001Good evening everyone. We need a motion to approve the minutes of the regular board of education meeting of 16 2026. Kathy, Patty, all those in favor. Okay, resolution passes. Dr. Farrell. >> Okay, good evening everyone. Thank you for joining us. [snorts] Like to start off by asking everyone to join me in congratulating quite a number of our students. Um, first our social media students who competed in the uh digital generation social media competition last week. I'm proud to announce that Maline Snyder and Carolyn Nash along with their group won the competition for their outstanding design and innovation of an app called the Pocket Watch. As a result of their win, they will be heading to uh New York City to Google headquarters where they will receive uh an all access tour, [snorts] an incredible and
002well-earned opportunity. I don't know, maybe I can tag along, a few of us can tag along for that experience because that definitely sounds pretty cool. [snorts] Additionally, Sofia Marola and Savannah Publicico, who is in the back right here, one of our superstars, also um earned runnerup honors for their impressive performance in the competition. Congratulations to all of these students for representing our senior high school so well and again for their hard work and their dedication. Please also join me in congratulating our science olympiads team. This past weekend was West Babylon Science team uh competed at the Mount Academy Invitational in Westchester, New York. [snorts] In a competition of 34 teams, our team A finished ninth overall. The following students finished in the top six, earning them medals. Um Addie Eglund and Deira Misra second in
003anatomy and physiology. Also, um Addie Eglund and Sad Sed second in astronomy. again Addie Iglan and Sad Sed fifth in chemistry lab Joelle Kas and Julian Cruz first in helicopter. So we are super proud of all of our students. Um in addition last month that same group, our science olympiads team, they began their season by competing in a virtual invitational. So, for the first time, our team A finished 10th of 90 teams that competed throughout the country, and they earned a trophy. So, congratulations to all of our students for their exceptional performance. We're proud of their work. Uh even more importantly, we're proud of their effort and their dedication to these teen-based academic competitions where students compete in a variety of challenging science, technology, engineering, and math events. So, keep up the great work. That's
004all I have for this section of the agenda. Good evening everybody. Um this week over at the high school we are deep into midterm week, everybody's favorite week of the year. [laughter] Um teachers and staff have been supportive through this process, easing what can often be a very demanding week. Um last week, student council and yearbook club successfully hosted the senior banquet. Um the event provided seniors with a meaningful opportunity to celebrate their time together as a class. Um it was a positive and memorable experience that highlighted student leadership, school spirit, and the strong sense of community within our school and our school district. >> Thank you. >> Okay, Dr. Farrell. Okay, at this point I would like to invite our buildings and grounds fearless leader, Mr. Mike Lritus, to the podium. Thank you, John
005Grill, for joining us today. Our architect, >> how are you? >> So, Mike is going to, as we have been doing the last couple of board meetings, provide a mid-year facilities um review, a departmental review of where we're at, middle of the school year, right? Um and he's also going to highlight right some areas for us to consider as we plan for the next uh budget cycle when we plan for our facilities uh and operations projects. So take it away Mike. >> Thank you very much. It's great to be here tonight. Good to see all of you. Happy 2026. Um as Dr. Farley said, I'm here to present the buildings and grounds 2026 year uh review midyear review. [snorts] Uh first slide just kind of goes over our general department staffing. Um, our department's comprised
006of a director of facilities. We have two chief custodians, one at each of the secondary schools. We also have two night leads in each one of those buildings. Um, each one of our elementary schools have um a head custodian title and there are currently 37 custodial worker ones in the district. Um, in the maintenance side of the house, we have a maintenance crew leader, one maintenance mechanic, four title, a maintenance mechanic, three title, five maintenance mechanic, two titles. Um, three of them are on dayshift, two of them are on the night shift. And um, I hope some of you got to see last week's um, facilities newsletter, which highlighted a little bit more work that we've done. And um you know, it's been an awesome experience just working with these guys and and just seeing
007the development, excuse me, [clears throat] of the programs that we've been able to do in house. Um so some of the midyear highlights in these photos depict us um conducting our own excavation to tie in a building drain lateral into an existing drain pool. Um, we also retrofitted a existing pedestal uh water bottle or excuse me um water fountain and we retrofitted that with a filtration unit, a bottle filling station in the senior calf. Uh the next photo depicts a custodial worker painting classrooms at the junior high school. So it's been great to um kind of collaborate with Dr. Falconee on getting some of the work caught up um due to some of the impact that GenEd summer school has uh you know done to the building and and just prevented us from getting into
008some of those areas. Um also maintenance crew leader Michael McNamera um over the break really helped um and spearheaded us with some of the heating repairs which is again depicted in that last photo there. Um, we've conducted two heating repairs that I can recall, one at Tuker Avenue and um, one at the junior high school. And the price quotes for those for vendor services again were were pretty astronomical. I I don't want to cite the number, but it it was high. And, you know, all of these jobs that these these men and women do for us are in a huge cost savings to the district. So, um, I I just really appreciate their ability and um, their buy in to to really getting into some of these nooks and crannies and turning wrenches for us.
009The last picture um you'll see a wooden box on top of one of the new dump bodies. And again, just to demonstrate the department's ability to adapt, we had um one of our other trucks go down when we were doing leaf um removal uh using our leaf vac system and the guys constructed in, you know, just a few hours the um that box that you see there. So, we put the truck back on the road and we were able to continue the grounds clean up in autumn um of, you know, the leaf debris that's out in the fields. Um just again some of the services the day-to-day services provided by the facilities uh department you know each of our staff uh build our buildings are staffed were cleaning uh and maintaining the facilities and grounds.
010Um we started to repair and get a little bit more involved in construction. And I think some of the again the facilities newsletters demonstrated that when we did the consolidation um sports event setups and breakdowns um we have you know task custodial workers for those events for our athletic department. Uh we also take in deliveries, we deliver food, we deliver mail um and other materials throughout the district. If there's a curriculum material, something like that for student services, our staff is there to make sure that that material lands on time uh for the instructional needs of the district. Uh we also have our, you know, our heads and chiefs. They're really monitoring environmental conditions inside the buildings and classrooms. It's not just they're, you know, we're there for, you know, to respond to, let's say,
011spill or an event setup, but they're also there looking at the environmental conditions, the temperatures, um, you know, the HVAC systems. A lot of that stuff again is now also starting to come under state regulation and in some cases state laws like we saw um, you know, this September, we saw the uh, maximum temperature in classroom laws. So again, our staff is being educated and they're really getting involved into uh making sure that we're in compliance with some of these new demands that are coming out from the state. Slide, please. Uh the next slide shows our current uh budget summary. So this was ripped, I believe, on January 6. So this is right out of the Envisions report cut and pasted. So this demonstrates the buildings and grounds current budget situation. Um, if you look
012under the third [snorts] column, you'll see the money that was placed at the beginning of the fiscal year. And if you look at the last column, it's the remaining funding in that budget line. Um, I'm not going to take each one of these budget lines uh one by one, but the one that I do want to highlight is um one of them that's starting to become stressed, which is highlighted in red. it's our vehicle uh repairs budget code and that's just due to the fact that some of the vehicles that we've maintained um have cost us and become a little bit more extensive in in the cost to keep them going. It does um I'm going to move on from this slide unless anyone wants me to spend more time on it while it's up.
013I have no problem doing that. But um you know each one of these budget codes is is in pretty healthy condition as most of our money is earmarked at the beginning of the day. We forecast what we're most likely going to spend. the purchase orders get opened, we plug in our funding, and then we sit there and we draw down the funding. We always try to hold some reserves in our budget lines for things that come up. Um, and sometimes at the end of the year, we'll liquidate and then we'll have some money to either throw into fund balance or to pivot into um, you know, maybe another purchase. But I'll get into that as we progress the slideshow. >> A a question on um, >> the second second line there of 4500. So the
014budget was 200,000. There's a little over there's almost 3,000 left. You you ordered all the supplies for the year up front. So you you don't foresee any curve balls being thrown your way with supplies. >> Sure. So um that budget Yeah, that budget line is um a lot of our consumers are in there. Our Home Depot account, our Granger account, those are big expenditures for um the paper towels, the toilet paper, the cleaning materials. That is that is a pretty large number. I want to say that that is probably around 130,000 itself. Um we're looking to see a reduction as we consolidated through uh Forest Avenue, but just to play it safe to keep, you know, in the same realm, we we decided to fund it as if we were still managing uh Forest Avenue.
