001Okay. So, good evening. I'm gonna call this meeting to order, which is the budget workshop number one at 7. So, can everyone please stand for the pledge? >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Um, we are going to move the consent agenda to in person on Thursday. So, if anyone has any questions or comments, we will change that to Thursday's meeting, which is um the 25th. No, the 26th, sorry, 26th. Um, so now I will turn the meeting over to Mr. Maisie. >> Hold on, Frank. You got unmute. >> Sorry. >> That's okay. >> Thank you, Madam President. I appreciate the opportunity. Just I'm going to share my screen. Please
002let me know if you can see the presentation before I get started. >> Can you see it? Okay. >> Yes. >> Fantastic. Okay. Good evening everyone. Uh we are finally getting round to budget workshop number one after the twice removed cancellations due to the snow. Someone didn't want us to have this presentation it seems back in January when was origing together to get the budget uh process that we've been working on for the past few months underway. Uh quick review of our budget workshop schedule. Uh the new date obviously today being the first one. We're going to go over the general support areas of central administration and the operational areas. We're also going to uh do a review of the governor's budget and a recap of what our property tax cap calculation looks like at
003this point in time. Uh you may recall from previous years that we typically do that on budget workshop number two, but given the change in the dates um and we'll get into this, but given the change in the dates now and our requirements to make sure that we file it this week, uh we will include that information in this presentation. Our second bud budget workshop meeting will cover all the instructional areas that'll take place on March 9th. Uh on March 30th, we will review the final piece of the budget uh development process, which is staffing and benefits, our interf transfer to capital, community schools, revenues, tax rate, etc. Uh there's a lot of information that will be included in that budget workshop. And then that will be the night that we will uh have our
004final presentation for the board to consider for their adoption of the budget. And then we'll culminate the process on May 7th with the budget hearing. So when we begin, we start out with this each and every year when we sit down um at the cabinet level and then at our administrative levels uh through our uh admin council meetings, we start talking about what our objectives are of the budget development and what we hope to get out of it. And one of the things that you've heard me say um in previous years, especially when we talk about our look aheads and our multi-year planning is, uh one of the things I'm probably most proud of is that we're not a oneanddone district. And what I mean by that is we're not looking to show, you know,
005introduce something one year and then forget about it in subsequent years and moving on to the next thing. We really are unpacking them. We're really making sure that it's taking hold in our district and we're seeing these things through. And I think that's what's leading to our success. So you'll see the word continue on all these objectives because much like uh previous years, we're looking to continue the things that are fueling our success and like I said, see them through. So we want to continue to utilize data to inform and strengthen our academic programs. We want to continue our to increase our community engagement and our outreach. Continue to support our social, emotional, and our mental health of our students. We want to continue to enhance our safety and the well-being of our students and
006staff and overall make sure our building envelopes are as safe as they possibly can be. We want to continue to develop the college career and civic readiness for all of our students. And then lastly, we want to continue to increase our cultural competencies districtwide. These are things that we hold near and dear to our hearts. And you know, now I think about, you know, one of the things that we could also include is our approach to our budgeting each and every year. uh it would make this list easily that we continue our approach to put forth a responsible a fiscally responsible and acceptable budget by our community and our community has spoken out in in volume in the last three years. You know the showing their overall overall overwhelming support for the budgets that we've
007put forth. So I think it's uh what we're doing and to say that we're continue is we're on the right path. Uh some of the in factors though for this year as we look toward uh our budgeting for 26 and 27 we broke it out as we do each year with our internal and external factors. So on the internal side u we're going to talk more about this but our bond borrowing the bond referendum that we went out for in the 2024 vote is now coming to fruition. So we're going to start to see now the effects of what this new debt looks like. And you'll hear us talk more about that uh in tonight's meeting and then also subsequent meetings. Uh we have our pending contract negotiations that are always at the forefront of
008our internal factors. Um another one is to continue all of our supports for our onetoone electronic device initiative. Uh and this includes our increased focus on our cyber security protections. And that's another good one for me to really stress that it's never a one and done. It's something that myself, Mr. Richro, Miss Simmonelloo and I are constantly looking at uh in fact we have a webinar tomorrow that's dedicated to this uh learning more and more about the things that we can do to safeguard the personally identifiable information of our students and staff. And then finally, um, as we do all the time, we look at our staffing needs and we look at our retirements to determine where we can save money through either retirements or through attrition. And that's something that the cabinet and I
009work at um, diligently in order to make sure that we're meeting all the instructional needs of our students, but also making sure that we are cognizant of the savings that we can realize through these efforts. Now on the external side um some of the more prominent things are we have our building condition survey and that's uh done by our architects and that identifies building uh facility needs uh and repairs and suggested improvements. These are done on a recommendation basis, but we are seeing increased repair costs uh at our facilities throughout the district and this is taking on even more significant role as we look toward uh not just this year but now toward the next few years uh in particular and more to come on that in tonight's meeting and then um budget workshop number
010three as well. Now, uh, when we talk about some of our tax cap, uh, implications, there's some budget drivers that I always like to share because when we go through this, you'll see that when we talk about that 2% tax cap, when you get to compare this to CPI, which is the consumer price index, um, we need to take the lower of the two numbers. So, with CPI being, you know, two roughly 2.6, we're forced to only increase our tax cap by a maximum of 2%. More to come on that as when we get to the tax cap formula at the end of this presentation. And then also same with our tax base growth factor which is really just a tick over 1%. Um continued increases in our health insurance premiums. Uh that's a significant
