BOE Meeting 4/28/26 Part 2

001spreads like we don't have AI Mike to do this. Okay, thanks everyone. We're back in session. We're actually going to add to the agenda item 3.3 a resolution that I'm going to read now into the public record. Whereas the Board of Education is in receipt of the decision and award issued by arbitrator Lewis J. Patack dated March 27, 2026 and whereas the Board of Education disagrees with said award and believes a basis exists to proceed with a challenge under Article 75 of the Civil Practice Law and Rules and intends to bring a petition pursuant to Article 75 seeking to vacate such award. Now, therefore, it is hereby resolved that one, the Board of Education approves an Article 75 petition to vacate the March 27, 2026 decision and award of arbitrator Lewis J. Patack. Two, the

002Superintendent of Schools and the law firm of Ferrara Fiorenza PC are hereby authorized to take such steps as necessary to affect the Article 75 petition and three this resolution shall take effect immediately. Can I get a motion on this resolution? So moved. Second. Thanks Ken and Justin second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Opposed? Thank you. Motion is carried 6-1. Hey, moving into business operations, we have a consent agenda 410. Can I get a motion? So moved. Thanks. Thanks. Dan and Lori. I. Any discussion before I read through the warrants? We have a general fund warrants since my computer catches up here. Super slow right now loading. Do you have a printed copy I can show you of that? Okay. Yeah. General fund warrant for March 30th in the amount of $63,668.74. General fund

003warrant from April 15th in the amount of $591,113.17. A federal special aid fund warrant from April 15th in the amount of $2,576. A capital fund warrant from March 30th in the amount of $71,428.56. A capital fund warrant from April 15th in the amount of $5,952.44. The school lunch fund warrant in the amount for March 30th in the amount of $766.20. A school lunch fund warrant for 15th in the amount of $9,761.25 and treasurer reports as listed CSEC CPSE recommendations as listed. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. I. Opposed? Motion is carried. Now we're into the fun part and reports turn it over to Superintendent Abby. And to get us started, excuse me, this evening we have Dr. Rick Timbs back to present on the five-year plan that he's been working on with Timbs, if

004you'd like to have a seat, you're welcome to join us up here. Well, first of all, thanks for having me and do appreciate it. But I'm really working hard on this long-range plan. So, what I'm going to do is kind of go through piece by piece here. Uh not for you know, so we're not redundant. I think when I came back I showed you what we would study. So, I'm not going to spend a whole bunch of time going over it again. We went over these 21 pieces right here. So, it's a lot it's pretty extensive. We look back five years, we look forward five years. Uh we analyze the salaries, pensions, reserves, everything. I'm going to go through each piece with you piece by piece so you really understand what's going on. The only

005thing I ask is out of courtesy try and stay on the same page I'm on because I if you get ahead of me then you're going to miss what I actually intend you to to to learn for a copy. So, what I really want to do is go over a couple things but before I do I want to publicly thank Cynthia and Zach for putting up with me for all this time because I'll tell you I had them running uh for a lot of answers and questions. Where did this money come from? Where'd that? What's this? Name that. Explain this. Where'd that come from? Add this up. Tommy this. Give me that. Give me more of this. Uh but they were soldiers and they did really well. So, publicly, thank you to both of you.

006Did great. Uh, it's not many who survive the Rick Timbs method of in analysis. Uh, so, here we go. So, what we've got here is really a state aid as we see it as of today. You're probably aware that the state has now been on its eighth extender for the school budgets, you know, for our budget, for our foundation aid, for our everything. We're hopeful that maybe this could be the trick. Maybe 9 10 11 is coming, we don't know. But, let's kind of go through your state aid. The key thing to remember is foundation aid in the first year there that first year where it says full aid 23 24. That's the first time your school district was actually paid full foundation aid ever. In other words, the amount you were supposed to get.

007But, I've got to tell you that's not actually the true story. You were paid the amount, but let me give you a quick little silly story to explain why you got the full amount. Say for instance, I borrowed $100 from one of you, and I told you I'd pay you back at $10 a day for the next 10 days. Nine didn't pay you practically anything for 9 days. Matter of fact, during parts of those days, I actually borrowed money from you. They called that the cap elimination adjustment where they were taking back the aid. Then, in the 10th day, I show up with $10 and say, "Here you go. I promised $10 a day. Today's the last day. Here's your $10." And that's what they did. In other words, they deprived you of aid for

00817 years, then paid you once. So, you've gone without all that time. Now, the interesting thing about 23 24 is it was probably more aid than foundation aid than the district got ever before. So, it lulled a lot of districts into a false sense of security. Like, "Wow, this is going to be great." Keep in mind, that's the largest number on the page except for the total. So, Waterville, like many of the school districts in this entire region and across the state, are highly dependent on foundation aid as a revenue source. It's really important. But, look what happened in the next year. You got 1/10 of a percent increase. You see it? So, a tenth of a percent is down at the bottom, but you can see the dollar value. Well, you got a whopping

009$14,303. I mean, what were you going to do with all the money? Okay, so the key thing here is is that right off the bat, warning signs were probably going off in many school districts and many business offices saying, "This can't be true. They promised us more." And it just wasn't showing up. Then it's interesting the next year, which is the 25-26 year, if you look at it, you'll see it went up a whopping 2%. But that only happened politically. Let me tell you what happened there. In that year, if you remember, there was a Rockefeller Commission member, the Rockefeller Institute Commission, and the Rockefeller Institute Commission was charged by the governor of the state to actually take money away from districts like Waterville. If you look down at the bottom of the graph, underneath

010the chart, you'll see it says foundation aid payable 9.497 million. See it at the bottom? Then you'll see next to it a negative 1,074,000. You see that? You are safe harmless by 1,074,000. Which means basically, if the formula were to run today without any intervention from the legislature, you would receive 1,074,000 that's in that category right there for 25-26. The governor wanted the Rockefeller Institute to take away 50% of that money within a five-year period, and they were charged with that that challenge. And they came up with a plan to take away 50% of it over five years. When that came out, came out around noon or something, everybody went crazy. Like people like me, and we started calling legislators and screaming bloody murder. Because what that would do is ruin a lot of districts.

011I don't know if you're aware of this, but 67% of the school districts in the state of New York are safe harmless. So it would be a big disaster across the entire state. Within 1 hour, she changed her mind to 2%. Where that number came from, I have no idea. I guess somebody made it up, but it was 2%. So, it sounded realistic to their to her the legislature embraced it and there's your 2%. Otherwise, you would have gotten nothing again and perhaps lost money. So, again a red flag should be going up here saying, "Wait a minute, we got some problems coming up our way." The next year, as you can see for 26-27, which is the next school year, you're slated in the governor's proposal, which is the highest proposal right now, at

0121% increase with a whopping $104,000. You could barely hire a first-year teacher with or with a couple years experience, pay for their pension, social security, health insurance, and and uh and everything else, workers comp with that money. So, it's not like it's a big boost to the school district. So, it's not a lot of help. Now, right now, they're working on the budget and word has it in the one house budgets by both the Senate and the Assembly, they're suggesting to the governor that they give you 2% instead of one. And so, that would be another hundred thousand, but it's far from what you really need. In other words, who needs a 2% increase in your largest revenue stream when things are going up at three and four and five percent? In other words, it's

013simply not enough. That's the important part. But, the thing is last year the legislature suggested 3% instead of two when she didn't budge. So, it'll be interesting to see over the next couple weeks what comes true. If you get do get the 2%, it it'll certainly be a helpful, but it really won't be a panacea to the district's issues. The next few years you see the yellow on the bottom, all the zero percent. And that's because in law, there's no provision for you to ever get any more money. Matter of fact, in law, the only provision there is is to take $1 million away from you. So, in other words, the enactment of legislature and the governor every year will be required to to keep the amount you're currently going to get, whatever that is.

014So, that's a real jeopardy to your revenues. Now, so that's where that's going. Now, if we take a look at the next one the So, I don't know if it's going to be zero or not, but the worst thing a school district can do is overestimate its revenues. So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to go through these just to point out what's going on here. The transportation building building incentive, post aid, public excess high cost, and the private excess high cost are are called expense driven aids. In other words, the more money you spend, the more money they aid you. But, it's an interesting phenomenon. It sounds like it's a great deal, but they only partially reimburse you. So, what happens is the more money that you spend, the more they aid

015you, but the more dollar value is your share, if you get my drift. So, it's kind of a panacea here that to the the state's saying, "Well, we're helping you out." But, transportation, you'll see I'm moving it along and you it does vacillate, but it depends upon a whole bunch of things. Depends upon your routing. Depends upon how many kids ride the bus. Depends upon what kind of buses you buy, the size of the buses, the price of the buses. Remember that the aid for a single bus takes 5 years to arrive in your district. In other words, it's paid 1/5 each year, starting the year after you buy the bus. So, you're fronting the money for the whole bus. You understand what I'm getting at? Now, the problem's going to be is we've got

016a little problem coming up in '27, '27, '28, which is a year from the year from now. So, it's a year, 2 year and a half away. And that is the zero must emission bus mandate, where you're going to be required to if you buy any bus, you have to buy a zero emission bus. Right now, they're pretty expensive. So, as a ex-high school economics teacher, let me ask you the trick question. How much is a zero emission bus? Answer is anything they want it to be. Because you have to buy it. Law of supply and demand. Can't produce enough of them, so I don't think everybody's going to get them all. They can't get the power at all the school districts, especially the ones, so I don't think everybody's going to be able to

017plug them in even if they bought them. And you'd have to retrofit your entire transportation facility with the power, at least internally, to hold the power that they can't bring to you. So, everybody see where I'm going with this? And they are expensive. Right now, they're coming in around 400 to 434,000 dollars each compared to a diesel at about 174. And they were going to pay you eight on those, not in 5 years, but in 8 years. So, it's going to take you longer to get your money. Now, this probably looked like a good idea at the time, you know, energy savings and efficiency and clean air and no diesel fuels. I've got a hybrid car sitting out in your parking lot that's mine. So, I'm not opposed to this kind of concept, but it's

018just not very affordable for many districts is the key thing. So, one of the things I would suggest to you right off the bat is you all belong to the school boards institute, your your board, that you make sure that they're lobbying to get this law pushed back at least 10 years until the power's available, the buses are available, the buses are more economical, and somebody has the money to actually do this. Okay, so you're kind of disarmed here. So, what you're going to have to do is apply for waivers. Now, there is money available. They say nice sort of has money, the state has money. The feds have taken out all their money, by the way. With the new beautiful bill, the new beautiful bill's taking out all the incentives for all this. So,

019that's all gone for you. So, now it would definitely cost you more. But interestingly enough is um the legislature seems to want to like help everybody by giving more money. I'm calculating probably cost about 20 billion dollars to replace the 50,000 buses. The legislature's contemplating helping everybody out by donating another 100 million dollars. That ratio would be 200 to 1. Contribution to cost. Everybody see where I'm going? So, think of it this way. You're in trouble with the mob cuz you bet on sports and you owe them a lot of money and you call me up and say, "Rick, I need your help." I say, "What's the problem?" He says, "I got to have $200 by Friday or they're going to kill me." I said, "Let me help you. Here's a dollar." That's the ratio.

020Do you understand how how drastic this is? So, I think thing is is that we've really got to move that thing back. Building aid Your building aid is going in abs and flows and you can see it's been dropping off from time to time and increasing from time to time, but you actually have two parts to your building aid. One is called the building reorganization incentive aid. This is incentive been merged in 1983. It's still there, but it's going to go away. And you can see if you look at that one, it's good little it gets smaller every year until ultimately you will lose that benefit. See how it goes away? You can see it right on the on the on the chart there. But, the building aid goes up and down because old debt

021seems to ebb and flow, go up and down, but it also seems to fall off and therefore so does the aid because the aid follows your debt service schedule. It's not always as easy as it looks to match them up, but you can see by the time we get to 27-28, we've got we're going from about 1.7 million to 3 million, 1.29 million dollar increase. That's current capital project aid showing up. Remember that aid cannot show up in a capital project until 18 months after the commissioner's approval date of the project, which means pre-bid date. Now, here's the interesting thing. You could finish the project If you could finish the project in two two days, that'd be great, but you still have to wait a year and a half to get the aid started. And

022the aid comes in over 15 years. Okay, so keep that in mind. So again, you're fronting money, you're borrowing money, and these reimbursements come in over time. The next one down here is BOCES aid. Now, BOCES aid, a lot of this is for career and technical education. I was out there looking at your trophy cases and you've had some kids in there winning some awards and everything. It was kind of cool. And of course, I used to be a BOCES superintendent there for a while. So, the interesting thing is BOCES This a good gift that keeps on giving for kids who like to have different programs. But it's also you send a lot of special ed kids to BOCES as well. But I must let you know that your the aid for special ed children

023does not come in in BOCES aid. Everybody thinks it does. It does not. It actually comes in either in foundation aid or it comes in in that public excess cost or private excess cost aid. That's where special ed for special needs kids aid comes in. But in the BOCES aid you can also buy technology there. Remember in 2021 2022 we sent everybody home with their own Chromebook. Out of the blue, right? One day we didn't, one day we did. I mean it was literally like a switch. And we sent all the staff home. Well, now it's time to replace this. So you're going to have technological things you're going to have to buy through BOCES and of course there's aid on that as well. The key thing I'd caution a board on is when things

024get tight with budgets, boards tend to think, "Well, you know what we'll do? Let's keep the programs we got now, but let's trim some of the BOCES stuff." If you trim the BOCES aid, keep in mind you'll have a savings in one year, but the aid will then decrease the year after that. You'll have a fall off in revenue. So that they don't match up. A lot of districts are going, "Geez, how come our BOCES aid went down so much?" Well, we cut all those things last year. So that's what happens. So to me what happens is you try not to cut anything that has state support that somebody else is helping you pay for. Does that make sense? Okay. Next one is public and private excess cost aid. Now, those flow up and down

025for particular reasons. And that is because of kids in specific programs that are high cost programs. Some of these programs may cost 75,000 a kid. Some of the programs cost 100. Some may cost 150. I've had programs with kids that cost 250. There's schools for the blind, schools for the deaf. There's all kinds of things in public and private. So but remember you only get a partial reimbursement for that. So let's just make it up. So under your public excess cost aid in the 25 26 year you're getting about $94,000. You're easily spending way over 100 to get to 94. Make sense? Please keep in mind also that when you're deciding a program for special needs child based on state and federal statute, you cannot consider the cost of the program in your analysis. Okay?