015>> Um you know, those other um >> there's a few other in there and I can go through it a little bit more in depth, but um yeah, that's that's pretty much how how that goes. What's nice is that our vendor in um which became it was night marketing became Brady. What's been really positive for the school district is that all of their ordering has gone online and now we can have a a digital metrics of what we're spending per building and what our uh consumption rate is per building paper towels toilet paper and that that's allowing us to forecast these expenditures more accurately each year. You know reveals another layer to that. Any other uh questions regarding the budget lines? I know it's it's there's a lot there, so I don't want to just
016breeze over it. I want to make sure that if we need to take a minute to just analyze it and speak to it, we certainly can. >> Um just uh two questions for me. So based on what Chris was asking there, um so the $200,000 line item that's there um like we only have 3,000 left. So, did we spend all that money already or you say you just took it out of the budget line item and you're just going right you're buying as you need? >> Sure. So, the the way it is is when Victoria releases the budget, you guys vote on the budget, the money hits the budget codes and then we know that we have purchase orders that we plug into that budget line. >> So, pre we pre-unload that dollar amount correct
017from from >> So, those open purchase orders still currently contain the funding that we earmarked. For example, Home Depot is usually like a 35 $36,000 earmark because we know that we're approximately going to spend that on construction material and things that the guys might need. Got it >> to do their job. >> And then for the line that's crossed out, why is that crossed out? >> Um that's uh Mr. Wallace's security line. >> Okay. >> So, that's going to go into my next slide about um some of the forecasting and some of the rearranging of the budgets. >> Got it. Thank you. >> You got it. >> Okay. New budget codes. So, um, one of the great things about having Miss Galante here with all of her experience, um, and just she's incredible. I can
018sit up here all day and just speak to how great she's been for me, uh, to get, you know, a little bit more insight on the budgets and and the way to really move forward with some of the things that we've analyzed together with our system. Um, so, a couple of new budget codes are going to come out of um, some of our collaboration. The first thing is the furniture and equipment code. We've noticed that we don't have a budget line dedicated to purchasing equipment or furniture for the school district. Right? So, in a lot of cases when we did need student desks, we needed material. It it was a gray area that we all kind of had to navigate. Um sometimes at the building level between principles and myself, sometimes it was just me
019going, you know, what should we do here? Uh so now with that line, we can start to earmark and con commit money to um buying equipment. For my department, it would be things like snowblowers, lawnmowers, weed whackers. Um and then also if we, you know, we needed furniture, we needed tables, um we needed new folding chairs, let's say, stuff like that for events, we have now a budget line dedicated to that. The method before that was we would look at sort of our surplus and then we would pivot that surplus into a budget code with a purchase order to buy the equipment. So now we know that we can have a a little bit of an earmark for equipment and consistently start to update and upgrade some of our things. Um the next one is
020architect services. Um you know we have we have general conditions that have to be monitored from time to time. So um including our building condition survey which again is later in the slide as well. But just for example um sometimes we need an engineering report um and we might have to pay for you know an engineer to come and give us a structural analysis of a part of a building. So we opened up a a budget code so that we're not taking it out of like a Home Depot account let's say or a budget line that isn't necessarily dedicated for that expenditure. So this is that uh moving forward. um reallocation. So, some of the other things that we analyzed is that we can consolidate some budget codes and move money around because it was
021um it was almost in some instances duplicating budget lines were duplicating the same vendor services, right? So, um we consolidated the rear pair of buildings um into the materials and supplies budget line. And the reason why we did that is we noticed that in one of the line we were we were paying Ace Hardware and this hardware and then in the other line we had Home Depot and we had um Granger, right? So we're all getting material and supplies from these two budget lines. So we just took all of those purchase orders and we're going to push them into that one budget line so it just reflects more accurately for you guys and the public in general. Um same thing buildings uh B&G repair of buildings contractual. We had another code that had contracts in
022it as well. And we noticed that some of those were recurring contracts and other ones were literally just repair of buildings, right? So if our guys, for example, can't fix a steam pipe in a boiler room that's a 6 inch diameter because it's just, you know, beyond our equipment scope and maybe beyond that scope, we were using that contracts line to pay for that instead of just using it out of a material and supply line. So um and then we have recurring contracts for example the the outback portable toilet Johns right that we see the portable toilets on the field. So we know the elevator service the fire alarm inspections these are recurring every year we have to pay for this. So that's going to remain in uh the service contracts line. So I hope
023I was clear on that. I know it's a little it's a little complicated. Um and then of course the B&G security conference codes we're looking just to break that out. That was one of the re recommendations um was to not have shared budget lines um so that things are a little bit more delineated in earmarks. So kind of a no-brainer there. Next slide please. Okay. Now we have consider this. So we are on the portion of the slideshow that um is sort of requests based on needs and wants um that I've analyzed in the in the um the time that I've been here in the department. So, um, one of the things that's becoming and and that's why that one budget line was redlined is that our, um, the, um, the costs of maintaining our
024our trash truck, our garbage truck is, it's a 2011. The unit is starting to show signs of aging and and wear and tear. Um, I can't see too clearly all of the data up there. I'm gonna I'm gonna be honest. I'm g [laughter] I don't know if I'm gonna be 44 in February, right? So, I don't know. But um [snorts] anyway um so I I did procure a um a contract service. Um trash service in Long Island is still very territorial as it has been traditionally um which I learned. But um basically what we're having here is we're having a little bit of an opportunity cost with doing our own carding service. So, I did get some quotes because when uh again, we consolidated Forest Avenue, they wanted a dumpster contract. So, we began the
025process to obviously get price points on that. And I just went ahead and did it for the entire school district. Um because I do look at it as an opportunity cost. I look at this as an opportunity for the for the betterment of the facilities department. Um, so the quote that we had for three pickup for three times a week at each building um was $93,000 for the year. Um, when you reduce the Forest Avenue pickup because they are compensating our school district for that service. I believe it comes down to 84, but I can't see it in blue up there, >> but if my memory recalls correctly, 842 240. Um, so that's the carding proposal that I have uh currently and I just had it reuped I think at the beginning of the fiscal
026year in 20 late 2025. The cost of in-house carting service as I started to break down what [snorts] we're actually spending by maintaining our own garbage truck and service. I came to approximately 78,1408. Um, and if you look at my bullet points there, it's it incorporates the inspections and the repair of the vehicle, which hasn't always been consistent, but as again the vehicle ages, the expenditure of repairs is going up and more frequent. Um, the employee cost, it's about 50% of a maintenance mechanic to shift. Um, that, you know, by the time they're they're going from building to building and collecting and then off to the dump. Um, so we calculated that without benefits. that's just their salary. Um the insurance on the vehicle is approximately $5,000 a year. We earmarked $25,000 a year for
027the town of Babylon for the dump. Um and we've had to um we're spending about 3863 on fuel and [snorts] our emergency pickup. So one of the challenges here with this operation is that we currently only have two CDL holders for this to for this vehicle, right? So whenever those people are they're contract employees, they're entitled to time off. Sometimes vacations come up, emergencies come up, time off comes up. And in a couple of instances, we didn't have uh the staff on hand to to operate the truck. So again, with this new relationship with Winter Brothers, in this case, I made the call and they were able to come and service us in our time of need, which was very nice and of course at a cost, which I thought was very reasonable, by the
028way. Um, so again, the difference in my in my estimation is we're approximately sell uh saving about $6,000 u by doing our own carting service. Um, the replacement cost of this truck from what I've seen is anywhere from a a that's a 20 yard compactor on that truck, right? So, I'm looking for like material. I looked one up today. I I found one for $228,000 to replace. Um, you know, so the pros and cons of this, in my opinion, are are, you know, with with a service, we're going to have a forecasted amount of expenditure um for this, right? We we're going to know each year that we're spending 90,000 or 84,000 or whatever it is on on the pickup. Um there's no capital investment required for the truck or replacement, which we're basically now
029looking at. We we're at a point where the current vehicle that we have is at end life. Um, in fact, we we just put it out for a hydraulic pump uh replacement and then the mechanic called up our maintenance crew leader and said, "Hey, the PTO gears are totally shredded and I have the truck open now. It's another $6,000 if if you want and I'll and I'll do the gear." So, the truck is open. You know, you don't want to put the truck back in service and then you're bringing it back the next week. Um, so we went ahead and and and had that repair, but that's, you know, these are kind of blindsided situations for us as we're managing uh the fleet in in this instance. So, um, you know, another pro is that
030the vendors are responsibility are responsible, excuse me, for the maintenance, the inspections, the insurance, and the regulatory compliance. And that's a huge asterisk here with this. So, we can't guarantee that there's not a a waste product in the back of our own truck that would become a comp compliance issue for us. Um, you know, the in in most cases it's food waste that we're throwing out, right? That's the the lunch program and the food waste. But from time to time there is a clean out, right, of maybe a science lab, maybe a custodial storage area. And and that material could be something that if it were ever, you know, seen in the dump or if somebody E EPA, constable, what, you know, who'sever the enforcement agency of that, it could be problematic for the district.
