 but it's not what it costs us it's in comparison to the other school districts right right but you have to I mean a chunk of that money is maintaining our buildings is that part of the cost of educating child no I'm asking I'm not I'm not arguing it's the state I'm not arguing what I'm explaining is the state definition of per pupil expenditure is what we showed and they back out so it's the state it's it's for the state
146but it's not a raw cost the raw cost is a 63 million multipli so you can make up whatever whatever raw cost you want it's like the cost of maintaining a building is that a per pupil expenditure or not if not we have to back that out Transportation Debt Service uh all of those other factors utility costs like is that calculated into the cost because if we're going to take our entire budget and divided by the number of students it's including all of those things right it's including our water our heating our cooling our electricity but they're all expenses and we're we're paying for that to educate a child so it's it's costing us $37,000 is per child right if that's how you want to do the math yes you could take the entire budget
147and divided by the number of students okay but that's what it what it comes down to I just wanted to make I just want there's another way to look at this if you want to if you do it that way our enrollment is very low it's $4.97 compared to Lakeland and we're spending almost the amount same amount of money so you I understand that if you think about that if you only had one student you have to hire one teacher but now you have one teacher and you're dividing it by that many I'm not arguing the numbers I'm just asking the numbers I'm just saying the purpose of this slide because many people do ask me for something like this is to make sure I am comparing Apples to Apples but if you wanted to
148I could do the same thing by taking their entire budget and dividing it by all the enrollment and then I can tell you what it is personally I don't care how much it cost to educate a kid in Lakeland howan Peak Skill Austin Pleasantville or anywhere else so just care about what's Happening Here honestly and with that being said I just want to have one more comment um nobody in putton Valley well most of us in putton Valley want everything for our kids we want a boiler for the elementary school we want a roof yada yada yada but I'm going to be completely honest with you Sam and Dr Loft don't talk about that nurses station it's it's offensive that nurses station has been outdated since 1970 yeah there's been there's been things that we
149threw money at and now all of a sudden it's an emergency it's it's it's it's it's it's wrong we never had a pandemic before and that's that's why we you said 1950 I could tell you that nursing station's been the same since 1972 when I entered kindergarten and you said 1950 we're now in 2024 this is your responsibility to take care of that nurses station it's disrespectful to our kids and to talk about it here today is even more disrespectful it's your responsibility to take care take care of that nurses station and it not be outdated for it's been outdated for 70 years not s years not 10 years not 15 you took down the you took down the the cement bleachers in the elementary school was that more important than the n station I
150can't speak for what other boards have done in the past but this is what happen this board is going to change that and going to fix this but Sam but what I'm trying to say is we walk through this you and I have been I've been walking through here for 50 years you've been walking I'm not going to how long long time there's a lot of things you take two plus two it's not equaling four and that's what it comes down to uh again I I we can't speak for former boards why they did or didn't but we can speak for this one and this one has made the nurses Suite a priority because of those very reasons I wasn't on the board when they decide years not 20 or 10 70 so but if
151it was left off that wouldn't be taking care of it right sorry if it was left off the plan no I'm just calling out on the fact that maybe it should have been taken care of way before now again the people sitting here now we're not necessarily here then we are here now and we want the very best for all of our children as do you I understand toix understand that but both of you making it look like we're not trying to fix both of you brought up the nurses station as if we're saying no to the nurses station all of a sudden that's a that's a priority 70 years it's been hasn't been renovated well it is a priority now and that's why we're proposing that it still be in the budget right but
152it it it it's a question it's a question of Integrity why all of a sudden it's it's five decades five decad it's not 10 years or 20 years or 30 years but we're here now maybe that's why it's a priority now because the people sitting on this board really do care about the benef the benefits that our children get in their schools their safety all of it that's why we're trying we're working so incredibly hard to ensure that everyone feels and that we're doing the right thing by our kids and our community guess what I I I've been to a lot of meetings in the last couple months and it's impressive to watch I understand that there's a lot of passion on this table and you guys I think are doing a doing your job