026And with good reason. You're supposed to provide the kid with the best education possible. So, those two go up and down. Now, here's another piece of information that should be useful to you. The state law now requires that you educate all children with special needs to age 22. But, the the aid only goes to age 21. Yeah. They really think caps on in Albany right there. Now, a couple of us have been lobbying like crazy to get Albany to change that, and I think some of the members of the legislature are catching on. I don't know if it'll be this year, but we hope it's soon because these programs could be very, very expensive. Okay? Next one is the software, library, textbook, and hardware, the next ones. And you'll see it kind of pops up

027and down, and it kind of flattens out. Now, the the situation here is this. You have to constantly be able to fill the need. In other words, you have to buy enough software to get the aid. Some years you need a lot of software, and some years you don't. So, what happens is you'll see it go up and down, and I just flattened it out at a high point because I believe that the district will try and maintain that aid at that level. That's going to happen. That is paid per student. The only dicey thing going into the future could be is that your enrollment continues to decline, and therefore the aid would decline regardless of how hard you try to keep the money up. So, that could be a problem going forward, but I

028leveled that off. The next one is universal pre-K. Now, the universal pre-K is in orange, and the reason's in orange is because it's not part of your general fund budget. It's part of your special aid fund. So, in other words, this money does not go into your general fund to operate the school district every day. It's in a separate fund for purposes like this. And if you'll notice, it's it's actually increased over the years. It's popped up and down and increased around a little bit, but the state really wants to incentivize this. Now, here's what we mean by incentivize. There are rules. The rules are that every section that you have of UPK must have a teacher and an aide, must be and it must be full day. Because you're a rural school, you'll probably

029have to transport the children to school in most cases. Now, there's a good part and bad part to all of this. Say, for instance, you add 42 youngsters that were were coming to school, you could actually have two sections very comfortably, maybe 21 per section. Not exactly what you had in mind, you probably wanted under 20, but 21 could do it. What happens if you have 48? If you have to start another section, there might not be enough aid to cover the extra section. You see what I'm getting at? So, it's going to be very difficult. If the governor gets her way this year, and I believe it's probably true, and I think UPK is the greatest thing educationally since sliced bread, to be honest with you, from my point of view as an educator,

030because I'm hopeful that with UPK, we can get more readers and better math students by second and third grade, so we're not remeeting as much in middle school, if you get my drift. Reallocate resources where they're needed in the primary. But the point would be is is that there's a it gets dicey on how many sections you have. The mandate would start in '28, '28, '29 school year. So, that would mean any four-year-old that presented to the school district, the school would either have to provide their own program or would have to contract with somebody to provide the program. Obviously, it it works better when the school can run its own program because you have curricular continuity. Although, some have been successful with outside groups. So, there's whatever works for you, but please be prepared

031for it. The other thing, too, is somebody says, "Well, look, we got room in a bus to pick up a couple kindergarteners. For heaven's sakes, for all the routes we do." Well, that's not really it. If you really study what happens in a school, it's not the room on the bus that makes the difference. It's how long the stop is and how many stops you make if you get my drift. So, I might have six empty seats on a school bus and I could pick up six kindergarteners, but if that's six more stops of a driver waiting for a kindergartener to go from their house to your bus or from your bus to their house, I don't know if you've ever followed a bus that picks up kindergarteners, but I mean, just make sure you

032leave early for wherever you're going, okay? Cuz they're the cutest little things and they skip and they hop and they drop their papers and it's really cool. And then in the winter, they plow through the snow at a unbelievable snail's pace. But the key thing is is it'll be like driver time. You know what I'm getting at? So, there's other factors to consider here. So, a little micro for you. So, that's what that's looking at. Now, the governor likes to add up all the aid categories, so she calls it total aid. I'm looking at your budget, so I just want the part without the UPK cuz UPK is not running your budget. So, you'll see what I've done here is I've tried to hit the button. There it is. And I've actually calculated the top.

033And you'll see you'll see that you got a pretty robust increases here to there, but as you start getting out into 28, 29, 29, 30 and 30, 31, the increases start falling off like a rock. Does everybody see that? The thing that boosted your increase before that year was your building aid. Right? So, you still got a got a pretty good building Now, the only thing I put on the bottom of this thing was to remind you that if you do get 2% foundation aid next week or the week after, don't consider that to be like a celebratory thing, all right? In other words, it'll be a better than nothing, but it's not a big deal. It's really not going to be enough. Okay? Just please keep that in mind. Now, I wanted to go

034over a couple demographics with you. So, right off the bat on the top left hand corner, you'll see it says TAPU 25 26. What is TAPU? We used to call them children. So, what happens is a TAPU is a measurement of children, the way they measure kids for state aid. The state aid formula is about 40 pages long, so there's about 20, 30 ways to measure a child, believe it or not. Are they special ed? Are they English language learners? Are they Did they get SNAP benefits? Did they get free and reduced lunch? Is there a basic community poverty? Did they get the heating program? So there's all ways to measure children. TAPU is a way to measure children this way. General ed kids are counted as a child. Special needs children are counted as

0351.41 children. So in other words, there's a bump. In other words, they're worth more because they because your burden is greater to educate these children. The cost is obviously higher. Right? So a lot of times what I have to explain to districts is is that things happen to you. For instance, like if you'll notice, your TAPU changed up 14. See the See the up 14? See it went up 14? So that means your burden got bigger from last year to this year in terms of educating children in terms of expense. But if you look at the statistic under it, they actually calculate foundation aid from 2007-8, not just recently. In the In those years, you've lost 188 of the kids. So if you said to Albany, "Hey look, we got a TAPU 14 increase here.

036We got an increased burden." They say, "Yeah, and what are you going to talk about the 188 you lost?" See the difference? So the burden becomes very different. Now when you compare yourself to other schools, this is a way to do it appropriately rather than enrollment. Okay? Because enrollment just tells you how many kids there are. It doesn't tell you your relative burden. So let's do a quick example. Let's just say all of you have a school district last year of 1,000 kids. So do I. This year you all have 900 exactly. So do I. So we're all in the same boat looking at enrollment. But when we look at TAPU, it's different because you lost 100 general ed kids, and that's how you got to 900. I lost 150 general ed kids, but gained

03750 special needs kids. That's how I got to 900. So, my educational burden and costs are greater. So, the good thing is they're using a measurement like that, but you are far behind if you get my drift over time. So, it'll take a while to catch up. Now, your CWR, if we keep going down the pages of is below 0.5, which means your combined wealth ratio property and income is below the state average. In other words, it's called the combined wealth ratios because it's combining the the two numbers right next to it, property values and income values, both of which you are below the state average. You would think that that should send you more state aid. If it wasn't for the decrease in TAP of the 188, it would send you more aid. The

038way the governor did it, to quote the governor from last year, "I am tired of paying for empty seats." So, my point is, yeah, you're not a wealthy district, I understand it, but you got a less burden now over the years. Come on. So, that's how the state state is looking at the foundation aid formula. Now, if you go down to SSR, state sharing ratio, your ratio, in other words, your share of the pie, isn't moving very much. Notice the 2%, the 1%, the 0.1. You see what I mean? It's moving in a snail's pace. Now, here's the part that I think is going to be really kind of interesting to you, and I'm not so sure it will be pleasant to learn. But, here it goes anyway. Expected local contribution. In the foundation aid

039formula, there's a whole section. And what they do is they get information from the office of real property tax services. And you know who that is. That's where you send in all your sales values, the property values, the full values, you know, the businesses, all the information, economic information about your your district goes into the state. The state hands it over to state education department. There is a portion of the formula that answers this question. Based on the taxable property within a school district, what should be their responsibility to educate these children? You understand in others, we don't mind helping them out by giving a share, but what's the district's share? Remember I said what I said? Per child per taboo. And if you notice, in 25-26, your share was 4177. And this year it's

040calculated at 4471. It went up $249 per kid, 7% increase. So they're saying, you we don't care what you tax, you can tax for it or not, but the way we look at it is why would we send you more money when your share should be increasing? You see how this is like pushing back against you getting more aid. Underneath it it says the small area and income poverty estimate. So what this does this measures community poverty. And your number is .14, which is a low number. In other words, you do not have an enormous amount of poverty in this area. If you go north to will say a city or something, you would find that number very, very high and by contrast. Underneath it is the economically disadvantaged of .52. Actually, that's pretty good

041that in a sense that it's measurable in terms of maybe needing more aid, that's generally families that get the SNAP program, food stamps, or the HEAP program, such as the heating program. Now, the the key thing here is um So .52 shows that you would probably have some need, but when they average the two out, you'll see it says need resource capacity. One through four would be a high need, you fall in category five, average need. So in other words, the way the state looks at it is, yeah, you got a you got a group of some needy kids here, we understand that, but you lost all those kids. See what they keep doing to you? That's what they keep doing. And you should be paying more. Look at your local contribution. So the way

042they look at it is there's more Dollar Generals, more mini marts, couple gas stations, some three-bedroom ranches on country roads being built over time in the last five years in Waterville, and you should be taxing for them and if you don't want to, that's fine, but that's your problem. Here's the only thing I just said, that's how the state is looking at your finances. The next thing down is the tax base growth factor is 1.048. That is barely below a significant number. The significant number I would use is 1.005. So you are 2 10,000 of a point under it, okay? So here's the here's what that means. Controllers, if you go to the controllers website, you'll notice that this tax base growth factor here, they point out this has nothing to do with assessed values

043or equalization rates. It's how much the place is literally worth property wise. Now let me give you a quick story on how this works. So Thursday nights, Rick Tim's to house, four guys come over to play poker cuz Rick Tim's is a terrible poker player and they can make money. So they come over to play games with me. So everybody throws a buck in the kitty. So there's four guys and me, so there's $5 in the kitty. That $5 is our base, the winnings, what can be collected because there are five players. Just before we start dealing the cards, Mr. Six shows up cuz he wouldn't want to miss this night. Do we take money out of the kitty so it stays the same with the six player? No. We have the six player throw

044his dollar in the kitty so that the base, the amount that can be collected has increased. Do you understand what I'm getting at? Because there are more players. It's the same thing with your tax base. There's more to tax in Waterville. That data is over the last two years. So what the state matter of fact, that is a multiplier in your tax cap calculation and the state is therefore saying, "Look, we understand you have more taxable property than you had before. Somebody built something, something's there it wasn't before that now can be taxed. Get their share of the money." Do you understand what's happening here? So what tap there's another reason the state's not pushing money your way. The next one is square miles in the district, 75.547. You know your topography, you know your

045weather, hills up and down, right? You got curves, you got all kinds of things. We have unbelievable winters down here. You've got wide stretches of farmland where the wind is blowing at a million miles an hour. I've been out in Waterville for years, right? So, the thing is is I know your topography. 75 square miles. Exactly how well will zero-emission buses, if you were to do your whole fleet, work in this condition? Now, you should have a study. Maybe the study will say, "Yeah, it'll work in all of them, but only for some number of times rotating routes." Could you do this? Could you then deliver all the kids to, we'll say, the school in the village and the school here at the same time and also have an emergency drill and then take them

046all back home instantly? Through 75 square miles, which would make that delivery for that morning 150 square miles instantly. Do you understand what I just said? So, the big question is how practical is the zero-emission for you? It also mean you may have a study that says, "You know what? You have 20 routes." I'm making that up. And it's good for 15. That would actually be a lie. You could use zero-emission buses on every route you have. Matter of fact, you could use it on the 15 they tell you, and then the five it won't work, you'll have to double those routes. In other words, cut them in half and buy more buses. Do you understand what's happening here? So, my my point would be is this is kind of a dicey proposition. We're really

047not ready for this what looked like a good idea at the time, I'm sure. Okay? Now, the next thing is your built your other aid ratios. You've got a building aid ratio at 89.2. That is an excellent aid ratio, by the way. But that means it might change over time because as that expected local contribution and the tax base growth factor move, it could that could move that up because it's they're part of the formula for that. That may start to move down a little bit by decimal points. It's not going to drop like 10% or something like that. But it start might vacillate by decimal points. Your transportation aid ratio is 90, the highest you can get in the state of New York, which means you're running a lean machine. Excellent work. Right? Excellent

048work. And usually it comes in at less than 90 cuz you have a little handle it over here at the village, right? And usually that drags it down a little bit because of the the calculations that are incurred in the in the formula. Your high cost ratio, your ratio for BOCES facilities and operating is very respectable. But keep in mind all those ratios that are up there, those five ratios, may change based on property values over time because that's a part of the formula, as well as enrollment, usage, cost, and so on. Now, your pupils needs index is another thing. This deals with English language learners as well as economically disadvantaged. The lowest that number can go is one, the highest it can go is two. So, you're like three-quarters of the way there. To

049me, that should drive more aid to you, but the state would say, "We're glad to give you the aid if you could find what happened to the 188 kids." You see what's happening to you every time. All right, so that's the difference. Now, if we go over to the foundation aid part on the far right to summarize it, 10.467 million in foundation aid this year, uh 10,572 is projected by the governor for next year, a $104,000 increase, a whopping 1%. But the formula says you should only get 9.497 million, and then the governor feels you should be grateful getting the extra 1,074,000. You're getting 11,375 per kid. If you could only find 94 kids by June 30th of this year and enroll them as full-time students, you can make the red number turn to zero.