031I'm not trying to sensationalize it, but it's just food for thought here. Um, again, as I do my pros and cons list, um, you know, so we would reduce the risk associated with equipment breakdowns and aging of the vehicle. And then it gives us the maintenance mechanics. And this is going to be my overall theme of my entire presentation here. It gives us an opportunity to have time on task with our maintenance mechanics so that we're utilizing them for some of the the job tasks um that I think we're paying a lot more for vendor services for. >> So include the price of the dumpsters. >> It included the price of the dumpsters. Um we needed one dumpster for each elementary building. They had two because we did a bag count. So, one of the
032ways, you know, we we took a tally of all the the bags that were going out each day to get this information. Um, two were slated for the junior high school and I think they had three or maybe even four for the high school and that would be picked up Monday, Wednesday, Friday. So, three pickups a week. Um, you know, that was something I thought it was a very decent price, but again, I'm not well verssed in the prices, so don't, you know, don't take my word for it. I'm you know um it is a a number that you know I think we would have to probably go out for a bid or could we use someone off OS contract I I you know that there might be a component there in the cons list
033right um so one of the cons is there wouldn't be a reduction in a maintenance staff because we would retool that maintenance mechanic for other work in the district right so that could be seen as a con potentially um the rate of increase um is likely at the renewal of a contract. But one of the positives was after getting off the phone with the Winter Brothers rep is that they would go into a multi-year deal um which would then at least lock us into price increases um or be able to manage the forecasting of those price increases and um [clears throat] excuse me you know like I said may may require a bid you know so that could be a that could be a con but it's really just another component of of procuring the
034service. Um, I do have a couple of photos aesthetically. You know, it it is something that we that we see. You know, we see that there we're putting, you know, food waste bags that unfortunately sometimes are leaking. They're in the sun. Um, you know, it is a situation that um that has been brought to my attention by the public. You know, sometimes I think, you know, if we had if we had a situation where we had a late pickup, I think we might had a sports game and right at the uh receiving area where everybody's coming to cheer on our team, you know, we we unfortunately have a, you know, a pickup point for our garbage collection. Um, so, you know, I just wanted to to kind of lay it out for you guys that
035I strongly recommend us going and pivoting away from uh the dumpster, excuse me, the uh the garbage truck and into a dumpster contract. I think it would also help us with our integrated pest management services, right? Some of those morsels of food, the the corn day, you know, some of that stuff is as good as the custodial staff is, it's it's not faulting, but sometimes there is just like in front of your house, right? Sometimes the bag the the cup falls out, you know, it's the same thing, right? So, in some instances, um we're we're concerned that it could be also attracting uh potential, you know, vermin or just affecting our integrated pest management plan as well. Mike, just one question for you, Mike. >> Yes, sir. >> Um, waste management, do they also go
036into the fields and both uh like baseball field or the football field and individually go and pick up garbage pales and empty them or just the dumpsters? >> No, that that that would just be the dumpsters. Um, we would still continue to do that. You know, we would have a our our maintenance crew would go back there or our custodial crew would go back there with the golf carts and load them up and bring those into uh the the dumpster receptacles. Now, are they going to pick up garbage like you see in the picture over here with garbage laying next to the buildings, waste management, or no? >> No, we would have dumpsters on premises >> and you would have to load up the dumpsters. >> Correct. We looked at locations already. I you know,
037I did have a site visit by the Winter's Brothers rep um I think in the spring before we we broke for the 2425 fiscal year. It's it's time is flying so excuse me. Um yeah, so we did look and we identified locations that we can have. Um, and you know, in addition to that, we're going to put fencing. Like, if we did move forward with this, we're going to put fencing around these units, you know, so they're beautified and they're not kind of standing out like I saw. Um, I think the only downside was at the high school we the trucks vantage point would have we'd probably be taking out um potentially two parking spots across from receiving. We could always revisit that and reook. uh there's some other options and we did this very
038quickly but um overall it's not an impact to in my opinion a negative impact for any of the facilities. I think it's a I think it's a win. I really do. Um you know I wouldn't present it if I didn't think that it was the right way forward. In addition to that um you know I have talked to other facilities directors. I have talked to other garbage people in the business and they they don't know of another district that that does this uh service in house. Um again, not saying that that's that's a bad thing, but just saying it as a fact that I haven't been able to site another district that's currently operating uh their own waste management team. >> What what what would be the location of the the the dumpster for the
039junior high school? So, I was looking at um the first grass area off to the side up against the fence. Um that that's where I think the best the best vantage point for that would be, Chris. >> Okay. >> Um we also have a unique situation where uh you know, as the capital project develops, there might be um you know, an a moment in time to to use some of the resources to put a pad and and maybe change that location as well. >> Okay. [snorts] with the bid the bidding on this. Does it >> can you piggy back off other districts? I know some in some bidding processes [snorts] we do that or is it just all individual district by district >> for the waste management contract? >> Is it just going to be
040individual district or >> are they under OG like >> so so way uh Winter Brothers is OS? Okay. >> So we we could utilize that right off a bid. Um, in the piggybacking world, I know things are changing. >> Um, you know, so I don't want to speak to that right now because I'm not familiar enough with some of the changes with piggybacking specifically off of other districts. >> Um, >> this region seems to be primarily one company. >> Yes. >> Put it as territorial, I think, is what you said. >> It it is. It's not it's not to say that if we went out for a bid that we wouldn't get a jet sanitation or um an LWS, right, which is up in sort of the northern regions of Long Island. It that could
041happen. Um I don't Yeah, [laughter] I don't know if um I don't know if it would happen, but it could happen. Right. >> Understood. >> Um >> so quick question for you. Um if we did engage in this contract, what do we do with the truck that we have? So the truck would most likely we could have options. We could hold on to the truck in the event that we wanted to keep it for events and you know have a garbage truck around for a little bit if we in my opinion it would be most beneficial to us to probably uh put it out for auction. It's at that point in time I I honestly I don't want to speak to this but I did have a conversation with uh our maintenance crew leader earlier
042today and I think there's another underlying issue mechanically with the truck. It's still operating, but I think it has a situation with oil in the radiator. Um, I don't want to, you know, if I say it three times, it'll come true. So, that's the only time I'm going to say it. But, um, this is some of the challenge currently at the time at this time with this vehicle. >> What kind of value do you think if we did go down that route, do you think we can get for the truck? >> You know, if if I would have not said what I just said, I would [laughter] say I I can't speak to that. I'm sorry, Frank. I I I really don't know what the value is. I've seen them at like the $22,000 range
043used. >> That's kind of what I was thinking too. >> Um a 20 yard compactor. >> Um and again, I don't know if that means sight on scene mechanically sound, but you know, just again reviewing some of the >> the vendors that are out there for secondhand equipment. Um I did see that. I don't really know what would be on auctions international, but that's who we would use to to auction the vehicle off. >> Gotcha. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. >> You got it. >> Okay. Next slide. Okay. Um, facilities proposed requests continued. And I'm going to make this as painless as possible. So, um, another thing we're looking at, right, is establishing a grounds department. So, the my overall theme here is time on task, right? So, when we operate a garbage truck
044in a maintenance title, we're not time on task for fixing things, turning wrenches, paint programs, all of these other things that we would start to look at. And uh establishing a grounds department again is another thing that I hope everybody would consider at some point. I know that the CSEA contract is currently open. So there's a beautiful opportunity to sort of consider a new line and maybe open that up for that possibility. And the reason for that again is it just creates a dedicated staff for grass cutting, tree brush trimming, fence and sprinkler repair. Um you know and and the parking lot painting with the um stop arm program. We were able to pick up that beautiful striping machine which we were able to use um the summer before last. Obviously, it was all hands-