153but there's another side to everything else and we're trying to listen that's the whole are you trying to listen because as you talk as I heard you talk about the bond going down it's it's dismissive you know people people are concerned about how you're spending our money and with that comment I want to just say that every one of us on the board said tonight that the original proposal we felt was all need yet we have chosen to listen to our community and remove things from the project that we heard people say they did not feel we needs even though we did we are elected by our community We believe We Are the voice of our community for that reason and we are listening we are we are listening y so to come up and
154say that we are not I'm I'm not arguing I'm not arguing you you both of you brought up you both both brought up the nurses station I have a it it it's it's it's just something that I don't understand why it's taken so long for it to come up on on on and that's a reasonable that's a reasonable concern and you're right about that and and I don't know why it wasn't changed uh earlier but it's going to be changed now and I there was no disrespect ever put out to the public or anyone else in mentioning that as a need because it is a need it is a true need as is the roof and the boiler and so many other things that we've included on the bond and we we are here to
155represent the entire Community that's right those that voted yes those that voted no we need to listen to everybody for fairness and equity and for the betterment of our kids because that's the bottom line that's why I serve on this because I love what the schools do and it's a passion I have and uh we're always striving to make things better so you're right what happened in the past I don't know I I can't answer that but I can tell you right now we're going to take care of it I could tell you that I had a conversation with Dr Wills about that nurses station and I can't speak for Dr Wills I know I I I understand that but that that's that's that's that's the energy behind it yeah that's the energy behind it
156and you're concern is well found and that's what I'm trying to Saye with you nobody wants the roof to fall in nobody wants to have no heat in the elementary school but we're questioning priorities I don't understand how you could take the bleachers down in the in front of the elementary school before you took care of the nurses station I I agree I agree that's a good point what no that that the the the we're not going to do it back and for the cement stations were the I'm not I'm not going to argue the safety the safety issues but those that Stadium's been there for how long the the cement stadium so all of a sudden that became more important than the nurses station 1935 that was constructed yeah those stadiums I just want
157to clarify that no member of the board participated in determining the scope of the work that was done by the facilities committee so the reason why the nurses station came to light during this project was not because a board member thought it would needed to be done was because that concern was raised by community members that served on that committee for over two years um and while I certainly agree with you it's a priority some of our table groups listed the nurses office as one of the lowest three priorities so there's obviously differing opinions across the community and it's our job to filter through what those opinions are and ultimately make a decision that we think is in the best interest of students um I wouldn't have supported including the nursing station if I didn't
158think that it was vital and I appreciate the board accepting that recommendation but I just want to be clear the recommendation was made by community members on the facilities planning committee who determined that the nurses station was an area of need in this project okay other um public comment Mr rund how are you sir Dr left how are you good members of the board how you doing see some of you know me um of senior this year sorry you got to say it anyway Michael rundi proud parent of a senior this year obviously I'm concerned with graduation um I heard you mention earlier 14 weeks for this project um I build Sports buildings for living as some of you guys know 14 weeks to replace Turf sounds like an awfully long time haven't seen that
159really in my industry so I if I were you I'd be looking at their actual construction schedule but then again I know the total scope will work right I can answer the the biggest piece is the curing period because it's replacing the entire track so they're ripping up the entire track so it's got to be black top that has to cure and then when they put the track surface on that has to cure uh so that's the biggest I think that's eight weeks of the 14 weeks right there is just for curing of the track and the surface of it okay and you were looking for suggestions on possibly making this work um in my industry Saturdays you're talking 14 Saturdays you could push out the start of construction by over two and a half