050In other words, you would not get another penny, but at least it would be zero. You would need 95 kids to get an extra $11,000. So, you'd have to absorb 95 kids. See how difficult this would be? Okay. So, So basically your demographics. Let's talk about your reserves. You've got a nice reserve portfolio here. You've got a workers compensation reserve about $68,000, which to me I think is nice. I like to see a little rainy day fund in that workers compensation. The controller never likes people to have any money in there because unless you self-funded he doesn't like it, but as a financial advisor, I'm not your financial advisor, but for this purpose I'd say I like that. It's a nice little safety valve in case things go wrong. It shows some smart thinking I

051think on the part of the board. You've got about $66,000 in unemployment. I think that seems like a very reasonable number as far as everything I've ever seen and I can't believe the controller would have any problem with that number at all. I see you've got an ERS and TRS reserve. These are very important. Right now I think we're going to be struggling over the next few years with ERS and TRS and let me tell you why. First of all, they're guaranteed by law to all employees that work in a school district. You can't negotiate them away, you can't bargain them, you can't alter them. So what happens is is they're they're kind of like on automatic pilot from the state. So what happens here is there's two sources to fund a pension system in

052New York. The first source is called the stock market. In other words, the fund invest its money into the stock market to earn earnings, right? So what they do is they take that earnings and they use that to help fund their programs. Then that they do is they look at actuarial tables. Now when I first started teaching, you know, the earth was cooling, dinosaurs were around. I mean it was a long time ago. So what happened was uh I've got people my friends who have retired around then and are still living on their $8,000 a year pension. Okay, what they do with all the money? The point is it was a what they call 30 and 55. You work 30 years, 55 years old, you were out. And at that time the most you ever

053made was like $30,000 a year. Okay? But since that time, which is a long time, we've had all these different types of tiers and different types of pension systems and they all provide different types of benefits. And what is found they find out now is that people are teaching longer they're or they're custodians longer or cleaners longer or bus drivers longer. You see what I mean? They're retiring at older ages and they're retiring at more money and they're living longer because they're generally healthier. So it's putting a strain on some of the pension systems. Now the ERS system this year went up about 6%. You know that has nothing to do with inflation but all those people also got a raise due to contracted obligations and the rate increases multiplied times their salary. So when

054your salary goes up and the rate goes up you can see the bouncing going on the compounding nature of it. TRS by contrast went down in rate by about a percent and a half but they those people got a raise so in some school districts depending upon who's in what tier it ended up being flat small decrease in some cases an increase. But what's happening right now is this is what's holding up the budget is what they call tier six legislation. There's a tier six whereby the the retirement benefits are not as robust as the earlier tiers 1 2 3 4 5. And so what what many people some people are claiming is that as a recruitment tool it's making it hard for us to hire people because they're saying why should I go get

055a job I'll be in a room right next to a person who's in a tier where their retirement benefit is bigger than mine. So put strain on the we'll say salary portion of the budget so it's So what they're doing is they're thinking of changing the tier system and the amount of benefits they get and that's brings us to the second source of funds for the pension. The first is the stock market the second is you. Whatever isn't paid for by the stock market based on those actuary tables of their costs they simply build the districts and you have no choice but to pay the bill. They'll even advertise it for you like as if it's a car loan. So cuz it's so high sometimes and of course then they charge interest on that as

056well. So the idea here is is that that thing is dicey. Thank goodness, you've got those two reserves. Smart planning. Next one, I think you've got property liability reserve. We don't have any real liability and property that I could find. We've got some potential liability, we'll say, because we have a litigious society. Many districts put money in in liability reserves because of potential lawsuits and things like this. And so, that's not necessarily a bad idea. I think that's smart. I think thing is, what you do is you weigh it out every year. Do we need more in there or less in there based on what you think our liability potential would be. No issue there. Insurance reserve, you're not self-funded insurance per se. You belong to a consortium. You're not allowed to have that reserve.

057No money in there. Actually, it's a good thing then. The next one is tax certiorari. Tax certiorari is a file a taxpayer, whether I'm a businessman, residential, whatever, and I get my tax bill and I find that my they've increased my assessment or I believe my assessment is too high or therefore I am paying more taxes than I believe I should that I have been that I have been taken to the cleaners by somebody probably, you know, so I sue the assessor for the the town. I take school to school everybody I pay taxes to, I take them to court saying, "I want my money back. I've been over assessed. Therefore, I've been over taxed." Districts are smart when these claims come in to start a reserve, right? So that they can pay it off

058in case they lose the case. But, you have no claim, so there's no need for a reserve and you can't have one unless you have a claim. So, you're good. Next one is reserve for employee benefits and accrued liability. 84,000. Now, a lot of districts have a lot more money in there, but there's really no need unless you feel the need to have more money in there. One of the things I would do is actually ask your auditor during the next audit, "How much money you think we should put in there?" I think one thing school districts should always do is use the power of the board because the auditor actually works for the board by law. And what what the board should be insisting on with the auditor, and they can do that through

059Cynthia by talking to the auditor, and that's is simply we need your advice on this during the audit. And this way here kind of indemnifies you. So, if there anybody visits say, "Geez, I think you got too much money in there." You can always say, "Well, that's what the auditor told us to do." So, I think part of my job, I think during this little piece, and if I was your financial advisor, I'd try and find someone else to blame so that you're not held responsible for things you actually don't know how to figure out. It's not fair. Does that make sense? I mean, what the heck? So, I mean, the truth of it is that's why you got an auditor. So, I think you use the auditor for the purpose they're there for. The

060next one is capital reserves. See if I can get this one up. Capital reserves. I love capital reserves, but you have one capital reserves for capital projects. Now, let me get on my soapbox about capital reserves. Capital reserves are all voter-approved reserves. In other words, you cannot start the reserve without voter approval. In every resolution that when you ask the voters for approval, you must have certain elements to the proposition. First of all, you must tell them why you want to start the reserve. So, if you'll notice, I've got capital projects. I've got equipment vehicles. I've got technology. I've got capital reserve for furniture. You see, I've got a list of different ones there? You can have reserves that you mix and match. You can have vehicles buses. You can have transportation equipment. You can

061have furniture vehicles. You see what I mean? So, I put a smothering up there of a different examples. Now, normally, I like to have these voted on uh in a May so that they could be funded in a June if you have the funds because you cannot fund and use the reserve in the same fiscal year. So, in other words, you could create you could have the voters approve it in May. You could fund it in in June. And then in December, if you needed to use it, let's say to buy classroom furniture or something, so you don't have to pay it in the budget, you could then pay cash for this stuff instead of borrowing it because classroom furniture, as an example, is not state aid eligible in a capital project. So, I was

062looking at your family consumer sciences class down here. You want to buy a washer and dryer for it in a capital project, you can, but they'll subtract the cost of it from your aid. But, if you put it the money in a reserve, you say, "Hey, listen, we got to buy some new washers and dryers for uh family consumer sciences this year. Will you allow us to it?" Public says, "Yeah." You go on state contract and buy them cash. No interest. You're not amortizing them over 15 years, and you're not being denied aid at the same time. So, what you could do is you can use these things. Once you tell people what it's for, like capital projects, vehicles, or whatever, you then have to tell them how long the reserve will last, 5 years,

06310 years, 15 years, okay? And the way you would determine that is, well, what is your replacement schedule? So, bus replacement schedule is usually 5 to 7 to 9 years. So, if you have a 9-year schedule, yes, for a 9-year reserve, right? So, that's how you would basically do it. Then you have to ask for an amount that can be transferred into the reserve, and the board would determine when it would be transferred, but the public determines the sum total of all the money that can go into the reserve. Now, how would you determine how much money you should have? Easy. If you have a 7-year schedule for buses, and it adds up to, I don't know, $400,000, then it would be a 7-year reserve, and I would make it 450 because of inflation against

064the cost of the buses. So, therefore, you could buy the buses cash. You see what I'm getting at? No borrowing for the buses. For capital project, it's a perfect gift that keeps on giving, and you've done it in the past. Matter of fact, you see the blue line as we go into '26, you're using some of the reserve for a current capital project, $700,000. So, you'll have to borrow $700,000 less, pay interest on less $700,000 less, but you'll still get aid on the full project, whether you borrowed the money or not. So, it's a gift that keeps on giving. For instance, where I live, I'm the financial advisor. We built a a capital reserve 3 years ago, during a conversation just like this doing this plan. I said, do you have any vehicles you're going

065to need to buy? I don't know. What do you mean by vehicles? Well, I said, you know, in our last capital project, we built that giant parking lot over there by the football stadium. Oh, yeah, we're trying to plow that like crazy with pickup trucks every year. It's It's a killer. I said, well, what What if we bought a a snow plow? Like, I mean, a snow plow? Not a pickup truck with a plow. A snow plow. With a dump truck, a snow plow. I go, what? I said, yeah. You could use it all year long now for maintenance. Not just in the winter. It's not a pickup truck, carries more, you could do a lot more with it, right? We can put a salt or sander on the back of it. We can put

066a plow on the front and a wing. Instead of spending 8 hours plowing that driveway, you'd probably spend three. One guy. I go, yeah. I said, how much is it? I said, I have no idea, look it up. They called, look at state contract, it was $150,000. I said, well, I'll tell you what, I think we ought to save up around 180, 200,000. So, they went for 180, got the public to approve the reserve. Last year, we bought a $180,000 snow plow that one man can drive, clear an entire parking lot in 3 hours. I mean, that's huge. I mean, you got to see this thing. It is huge. Driveway, everything, and the whole school simultaneously. Instead of three or four guys out there with $74,000 pickup trucks. They used to cost 34,000. See what

067I mean? So, that's the kind of thinking we've got to have, that kind of forward thinking. So, those are things to consider should you have funds in the future. The next one is reserve for repair, you've got 27,000 in there. Handy amount. Reserves for repairs are used for things that are non-aidable that need like an immediate assistance. Like a little leak in a roof, you know, the door didn't work right, something like that. Usually, repairs are non-aidable ever. Usually, replacements. For instance, you do not repair a roof when you do a capital project. You would never repair a cap a roof. And that's because it would they will not age you repairing the roof. If you replace the roof, they'll aid it for 15 years. See the difference? So, they want it to last. They

068don't want to keep having to come back to the board and saying, "Hey, we need more help." So, the key thing is having 27,000 is very prudent. Mandatory reserve for debt, there's nothing in there, nor should you have anything in there. If you had an old as I passed by the old Waterville school coming down Route 12 here coming into the village, right? It's now an apartment buildings. If you would just sold that building, let's say for instance, and you owed money on it, you'd have to take the proceeds from the sale, put it in that reserve until the the debt was paid off. Okay? And then we other reserve fund balances, I work with I have a couple clients that have actually nuclear power plants in their district, or they have a coal-fired power

069plant that's going to close cuz they're closing these things. And so, they've got like 20, 30 million dollars in those reserves to offset the tax impact when these things close because they pay a lot of taxes. So, that's that. Now, if we look down here, we also have this 4% limit. We're supposed to go to the 4% limit. If you look back at 2020, you were at the 4% limit. You were actually under it by 1.9. But every percentage that's over 4%, the controller would absolutely hate. Now, I don't find this to be a particular major sin to me, to be actually honest with you. I'll make you a bet if we were to line up all the districts from top to bottom in the state of New York, almost every one of them has

070a number like that in it. So, this is not inordinate. I want you to know that. But what I would suggest is as you're looking at your reserve plan to update it, you take that 1.1 and put it in a reserve you think it's going to do you the most good and absolve yourself of that problem, if you understand what I'm getting at. So, that might be something for future reference. So, I don't see the end of the world there. The next thing here I think I want to point out is your debt service fund. You've got some money in the debt service fund, and I would suggest that in the next the debt service fund can only be used to decrease current debt. It would be an interfund transfer from this fund into the

071general fund to help you pay debt. Okay? But the thing is it's going to mute your tax cap. So the controller wants you to use it right away. As a financial guy, I'm saying, "What's the rush here? Let's think this over." I would use it for a subsequent capital project. And what I would do is I would use this money to help you pay for current debt to make room for new debt. Does that make sense to you? So that you could actually use it to your advantage rather than just throw it away. Okay? And it would advantage taxpayers, by the way, too, cuz you could get more done. And then you've got a school lunch fund, which has got 212,000 in it. Robust, it's supposed to be self-sustaining. Kudos. Somebody's really got their thinking

072cap on there. That is excellent. Some schools are really having problems with this. Yours, no problem whatsoever at all. Excellent. That's good good good department has some thinking caps. Now, let's go through this first scenario here what you're talking about. Now, the first scenario, basically, is we've had to do some fund balance cuts along the way, but what we're going to do is we have to have something to start with. Not that the board wants to increase taxes 3%, but I have to have a number to move taxes in my scenario. So, we've agreed that we're going to use 3%. So, we're going to use this as a scientific experiment. Think of it this way. Here's the question I'm going to answer using this scenario. If the board was to and the population would accept

073a 3% a year, would that be enough based on the expenses the district is going to experience to keep you afloat past the year 2030-31? So, that would be 5 years out. So, think of it. 26 to 27 is 1 year. Year 2, 3, 4, 5 years out. So, the question is if whether you want to or not. See, what boards tend to do is they say, "Let's find a number we like." That actually is irrelevant. Okay, I hate to tell you this and I think that's been a big mistake made by many districts. They try and find a number that everybody's going to like. You know what you got to find a number is you got to find a number that will work. Right. You got to find the one that will work. So,

074the question we're going to try and answer with 3% hypothetically or maybe hypocritically by the time I'm done talking, will it really work? Here we go. So, if you look at it, what's actually happening here? By the way, you are great. Thank you for doing that. So, what's happening here is the 990 is the amount that it would have increased taxes over the 5-year period. But, in the first year it would be 191. You see how to read this? So, if we go across the first red thing, let's see if I can get my little I don't know if this is going to work. Here, I'll just do it. So, here's how to read this. So, this column here tells you the difference over 5 years and this column here will tell you the difference

075over the first year. Okay? Everybody with me? Yep. Okay. So, what happens is is this. You would gain about $990,000 in tax money over that time. But, as we look at the rest of the things that we've got here, your pilot is like chump change if you'll notice. It's like $7,000. I mean, it's a non-sequitur. Your your state aid building transit, I took from the slide that I showed you already. Then, the next one down is federal aid and that that is actually been depressed a lot because the federal aid isn't coming in as robustly as it used to. All right? So, the next one then is your other revenues and you'll see it's been boosted up a little bit because the district has wisely invested in high interest earnings. Okay? In other words, you've

076got your money earning higher interest right now. A lot of districts, what they do is they just put it in some savings account and they let it sit there instead of putting into like money markets, things like this that have higher rates. And you have benefited by the higher rates and you can see the difference between the '26 and the '27 number, the 386 versus the 508. Now, the only thing we're asking is Cynthia's got to promise for the rest of her life to come up with at least $508,000 in interest earnings and miscellaneous revenues. Other than that, no big deal. Okay? So, you can see how this is working. We're doing the best we can here. Then what we do is we look at the bottom line here and we can see the yellow

077represents the size of the revenue for each year. The orange would would be the increase or decrease in the revenue from the prior year. And then when we get over here to the the difference in the 5 years, you'll see your revenues are going up 3 million 196 over the 5 years. Everybody with me? Okay. So, that's a revenue scenario. Let's see if that would work based on where your expenses are going. So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to go to the next page. I just put the revenues on the top. You've got it on your page, so you don't have to worry about it. And now what I'm going to do is I'm going to tear apart your budget. And this is the part where I tortured your staff. Okay, so

078here we go. So, what we're going to do is we're going to tear apart the budget based on the parts of the budget. The first part is general support. And I've got salaries and other. In other words, we're not counting paper clips here. We're looking at the big issues. So, salaries. Who's in salaries and general support? That's the superintendent's office. So, is anybody who works in the superintendent's office, it'll be superintendent's secretary, or anybody else who works there. All right. But, it would also be the business office, accounts payable, payroll, and everybody else who works in the business office. But, the biggest part of it that I think many times people don't realize is not that those two offices, it's your buildings and grounds. All right, landscape, whatever else you got. You could have cleaners,

079custodians, maintenance workers. You know what I'm getting at? All those people are the biggest part of this. They're the infrastructure of the district. Okay? So, it's going to move, I'm guessing, in 2026, you'll see the salary number is 1 million 013. Everybody with me? And I think by 2031, based on your contractual obligations, it's going to go to about 1.2 million, 1181. See it? About 167,000 up. We're good? All right. Now, let's do other. What's in other? Other is utilities. I don't know if about you, but I think I I can actually I do know about you, but many just We're getting struck We're getting strangled with utilities. Heat, light, electricity is killing us. If you look at your own at home, I don't know about yours, but mine's like skyrocketing out of world. But