045on deck for um building consolidation and cleanout. But um that would be sprinkler repair fences. That would be the ground scope. The signage, right? Continuously analyzing and replacing signage that's fading, that's, you know, just not aesthetically pleasing. That would be their main their main focus. Um it would definitely help point us in the right direction for aesthetics, building aesthetics and achieving that schedules. Um it also gives us a flexibility, you know, um for the potential of maybe a Saturday uh excuse me, a Tuesday through Saturday shift where if there is an instructional uh issue with our mowing operation, we might be able to have that happen on a Saturday perhaps. Again, can't speak to the contract at this current time, but um you know, that would be something to look into as well. Um >>
046what would the winter be like? >> The winter would be they would definitely do snow removal. Um >> you know, there that that's a good question there. I think a lot of the stuff in the winter would be the fence repair. It would be getting a temperate day like we just had what 54 degrees last week. I It was like a heat wave. I I would have them outside probably trimming the fence the fence lines back. Um, you know, we would look at maybe can we jump on the softball field clay, right, and start to maybe scuff that up and get that ready for season, loosen that up, and maybe now we're not using so much clay softener product, right? So, there would be a couple of things. Um, obviously with the new department, the
047the program would have to be established and in a in a way like you just brought up Chris, it would have to be for the year, right? We would have a seasonal program pushing forward. We could also, you know, utilize them for other things as well. You know, it wouldn't be um right now plows on, plows off, right? We're doing snow removal. That's kind of our focal point at this time of year. So, um it would be things like that, but we should certainly look at a wintertime for fence repair. Um you know, there's always things like that that could be done. >> So, once you define the role, it's it's specific to that role. You could not shift people inside. Remember a couple years ago, we had the hit team that was working on
048specific projects like ceilings and lighting. You couldn't shift people or maneuver people around or they stuck to the role that they're identified as. >> No, we could definitely utilize them. Um, I think there's a civil service rule of 10% if I'm not mistaken, but um, ultimately with with the in-house projects which is coming up as well, um, it would be an all hands-on deck situation. >> Okay. >> For for grounds, >> you know, in my estimation, we currently have a custodial title setting up in each of the secondary schools, right? Um, I would look at at maybe having a four or fiveman crew at most uh to get that ball rolling. If we started off with three, it's a start. You know, we could always down the road analyze the effectiveness, you know, maybe maybe
049we start off with a three threeman crew and go from there. But I think that that's kind of what it takes. If I'm looking at even a residential lawn service, I'm usually seeing minimally a three a threeman crew. you know, you have the mower operator, the weed whacker, uh the guy, you know, grabbing the buckets to dump and, you know, blowing with a with a blower down at the end. When you start to incorporate sports setups, too, some districts are actually breaking their grounds department into two task sets. One is just sports field maintenance and setups, and the other one is going to be, you know, the the the grounds, the grass cutting, the tree trimming, uh [clears throat] things like that. >> You you talk about irrigation. Is there much irrigation in our district?
050>> Uh yes. So, we have um irrigation out here on the senior high school field. We have it on the junior high school field. We have it between Tuker and Forest, but that's actually kind of already lionized and maintained for us. >> That's privately taken care of. >> Correct. Um each building had a little irrigation system that I think in-house guys have um installed in in the past. And some of those I I would honestly say we we should bring those back online, right? That would be another project point. We have uh we had one at Santa Pog and then it was in the way when we uh terminated the uh sub the sub oil tanks that we used to have and unfortunately you know away went the irrigation system but it's something again that
051we could look at to bring back and again we get the aesthetics back we start to have um you know a plan for that. >> Is there middle school? >> Yes. Y >> yes yes there is. >> Yeah. It it operates great. Yeah. It's on the northern side of the field there, the northern west field, you know, where the lacrosse the lacrosse games are and stuff. >> Talking about [snorts] >> um No, there's not that I'm aware of. >> Are there approved um lawn chemicals or lawn granular products for weed control? I've just seen some schools, I don't know how they do it where, >> you know, you don't see the number of weeds that we have. I know it's probably just from us in the past and >> I just don't know that the
052school >> it would be a regiment that we would have to begin you know aation overseeding honestly that would be again part of the plan for a grounds department to get to your question. There is a pesticide plan that we could adopt. It has to run into the state guidelines, safe schools, I believe. Um there's a state regulation there as well that we would just have to abide by. But um there is a pesticide notification uh tab on many of the school districts that opt to use it. Um we would have to disclose what those chemicals are and what the schedule of the okay >> of the practice and the application is. >> Okay. So the the basic maintenance of the of the the equipment used right now for mowing weak that you have that's
053budgetary already in the budget. But when you talk about overseers and air raators, do we have that equipment already? >> Um, we have we might have an air raator. I I'm trying to think of what's in the the garage over here just off my my memory. Um, but either way, I the equipment most likely, Chris, would have to be analyzed for its, you know, its functionality. >> Understood. >> Okay. Um, so that's kind of uh, you know, one of the investments that I see is is a landscape trailer there with the with the crew. Uh, approximately $8,000 for a double axle. Um, and again, we have a trailer, so maybe for a year if we implement it, we don't necessarily need to get the trailer right away, but it gives us options. It gives that
054crew almost like a mobile base of operations, right? Um, next, we talked about establishing a food service delivery driver position. Again, time on task. Sometimes maintenance crew leader is assigning their maintenance staff to tasks and then oh you know we just found out we're out of a food product in a building. Um so then that that maintenance department worker is now stopping that operation not completing that work order and they're going to go back and get into the freezer and then deliver food. So sometimes um you know sometimes it's inevitable depending on the staffing of the day but you know this would absolutely keep us on task and this is my reoccurring theme. Um and again I think that having a dedicated worker would help out with inventory. Um it's also the fact that you
055know not to spend Miss Dixon's money. I hope you're watching Miss Dixon but um you know she's um she is se fund she's profitable. It could be an option where it wouldn't impact the budget whatsoever. Um especially, you know, we have plans at building a freezer at Santa Pog, um another exterior freezer to give us a little bit more of a backup. Um and then logistically alleviate the current freezer with the product that's in there. So it's a little bit more manageable. Um you know, it would require a vehicle purchase. One of the cons to this, you know, one of the challenges, I don't even want to call it a con. um you know it would require a vehicle purchase so that that employee had uh you know a van or some kind of vehicle
056to do this job. Next slide please. [snorts] Okay. Um another thing that we're looking at is the potential uh of a MM3 specializing in HVAC. So we hit a home run. We have um you know our maintenance crew leader has a general contracting background and license. We were able to hire in 2024, early 24, um, a maintenance mechanic 3 that had an electrical master electrician uh, certification. And the third part of this component is hopefully getting an HVAC certified individual. Um, this would absolutely give us a dedicated member to managing all of the AC uh, preventative maintenance and breakdowns as well as Margaret's refrigeration. Uh this would reduce the li the reliance and that's the key here, right? Is reducing reliance on vendor services and the costs that are associated with that. Um it gives
057the district an opportunity also with someone that has a freon um handlers license to be able to do a minlit program. The district spent um maybe like 111,000 I think I saw for all the window units, right? And at some point those window units, we want to make sure as we turn them over. I would really love to do a mini split system. It's more economical. Um, you get a little bit more out of them as far as their longevity. And you eliminate the building envelope where there's like a panel right in the in the window. We're kind of losing a little bit of the heat and uh and stuff like that. So, it's it's a it's an idea. I'm not asking for it, but I just want to plant the seed that it would