160weeks if you would have the contractor consider Saturdays and that I believe will facilitate graduation would it not because when's the start date proposed so the scheduled start date for the work is the Tuesday after Memorial Day I believe it's May 27th so it's approximately what is that a little over 3 weeks before graduation is scheduled might be able to gain two and a half weeks with Saturdays and possibly maybe 10 hour days here and there I'm sure after talking to a contract I mean my industry we're given certain you know finish dates and start dates and we got to make it work whether we put in Saturdays a little overtime here and there but certainly Saturdays will give you almost two and a half weeks and maybe if you brought graduation Maybe started it
161a few days earlier or something you might be able to work it out with the contractor I think that right there might work yeah I'm happy to follow up with the contractor about possibility of working on Saturdays uh and see what they say there part of the issue and we discussed this with the last group of parents is uh there's no availability indoors for many of those weeks there's regions exams going on there's uh contracts that are sign signed for dance recital so if we look to move it up which was something we did consider we're looking to move it up to a date of like May 29th so that it would be significantly earlier in the year not to say that we couldn't do it at that time you could always split the difference
162do it sometime in the beginning of June and have the contractor work on Saturdays right the problem is the facility is not available if it were to rain we'd have nowhere to go during that in that Gap in between the 29th was the first day that was available and we have signed contract so we'd be in breach of contract if we were to cancel on someone uh at this point it just just generates Revenue but I'm following you we certainly looked at the possibility of moving it earlier into May the one of the biggest concerns there is now you run into the end of the sports season so we could technically have students participate in a sectional uh baseball game or softball game on the same day as graduation and then we're now forcing students
163to choose between being there with their team or graduating and that's uh at least the parents that were there in the first group were hesitant to put students in that situation we could be looking to neighboring schools to assist us with moving a sectional game a graduations Once in a Lifetime right it's it's the students playing in the game now okay understood listen I'm happy to ask about Saturdays and I'm happy to explore any of the solutions I don't love this any more than anyone else does I don't want students to feel like they're being the seniors to feel like they're being jipped um but if were to put say we're graduating on the 20th um and we're just going to delay the fall Sports season you better believe i' have a room full of
164parents of Juniors that are saying how dare you take this away from my kid there won't be a senior night they won't have a homecoming graduation been moved indoors 50% of the time anyway we've had as many indoor ceremonies as we've had outdoor ceremonies in putno Valley um and we're trying to weigh all of those things I I wish they said they can get it done in 10 weeks and it wouldn't touch anything I'd be all about about it uh but we're trying to balance the impacts of of One Versus the other and it's it's kind of an impossible situation so I'm all for any Creative Solutions and and what we could explore I'm happy to ask about Saturdays in the scope of work what are they starting first they start on the inside of
165the turf and work their way out um and then they so they come in they're going to remove all the rubber first and then start cutting out the turf correct they just wondering if we could take a section of the turf and leave it for graduation fence it off oh problem is that would be would it be there for 3 weeks I don't think that it's it's not yeah I understand it's not going to work if it was a matter of days I mean I would delay it like if we decided on the 29th to hold it on the turf on the 29th I would just simply tell them they got to start three days later that's not an issue you could g m Saturdays alone right but if I say you have to start
166three weeks later that's going to push this schedule into the fall yeah well that's why I'm just thinking if there's a way to split the difference cuz obviously having graduation on the turf I remember seeing both you guys there for my oldest son and my youngest son's not going to get that experience and you know he started high school with Co yeah then he had to drive to school and sit in traffic for two Broken Bridges for almost his entire career now he can't have I'll take a lot of heat I don't want that's not that's not this board's full obviously but you know Co sitting in traffic now he can't even have graduation on his own field it's kind what are we saying to the kids in a way you know I'm here in
167May 29th that's what I'm hearing I'm here I think every parent in this room in this community would agree with it I I think I like I said earlier I've seen both you guys at my oldest son's graduation it's great to have it on the field I got pictures of my phone of the sun going down and it's a really great moment I have pictures in my House of it the the truth of it is Michael though having a lot of experience in District 35 years we held as Dr Love said half of the uh graduation ceremonies indoor due to weather so even if we plan it on that day and everything works out as you're suggesting and it rains we're we're back in here again listen I can't I can't be mad at mother