080the other thing that's happening is everything else is costing more. So, technology that you buy through BOCES comes out of here in many cases. So does the BOCES administrative budget. But the other thing too is the wax for the floors, the scrubber. If you buy a floor scrubber now for $30,000, used to be 5,000, 30,000 now, it's in here. You see what I'm getting at? So, this is a big ticket item. This moved about 1.87 million in '26 and '31 to 2.17, 300,000 up, that's 16%. Now, if you'll notice, the biggest number on the page now shows up with salaries and instruction. Now, why is it the biggest number on the page? That's cuz it's the mission of the school district. That's why we're here. That's why we call you the Board of Education, not

081the Board of Friends, Relatives, and Taxpayers, right? Right? So, you're the Board of Ed. Your job is to keep this institution robust and flowing. That's your job. That's what you took the oath for. And these are the people that work with kids every day. Who's in there? The principal's in there, the guidance counselor's in there, right? The teachers are in there, general ed, special ed teachers are in there. If you hire a school psychologist, they're in there. Coaches are in there. Uh uh classroom monitors are in there if you have any of those, teacher aides, teacher assistants. Uh let's see, the guidance counselors are in there, the nurse is in there, the class advisors are in there, everybody that works with a kid every day. So, it's supposed to be the biggest number. But the

082problem with big numbers is big numbers moving at similar percentages to slower numbers increase at a greater rate. It's sixth grade math. Okay, so here we go. So, now we're going to go from 6.153 million to about 7.619, 1.465 million. Did we see that? So that number, because it's a big number moving at a similar rate to the other salary, is going to move at a at a bigger clip my financially. Now here's the part that kills me. I don't know is that can you move that that down so I can get that percentage on the revenue just a little bit is all I need. Yeah, there you go, perfect. Now here's here's how to look at this. Boards like percentages for some reason. My whole life boards have always loved percentages that right? What

083percentage is that? I look at board members and I go I can't believe you just asked me that. Let me show you why. I'm going to demonstrate this to you now. So this is a big teaching episode for you. This is going to be a big moment. Everybody ready? Okay, let me show you. Look at the revenue. You see the revenue is going up almost 3.2 million. See that? That's a whopping 14.3. Notice the number under it, the first number under salaries general support is going up 167,000. It's going up at a bigger percent. So I put the percentages on cuz board members like to see them, but you don't spend percents, you spend money. So follow the money. Okay? So trying to make everybody happy, but that's the that's the real lesson here. All

084right, now let's just keep going here. Let's go to salaries and salaries do we do we didn't do other? Other sal- instruction. All the kids you send to BOCES, special ed, general ed, all those kids are going there. It's the balances for the science department, it's art supplies for the art department, it's the ball for the phys eds, it's the it's everything you would buy to run. It's the copiers, the copy paper, right? You understand what I'm getting at. It's everything that you need to keep the program alive, every single thing that isn't nailed down. If it isn't a person, it's a thing that the kids use, it's in there. Okay? So it's a big big ticket item. You notice it's the second biggest number on the page. 5.1 million going to 6 million, almost

085a million increase, 19.2. All right, now let's just stop for a second. Add those two numbers together. So let's just let me do this, I know you. Let's add this 1.465 to this this say almost a million. You'll notice that would be about 2.4 million. Everybody with me? It's up to two Finish the audience to say It's more than all your revenue. So, you should see right now we're going to have problems going forward. You don't have them right this second but they're coming. Because what's happening is the compounding nature of everything. And it's going to get worse as I continue. Here we go. Transportation going from about salaries, you know, so this is the drivers, the mechanics, and so on. Okay. $700,000 to about 856 150. Other which would be the headlights, the you

086know, the diesel fuel. You would want to be the district that filled your tanks three months ago, not the ones going to have to fill them today. Okay? Think about it for a second. You see how volatile things are? It's no joke. Moving from about 300,000 to about 300,000. Now, look what's happened here. Let's use that other category in salaries in trans example. See we went from 299 to 253. See that? Everybody see it? Mhm. Okay. Now, what happened there? What we're trying to do also at the same time is trying to trying to right-size the budget. In other words, we do have money left over sometimes in the budget. It's called fund balances. We're trying to tighten the budget at the same time as we're trying to figure out how much we're going to

087have to spend. Now, the plus of that means that the budget won't grow as fast. The minus of that means that at the end of a year to balance the next year's budget you will have less money. So, the key thing is there's no safe way to do any of this, by the way, because it's always a balancing act, as you all know, those of you who are veterans on the board. But, look at this. Now, let's go to employee benefits. Now, these things are etched in stone either in contractual obligations or in state law. So, what we've got is retirement pension, that's social security, workers comp, health, and then miscellaneous other. Could be on use sick days per days, things like that, little stuff. Okay? But, the big number there is health. Moving from

088about 3.8 million, 3779, to about 5.2, 1.4 or 1.5 million up, 39% across the entire region and many regions of the state, health insurance is moving at double digits. Now, there's a lot of reasons for this. During COVID, think about during COVID when we all went home with their own Chromebooks. During COVID, what happened was nobody actually went to the doctor almost. The only time they went to the doctor is when they found out they had COVID and they went to the hospital where they were treated for COVID and they they tried to give them something. And sometimes they had a good outcome, some not so hot. But, nothing else really happened. There weren't tons of surgeries, you know what I'm getting at? Nothing else Nobody was going to the doctor for anything else. Matter

089of fact, nobody wanted to go outside. Okay? After COVID, everybody got their knees fixed, their hips fixed, their teeth fixed, new glasses, new eyeballs, right? They got hair transplants, they got their hearing aids, you understand what I'm getting at? They got new glasses, they got everything. And they also found out that if you watch TV for more than an hour, you can get a plethora of drugs you never heard of to help things that you might have. Do you understand what I just said? This has put a tremendous hit to these insurance consortium. They're getting clobbered out of the blue with this massive amount of hit. And here's the worst part of it. The worst part of it is there were people that were very sick during COVID, but did not have COVID. And after

090COVID, found out how sick they really were with something other than COVID. People found out they had cancer, leukemia, they had Hodgkin's, or they had You understand what I'm getting at. And these things are very costly and very expensive, and they hit these consortia hard. Simultaneously, other things are happening. The consortium starts to eat up its reserves. The consortium seems to need more money, but they're getting resistance because the consortium could say, "Well, look, we're thinking it looks like 5% increase." Everyone says, "Oh, no, no, we can't have five. Maybe we should do three. I don't think we could take five." But the point is all you're doing is delaying the inevitable, which school districts do all the time with their own budgets and so on, and you have two, by the way. So, I'm

091going to point that out. But the key thing is these consortia have been hit hard. Everything we've done in these consortia, I think, have been well-intentioned, well-meaning. They sound like a good idea at the time, but it's tough to find out Well, here's the thing. When we're planning your budget for next year, can anybody in the room tell me how many new special needs kids we're going to get next year that we don't have this year, what their programs are, and how much it's going to cost? Can anybody tell me how many people are going to be in car accidents, will be out for 6 months, and then have to hire a sub student same time? Does anybody know You see what I'm getting at? There's just so many things that can happen in these

092things. So, it's very, very difficult. So, right off the bat, I already told you those two numbers add up to more than your revenues. Look at the health insurance part. It puts you way over the top now. Okay? So, that's what's happening. And then your debt service is following your debt service schedule all the way through the completion of your current capital project. And then in the bottom, I've got your expenses, and you'll notice that your expenses total over 5 years 6.264 million compared to your 3.196 revenue. Now, that means that over time you have a problem. It's not like you have an instant problem. You can see it coming. But here's my advice to you. Unless we fix it right away and start fixing it now, it will get worse faster. It's just like

093everything else. You know, I should have known I I I know I had symptoms like 6 months ago. I should have gone to the doctor. Well, that's where we're at today. With you guys, okay? So, keep that in mind. So, here I brought over the revenue expense picture together on a same page, so you don't have to keep flipping back and forth. Let's talk about where the rest of the money is. In 2025, your budget came out unbelievably tight, and your carryout was $425,000. Now, what do I mean by tight? What that means is that revenue came in maybe a little bit more than predicted, and expenses came in a little less than predicted, but only by $425,000. That is not much on a $22 million budget. Sounds like it's a lot, but it is

094not. Much can go wrong. Three high-need, special-needs kids could come in and make that number zero. Okay? Now, this year we're hoping to come in around 1.1 million. See the orange right there? Right there, 1.1 million, and you're spending $700,000 simultaneously. But, the problem is, remember I told you we we tightened up the budget. The budget's been tightened up with cutting some of these fund balances. Next year, we're hoping to have $819,000 left over. So, we won't have the million one we have this year, cuz the budget's now tighter. Okay, it's tighter. All right? So, what happens here is we're all All Saugus does is come up with $819,000 every year, and we'll be happy. But, what a lot of people don't understand in this little scenario is you take that 819 that's in 27

095year, and you add it to the 1,047,000. If you notice, I took out the excess fund balance, and I put it in your reserves. I snuck it in there when you weren't looking. That is called cash flow. Those two numbers are cash flow. Think of how a school calendar actually works financially. That's what you got to focus in on right now. July 1, who's working? Superintendent's office working, a lot of the principals are working, the O&M operations maintenance buildings and grounds is working, Business office is frantically ordering everything for the school year in the summer. How much tax money is coming in as a revenue to offset those expenses? None. So, technically, when I add that 819 to that 1,047, I'm counting on 1.9 million to deliver me the next year's $26 million budget start.

096Do you understand what I'm saying? And And of course, Cynthia's praying that nobody's going to bill her for everything she owes until September when tax money shows up. Now, what happens in August? How much tax money shows up? None. What about the last week in August when all of a sudden teachers start coming in and looking at their rooms? Principals are still working. Oh, by the way, we've been buying liability insurance and health insurance and we You know, you know what I mean? We're We're buying everything. We're getting ready for the buses, the vehicles, everything. So, we're ching ching, the money's going out the door. And we still have no tax money. So, we have to rely on this cash, this Kendra cash. Now, the interesting thing that happens here is we do get state

097aid in the summer. Actually, we get a good state aid check, except for one small technicality. Remember I showed you how much the pensions was? It was over 3 million bucks. In August, September, and October, from that state aid check, the state subtracts the entire pension cost for a full year for every employee and deducts it from the state aid check. So, you're left with a pittance. So, they can say they've paid you a lot, but then they took it almost all away. So, here we are, last week in August, what's happening? Well, kids are coming in, maybe start some sports and stuff. Kids are coming in, maybe you're having staff development days, things like this. You're starting to faculty start showing up. Now, you start I start running payroll for the entire faculty, and

098within another week, what's going to happen is every diesel bus you own is going to be operating morning, noon, and night, right? For sports, bringing kids to school, taking kids home, right? Everything. All right, everything's going to be full blast. In other words, you'll be paying for everything all at once. And then the first week of September, how much tax money do you have? Nothing. Now, do you guys collect your own taxes, by the way? You do. Good. Because then you have a chance to get some money during the month of September. For instance, where I live, there's a first class town there. They call it a first class town. Towns have Towns actually have classifications. And if you live If your school district has a first class town in it, the town can seize

099the right to collect tax for the school district. And hold the money until October. So, you have that advantage, if you get my drift. Okay? So, when I pay my school taxes, I pay it to the town town barn. That's where I'm paying my tax. Okay? And they hold it. So, what happens is So, now we're paying everybody, and then you start getting your tax money. Does anybody know when the biggest state aid check comes in for the school district? It's in the month of March. March. So, that's why we need cash flow. So, my warning is no more cutting unbalanced out of this budget forever. We have to cut expenses. Okay. So, I come home, my wife says, "Geez, Rick, the hot water tank just went." So, how do you know? She says, "I

100called a plumber." They came over here and they called us and they looked at it and he said, "Yeah, it's shot." He says, "It's on its last legs." I said, "Well, how much is a new hot water tank?" She says, "The guy said it was 1,250 bucks." I said, "Gee, Dawn, we only got 950 in the savings account." She goes, "What are we going to do?" Then I say, "I got an idea. Let's go out and have a lavish dinner and think it over." Yeah, that's what we cannot do. Do you understand what I'm saying to you? I know I tell these little silly stories, but I think they get the point across better than some of the numbers, if you get my drift. Okay, always a teacher, you know what I mean, can't help

101it. So, what happens is we got more, okay, I'm going to need your help again, Zach. Boom. Follow the bouncing population. There we go. Okay, so, we've got money all over the place, it looks like, but not really. This is all the money summed up. So, we have an assigned appropriate fund balance. What is that? That's the difference between each of the the revenue to expense. So, let me just point it out. So, in other words, you'll notice this number's $830,000. You see that number right there? Where did that come from? It came from here. Where did this number come from? This number came from the difference between this revenue and this expenses. You'll see the expenses are 23.1, the revenues are 22.3. The difference is $830,000. So, the district must hold onto 10% $830,000

102in case they spend out the budget. You understand what's going on here? And it happens every year. Look, 388, 388, 1464. See what's happening? Every year. Now, that money can be sitting in your reserves, but even if it sits there, we have to be able to account for it, in case we spend out the budget. In other words, we're going to What you're saying to the population is, we spend out this whole budget, we will raid all these reserves to get that money to pay for this school district. That's what you're pledging. See what happens. Now, the kitty bank here is is this. What I did is, if you'll notice, you have no unassigned fund balance. Remember I said to you, you're over the 4% limit, remember that? Mhm. Notice now, I actually pushed you

103to the 4% limit. You see what I did? I took the extra money out and I put it down here. See it? So, in other words, the money's still there, but now it's in what the controller would call the right place. To me, I could care less, but the controller makes a big deal of it. Okay? But, it's all there. So, that's what I've done. You see what's happening here? Okay. Next what happens is this. Now, I start taking a look at what's the differences between the budgeted revenue and expenditures and it vacillates up and down. Now, you'll notice it grew here, but it went down here because we cut some fund balances up. In other words, we brought this the rate of increase in the budget down by taking out fund balance out of

104the budget. Therefore, things look better, but they're not necessarily all terrific because what we're losing money here. So, what happens here is is this. If she's got 819 left at the end year and we have 388 that we need to balance the budget, that's good. That means I'll have extra fund balance left. I can build more fund balance. See it here? That's good. Right here. See that? But, I also have to take $700,000 out of here out of here ultimately. So, I've got to have to balance the reserve. I'm going to your 4% keeps growing cuz the 4% is 4% of the next year's budget. So, as the budget grows, the 4% grows. So, I keep draining money off to get to the 4% cash because that's my cash flow. Remember? All right. Now, as