058be fantastic if uh there was a there was a way to procure that or open a position up with a target of an HVAC tech. Um the um the final thing here is the purchasing of a new double wing mower. So, our current mower is a 2001. It's again almost like the garbage truck. It's so showing signs of age. Um and it's costing us a lot of money to keep operating. I think we spent about $6,000 keeping it up for the last 12 months. Um, and you know, it seems to be breaking down a little bit more frequently. So, uh, the cost of a new double wing mower is between 75 and $250,000. I can assure you that we're not spending $250,000 on a double wing mower, but when I saw that the price could
059go up that high because it's air conditioned and, you know, touchscreen, it's un the technology is unbelievable. Um, but I would say the 75,000 is probably in the realm maybe up to 100 depending on uh, you know, how these cost increases affect that kind of product. Next slide, please. Okay, looking ahead, and I'm going to try to charge through this because I know I'm long-winded guy. Um, looking ahead here. So, this year in April, we're looking to wrap up our energy performance contract. So, hooray for that. Um, as you've seen, all the solar panels are installed on the roof. Everything is generating. And, um, you know, I'm recommending we enter into a next phase once we wrap this one up. Although, after kind of talking with John in the hallway, I would have to maybe
060revisit that idea based on what else could we get an energy performance contract for. My thing is boiler systems. Um but again I don't know if that would be in a comprehensive package uh and available through an EPC but it would certainly if it is be something that I would advocate for. Uh the other thing is we're continuing our in-house projects. Right. So we um we've been doing really good with that. I'd like to continue it. Um one of the challenges that we just saw over the winter break was staff participation. Um you know the contract is is very nice. It provides the recesses off to our staff during uh the Christmas uh and and that holiday break and as well as the February recess uh to get the staff in. They're a little reluctant
061due to the fact that the labor law states that they have to have 40 working hours before that time and a half pay plan comes in. Some people don't care. They want to come in. They want to work. Other people see that as why why would I do that? Right? So, um, when we need an all hands-on deck project, like to knock out the remaining ceiling work at the junior high school, we don't want to try to schedule that work and then have people start dropping out on us if we're going to make the, you know, the expenditure on the material and then not have the labor. So, it's been a little bit of a, you know, of a hindrance to our, I think, of the plan of in-house projects. Um, I just want to
062cite the cost. So, I did get uh a cost for the remainder of the ceiling rip out at the junior high school. I think it was um $313,000 uh for everything. Um might be a little off there, but um anyway, our in-house we looked at it, it was about it was approximately 20 $20 a square foot versus our guys doing it for about six um five or six depending on again what maintenance level and things like that. So um very much advantageous financially to do it in house. Um but um you know I just wanted to to say that the hindrance is sort of in the participation level for us to to execute that. Um and and especially given the short window of time that we have to do that. Uh another thing that we
063looked at is the uh parking lot expansion. We know due to the consolidation we have more staff concentrated in uh our buildings. So, you know, we looked into some parking lot expansions. Um, we have just rough estimates. So, to look at the Tuker Avenue, um, it's about 300,000. JFK was about 350 and Santa Pod came in, you know, between 75 and 100 if we wanted to take the sliver that's in the front of the building by the flag pole and then pave that and expand about 40 parking spaces, I think, in each location. So um you know it's not just pavement alone and pavement doesn't qualify for aid. A project would have to come in house for the district to um to qualify for state aid. Uh and the logistical question uh challenges with that
064as we do property reduction specifically at JFK. You know the layout of the building is going to affect either a baseball field or even a sporting field for I think they're using it for flag football if we went and and paved and you know installed a parking lot there. Um, other things to look forward to the replacement of the LED uh sign in front of the building. So, we are all set. We have the money in uh in hand. I, you know, just want to shout out the alumni association and Representative Dorso for helping us with that. Um, we ordered the sign. I had a call with Cody today. So, we're just waiting on the lead time for the sign. And hopefully in the next facilities newsletter, we've got it uh lit up and we're
065celebrating the new sign install for the front of the high school here. So, I'm looking forward to that. Uh, next slide please. [snorts] >> How old are they? >> Um, all the boilers were installed in 2001. Um, so they're, you know, they're pretty much getting at end of life. They're still functioning. the fire um the fire burner itself, the honey well components that do high fire and turn the gas on and stuff, th those components are actually not manufactured anymore. So, a lot of the issues we're having are actually with the actual burner. Um the boilers are cast iron. We're producing steam in all of our buildings. um the mineralization, the oxidation of the metal, the metal starts to break down. And you know, we have had issues where um you know, we've had to
066take ribs out of the boiler, you know, and things like that. And just after a certain amount of ribs, the boiler is no longer operable. So, I'm happy to report we don't have that issue. Uh but we are kind of on a short timeline for having to start to do a boiler replacement. Um next, uh looking ahead, we've looking at the walk-in freezer. So, I've been collaborating with Margaret Dixon and, you know, we're looking to pour a concrete pad and put a very nice walk-in freezer for the staff out in the back of Santa POG. Um, we have the price points there listed. Continuing in-house projects, we ordered two softball benches for the girls softball field here in the back. Uh, they're about two weeks out, so I'm hoping that they get here and we
067have them installed for opening day. Uh the quote was 13,759 for the benches and we were able to buy them for about three just over $3,000. Um and we can install them ourselves. So that was a nice savings. Building condition survey is coming up every 5 years. It's required by SED. So, we're going to have the building looked over soup to nuts and um you know, that's going to be able to help us drive our vision for our long range plan and prioritizing uh some of the deficiencies or potential deficiencies we have with infrastructure in the district. Um and finally, replacement of fencing. Um the challenges clearing away the brush. Some of them have full grown trees. Um I thought I had a really good thing going on with the town of Babylon. nothing, you
068know, it it kind of didn't materialize. It's okay. Um, so we're going to have to set aside some money and I really want to get the fence line restored at the junior high school. Um, I was taught polls on their side, your fence, polls on your side, their fence. There's a there's a thing in the business. I thought it was the town of Avalon's fence. Fortunately, um, they don't see it that way. So, we're gonna hopefully um you know, in the coming I would say in the in this coming year um be able to expense and get the fence done at the junior high school and and take care of some of that. The guys did a great job clearing it out already. So, it's just a matter of um getting the material. >> Okay,
069next slide. >> Mike, just to hit on that a little bit more, and I know I've spoken to you about this and I've spoken with and emailed Dr. Farrell about this in the last year, year and a half. Um, obviously that fence line does look terrible along Farmingdale Road and then going down to pay park field across by the middle school. Um, you talk about the town of Babylon getting involved and trying to push it off. Um, is there any way we can you guys can set up a meeting and maybe get uh Supervisor Schaefer on board and go down there and look at the look at the situation and maybe he can help get things going with this? >> We could certainly revisit that. Um, you know, we did have a good email exchange.
070It seemed that the crew leader themselves was in, you know, was offered the services, offered the labor, but didn't necessarily offer the material. So, that's certainly an avenue that we can pick up, um, you know, in the future. I just want to make sure that the the product that we're getting is, you know, of good industrial quality. I don't want to go to Home Depot and buy a residential grade fence, you know, I want to make sure that we that we get the right stuff. But absolutely, Anthony, I could certainly follow up with the town and see if we can continue to collaborate maybe as the uh weather thaws out. Certainly, >> that's good because it's again, it's all about curb appeal and it's it doesn't look doesn't look that great over there. >> Sure.
071Absolutely. >> Um any other questions from the things that I presented today? >> Um I'll just ask real quick about the um AC system. So, I know you're suggesting or putting the seed in for the mini splits. Is there a significant energy savings by using mini splits versus using the wall units? >> I would say there is, but I'm not wellversed enough to cite what that is, Frank, but I can certainly get back to you on that. Um, I'll, you know, definitely put it up the chain and we'll get you [snorts] uh what the current units are in the windows and some of the mini split systems that would be like to install. >> Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And I think if there is a significant energy savings, it's, you know, it's definitely good for discussion.