168nature but I do know that there is some control there's got to be some sort of compromise some idea that can make it work moving it up doing Saturdays potentially allowing the contractor to do 10hour days I mean I do it all in my industry I have certain dates I have to meet we're building a sports building in Nell right now I know the dates I have to meet we're doing Saturdays we're doing 10hour days we're doing what's needed to be done to meet the opening date I don't think that asking the contractor to push it off maybe 3 weeks is too much maybe a week and a half or two weeks could work because you could easily pull the two weeks out of Saturday alone yeah that's a great suggestion thank you so much
169well thank you for considering mik have a good night thank you thanks I'm just here to stretch my legs good evening members of the Board of Education and the put Valley Community my name is Joe feraro and I represent the put Valley Free Library where I currently serve as a president of the Board of Trustees I'm here to publicly announce that the library section 259 ballot initiative will officially be included on the ballot for May for the May school budget vote this initiative seeks a 5% increase in the libraries tax levy totaling an increase of $223,000 to support and suain essential Library services for our community that's it is essential to highlight this Library ballot initiative is separate and distinct from the school district's budget and bond initiatives while the vter vote occurs in the
170same day the library functions as an independent entity and this funding directly supports the resources and programs you offer to P Val residents for taxpayers this proposed increase equates to an estimated rise of between $2 and $10 for each taxable property property the median household in putam Valley will experience an increase of less than $5 all though this cons constitutes an increase we view it as a modest investment that supports continued access to essential Library Services educational programs and technological resources we encourage everyone to stay informed ask questions and most importantly vote on May 20th between 6:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. the elementary school cafeteria help us continue serving the community thank you for your time to support with any questions you can reach me directly by email at joseph. feraro putut Val library.org Joe
171you uh when the 259 went up uh a few years ago again can can you go over the the cost increase from then to what you're proposing now so it is $23,000 total which represents 5% increase from the last budget the last vote we had which essentially is 2 years ago so it's a 2 and half% increase over the last two years okay thank you thank you all right one more thing I'm a big advocate of the exemptions we have our senior exemptions we have our military and Veterans exemptions um yes it's a redistribution and and a shift of the burden of the taxes but at a 10% um cap for volunteer firefighters and ambulance core if they're talking about 50 or 60 individuals average household being valued at $411,000 you take the math that's
172$4,000 off of each one of those properties it's it's a small shift I think it's well worth it uh as as as a give back to our community thank you thank you thank you CH anybody else one more thing sure um just just a follow up on something and I you know we have a senior uh representative here at the table which is really important um and and I don't want us to have the conversations in isolation and ignore what the seniors might want so I would again implore you to bring this back in a Google form vote format somehow with three two or three options so that the seniors have their voices as well as the parents yeah so I I I think it's great that we're talking about it but I want I
173don't want us to talk about it in isolation and and leave out the most important folks which are the ones that are actually graduating yeah thank you thank you want to add anything a sure we we kind of know where you stand but you could say it again you guys know how I mean all the seniors they want to graduate outside but there's a lot of logistics behind it that need to be worked out and I feel if we just asked all the seniors what do you want we could pretty much guess the answer we want to be outside and I feel a lot of them won't don't really understand the whole like the logistics of it like well then Sports season gets posted back well that's not my problem I'm not here so there's
174a lot of like understanding both size that there's some students that will but some students won't so it's it's good to have the conversations that like keep the keep us involved and I get a explanation to the whole situation not just yeah the tur getting replaced so your graduation inside an explanation would be so before the before actually asking students to vote make sure that students are fully informed as to what each of the dominoes that it's knocking over when you vote you know like you said The Dominoes like okay if we keep you happy realize the the fall Sports season is going to be impacted but if you have graduation inside like just so they could see both sides and make a decision for what's best for like the most people right yeah thank