105time goes on, to make a long story short, by the time we get to 27 28, now the budget is In other words, now we don't have some of the the fund balances are gone away. Now, we start getting the extrapolation of the compounding nature of the costs. Now, we're out of balance by 1.4 million. Look at this. This is your revenue. 24/7. Here's your expenses. 26.8. The difference is 1.4. Where are we going to get the money? Right there. Hypothetically, on paper, I'm taking it out of your reserves. So, in other words, your reserves, those rainy day funds you would they just in case in case has arrived. Okay? And if we keep going, you'll see that the amount grows across the bottom page so that your budget becomes more and more out of

106balance. So, technically speaking, once this number is a negative is greater than this number is a positive, think of math when you have absolute values. In other words, you take off the signs, you compare the numbers. If this number is bigger than all the amount you have, you're in trouble. There it is there. 3,000,000 24. 2930. Can't do it. You can't reach 2930. See what I'm getting at? See how this works? So, this will not work. So, for those of you who are thinking, "Will 3% across the board work if we keep everybody employed and just kind of hang on to the fund balance?" The answer is actually no. Right? Now, so what are we going to do? Now, for those of you who don't like all the numbers, I've done the the uh easier

107approach. Couple graphs here. You can see the trajectory of your revenues. You see the big bump in your revenues, if you notice, is the same as the bottom line, which is building aid. In other words, your revenues are moving by building aid because hardly anything else is moving. Okay? If you look at your expenses, look at that curve. See the curve? The trajectory is much steeper. I put them both together for you so you could see it. See that? Put them together. Red over blue is bad. All right? In other words, your expenses are exceeding your your revenues. Your revenues are hardly moving, but your expenses are moving rapidly. And then what happens is you use more fund balance again, and then you use all your reserves and everything else. You'd have to eat about

108$4,000,000. You don't have the $4,000,000. Okay? Now, can you move that one again for me there, uh Zach? Now, this is the tax cap calculation. From the controller's office, I downloaded your tax cap calculation, and I recalculated it as if the district stayed to the tax cap every year. So, we can compare and contrast. Now, here's how the tax cap works. I'm going to explain it to you so you can see it. As a matter of fact, I'll I'll get up here and just do it. So here's how the tax cap works. The first number, 4,356,917. Everybody see that? Mhm. It says prior year's levy. So that's the amount you collected in the prior year. The first year of the cap was 1213. So technically speaking, that's what you collected last the year before this.

109You multiply times the tax base growth factor. What did I tell you was the perfect number that once you get above that, your tax base is growing so much, it's going to affect your cap. And that number was 1.005. Your tax base growth factor went up 1.007 before. So in other words, 2 years prior to this, property values were moving very fast in Warren. Does everyone get it? Mhm. Right? Now, keep in mind, when your property values are hundreds of millions of dollars. I'm not talking about chump change here. Close to a billion, getting close to a billion now. So they multiply to get a net. Then what they do is they add the PILOTs cuz the controller wants to know what you collected in PILOT agreements. So it knows the PILOT was up there

11052,000. Now you're getting about 6, 7, 8,000. Okay? All right. Then there was a previous capital exclusion. What's a capital exclusion? The capital exclusion is defined as any capital purchase or debt minus the aid, state support for that debt. Let me give you an example. Your interest and principal payments, we'll say add up to a million dollars a building uh for for a capital project. The state's paying you $800,000 in aid. And your capital exclusion would be the difference, 200. It's the amount technically the locals are responsible to pay. If you remember, every time you have a capital expense, for instance, if you're going to go borrow money, borrow, capital project, in there somewhere, in that verbage, in that whole resolution, it says something to the effect, and levy the tax there to. Because even

111if a district, any district in state was to go belly up, commissioner would come in and replace the board, the zone board, make his own superintendent, and he would continue to tax the people in the district until the debt's paid. That district cannot absolve itself in debt. Cannot go bankrupt. Same way you said. So, what happens is they make sure it's in the tax cap. Your cap is, in other words, the amount of state support you had versus your capital expenditures was either a positive for less than or zero. So, there was none here. Then we get this net. Then it says allowable tax base growth factor, and you see the number 1.02. Everybody see that? This is where the tax cap gets its name from, the 2% tax cap. The 2% tax cap is

112not 2%, never has been 2%, and only on unbelievably rare instances will it ever be 2%. More often when somebody fudges a number to make it 2%. Okay? So, technically speaking, where does this 2% come from? That means in the rules for the tax cap, if inflation is 2% or higher, the CPI, the highest number you can put in here is 1.02. In other words, this number is capped. The calculation isn't capped, just that number. So, if inflation this year was 30 bazillion percent, number would be 1.02. The same as if it was 1.21. See what I mean? Now, if it's less than 1%, you'll see down here in 14-15, you had a 1.46. It was 1.46. So, it was less than two, you use the real number. Anything two and over, you use two.

113That's where it gets its name. When the controller comes out and says there's a 2% tax cap, that's not true. This line is 2%. That's what he's talking about. A lot of people misinterpret. And then what happened? Notice it's multiplied. The tax base growth factor is multiplied. Because it's saying, you have more to tax, go get the money. If base is higher, go get the money. It's It's telling you with only 50% plus one vote, you'll get more money. Then what happens is they subtract the pilots for the next year. Why? Because the pilots are paid separately. They're not paid in the levy. And then what happens is we end up with these different kinds of exclusion carryovers. So what happens is there was that year a little exclusion for uh ERS if it applied

114to you, but it didn't apply to any of your district, you had no capital exclusion. So your district could collect 4.477 million or 2.77%, which is $121,000 more than it did the prior year. Everybody with me? Now, what happens next? Then what happens is look at the next year where it starts. See the 4.477? Where'd that come from? Right where you left off down here at the levy limit, because you're supposed to collect the cap. It's encouraging him to collect the money. You see how this works? Okay. Now, let's try a little scenario, see if you really understand. I'm going to have the board do a little job for me. I'm going to need some hard labor this week. No problem. You do a great job, I promise each one of you $100 in cash

115every single day. So you each have a chance to get $100 for $500 this week. If you're like anybody else in the world, you'll find a way to spend this money. You'll either save it for something, you'll find some use for it. In fact, you'll be self-made thinking this is an easy project. I'm $500 ahead by the end of next week. So you go work on the project. I'm a businessman taxpayer. All of a sudden I start thinking to myself, what's my self-interest?" Yeah, I don't like the project done, but actually I don't want to part with any. Did anybody ever show up at a at board meeting saying, "You guys are not taxing me enough." Nobody's done it. So, to me, what happens so I'm thinking to myself, "Gee whiz, I got to try

116and save a couple bucks." I had no idea why I was thinking when I said 100 or not. So, Monday comes and you show me your project, but before you show it to me, I say something like this to you. How's everybody doing? You go, "Oh, okay, good. I We want to show you our project." So, okay. Well, listen, I got to cut down a bit. I have, you I have these apartment buildings which have been sewage problems. We had electric problems. I've had a tough financial week. I'm I'm really stressed out. I'm really hurting right now, but I you know, I want to pay you good. I don't I don't want to say no. I want to pay you guys. I'm a nice guy. I know you work hard. So, let's take a look

117at your project. I look at your project and I say, "Geez, did you guys get the memo on the project? I mean, this isn't what I wanted at all. But look, I'm a nice guy. I'm having problems, but I'm a nice guy. So, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to give you each $90 for today's lunch. So, you were short $10 based on the expectation for lunch. And I know this because when I walk away, you walk away. I've got $10 for each of you in my pocket. They could have been yours. Cuz I have the money. Right? I gave you 90 instead of 100. Tuesday comes along. You work harder. You show up again. I say, "Geez, I still got problems. I got financial issues. I'm having a rough time,

118but I'm a nice guy. I know you work hard. Let's see what you have now." Well, it's a little better, but it's still not what I had in mind. So, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to give you $90 Tuesday. So, you're short $10 on Tuesday. You are short $20 for the week so far. Bingo. Cuz I had $20 of each one of your money in my pocket. So, let's make the story short. Do the same thing every day all the way through Friday. Friday give you another 90. So, you're short 90 on Friday. You're short 50 for the week and I know this because I have $50 in my pocket. They could have been zeros. We'll see what else we can sell. And I say, "I feel terrible." Let me give

119you a raise. As you all know, you had to go through financial training and you were the CFO of the school district. Chief Financial Officer of all the schools of the group. So, let's give you a math problem. Everybody's Everybody's petrified now. I'll see this screening here. Okay. So, here we go. I want to give you a raise of 5%. Can somebody calculate, please? Well, the big question is is it 90 of 100? Is it 90 Is it Is it 5% of the 90? Is it 5% of the 100? Well, you can only get a raise on what you get. You can't get a raise on what you didn't. So, it's going to be $4.50, and you all knew that, of course, rather than $5. So, here I helped you. But, I still came out

120ahead. That's exactly how the tax cap works. Let me show you. So, this is actually what the district did in the tax bill. So, here's the first consultation again, the same number. But, what happened in this year What happened is it came in at 2.77, and they collected it, so they started off the right the next year. Everything's perfect. Then, the next year comes down. The tax cap was 8.3. Now, why was it 8.3? Well, the cap exclusion went from 150,000. Why it wasn't over here, I have no idea. I don't know who was asleep at the wheel there, but here's 150,000, and went up to 300,000, so it drove the cap up. So, you were supposed to collect 8.3 million or 371,700. But, you as a district, and you personally, you as a district,

121decided to go only for 2.5. Not collect 8.3. So, you only collected 111,949 instead of 371,700. So, you didn't collect 259. And I know that as the taxpayers have that in their pocket. So, you paid for your own capital project yourself. You as a district. So, what's happening here? Now, then what happened was notice this number up here for 14 15. It is not this 4 million 4 or 4 million 849 you could have collected. It's what you did collect. You see it? So, the 14 15 number is actually $259,000 less than it could have been. So, it's short 259, too. You see what I Do you understand what I just did? And then what happens we didn't collect the 101 and not 191. That's like a rounding error. So, that's no big deal. But

122what happens is this means also that every one of these numbers across the top is $259,000 short. Cuz every number's relying on the number before it. But then when we get down here is the 15 16 and we didn't collect the 81. So, we didn't collect the 81, we didn't collect the 191, we didn't collect the 81 there. So, for that year you can imagine we didn't collect that I don't know what it was, $341,000 or something. You see what I'm getting at? See how this is adding up? So, what happens is that we go across the page down here in 17 18, they were allowed to collect less than a percent. Look at it, 0.0976. Everybody see it right there? But they didn't. They went to 2.15. Somebody finally figured out this was not

123a good idea. That is a saving grace. The province they collected 101 more, but if you were to take all the red numbers ahead of it, it pales in comparison to what you've lost. Do you see what I'm getting at? Think about that. But that 101 now is going to raise this number by 101 that has actually been decreased by by Back it up down here. Too much tapping. I lost I lost Alice there. Hold on. I can't see. Oh, you can't see? Just look through here. Got you. There we go. Thank you, Carl. So, what happens is this number here will be I can't cut. This number here is going to be 101 more, which is good, but it's also still continuously depressed by all the red numbers ahead of it. So, you can

124start Then again, in 21 22, challenge the cap again. Instead of collecting a tenth of a percent, you did 2.5 and 130. So, technically speaking, can you move me and the audience up to someplace else? All right, good. What happens is over time you have not collected 200 2.9 3.7 million dollars. Well, let's make it worse. This levy right here, 6.176, is really 200,000 dollars less than it would have been had you just plain stuck to the cap. So, in total, you're behind 3,144,000 dollars. What If we had collected the cap every year, we wouldn't be having a meeting like we're having now. Think about it. See what I'm getting at? But I'll make you a bet at the time nobody understood how this actually worked. All right, I mean seriously, probably sounded like a

125good idea at the time. Like we're doing good, we don't need all this money, or you know, it looks fine, we're doing fine. But, the key thing is is it's not how you're doing now that counts. It's how you're doing later. In other words, let's not go out to dinner and figure out when we're going to go broke. See what I mean? So, the dilemma there is that's what happened. So, you're really way behind. So, I have to come up with another scenario to try and find out if there's a way to save it. And to interject here to point out even with the board in 2017-18 2021-22 going over the tax cap. >> You're still behind that amount. >> Right. And getting voter support >> Right. with that supermajority >> Right. both times. >>

126It would be a lot worse. pretty much in 2013-14. Agreed. Yes. Agreed. That's when it started. The worst one was 2013-14. And everyone just helps because if they compound over and over. And where you did collect went over the cap, which was a smart idea. There's no doubt about it. The thing is just was insufficient for the to get to the end game to flatten it out, so to say. And and for six straight budgets, not including the one we'll vote on tonight, we've been at the cap or above. >> Yes. But, because you get in the hole >> Right. the way the formula works. >> in the hole. fix the formula. Right. So, I think that's we've tried to explain every year the tax cap formula in public session or public record, and voters

127have voted 70% plus for every budget we put forward. >> Good. But, yeah, I don't think there's this understanding that in the past >> It's the past. Is it the same It's nothing recent that you've done. Right. The formula itself was messed up because we made that decision, and there is no way to really fix that. There The only Well, there is a way to fix it. Well, yeah, it's the same number that we're not going to do. >> Well, yeah, but here's what you'd have to do. You'd have to have an instant 15% tax increase. Right, which we're not. So that's out of the question. So instead, the only other So what I've got here is I've got your this this is your same revenue picture as I showed you before. Okay? So in

128other words, I didn't do a 15% tax increase. Right. Because it's it's not palatable. Right. But that's what it would take to get to the same place. Instead, what you're going to have to do is you're going to have to actually decrease in the next year approximately $875,000 worth of expenses out of this budget. Good luck. Wow. It's a lot. And I'll tell you something, if you wait another year, it'll be over a million. Because what will happen is you'll have take gone out to dinner and figure out what to do. In other words, you would have burned off the money you could have saved. That's how far off you are. Because what's happening is the amount of expenditures that you have is escalating so much more rapidly and your revenues are hardly moving. That

129it's a we wish we coulda shoulda woulda, but that's the way it always was. I'll make you a bet back in those years where they didn't stick to the cap, nobody saw any problem with it. Obviously, people saw it when they finally challenged the cap. There's no doubt about it. So it was a good move both those times. And they were actually pretty heroic, to be honest with you. But the key thing is is that there's only one way out of this. It's kind of like Look, here's the story I tell everybody. It's another Rick Tim silly story. Uh I come home, wife says, "Microwave doesn't work." I said, "I thought you said the hot water thing doesn't work." She said, "That doesn't work either." "The hot water thing was yesterday. Today's the microwave." And

130tomorrow I come home, she says, "You know, my car isn't working right. The brakes are ringing." I said, "I thought you said the microwave wasn't." She says, "It isn't. And the hot water thing's not working either." And that's what's happening to you. You have a growing inability to meet your needs in terms of the expenditure. That's what's happening. So, that's where we're going. So, what I did is and I did this just as an example not to target any area. You'll see there's two light yellow parts. There's salary instruction and there's health insurance. Now, the reason I picked those is because when you study economics, the first thing you learn is when you have two debts and you have interest payments against both debts and you say, "Which one should I pay more down on?"