072Just going back to the food service delivery. You said now maintenance will get a call. We have to bring that over. Um what does that look like now if you don't have a car? Because you said you would need a car. So what does it look like currently? >> Um so currently it's a maintenance vehicle that the that the maintenance mechanic is in. Um you know food service is on a schedule, but for every once in a while the truck breaks down on the the George Washington Bridge from New Jersey. Um, so you know, we had more of a food service and it's great, right? More lunch sold. We need more product than we assume. So, it's it's not a bad thing. Um, but I think it would help and especially with the addition of
073another freezer and almost like another central storage location. In my opinion, what it does is it gives us a north and south logistical distribution for food. And that's going to require a little bit more attention to the inventory of food than than what I believe is currently happening. Right now, we have a custodian in the high school who's in there and he loads it and helps unload it. Um, but I think once you split that and now we have kind of a void of task, who's going to be the committed person to manage uh the north freezer at Santa, I think we could certainly use even if it was a a PDM sub. And you know, maybe I shouldn't go too into detail of how that works. Um, but you know, I think it's not
074a full-time job. I think it's a part-time position. Um, but I think it would help the food service manage their stock. I think it would help them have someone at the ready to be able to, you know, be flexible for them in their time of need. I'm not saying what's going on now is completely detrimental, but again, my my focus is time on task. So when we invest in the material and the time, we don't have any any pulling away of that job so we can check that box and get that job done. >> One last question if you don't mind, Mike. >> Yeah. >> Um, sorry to be a pain in the butt tonight. Um, you talk about the backyard project coming up in the summertime in uh the middle school. Um, and you
075had spoken to us about possibly being able to take down that concession with our guys in house. Is that still possible? >> It I think it's possible. It um it would require again all hands on deck. Um we we will definitely look into that. I I think that there's um there's you know it's it's timber and block. So I think with the right equipment we could bring it down. Absolutely. Now, would that be able to be done with a timely fashion with that project being done? So, when it's all done, that building is not in existence and it'll look uh a lot nicer. >> Yeah, 100%. I would want that to be coordinated with the capital work. Anything that we we're doing back there, we're we're trying our best to make sure everything ties together
076so it's done. >> Can't use it for storage. One of the good news uh that that John just came uh with was that our uh press box is up at SEDD for approval. Right. So John hinted that there's about 24 weeks out of once we get the approval and we execute the purchase in 24 weeks it takes to build the box and send it for delivery. So we were hoping to take that unit down, put the new press box up, redo the entire back area and you know we're still aiming for that. Obviously, lead time on material um is is not in our control, but certainly the demolition of that of that area is. Now, go for storage, we would use the old concession stand for uh excuse me, uh press box for storage. It's
077already equipped with a garage. It's kind of serving as a storage area already. Um I I don't think that we need two of them, so we would probably do the demo on that one and then that would be that. Okay. With no further ado, I'm going to pass it off to John. He's going to give you guys a little demonstration on the capital project at the junior high school. Thank you. >> We thought it would be a good time to jump back on the uh junior high school project, right? In terms of some of the uh the visuals and a couple of questions for you. I think we can just continue. Next slide. Right. Yeah, >> there we go. >> Okay. >> All right. Good evening everybody. Um, so where we are with our summer
078project that's been up at the state education department. We have architectural approval. We have engineering approval. I thought we had fiscal associate approval, but they came back with one last question. And we've been working with the attorneys now. Basically, in my opinion, and I'm not the attorney, I think we did everything right on our end. We had a bond presentation prior to the vote. We clearly delineated or you guys delineated the A-list projects and then the B-list projects. All the A-list projects were completed. So, we should be able to then spend the remaining funds on the B-list project. I think we're waiting for bond council to get us a a letter that the state education wants us to send up, have their council take a look at it to make sure that we're all on
079the same page before we start spending those funds. So, we're we're working on that. That's the last piece of the puzzle right now, but like I said, everything else is approved. The other phases are approved. Um, that also includes the interior uh tech room reconstruction. Go next slide. So, this is just a review of where we are. Um the four tennis courts, new um seating areas, the green area, the light green area are there'll be like a synthetic turf, but a landscape turf, not the black crumb rubber that gets all over the place. It's just got like a little shock pit under and a little sandbased. Kids kids could sit. We'll have tables and chairs out there. The shades that we looked at, the sun shades, um so when it gets really hot, we can
080put them out there. also a basketball court, handball courts, and then and then the walkway. And what we we'll also be doing is we're going to we're going to run conduit around the perimeter of everything with drags. So, if we want to do future security cameras or site lighting or security lighting or Wi-Fi, the conduit will be underground so we don't have to worry about that in the future. That'll all be taken care of. There'll be a drag if we don't use it. It's couple couple runs of twoinch round conduit that we can have. Perfect. [clears throat] Next slide. This is a little bit of a a blowup here um in terms of a a West Babylon archway as we're walking into the athletic field as as well as sort of a walkway, little decorative
081walkway to walk from one end to the other. I know the last time we were here, we were talking about maybe [clears throat] um pavers, you know, maybe buy a brick or buy a paver, but sometimes that takes a lot longer. So, we're talking about maybe doing a stamp concrete pattern. you know, they have millions of different stand concrete patterns. You can get them in colors and we could do something like that. It'll actually be a lot cheaper as well. And then this one's a little hard to see, but this is just the renovation of the interior tech room. Uh we're tying this building in the renovation, new ceiling, new lighting, uh HVAC system, dust collection system, and then we have new windows going in in the back of the tech room as well, as
082well as furniture. um you know, painting, redoing the floor and interior and exterior doors. And those are the schedule projects. As Michael had alluded to, the press box is currently up at the state. The one tricky part about that is we I anticipate that being approved by the end of February. Right now, we're looking at about 24 week lead time for the press box. I was hoping it'd be a little sooner so we can swing it a little easier because it's got an by the time we get the press box, we might have to swing over the new tennis courts to set the press box down. So, we're going to have to work through that a little bit more. Um, but that's probably not going to be here by by August based on timing and
083stuff like that. That'll come in the middle, probably more like the middle of football season. And at that point, do you guys want to wait for the end of fall sports before we set that up? That's something we can talk about going forward. So things like um I'll call them aesthetics, right? Like the type of the seating or the coloring or you mentioned the different types of like stamps. So those are all kind of more specific detail pieces that will come later on in the project, right? This is the um overall layout and everything that was submitted and approved >> by the state, right? You know, in terms of the architectural review and all those pieces, right? Um we talked about seating um but we would select the seating right you know in terms of
084later on in the process we talked about some shade relief right so we would select right what that looks like in terms of the material or the coloring or whatnot. those types of things. Those would be decision points in terms of for you know a little bit later. [clears throat] >> Yeah, we'll we'll specify everything and then you guys will have color charts for the polls and for the sales and depending on what color we want to do for the tennis courts if you want to go to US Open colors or you know blue or yellow for the basketball courts, you know, something like that. We would have a breakdown of the costs as well >> of the >> well I remember when we previously had done this we had kind of a breakdown remember
085when we started itemizing take this out are we going to see that kind of >> so we would be going out to bid once we have >> then we would get a breakdown okay >> so one question I know we I think we spoke about this last time is the the drive the pathway along the back of the building where you have to have vehicles go through >> we talked about the the black top between the seating areas, each of those islands you have of seating and shade area. You had said it could be black concrete, it could be blacktop. Is that not determined yet or is that still up in the air? My only question is um and anybody who's been on the board is we don't do very well with blacktop in this
086district. I >> anytime I visited blacktop >> after the project's done, >> we are not happy. We we see dips, we see puddles, we see >> but besides that that lava flow of black top between these seating areas is probably not going to look very nice as it starts to crack and stuff like that. So is is there still opportunity where that would be concrete somehow? >> We can what we'll do is we'll we'll bid it both ways. >> Okay. >> I mean obviously you know you're it's easier to to drive on asphalt than concrete, right? >> You know we really don't recommend driving heavy material on concrete unless >> that area is final black top. I I'm referring to the when >> the areas in between >> when it gets Yeah. When it gets