175you very insightful for an 18-year-old okay um since you have such a firm grasp on it we're going to let you lead the conversation you go people already come to me asking about every sorts of things line them all up in the pack and we'll give you a mic we're all sympathetic to it that's for sure yeah okay uh upcoming meetings we have budget presentation the next meeting in March that's the soup dour for the next couple meetings so will repeat our budget presentation and um ultimately until we reach an adopted budget okay um maybe to kind of go with what Crystal was saying before um our budget not the facilities project but the budget are the instructional piece there's so much powerful good stuff going on so like to put program and face to
176some of the costs so people understand that's it's not just I mean the money the the slides were great the but people need to understand what what that their taxes pay for and and the kind of learning and growing that that these students are doing so I'd like maybe to somehow work some of that in um so people have a face to the money I like that idea speaking of which the elementary science fair Mak science maker fair was a lot of fun again yeah and I'm looking forward to seeing those students here hopefully you schedule that soon because that's that's one of great um we sat in on the Sy by literacy that that's always great if we could get a representative from there to show the cast presentations are coming up right something
177that so and all on one piece yes that's the plan that's the plan okay there was the science research post I was say was that was that in this one I was do I think so and it was just so fantastic very complicated I mean the I couldn't understand the project that these kids engaged and I mean I consider myself an academic scholar and for children in high school to be further than I am after three master's degrees is just unbelievable it's just unbelievable what they were able to talk about their process their thinking they going back to the drawing board their hypothesis I mean it was just unbelievable yeah they're like dissertations exactly really incredible work say it's definitely one of the most humbling experiences we have in education you're not kidding cuz you're
178done they're like what I'm a nurse in the Pro the calcium channel blocker one I was just like I still don't get it like I worked in a cardiac ICU and I'm like I right over my head we have students that get published in high school students that win Awards travel across the country all based upon that resch amazing I'm ashamed to say what I was worried about in high school what was I thinking when I was going through this presentation not this this is not what I was doing not sea turtles or whatever anyway okay um board member comments on any topic just want to say the jungle book that we saw today uh the boy that was phenomenal my God that was the best probably one of the best plays I have seen
179these third and fourth graders singing and dancing and and who was I think Barbara you had said or maybe Dr Love everyone had a smile big bright smile and it was so captivating I loved it I I I mean I love theater anyway and to see these young people and their aspirations for the future it's going to be phenomenal when they hit the high school what great place we going to see with that but I also want to say um and it's grown over the years we've added um better mics better Acoustics I mean we've we've made that make the [Music] program allow the children to be more successful in the in the programs yeah so um you know I I do want to recognize the efforts of two of our teachers that make that
180all possible I know there's many other districts in the region that Outsource that they hire a theater company to come in and work with the kids uh and I can assure you that their performances are don't touch what we're able to put on uh so I do want to recognize the efforts of Chrissy Phillips and P Derlin to be able to produce uh what we saw today and what I'm sure will be even better tomorrow and Ashley Bennett who's playing the the music as well so there are many many others that help as well Mr derland was a new hire I mean I saw both last year I've seen many it was up to par I mean we somebody yeah it was it was nice Mrs was there too so yeah Miss K was there
181too anyway okay uh anything else um I don't want to discuss it tonight because it's late but on our next meeting foil requests we have to discuss foil requests what it's what the impact is to the district and how we can oh yeah we need to just have a discuss about that point Janette yeah I I agree I I think that's a good idea well one of the things that I think we need to consider just I know you didn't want to talk about it but now you brought it up so it's for each of those foil requests takes multiple step St members away from the job they're supposed to be doing um the job they get paid to do and the more that happens and the more requests there are and the more time
182that takes away we have individuals who are unable to functionally do their job because they're spending their entire day chasing foil requests and one of the things that I would consider asking the board is that our staff fulfill foiler requests after school hours so essentially overtime which allows them to do their regular job that they get paid to do every day and if they're asked to do extra work doing foil requests that that work be allowed to be accomplished after regular work hours because we have individuals that simply can't do their job because they're spending their entire day fulfilling foiling requests maybe in a lot of time perhaps per day like um if they like maybe not to exceed 45 minutes per day or you know 30 the problem is is that we have no