131It would be the one with the highest finance charge. And most of your money is wrapped up in those two categories, unfortunately. Unfortunately, the school district is run on people. You can cut out all the Chromebooks you want. You can cut out all the copiers, cut out all the paper, the pencils, the paper clips, science experiments, field trips, knock out a couple sports if you want. You're not going anywhere. Now, you might want to do some things like I've had a past I've actually run into this myself. I've had to do this and it's gut-wrenching, to be honest with you. Where I've actually had but to me, you've got to start looking at this idea that we can't have a pile of sacred cows make up the school district. In other words, it can't just

132be this, it can't just be that. In other words, it might have to be we can't go on all these We used to go on $10,000 worth of field trips, now we're going on five. Sorry. Uh we used to play 16 non-league games that were all across all sports this next year, we just do league games. So, in other words, every little piece helps, but the biggest pieces will be the people and the benefits. Because every time you end up with like if Rick's working for you and Rick leaves service, the first question you should be asking yourself is do we need to replace Rick? Because if Rick isn't here, you don't pay Rick, you don't pay his social security, you don't pay his worker's compensation, you don't pay his health insurance, right? You don't

133pay his pension. You understand what I'm getting at? Now, if you need Rick, then you're going to have to get That's what's called breakage. And you're going to have to get somebody to replace Rick, but you're hoping they come in with less salary, less this, but I got to tell you the savings is not as robust. Then there's retirement incentives. People say, "Well, maybe we'll do a retirement incentive to help people out the door." Well, the retirement incentive's got to be calculated in with the breakage. So, there's This is very It's not as easy as it all sounds. And remember, every program will be sacred. I'll bet you when this comes up at the public discussion sometime you're dealing with this, there will be a parent come up, maybe 100 parents come up, and say,

134"My son or daughter is in this program. This is very important to them. They need this. You can cut anything you want, but not this." Then the next person's going to come up and say, "My son or daughter is in this other program, and it's very important to them. You can cut anything you want, but don't cut this." Do you understand what I'm getting at? So, it's going to be very, very difficult, but the key thing is we're at a point now where we're going to run out of money. And here's the thing. With that amount, I can get you to 31, 32, maybe. See what I'm getting at? In other words, I don't know a bunch of other things that can go wrong. For instance, right now, we're going to re-examine the 25, 26

135budget. The school year is not over. For all Cynthia knows, we could have four special ed kids show up tomorrow. They have increased costs. Or we could end up needing more more people to cover uh uh leaves or something for some reason that they're allowed to have. You see what I'm getting at? So, there's all these things. Like I said in the B, no one can calculate the unanticipated uh exact costs or revenues or loss of revenues due to resignations, marriages, car accidents, getting sick. All those things can happen and cost money in a school district. We have people working with people, for heaven's sakes. Okay? And then new students with special needs. Interest earnings could drop. The What if the feds meet in 2 months and say, "Okay, let's do this." And your and

136your interest earnings drop out from underneath you? The foundation aid we know isn't moving. So, we've tried to come up with really realistic budgets here. In other words, we just didn't make something up. By the way, what we did is we we were very careful on our expenses. I must tell you, we did not say like let's make up a number. Let's just say you were you budgeted $3 million for something and and it was a salary line and people were going to get a 3% raise. Did we increase that line by 3%? No. We tried to find out how much we really paid people and only increase that by 3%. So, this isn't going like this artificially. So, we're real tight. School inflation costs, materials is a concern. 3 years ago I bought a

137a pickup truck for $34,000, an F-150 for a district. I bought one a couple weeks ago for 74. I mean, textbooks cost a fortune. Everything for us costs a fortune. We are captive audience. Like I said, how much is a zero-emission school bus? Anything they want to charge you. And you see with capital projects how things are escalating. Costs escalate. The next one, immediately re-evaluate purchasing staff need. Look at the possibility of attrition and breakage, but remember scarcity is important here. If you need a physics teacher, you need a physics teacher. If you need a special ed teacher, you need a special ed teacher. I mean, think about it. There are certain things you cannot go without. Okay? So, the problem is, you know, you want to do as least amount of damage you can

138to the program and keep it as robust as possible. That's your mission, but absent somebody giving you more money, you're between a rock and a hard place. You got to be realistic about it. So, what happens is but here's the other thing. Sometimes boards end up saying something like this to me. Well, we're going to just have to tell everybody, I know that they want these raises, we just can't afford them. Well, here's the thing, two things. First of all, I was union president for about 10 years. I would tell you, you have a problem. Do not bring that to me. I I mean, I would just I'm being honest with you. I said, that's not that's not my problem. But your problem will be this. If we do end up taking a hit that

139way, even if we did agree to it, will you be competitive to hire that physics teacher? Because the physics teacher will be in high demand. So, that guy's going to get a couple offers, and he's going to go, "Okay, what was Waterville offering? What's this one offering? What's that?" And that's where they're going to go work. So, you've got to stay competitive if you're going to be if you're going to have a robust program. You've got to be able to attract What do you want to Who do you want to hire? I always thought it was the best and the brightest. That's what I wanted for any kid. I want the best and brightest I can get. That's what I want. So, escalations So, you cost escalations. So, somebody said, "Well, let's just lower the

140budget." Do not lower the budget, lower the cost. Lower the expense in the budget. Right? So, in other words, "Honey, we can't go out to dinner. We've got to lower our expenses to be able to save money for the hot water tank." Means actually that simple the concept. E, scrutinize cost escalations. Look at health insurance is going up. Salaries, pension, transportation, all these things are rocketing. Now, the good thing about transportation is is you get 90% aid on it. So, in other words, when it goes up, it's not as bad as the other ones. So, therefore, what you try and do is when you try and do cuts, don't attack things that are supported by other things. You have a revenue stream for it. Okay? Develop long-range plan, keeping in mind that the state's going

141to have a fiscal cliff, too. We're handing out money like we have I call it an Oprah moment in Albany. You know, you get a car, you get a car, you get a car. I mean, you watch the news, the local news, any night of the week, and like, I don't know, you look at downtown to fix up the this the Stanley sign or the this 10 million for this, 20 million for this, uh housing for this, help the Delta Link to make sure that the dam doesn't break. You understand what I'm getting at. There's money going all over the place here. So, it's being spread around more than it ever has before, by the way. A 2, 3, or even 4% level of a tax cap these days will not keep up with some

142of your costs. Unfortunately, you may have to 15 I think would be crazy, but the thing is by the way I've done a 37 and a 32 just for the record. Got them both passed. Okay? I also did a 24 and an 18. Okay? Yeah. You know why? Cuz I'm crazy. But the thing is is that we we you know we were in deep Here's the thing after I did my 37, we were still the lowest tax on true in the county of Oneida. Well, if you break it down the way you broke it down is you didn't generalize the budget. Black black and white. It's very understandable. I'm trying to make it understandable. Yeah, thanks Eric. I I mean I would have done more of what I did. Once I understood the budget. This

143is black and white. When we thought Steve has been very open about how we got to keep our hand in the game. Yep. And I thought we were actually a little bit shaky. You are the second. Yeah. Yeah. Got some work to do. Right. You know, and so that that that was on. I know that that word and his administration team were very hard this year to do what they did. But wow. Yes. >> so I I this Well, that's it. I think we've made an improvement this year by the way, but we need more to go. No, there's a still a bigger mountain to climb. Right, but >> Yeah, a lot of work. Right, but but people have to realize in other words you if you want the school district has robust program you

144got to pay for it. >> Yeah. Okay, so that guess that's the way it goes. And the district has an obligation to be as austere and and efficient and effective as possible, right? So, so let me just wrap this up for you, but I guess the thing is is capital construction and bus purchases are important because don't forget you get a high state reimbursement rate. So, that's good. And you know what? No matter what happens, what program you have, you can't have the roof leaking. You have to have clean water and heat working out, right? So, the willingness to pay more taxes always going to Maybe 15% is your number, but maybe next year maybe a seven is your number or a six is your You see what I'm getting at? But you got to

145whittle away at some of this. You got to because it can't all be expenses or you won't have a program. You have a program. It's got You've got to weigh the other side. It's got to be a balancing act. So, I do say it a number of times is right-sizing. You got to keep in mind if you're losing enrollment, you got to look at class sizes. See, you've got You've got multiple buildings you got maybe Is there any duplication of services? You got to start looking at everything you could possibly that isn't nailed down. So, I don't want to belabor the point, but number four is important. Reductions in fund balance within the budget instead of reductions in cost will strain the district's cash flow and the ability to function rather quickly. Now, what this

146means is that when I first came into one district that I was superintendent of, at the board meeting, the my first board meeting that I was late to, I was late to my first board meeting, how embarrassing. You know why? I couldn't get through the picket lines. The teachers were on were picketing. And I couldn't I couldn't park within six blocks of the school. And I had to walk through an entire village to get to my meeting. Nobody told me about it. And they were picketing so much I had to try and find my way through the picket lines without touching anybody because the cops were there and you know what I mean, it was a real bad thing. So, I get into the meeting. I sit down and they beat me up for an

147hour and a half at the public part of the meeting. Like, you know, who do you think you are? We haven't had a contract. So, it was really very difficult situation. And by the way, they hadn't and I didn't think they were treated fairly, but I couldn't say anything. So, anyway, make a long story short. Then I got sued 12 times by special ed parents for a million dollars each. They got up to the podium and said that their students educational neglect they sued me for. Their kids were in ninth grade, couldn't read, and couldn't do math. And that's because at that school district all the special ed kids were segregated and were not given access to general ed. I get sued 12 times in a row. $12 million. And then the business And then

148the business official is next to me, right here where our student is. He's pulling at my coat the whole time of the meeting. I'm getting really aggravated because I'm getting beat up this whole time. I don't even know anybody. You know, sitting with Zachary, they just keep pounding me and serving me with papers. I had a stack of papers this deep. So, I said, "What is it, Fred?" And Fred is the new business official. And 3 weeks earlier, he was working for the American Red Cross. He'd never been a business official before. We had 5,000 kids. We had six schools. You understand how big we were? We were suburban Rochester. And he said, "The payroll clerk tells me we the Friday's payroll." I said, "Okay, is that good? I said, "Do all those forms I

149filled out, I mean, I'll get paid Friday?" He goes, "No one's getting paid Friday. We don't have no money." Wolf. Okay. So, you got anything else, Fred? He goes, "No, that's it. I just felt I had to tell you." So, "Okay, thanks, Fred." And I went over to the board president who sits next to me. He says, "Well, let's continue on with the meeting, Dr. Timbs." I said, "Okay." And the first resolution was the consent agenda. Upon recommendation of the superintendent of schools, we're passing all this stuff I've never even seen it. You understand what happened? Hired people. You know what I'm getting at? So, I'm in trouble day one. You know what I mean? So, my wife said, "How did it go?" I said, "Great." Never bring the problem home. But you But you

150see what I'm getting at. So, believe me, there have been places that have worse situations, all right? Uh Liverpool, just north of us, they just laid off 80 people. All right, there's districts all over Syracuse area, this area, and all over. Nobody's advertising a lot, but they're demolishing their staffs. That's because everything I've said to you, what I'm afraid of is I'm glad you people asked me to help you. I mean, I will do anything for Waterville way back with Waterville through all many of your superintendents because I was in a risk committee since 1990. Think of it that way. So, my point is I go way back with Waterville. We used to play water by come down see the game. We do a lot of stuff. And I used to do things with your

151superintendents, with your schools, and our students as well. But, the key thing is is this. What worries me the most is the districts that haven't asked anybody to analyze where they're at. And they don't know what they don't know. Okay? So, you have a chance now. You're going to prove a budget tonight that I think Cynthia has done an excellent job on Zach's work with it. I work with these people diligently. Think you have a very good budget. But, next year is the break not a break bread year, kind of make things really work. And we are only going to get probably one bite of the apple. The longer you wait, you will go out to dinner with the money if you get my drift. You see my little silly story. So, you've got to

152think hard. So, this school year spend time doing attrition, breakage, and things like this. The grant money for is all gone. The The beautiful bill wiped out all the grant money for school districts other than the title money. And I think that's next to be honest with you. Okay? So, my point is is expenses are escalating faster than revenues. If you don't want to increase taxes, you'll have to find the equivalent cuts to make. The more you increase taxes, the less the cuts. The less the cuts, the more you'll need taxes. It's a balancing act. Money in, money out. Do you understand what I'm saying? So, I can go through the store pulling the face, but I think I don't want to belabor the point. But, I think at some point you may have to

153challenge the cap. But, here's a year to get everybody on board to understand this is not a blame game. It's not even a fault thing. To me, everything that goes wrong probably looked like a good idea at the time. Nobody saw it coming because not everybody's trained in all this stuff. That's why I do this stuff. My point is is now you know now you have an obligation. Right? That makes sense? Mhm. You have any questions or comments for me? Um I'd make a couple quick ones. So, number one, appreciate the presentation. I agree with Ken. I think it presents in a very digestible, sensible way that sometimes we don't get to in the way we discuss the budget over months and months. So, I think it'll be helpful for anybody that would actually take

154the time to watch, which hopefully they will. Uh and then the other thing I would just comment on is in my nine years on the board, we've always had really good discussion around being disciplined in going to the cap. And every year we've discussed why. And I think it's critical that we keep that as a floor as a board and educate people on why. And then that's just my opinion as we work through this. We need all stakeholders, including the community, but everybody that works in the school, teachers, staff, to be open-minded and part of the process. Yeah, keep in mind that that's why I put that one comment in. The tax cap at 2%, 3%, even if you stick to the cap, expenses are starting to move beyond the cap and for cuz you

155know what? Think of one thing in the tax cap calculation has anything to do with your budget. There's only one thing. It's your capital exclusion. That's it. That's the only thing. Otherwise, it's completely devoid of your budget. No relationship at all. None. Right. So, yeah, I think I think the thing is is, you know, these guys have my cell number. I stand here ready to help you any way I can. Uh you've been a good board. You've done a lot of good things. You can see you guys have stuck to that cap religiously. I wish everybody has done that. You guys have done a good job at that. The key thing is is now we're at a point now where the economy and the way things are going are getting out of line compared to

156where the cap is. That makes any sense to you? Mhm. Through no fault of your own. So, please keep that in mind. That's important to know. For your own self-efficacy, you've got to understand that. You've done an excellent job. But, the point is now you can start to see, you know, they say, you know, the economy's turning, but it's been turning slowly. Just we haven't quite noticed it. So, it's there's just so many moving parts, it's hard to get a grip on it. That's why I did pulled up everything but the kitchen sink to show you. So, that we left no stone unturned. Yeah. Okay? So, again, thanks to uh Cynthia and Zach. You guys have been good soldiers, I know. Well, I love this probably been torture. I think I'm sure when we hang

157up they're going, "This guy is nuts." Uh but, you know, we got through it. But, thank you for your kind attention. And if you do have questions, you can get them to these guys and I'll be glad to help you out in any way I can. Okay? Thanks, Greg. My job is to think of things other people don't think of. So, I like it. >> Appreciate it. Okay? All right. So, thank you very much. Have a good evening. All right, take care. Thanks, Greg. Thank you. Are we doing additional budget discussion now or later? Let's let Technically going now. Yeah, let's let them go. Let's not figure that. That would be appreciated. The week We sidebar. We'll We'll circle on budget. We're going to let admin do their things. No, you're good. You're Oh, really?