087in between and around those islands >> to have that black top lava flow. >> Yeah, that's fine. >> I don't think >> we Yeah, we could do that pull tight and make maybe [clears throat] across there at the bottom >> the walkway. >> Yeah, keep the driving area black top. >> Black top everything in here concrete >> somehow. Yeah. Transition to the other area is better. Yeah. >> And that that area will fit a fire truck or an ambulance. >> Yep. Plenty of room. Okay. >> So, we would bid it both ways so that we can get those numbers. Yeah. >> Yeah. Just to make sure we don't go over because we're going to have to have alternates. >> Yeah. >> You know, just to make sure we don't go over budget >> and the
088when we originally looked at the plans back with the other company, uh they had stated that our current tennis courts were not regulation size. This takes care of that. >> Correct. Yes. >> Okay. >> Correct. Yeah. 21 feet behind and 12 feet in between. >> Okay. >> Um, did we talk about painting pickle ball inside the tennis courts or No. >> Yeah, you would be pickle ball also. Apparently, that seems to be a big >> So, I like it doing two pickle ball courts on each tennis court. >> Okay. >> I've seen a district do one pickle ball court in the middle and they use the tennis court net. I'm a little bit of freak when it comes to regulation and heights and stuff. I would recommend two with the movable pickle ball nets or
089we could just do one each. It's up to you guys. But then the obviously the netting is too high for pickle ball if you're going to be that regulated. >> Well, obviously the tennis is a priority for the students, but um you would still want everybody's doing pickle ball now, >> Right. At least have one court having an option of >> Sure. Well, whatever they I guess what we I think we first discussed was do we need four tennis courts? >> We were told we did. >> Yes. >> So, I don't know that we could I think they'd have to adjust their wrist angle a little bit and get over the higher net. Right. Right. Because if you're running four, >> we can have adapt to pickle ball. >> Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe
090it helps in your shop when you play on other fields. >> Yeah. Because then you can have one net lower and it wouldn't be regulation for tennis. >> Well, you would each pickle ball court fits on one side of a tennis court. >> Okay. >> So, I would do I would do two then. Um and then they buy the nice portable, you know, whatever this height versus a tennis court. Yeah. >> Understood. Understood. And you could do one, but some of those things we would want to know before we bid because obviously a contract's going to ch going to charge us if he's got to pay two or or four courts worth of pickle ball courts or eight, whatever the whatever we decide to do. >> Right. >> And when we met, John, we were
091talking about actually I think I said I wanted to touch base with the board, right? The height of the fence, right? We had said um we say we're going to bid both ways or we to ask. >> Yeah. So, normally on tennis courts, you go at least with a 10 foot, maybe even a 12. I didn't want it to, you know, what do we want to do on the basketball side and the handball court side? Do you want it lower? Do you want it no fence? Do you want it high? But then you got, you know, miles of 10 foot high fence around the whole place. That would be something we'd have to decide on before. Or, um, as Y just said, we could bid it both ways. A 4ft high to me, a 4ft
092high fence is kind of doesn't do nothing. >> Doesn't do anything. It's just annoying. >> That's going to be black vinyl fence. >> It would be black vinyl. Yes. >> You know, so I could I don't really see one unless we want to keep But if it's for the community, we want to be able to keep it open and that kind of thing. So I would either do all 10 or >> I think you have to go 10 feet. >> And that's if you want to if you want to put 10 around the basketball court and then around the handball courts or nothing. >> And then we're talking about balls flying everywhere. We don't. >> Well, the tennis court, you definitely need the fence. Correct. A basketball court currently doesn't have one, I don't think.
093>> No. >> Right. >> I hate that handball. I hate that handball wall. It's in the worst spot. That thing is an eyesore, but it is what it is. All right. Well, it's not a decision for now, right? The fence is >> Yeah. I mean, we get bid. >> The my plan would be the second we get SED approval, get out the bid. >> We don't want to be waiting until April and May putting bids out because we're going to get the, >> you know, >> the higher costs and maybe not the greatest of contractors. So, the sooner the better really works well for everybody. >> All right. So, we could put it out as a separate piece, the high fence, right? You know, in terms of and then we could decide if we want
094to include it or not. Sure. >> But it'll be harder than the base. >> Do 10 on all three. And then >> so obviously we'll do 10 as the base bit on a tennis. >> Yes. >> But a 10 foot around the basketball option >> option >> and then a 10 around the uh >> handball option. >> Option. Yep. And then we can decide. Yep. >> It'll be a big long menu. We'll have a base bid and then whatever. It's going to wind up Sounds like it's going to be >> eight, nine, 10 different alternates and then a total if we pick everything. >> Yeah. Perfect. Good. >> Good. All right, John. All right. >> Thank you so much. >> Take care. Have a great night. >> Good night. >> All right, we're going to
095pivot right over to our security department update. We have Mr. Wallace. >> Our safety and security leader for our school district. Take it away, Mr. Wallace. >> Good evening. Thank you for the mini presentation. And now, now for the long one. All right. So, just going to give you a quick rundown of security. Uh, our mission and focus. West Babylon School District is committed to providing a safe and secure learning environment where students can thrive. Our security team works closely with administrators, staff, local law enforcement, and community partners to ensure that every school remains a welcoming and protected place for teaching and learning. Through proact proactive planning, emergency preparedness, and ongoing training, we maintain strong safety protocols designed to safeguard the well-being of all students, staff, and visitors. Uh, our structure consists of a senior
096guard, myself, school resource officers, and one guard. Our key responsibilities for the dep department is to ensure a safe and secure educational environment for all students, faculty, and staff. Our security staff have been trained in building emergency responses, CPR, first aid, AED, because I'm not going to say that last word trying out up here, firearm and firearm retention training, EpiPen use, and federal emergency management agency response. So, our full-time employees, we have 20 full-time guards with another 10 uh that we use as subs and after school hours events. 17 of 17 17 of the full-time guards are assigned to the district the schools in the district and uh we have three district-wide guards that float where needed. All right, so some of our highlights uh the lockdown system and cam camera upgrade project was fully
097completed. Uh we have successfully completed two lockdown drills and four fire drills in each building exceeding the state requirements. And I think uh with the arrival and dismissal process at every school particularly in the elementary schools with increased environment security has helped play a pivotal role in assisting that to get better over the time. Our budget overview. The total allocated budget for the security department was for this school year 1,378,739.86, which includes the salaries, security supplies, security camera equipment and maintenance and replacement, uniforms, and professional services. To date, we are we have spent 30.64% of that allocated budget. We are on track for our security personnel to stay within budget and because of that uh we're emulating the 2425 budget which I think creates opportunity considering new requests. Then we have the budget line here
098as Mike said that we have several budget lines that are signed here. the the main one is the top one. That's the biggest one we have. That's for our district-wide guards, myself, and events like football games, blue and gold, graduations, dances, proms, all that is built into that. Uh, as you can see, we're far well well underneath where we we are. We we have just over half of the year left and we should come in underneath the budget for that. Um, pretty much every line is the same. Uh, we are within budget. So, move on to what I was hoping to get or request. All right. So, I'd like to keep the 20 that we have. I know, Dr. Ferrell, I'm not going to ask what I usually ask for. >> I'm not commenting, Mr.
099>> But I'd like to keep the 20 that we have and then add four additional elementary guards. And the primary role of the four additional guards at the elementary schools was to me manage and secure the high traffic high vulnerability vulnerability periods of student arrival and dismissal which have become increasingly complex due to greater student enrollment at each elementary school. The increased enrollment means that assigning only one guard per school no longer provides adequate security for students and staff. For the four additional guards, that would come out to $197,510. That's for the 180 school days and at the pay rate that we have now. All right. I'm also requesting that funding for two new security vehicles. We had three security vehicles in the last two years has gone down to one. Okay. And one is
100used by a district-wide guard to go over to the other schools. A dedicated mark security vehicle are essential to eliminate district liability from the current use of personal staff vehicles, ensure immediate response capabilities, securely transport equipment, and provide a professional visible deterrent across all campuses. I'm asking for $40,000. Ultimately, what I'd like to have is like those UTV vehicles like a Kabutoa or Polaris, something like that. one at the junior high and one at the high school that can quickly get from spot to spot up on the campus. Longwood per uh recently purchased, I believe about five of them. They're around 18,000 and change and then with vinyl, you know, putting the stuff on. I mean, I think Mike could find somebody slap some blue and yellow paint on it and make it look nice,
101>> but sorry. There [laughter] we go. My mistake. So total for that the the two costs would be $237,510. >> And those vehicles can drive on the street. >> I don't know if they would I'd have to look into that. I don't know if we can get insurance for that. It might be tough. >> No, I just I'm curious because you said vehicles. I was I thought you meant cars to get from building to building. >> We had cars, >> right? We can I mean the one districtwide car that we use now I think is good enough for that that the ability to have a that type of vehicle at least at the junior high when we have the games and the graduations I think would really help. They utilize it a lot more there.