183control over the volume we have no control over the time we have no control over the deadline so if 45 minutes a day doesn't get us the information before that deadline then we're essentially St like 45 minutes a day and if they can't accomplish it that then we would consider overtime see the but that's 45 minutes of their working day already right and every one of those minutes in some way shape or form comes away from kids it comes away from kids when they come in one here and one there there's no issue in finding a way to get it done but when they come in in volumes we've probably gotten 20 and tough thing with those foil requests is that the investigation to find the documents that back it up that is timely because
184you going into financials you go into Transportation you go into you know budgetary concerns you go going archives yeah that's the biggest thing yeah like that's hours of work just to find a single document if it's a paper document that's archived somewhere in storage so and we're not and we're not opposed to being transparent and giving people the information they absolutely what Dr points out is that it's requiring a tremendous amount of time we don't have a dedicated person to and you wouldn't want to hire somebody just to answer foil requests um but we need to find a way of tracking so that we can explain to the community what we're what we're spending our time doing and how much it's costing us there's definitely a taxpayer cost to each foil request there I just
185want to clarify foil request is Freedom of Information law allows members of the public to request records from New York state from um government so which is that so um we get these requests in and they take a lot of time and effort to obtain the information and you have to do it in a certain span of time that you're only given a certain amount of time to fill that for request so so just so people understand what this can entail so we've had requests that have filled up two copy paper boxes full of paper thousands and thousands of sheets of paper and every one of those pieces of paper has to be reviewed by hand to make sure that there's not personal information on there there's not information that needs to be redacted there's
186not so imagine spending hours sometimes the superintendent of schools people don't want to pay me to do my job they certainly don't want to pay me to thumb through thousands of pages of paper um just to make sure that there's know information that should not be shared uh the information that's protected and should be rejected and that's ultimately what that entails sometimes morina and I spend hours in a conference room going through individual pieces of paper maybe we can just be nice and request less huh maybe we can just ask the community to request them less frequently I have a feeling after this have a feeling after this conversation it's more likely to go the other way to ask Community to request them less frequently I said I have a feeling after this conversation it's
187I mean it's just going to cost more money it's just going to be more complaint I just I think we need to put a dollar we just need to put a dollar to it so make sure the community knows what we're paying using taxpayer dollars for I think some data would be really good right like the number of hours that it takes um foil request a b c number of hours and by which employee so that it can be contextualized I think that's important because every hour away from the actual responsibility is an hour away from children in some capacity whether you directly touch children or not oh it that it's it's there's an effect there when I was uh you Town supervisor it was a quarter a page quar page you you wanted uh
188you know building documents whatever it was quarter a page uh judicial documents that's that's what it was in the town whether it be electronic or paper it could be page whether electronic paper because of research that's what state in the law most of the time they request them via email and that cost them nothing electon charge dat more data on data on foil request I it just seems difficult like it's it's getting to the point now with all of the requests we have like I don't even know how we quantify the amount of time that goes into these I'm dead serious but we're going to have to because in order substantially financially that's that's you need data to be able to say evidence you need to be able to say we need this funding right
189to be able to manage these requests well every time you pull somebody away to make a copy or to research a copy you're you're costing the taxpayers money to fulfill that specific individualized tax yeah so again the the way we did it at town was just 25 cents a copy electronic or otherwise and that was it you know we would do it no problem but they they would have to pay help our Revenue problem yeah yeah well when you have two boxes of you know th record thousands of pages I mean my God okay all right well huh okay uh motion to adjourn so moved second all in favor I good night thank you all for staying have a good night thank you