158You picked a good meeting to come. We haven't That's all right. I learned a lot tonight. Just for you. It was a good All right. Well, good. Somebody else can do it next year. Perfect timing. Yeah. All right. So, I'm here tonight um just to present some obviously tremendous accolades by our winter athletes. Um I feel that, you know, obviously we're in a very good direction here judging from one our sign-ups that we've had throughout from the fall to the winter in a gradual time since I've been here and being my fifth season, our fifth year as athletic director, I feel like our numbers are in a great direction. Um not only from the modified level all the way up to junior varsity as well as the verse uh to the varsity level. Um but

159to start with all our accolades for boys basketball this year, um we have Reading Decker and Tyler Green who received CSC first team all-stars and they also played in the CSC all-star game at Herkimer County Community College this year. Um we took third place at the Herkimer Holiday Tournament with a big win over Beaver River um who's located in the southern tier and plays great basketball and which was a great win for us. Um we were very competitive throughout the year. Um many uh many close games uh whether it was home or away and uh we made sectionals once again this year against Tully, a very tough team who went up going on further into the semi-finals you know after beating us and became very competitive to the contend for the section three championship. Um

160our junior varsity team went 17 and three this year uh with first year head coach Hayden Dumas. I thought he did an excellent job. Uh we have a very promising modified program uh with coach coached by Tom Trevisoni. Seventh grade this year were undefeated. Uh eighth grade had one loss. Uh so our numbers are uh not only promising but our athleticism, you know, moving on to the next level and I credit that to a lot to our coaches taking our kids to tournaments over the summer, uh camps, and a lot of you know, a lot of great workouts you know, on their own time. Um Along with that, we have Tyler Green who will be moving on to the next level. He'll be attending Utica University next next fall and he'll be playing for the

161Pioneers next winter. Um one part of the the program that I do look forward to is the scholar athlete pro scholar athlete area within New York State scholar athlete program. Team averages they need to maintain a 90 average to be considered a scholar athlete team and 90 average as well you know, for the individual. So, our team average was a 91.18 and making us a scholar athlete team and the student athletes on the varsity team that had a 90 year average or above were Ian Carney, Braden Decker, Tyler Green, Galen Harris, Dylan Trein, and T.J. Trotta Sani. Um So, on our boys basketball end, I feel very promising that we know we're going to do well going forward in our future here. Varsity bowling. Uh the gentleman that I have sitting next to me has

162been a huge piece in our bowling program for the last four years. I am proud to say this is one big reason why I do the job that I you know, that why I'm at Proctor's because of student athletes that are great student scholar what we have in Oscar. Oscar in the last three years has been a huge piece in our program along with his brother Edmund. This year he was a first team all star. Oscar did bowl the highest game in the Center State Conference tournament this year at Kingpin lanes in Rome, New York with a game high of 258. Um we did not uh make the scholar athlete average, but Oscar did receive a scholar athlete pin. Uh, and I'm happy to say that he has over a 100 average here at uh,

163Waterville High. Um, girls volleyball, Brooke Proskine which played an exceptional senior game at HCCC. Brooke was uh, first team CSC All-Star. Uh, Heidi Proskine which was a second team CSC All-Star. Uh, Brooke was named the number one uh, player in section three for aces based on your service. Brooke was also our team MVP. Heidi was most improved and Julia Bruno received the coaches award for her uh, her school spirit as far as being very helpful on the on the volleyball team as well as just being a team player. Uh, the scholar athlete uh, team consisted of Julia Bruno, Kylie Ford, Payton Harris, Leah Kemble, Mackenzie Marriott, Brooke Proskine, Haley Proskine, and Heidi Proskine, uh, all receiving a 90 or above. Uh, we were also a scholar athlete team with an team average of 95.8. Um,

164our varsity program along with our JV and our modified program have a total of almost 50 student athletes within the program. So, we are doing very well with that um, and it's looking very promising going forward uh, with our girls volleyball. Um, girls, boys indoor track and field program which we started a few years ago now. Uh, this has been one of our more promising uh, programs as far as winter. I feel going forward being a fairly new program, uh, we've developed almost 20 section three champions in over three years, which is amazing. Um, we've had student athletes that have brought us to venues that I never thought that we'd be able to handle in a in a program this short-lived, but we've been able to be a part of Utica University. We've been to

165SRC Arena at each uh Onondaga Community College and a couple of our student athletes who I'm going to mention in a minute have taken us all the way to the Ocean Breeze Park located in Staten Island uh in the New York State New York State Championships. Um Katie Burton, Helia uh Helia Evans, Laila Barnes, Rosalie Nicoletta, and Gianna Castelli this year were all first team CSC All-Stars. Uh Gianna Castelli first team all New York State honors this this past season. Um all of our student athletes, I could mention all of them throughout all our meets, they met a personal best. All our athletes uh worked really hard, went to many events, many long events. This is uh a sport where if you were going to go on a Friday night and you start at 3:00,

166you might not be done until 10:00 at night. Um so they do put their time in. All our coaches do a tremendous job and I'm so proud of our student athletes. Uh this year we had five Section III champions uh which was held at the Onondaga Community College SRC Arena. Katie Burton for winning the long jump, the 300 m, and the 4 by 100 m relay. Gianna Castelli uh took first in 2-mile and we had a 4 by 100 uh meter relay girls team consisting of Katie Burton, Helia Evans, Laila Barnes, and Rosalie Nicoletta. Um they would have been here tonight. I did invite them, but we did have a meet in Cooperstown, so unfortunately they were not able to be here, but I just want to say that I'm so proud of them for

167their uh their accolades and our accomplishments. Um and to go further in this, I would I had been reached out to an Oneida County legislator, Cal Litzey, as well as Judy Smith. They are a team of Oneida County legislators with our administrative team, our coaches and family members along with myself are going to attend an Oneida Oneida County office building board meeting May 13th at 2:00 to recognize all our Section III athletes. So, that was a huge piece and another reason why I enjoy what I do because of student athletes that work hard not only in the classroom, they take pride in what they do, they go out and play many sports for many hours on their own time, and with the commitment of our coaches put us in a position like this. So, I'm

168really proud to say that, you know, we're going to be attending that meeting. Scholar athletes, we had a 95.6 average for the girls, a 93.09 for the boys, and that consisted of Leah Baker, Layla Barnes, Katie Barton, Gianna Castelli, Haley Evans, Rosalie Nicoletta, Hayden Smith, and Rylan Stein, who also holds over a 100 point average. So, I am very proud of all of them. That's all I have. Thanks. Yep. I want to give a special two shout-outs to the We had great seniors, but Danny and Katie, I mean, it's been in the papers, broke multiple school records, had great seasons, Haley Evans also winning a sectional championship, but just an extra special shout-out to Katie. What you might not know is you can only compete in three events in indoor track. You can usually compete

169in more than outdoor, and she gave up one of her individual events that she had a chance to win a sectional title in in the 55 m so that she could run in the relay to give those girls a shot to win. And then to see them win was probably the most rewarding thing of the whole season because Yeah. they they would have competed well, but they would not have won without her. That's what I was That is very unselfish and great leadership, and she's captain of the outdoor team, deservedly so. She's just a great leader to the athletes. I do want to feed off of what Steve said. One, I I apologize. I did miss a paragraph here, but I did have Katie as Katie and Danny also making the state qualifier. Katie in

170the 300 and the long jump in the 300 m. Katie obviously was I had a a great great accomplishment. She made the New York State Championships along with Danny Cassatelli at Ocean Breeze Park in Staten Island. Two outstanding athletes. Katie did set the the inner record in long jump and in the 300 m and the 600 m. Danny did also set his in the 600, mile, and 2 mile and holds about every indoor record possible in the long distance. Yeah. So tremendous accomplishments. And one other thing I thought of, too. We If you don't know, we we host Hamilton. They run in their uniforms. It's a little side note. It's frustrating they don't get to wear water bill. They're great kids, but we had uh Claire Filipowicz also won a sectional title >> Yes. >>

171and made state walls. Yes. >> And that was a huge highlight. We we asked Layla Barnes to run with her and pace her on the first 400 m of the 600, and that's what got Claire through to hit the time she needed. >> That's what Yeah, I will say I Very unselfish kids, great teamwork. That's >> It's been a great partnership. >> but we want to see them learning these life lessons. >> It's been a great partnership with them. They're so appreciative of running here and just being a part of the program. Yeah. Yeah. It's fun and outdoor they're all doing their own thing, but like all the kids that ran together and indoor are all hanging out with all these big invitationals we're at cheering for each other. >> Absolutely. It's great, so >>

172Yeah, if you've never been to an indoor track event, it's probably one of the most inspirational things I've ever seen really, but um to see 45 teams in Utica University Dome is impressive. Yeah. Thanks, Don. Yeah. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. That was an invitational they were at. Yeah. That was a small one. They're usually They're usually bigger. There's There was there was 26 teams there. At Sequoyah. There's one this Friday at Whitesboro's. It's It's gone past midnight before. Actually, just to put it on a footnote for that, you know, it's in the spring spring area, but Yeah, uh actually Katie Katie won the 200 and the 400. There? Yes. Out of 26 teams. Not to mention there's many A A and B schools, you know, we're we're class C, so Yeah, actually Katie

173won There was an elite division for 400. You could have one from each school in that, so it was all about She beat everybody in that and won that and got a plaque. Layla beat everybody else in the open 400 from big schools and small schools. And then Katie also won the two. I will say just in a footnote Danny wasn't at Sequoyah. Danny actually competed in Niskayuna and Chittenango, but in I think in Niskayuna Danny was top 10. Uh seventh What was he? Seventh in the nation? >> nation in the in the 5K. Yeah, 15 flat. 15 flat. then he broke the school mile record this past Friday. He ran 4:19. That's 4:19 4:19 mile. That's that's unheard of in this area. That's great. Yeah. And to And to cap it off though, to

174have two division one athletes in the same year, Katie will be attending Stonehill College, 20 minutes outside of Boston, and Danny will be attending Stony Brook. Downstate. Yep. Yep. Yep. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks a lot. Just as time was mentioned, obviously like all the kids that reach scholar athlete in the teams, he's also been working with sports boosters to plan out their what's going to be in brunch this year for for scholar athletes. Yeah, that'll be That's up and coming. You'll hear about May 21st That communication's ongoing. >> Yeah. Getting that set and invitations out. Yes. Yep. Cool. Awesome. Good stuff. Appreciate it. Thank you. Have a great night. Have a great night. Great night. Thank you. So, principals. How do you do? That's right. Trim it. Yeah. Checking in with the highlights. Mr.

175Junior, if you were able to enjoy it, was incredible. Such a special night for our student athletes. I love this program. The kids deserve it. So proud. Such a great person and a great network of program here. Like a barber, didn't start our high five program here. It was she was the lead challenge center and that is supporting student safety and and that has started at NPS. Uh fourth graders traveled to the odd and around the big center and got to practice with the school golf club. And NPS period of a little uh positivity project spirit week was held also and we had a special guest Elwin Muhammad King and representative of the Rise Above Streets. Throughout the week students have done fundraising events, collected socks, collaborated with community community schools who also get additional

176donations. Um it was a great weekend. Yes, students got to be kids. A huge shout out to Elwin Tody Thomas as well as our second grade tool. Uh New York State assessments for ELA administered last week and we're looking forward to math. We're looking forward to math assessments. Stay back. You got math next week. Um you know, science and math. Just as a quick synopsis of data, you'll see a little bit of spike um with physical within March and April and you'll see students also. Questions? Hey, the trend's still really good and April's coming back down from March. I know it's not done yet, but it's close. So, really good job. What about high five program? They're coming back like They were once a month or We were supposed to have sessions today. The sheets

177are ready for March and we have an actual day or week or we have sessions scheduled but for May and then one final session I'm looking at the tally. Several sessions >> Okay. Yeah. Um let's see. We'll be quick. Um most of us there again just academically we are in fourth quarter so we're getting to the end. This is where it becomes crunch time. They're proactive and I started this last year where we would send pre-letters and so we did this year where we sent every letter down to everybody whether they had in parts average of 60 or below. So that would help the parents with identifying what they need. But more importantly we did a separate mailing out for senior jeopardy letters. Um kids were in danger of failing a graduation requirement. So we

178have a whole different chart that these are the bare minimums that you can fail this course but you cannot fail this one and you'll be able to graduate. And we met with these senior and it's not real bad. You know a lot of them I think they got a couple of missing things to make up. Hands down they're working and doing some things I don't know if they're proactive throughout the entire year. There really should be no surprises for the kids that are in this situation when they're going down a pathway and just tied themselves up and they may be busy each and every week with some kids going through to catch them back up but we're willing to do that. Uh we're moving forward with scheduling for next year. Um of course your freshman

179are high school students so they got that. ELA testing went really well some of the best attendance days ever uh with everybody showing up for the test and even the handful of opt-outs that we had they even showed up you know so they're really good with that. So math is coming up. ELA testing starts beginning of May same time as we do math testing for 7th and 8th so that's all going well. Um one of the things that's really important to me and we're using it tomorrow for the early release, is that the outcome of this with that the early night picture courses done on time. If your course is done, I want to plan practice. You know, we don't want to require the students in our program for kids at some point to direct

180them to make sure that we're fully prepping them. I have no problem going through a joint review, you know, when we do them. It's not very kid friendly racing at the very end. So, that's one of the priorities for our small early release days and half hour early in the year or any time and everything we do, show me what the review plan is and that will be forwarded to staff. So, we're all on the same page. Um some of the cool things I done ASL winter each receiving today with ASL students from multiple counties. Um and they did a program there. We had the Pops concert. Um our society did an A continent the library. Um we also, let's see, last week um or after doing the report, drama club went to a drama