102Dr. Falcone likes to have them drive around outside. I mean they do it out here. We do more walk around patrols >> but when they had the mark car he liked to have that car and I think it did create a nice presence. But in this way, if it's the smaller one, they can get through the gates and not have to get out, open up the big gate, and get through. And there'll be some parts of the fields that they just wouldn't be able to get to. >> Okay. >> All right. >> So, looking ahead, uh, for the rest of the year, we're committed to sustain the safety and security for all students and staff the remainder of the school year. And over the next two years, I'd like to continue to upgrade the analog
103cameras in the district with new technology. And of course, see something, say something. We have our anonymous tip line and you can always get in touch with me or email our security department at wbsecurity wbschools.org. Um, and then contact your children's principal if you cannot get in touch with us. So, I know that was long. I apologize. Any questions? All right. Thank you very much. >> It was definitely pure coincidence that the two of you are presenting tonight, right? Um so every Monday morning we meet as as a team and those two happen to be the ones that banter with each other of how long their list of right like who who's taking long. Someone may time the other one in terms of topics discussed uh during our Monday morning. >> A couple minutes if
104that much [laughter] >> maybe a couple >> definitely coincidence that um you were both uh today I do want to take a moment to thank uh Mr. and the buildings and grounds department, right? Um we do as you know again the board knows um so much in house, right? Mike is always looking to shift um work to be done by our team internally, right? Which ultimately helps us from a financial perspective, right? And then that ownership as well, right, in terms of the the department, but constantly looking looking back but looking forward, right, in terms of how we can do things better. And the same thing for um Mr. Wallace and our um whole security squad, our team, they are all phenomenal. You saw them in some pictures. I mean, they are very much part
105of the heart and soul of every school right that they are in um known by our students, by our staff, our faculty, by our families, our community members. So, again, thank you, Brian, thank you, Mike, and thank you to those uh departments that you oversee as well. Um again obviously all of the asks um you know are being from all the departments being um considered and reviewed right as we develop and continue to develop our our budget right to propose uh for the 26 27 school year >> and to let Mike off the hook there's probably some questions related to security that we won't ask in public so it's kind of not over yet it's just that [laughter] we will we will follow the rules and talk about >> they're coming to you Mr. Well,
106they're going to send me questions and then we'll talk. [laughter] >> Okay. All right. Thank you. Uh, statement of residents on agenda items only. Residents wishing to share a statement. Residents must state their name, address, and any organization they represent. They can also write this information on an index card and give it to the assistant superintendent of finance and operations. Comments about individual students or employees are not permitted. Each resident will have up to three minutes to speak with a total of 15 minutes allotted. Responses will be given after all statements. Any questions needing further research will be addressed at the next meeting. Okay. Need a motion to approve. >> Oh, I'm sorry. >> Hello. >> A long time. >> No, you haven't. >> Good evening, everyone. Hi to the new members that I haven't
107had the pleasure of dealing with yet. So, I know you just said that we're not allowed to talk about individual students, but I have five students here. One of my students had quite the incident two weeks ago. I have worked with Miss Carreri over at Santa. >> All right. Right. We're venturing into the >> Exactly. >> Well, it's an agenda item. >> Let's put it this way. It's It's part of security, >> right? Because And we were talking about buses and transferring things and all of that. >> It's an agenda item. >> So, we have Yeah. Security. >> Okay. Don't be specific to any any general student or >> we have no security on our buses. >> Um there's incidents that happen on our buses. >> Um our manager of transportation tells me that it
108is the building's responsibility to handle those incidences. The supervisor of the building tells me that it is the transportation that has to make decisions in regards to those. I was told by the manager of transportation not only to to speak with Dr. Fairley, but to also approach approach the board in regards to my issue, which will never be on your agenda. So, I'm a little confused as to do I come to the board for help because that's what I was instructed to do. I've also emailed Dr. Fairley this afternoon in regards to this. Okay. >> But I know that every single last one of you here on the board consistently preach about the safety of our children. And I know I receive all sorts of emails and everything else from parents square in regards to
109the safety of our children. And we're talking about external concerns. What about internal concerns? >> Okay. So, you want me to answer your question or you >> I would love for you to answer my question. >> Well, you would follow the chain of communication. I mean, you you emailed the you emailed the um from what you've explained, you've emailed the next person on the chain of communication, Dr. Farley, moments ago or this earlier this afternoon. >> Earlier this afternoon. >> Yeah. You are expected and should re receive responses within 48 hours as per policy. It's written in policy. Okay. And if you don't get the response or a resolution, you can then definitely come to the board. You are raising a very important question. I don't you don't have to wait for a board meeting
110to get those things addressed. You should follow the chain of communication rather than waiting for the next meeting. Well, I figured I would bring it to the attention because I know there are other parents in the district as well that don't attend these board meetings, but they do sit behind their computers and they watch from home because they have children and things that they do otherwise that, you know, maybe other parents may want to also voice their opinion in regards to possibly having some form of security on the buses. >> Understood. You've you've been to many meetings and heard about the chain of communication. I know you read policy. >> Oh, yeah. I would ask you to defer to that as you should, especially when it's something that's as urgent to you. >> Okay. I
111already have. So, Dr. Failey, I'll look forward to hearing back from you and then if need be, I'll see you guys in a couple of weeks. >> Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. >> Okay, we need a is that we need a motion to approve the consent agenda. Frank, John, all those in favor? Okay, resolution passes. Okay. At this time, I need a motion to approve the following resolution. Be it resolved that the board of education hereby authorizes its legal counsel to file an appeal with the New York State Review Officer from a decision rendered by impartial hearing. Officer Karen H. Chrington dated January 14th, 2026 in SED case number 651348. Steve Kathy, all those in favor? Okay, that's everyone. Okay. Policies old business. Anyone? New business. >> Mr. Medina. >> Yes. Just
112as a reminder, right, we have district um we have committees right through that meet throughout the school district on various different topics and on um several of those we have a board representative join us and participate in those committees and after the meetings and we do a little uh a brief update to the board right on the committee discussions. Mr. Medina update on technology. >> Thank you Dr. Farley. Um I had the pleasure of sitting in on two technology committee meetings um led by Dr. right of the uh of the IT group. Um and basically what we are working on for the committee is uh setting up the IT plan to set up uh that we have to do uh by the state for uh for the next three years for 2026 through 2029. Uh
113we do have a plan in place from 2022 to 2025. We did get a one-year extension for that. So the previous plan is still under um policy. Um but uh as a group we've identified a new vision uh for the new uh for the next uh three-year term uh and we're working on finalizing our goals. Our next meeting will finalize the next two out of three goals that we're working on um and um to be continued. >> Good. >> Thank you, Mr. >> Thank you for being on there. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Um statement of residence. Residents wishing to share a statement. Residents must state their name, address, and any organization they represent. They sh they can also write this information on index card and give it to the assistant superintendent of finance and
114operations. Comments about individual students or employees are not permitted. Each resident will have up to three minutes to speak with a a total lot of time of 15 minutes. Responses will be response will be given after all statements. Any question needing further research will be addressed at the next meeting. >> Okay. You're supposed to club like a chicken or something. >> No. [laughter] >> Um, one quick addition to um the agenda. Actually, >> I was just alerted um that one of our students I would like to kind of give a nice shout out to Jaylen Bergus who I just heard that reached uh she reached the 1,000 point milestone in basketball. So, uh, [applause] pretty awesome, right? Her achievements on the court and by the way in the classroom as well are truly exceptional. Uh,
115reaching this milestone obviously speaks to her tremendous hard work, dedication to her sport, um, her personal growth, right, and her team. So, congratulations to uh, Jaylen and her family. And lastly, before we close, I would like to take a moment to publicly thank and acknowledge our attorney, Chris Ventor, who has supported our school district for over I had nearly before, but it's over 30 years. Chris, thank you for your steadfast guidance, dedication, and service to our students, to our staff, to our administration team, and our board of education. Your support has made a lasting impact, and we are truly, truly grateful. We wish you much health and happiness and all your heart desires in retirement. Please come up here for a special token from our team. [applause] >> We may be calling you in Florida,
116right? >> That's [laughter] okay. >> Wait, hold on. >> Here we go. officially retired >> before we formally adjourn here. Well done there, Dr. Of course. I said thank you to know this board, the prior boards. Everyone's always treated me with professionalism, respect. It's been my pleasure to represent the West School District community. Thank you very [applause] All right, we need a motion to adjourn. Frank, Anthony, all those in favor. Okay, thank you very much everyone. >> Thank you. Have a good night.