181fest in Oswego. Today kids just got back from the Empire 5. So, people are still going the mutual kids with the outsiders for the weekend and this on Sunday there. So, there's been a lot of really cool things. Um one of the things there, lots of busy nights in. So, there's a all your babies of any activity that we'll be doing in the evening with stuff like that. So, those are some of our evenings moving forward over the next 2 months. So, come you're more than welcome. We we encourage you to come to our meetings if you'd like to come to our meetings and stuff. So, we appreciate that. Um all the other data stuff, I think our um our spring sports um eligibility has been uh really good. I mean, I think kids are

182finally actually getting it and understanding and doing it. So, you know, we're going to review the policy. Um we're going to see if there's any tweaks we need to do for next year. We're going to start operating of the wild um uh PA just 4/4 matter with you for the fall, you know? So, it's not as bad as it was. You know, you're playing football. Obviously 20th, you better be passing 26th. You know, taking them in something so they're wearing those things like that. Um we have all the data there, but we don't have any No, I think that'll be important. I know in track and we've got 40-some kids between varsity and modified. We're already talking about fall. Like it's a given like we're in good shape, but we're focused on now, new marking

183period, don't fall behind, no excuse, but like you got to finish well cuz soccer, football, running, cross country in the fall is now. So, I think that's probably new as and I would worry more about the kids that aren't doing a spring sport, which I think most of them probably are, but there's still some kids not doing spring sport that do fall sport that might not be tracking. So. Lots of kids on the honor roll. All three levels, it's awesome. So. Thank you. Appreciate all the work from all of you. And for Stanley tonight. This is like a Dan Nichols meeting. Definitely not Dan's fault. I'll take credit for the length of this one. So, that's what happens when you're rolling a six on the die, right? The good news is that Dr. Tims was

184so thorough that I definitely needed to consult him. So, for sure, which you know, it great to have his knowledge base and to be able to like tap into that a little bit, bounce ideas back and forth. That's something that I get to do in in our sessions with him. Obviously here that's more of a presentation and you can see one that he is very familiar with and knows those details backwards and forwards. Like he puts a lot of time in to be able to regurgitate such information in such a high dosage. But just as we look through, obviously like in we in we talked about where our revenues were at. So so it's important just like to see that and where we're at coming into the 20 6 27 school year and where those

185revenues are. And obviously as he talked about like our fear long term is that costs are rising at a higher rate than our revenues are rising. So that that's our long term goal and that's the planning that we need to have. And and as we look into like our overall budget as we've created over these last couple months, one of the really important things that I wanted to highlight and and obviously we're here to adopt that this evening is that being our budget as we go forward with this. And so when we look at that budget of I'm on the wrong page on mine. Hold on a second. I'm sorry. Of 23,862,837. And and that is an increase over last year, 3.2% 735,000. But obviously we're talking about significant increase in our costs that we're

186having just to do the same things. And obviously we're not okay with just status quo. So it is that balance that Dr. Timms was talking about and that idea of what can we offer? Let's not get over the top with where we're looking to add on. But what's right for our kids the most moments. And I think that those are those discussions that we have to have. And I think that as we were this year throughout this school year, being diligent and paying attention to where spending is occurring. And yes, we did work hard for the 26 27 school year to tighten that budget up. And that helps initially as he referenced. We want to make sure that we are having that mindset as we go through that entire school year as well. And as

187we built our budget and we went through it, one of the things I wanted to really highlight, let me go back for a second. Like the administrative program and capital, how we did it throughout the year cuz it makes the most sense when we're working and we're talking is by budget codes. As you look at this, like these are all the different categories and all of our budget codes, and we don't need to go through all of these, but they go through the 1000s up to the 9000 codes. And that's how we create it cuz as we're going through each line item, that makes the most sense. But I wanted to make sure for all of you when you see what goes out publicly and for anyone in the public that's been paying attention to

188these meetings, some of those numbers are shifted in those categories by the requirements that we have to follow through New York State. So I just wanted to make sure that that was clear. Well, a number we may have had as our total for capital or for administrative or programmatic is going to look different for what we're required to put out. But the total number in the overall budget is exactly the same. So when you look at program, this is how it will be broken out when we put it out in the budget newsletter, and this is what we have to report out as our three-part budget. The big reason that there's a difference in how we have to put out this way versus how we create the budget is you see in those line items

189there, the employee benefits and transportation. Those have to be under programs, and that's really where the big change comes from. Those get shifted into program, which really, if I were to go back here, we have employee benefits all together as one lump sum. That makes the most sense for us in our planning, and you see transportation is down there in those lower code items. But it's a requirement from the state that we have to put it here. So you see that it shows that where we were planning was 11 million, this is 16 million, and it's really those two line that are the difference maker. Everything else falls in line pretty much the same. And the same for capital. As you go, that's where this those items get shifted. But again, within that capital, you

190have to break out those employee benefits, which we've talked about is is such a such a large amount of our budget at this point in time. We're over $5 million just in our employee benefits throughout the district. So, you're looking at pretty substantial amount of our overall budget goes there. And as we tighten things up, capital is probably the area where we tighten things up most. Like you see that that total is actually less than it was the year before. So, we were really diligent to make sure that anything that wasn't necessary, that wasn't going to impact kids, that we were removing that. And as Dr. Tim said, it's one thing tighten the budget, which we did, but we also cut some things that weren't going to impact kids. But long term, some of these

191costs are going to have to go down. And it's going to be that balance like the idea of the 15% obviously not realistic. The idea of cutting 875,000, that's not realistic. But what where's the balance point there? Where can we raise taxes a little bit? Where can we cut a little bit and get to that point where we're still able to move forward and still offer really quality programming for our kids and for our community. And administrative, again, very similar with all of those breakdown points. And just to highlight, same total. Same exact total at the bottom. Just slight changes in those things. And like I said, we're not going to hammer this too hard because these are the things that we've been talking about the exact same idea where we went through line by

192line. But I just wanted to remind everyone that like in this particular creation of this budget, like where our focus really was, and that was in maintaining our extracurricular and academic offerings both at the elementary and secondary. Like that was our primary focus here while trying to get things accurate and trying to get things down in preparation. We were very early on in our work with Dr. Tim's and looking out 5 years. So, we didn't necessarily know where our projections were at that point in time. So, we were trying to be diligent and conscientious of making sure that we weren't overspending. But, there are within this there are some changes and possibly even additions within this even though we were diligent, there's still some things that were required to make sure we're good. One of

193those which is is a is just a trade-off. Going away from foreign language at the elementary level and switching to a STEM instruction. That is part of this particular budget. Another element which is really important at this point in time is upping our reading interventions at the elementary level. So, that is an addition, but one that I stand behind that is necessary at this point in time because we're never going to have success for our students if we're not getting them early intervention in reading before that third grade level. Because if they're not at grade level by third grade, statistics show they're not they're never going to be. And that puts them at such a disadvantage at such a young age that it's it's not something that is on the table to not be next

194to us in my opinion. So, that that's a must. And obviously the with the capital project, the costs that are that are a part of that, but also the idea of how we're having to shift some things. So, that that was that's played a role in us being we added in a potential position cuz we don't know yet with our master schedule. I've talked about that before, special education services that we are required to offer by having to relocate sixth grade, do we need an additional one in the district to do so. So, we factored it in so that it wasn't going to be an addition later that was then going to hurt us in the budget. So, we were prepared to handle that if we needed it to be. And then, obviously, we're it's

195smart for us to continue. Got to go back to Dr. Sims again, but he mentioned the things that actually you do that maintain your facilities and also you get aid on. So, capital outlay projects are important. And And they're things that keep our building going. Obviously, we're limited to $100,000 at this point in time. Lobbying is occurring all the time trying to get that raised up to $250,000 is what a lot of people are trying for. $100,000 doesn't go very far in this day and age in in any type of construction work. So, what where we've kind of laid out working with our architects, we've we gave them a big laundry list. I said, "Here are all the things we've observed that need some attention that aren't in our current capital project." And we kind

196of factored them all out and have a tentative four-year capital outlay plan. And that could change as things change in the district, but we have an idea of the things that we want that are on our list that we want to make sure that's getting attention. And in the upcoming year, especially with the fact that we are redoing in this capital project both of our gym floors, I don't know if you've noticed the doors in the back of the high school gymnasium, you can see daylight everywhere, and that's where the floor has been damaged because of that. So, if we're redoing our floor, we want to make sure that we're also sealing up those doors and making sure that we're not having weather getting to that new new refinished floor. So, that's part of it

197as well as some other equipment upgrades that that gym hasn't hasn't really changed since it was since it was added on. So, there's some things that need to be tightened up in there a little bit to kind of update it. So, that's really where we're at at this point in in our preparation for for adopting our budget for the 2020-2021 school year. Are there any questions that I can answer? >> Once, going twice. Student rep. Nothing else for you. Thank you. Do we have any committee meetings? We don't have We do have We do have a wellness and a safety committee meeting coming up in the next month, in May. So, those will be topics for future that will be discussed. Okay. Uh board discussion. First public comment. Yes. Um I'm in awe of Shell

198Shocked. I'm sure I knew too. I can't believe he spoke for 90 minutes without notes and was Bulgarian and followed along, but that's amazing. Um Before the break, right before the April break, there was some push by a couple of parents about getting more kids into the pre-K program. So, there would be another a third class. Is that something the district was It was a little unclear cuz then I have a kid in pre-K. But, was the district trying to get more kids or was that Where Where is that? Yeah. I'd be happy to answer that. So, we do run and that was part of this discussion as well is that funding for for pre-K and and the governor has actually proposed increase. Obviously, her budget has to pass for that to be in effect,

199has increased the amount per pupil that will be allotted in the UPK funding in UPK funding in the future with the hope of by 2028-2029 the districts are offering pre-K to all of their four-year-old four-year-olds. So, we have had two classrooms in recent years and the way the numbers work is you can have up to 18 pre-K students in a classroom. And if you have the 18, you have to have a certified instructor as well as a paraprofessional in the room. As soon as you go above 18, you need to actually add a second paraprofessional. So, we've had this this tipping point with the additional funding that's potentially going to come in. We were hoping that if we got to a certain threshold, it would be able to fund a third classroom. We did not

200reach that threshold that we were hoping for for that funding. So, when a couple parents called and asked because you have to do it on a lottery system, and they called and asked, "Well, what is there anything we can do?" I said, "The number one thing that you could do is if there's additional people out there that haven't registered, like get the word out that if we reach a certain amount, we would be able to add a third section and be able to fund it." So, if we reach a certain amount of students, that is still a possibility. Now, the difficult part about that is that's not out of our our general budget. And simultaneously, if in the next year there's not enough students, could we keep that third section? So, that is obviously with

201fluid numbers from year to year, that's a concern in adding a third section to it. But as of now, we're we're still at two because we haven't received any additional applications since the lottery occurred. What were >> That's correct, right, Mr. Crisman? Yes. I don't know. Good job. But we had four or five over what we could. So, we'd need a good number more in order to even think about a third class. I mean, there is so much transition. Children probably still live in the home. The families move in, and they move out. So, we don't know. So, right now, the people that I've been speaking to I assured them I assured them to August. They were so relieved. >> So if you So the funding only increases if we get to a certain number.

202It goes up per student. But then you have to justify all of the costs within the program. So you're talking about additional adults with their benefits, additional supplies, do we need more furniture to stock a third classroom because obviously pre-K students have different size furniture than what we might already have. So there's a lot of other factors in it. Where are you really you need to know that you have enough kids to be able to pay for otherwise then we're pulling out of our budget that was unplanned and expenses. But I wholeheartedly agree with getting all four-year-olds in the classroom. There's just some factors that aren't quite there yet. One of them being that they count in our enrollment which they do not currently. Another one that you don't get transportation aid on four-year-olds cuz

203they're not it hasn't been a factor in yet. So these are things that we're hoping as this progresses there will be additional legislation to to supplement that. Do you know if the kids are there? I mean I mean like a census or something that says there are potential four-year-olds who could attend who just aren't signed up or I mean I know we have smaller classes. No, I don't know. I wish I knew. I I mean I would call people individually if I knew but The amount that have applied is comparable with with grades like just above it. So, I would say that it's close to where we're at, but obviously, you know, there's fluctuations from year to year. Yeah, how many grades K through 12 right now that we have fewer than 45 kids? One

204or two. Fewer than 40 Are there any of the elementary with fewer than 45? How many grades do we have less than 45? We definitely have right around 45 in quite a few of the lower elementary grades. Yeah. But just Yeah, just as a random extrapolation like census-wise, are there probably 45 4-year-olds? Probably. Probably. It's probably Right. Like 45 to 50 is probably the accurate We don't get 45 applicants. The tricky part with UPK is you're only eligible within that year that you turn four. And with kindergarten, you potentially could wait until you were six. So, you you're only eligible for that one year for UPK. So, if you're going to go, you have to go that year. And when you go to kindergarten, I mean, you potentially, I guess, could send your kid to

205UPK, hold them back a year, and then go to kindergarten. But so, it it's a weird New York State thing. Yes. Yes. So, like there's more people eligible for kindergarten really than there is for UPK. Thanks, Betty. Awesome. All right, we're moving into We have a consent agenda for personnel 8-1. Can I get a motion? So Thanks, Dan. Second. Thanks, Lori. Any discussion on personnel? I'll just throw in there it's it's wouldn't be noticeable, but I appreciate uh Coach Ruane working with girls basketball players during the off-season program that he already runs. I think it's great inclusion, great way to help try to encourage participation and numbers. So, pretty pumped about >> really stepped up to volunteer his time to try to keep some momentum going as there's been conversations about increased numbers coming up

206to get our girls basketball program back. That's everyone's goal. And And Tom is also been working to see like who is interested potentially. And we're hopeful that we'll be able to run a JV program next year. It does not look possible to run both a JV and varsity just because of the numbers and in the age of the girls that we have interested in this point in time. But, we're going to keep working with them to see what we can do to to get that program back to its full extent. Yep. All those in favor? I. Opposed? Motion is carried. Moving into new business. We have a consent agenda 912. Can I get a motion? So moved. Thanks, Tim. Thanks, Justin. Discussion? I would note this does include 91, which is the budget resolution in

207the amount of $23,862,837.00 that we've been discussing. Any other discussion? Appreciate all the work from Cynthia, Zack, admin team, everybody involved on the budget board. Lots of work ahead in the years ahead, but I think we know what's in front of us and that's the most important starting point. And we've done a lot of things correctly so that we're in a manageable position even though it'll be a lot of work. So, thank you to everybody. With that, all those in favor? Aye. Oppose? Motion is carried. Second public comment. I thought you totally had a state for a half hour meeting. Well, we've been spoiling you this year. Wanted a flashback. Any other board question? We do not need an executive session. I would not. Thank god. Okay, can I get a motion to adjourn at

2089:32? So moved. Thanks, Dan. Second. Thanks, Lori. All those in favor?