011one. You we'll we'll get into this a little bit more as well, but we're looking at premiums that have increased approximately 9 and a half% over the past four years alone. And then finally, uh mandates. Uh I included the ones that we've been talking about in the past few years, but the first two are ones that we got hit with, you know, late last year after the budget uh development cycle was done, but our distraction-free zones and the impact that had on our preparations to um make sure that we were in compliance. The same with the extreme heat policy. Uh that's another one uh that Miss Kennedy and I have been talking about along with Mr. Nunan as how we're going to make sure that we meet those mandates associated with this policy and then
012we'll talk a little bit more tonight about the zero emission busing and how that's going to impact us when we get to the transportation piece. So now we talk about the governor's budget. Um the budget was released on 2026. Um and um that was a while ago. But what the big takeaways were that total school aid uh is an impressive number. uh she has an increase of uh just over $39 billion. That's an increase of like 4.32% overall for the budget, but our state aid increase came in at approximately 1.8 and that's over the amount that was budgeted um by us in our state aid run last year. Um now this included a guaranteed minimum for our district of 1%. That's the minimum increase that was included and that affected not just us but 460
013other districts in the state out of 674 in totality. Um it's one of the bigger legislative topics that many districts are fighting uh with such a small increase in foundation aid but we are in that majority that is impacted by this. Uh just as a point of reference though, I thought you'd find it interesting to see that that's the lowest increase in state funding of foundation aid since COVID when it was a 0% increase. And I went back even uh further than that. The last time we had such an an increase this low was back in 2015 16 when it was 2.8%. So just to kind of give you a little bit of perspective like a decade ago, we got more of an increase than we've gotten this year. Now, this also incre uh includes
014the state aid increase uh includes uh an increase rather of 335,000 for our universal prek funding. Uh it's a proposed mandate. It's only a proposal at this time that would stipulate uh districts by the years 2028 29 we'd be required to provide a full day seat for any child um that's eligible that's seeking enrollment in the universal prek program. And then overall the uh formulation calculations uh for state aid there were no changes to the budget uh for building a transportation aid etc. All the aid categories uh including uh the one I just wanted to share was our community school set aside that amount remains unchanged from last year um and it's been the same now for the past few years. So, now we're going to go into into the different budget areas, and we're
015going to start with uh the budget areas for our board of education, district clerk, our our annual vote, and our superintendent codes. Uh you're going to see overall, I should say this at the at the onset, you're going to see overall that uh the challenge was really set forth early on uh back in November to really have uh really close to the vest budgeting this year because we really had no idea of what to expect. uh coming out of out of Albany. Um and we know we as a district are facing a number of changes going into next year that we want to be cognizant of. So you're going to see that a lot here. But I still did highlight the areas in yellow that I want to call out some of the more prominent
016increases or decreases for your edification. And as a reminder, each one is included with a note at the bottom of the slide. Uh so like I said, when you look at the first area for the board of ed, it's a nominal increase. That's why there's nothing highlighted there. It's merely $105 increase on that budget line of totality. And for the district clerk, $610 increase. The first one you'll see though is we're we're highlighting under the annual vote, the district meeting is a negative uh $2,400 on the voting machine rentals line. And that's because the Suffach County Board of Elections is no longer renting machines to us uh for the annual vote, but they projected to make them available to the district at no cost following this year's usage. So it's something certainly for us to
017keep an eye on uh if we can procure that and take advantage of that for subsequent years. On the uh superintendent line, we did increase that by 2700 in the area of travel and conference. Uh this proposed increase is for all the professional development that we feel our new superintendent would benefit uh taking advantage of and the ability to attend all local and regional conferences as they settle in as our new leader of our district next year. I'm sorry, let me go back one second. The grand total, we put subtotals on each page as well and we'll have a total for all areas at the end of the presentation. Uh and also be mindful this presentation will be uploaded to the website on the business office page uh so that you can take a look
018and peruse at your convenience uh beginning tomorrow. But the total for all these areas is actually a negative $1,600 -2% overall. Now we head into the areas of the business office and auditing and the treasurer codes. Uh the one that I wanted to call your attention to is in the middle for the auditing services. you'll see a $4,000 increase on that line, roughly 5%. And that's just reflecting the contractual increases that are in accordance with the RFP. That stands for requests for proposals that we received as part of our professional services uh bidding. U so that number is in concert with that. But overall, these uh totals, that's the big driver of this roughly $7,000 for these areas in totality uh and a 2.4% 4% increase on these lines. Moving now ahead to our legal
019services, our insurance, memberships, judgments, and claims. This is where you see a lot of yellow. And this is what we were alluding to um uh prior. Now, the additional legal services, I do apologize, it was not highlighted. It will be u when we post tomorrow to the web. But this line, I don't know if you can see my cursor, but it is the third line from the top says additional legal services. It's $150 thou $33,000 increase. Okay. We are trying to account for the legal fees associated with the increased number of superintendence hearings that we're experiencing. The number of increased manifestations for students with disabilities and other anticipated legal claims that have been levied upon the district. On average though, I was taking a look back. There have been uh significant increases in this line
020of roughly 28% per year over the past six years. So we are trying to get our budget to be more in line with what we're experiencing in actuality and that's the reason for that large increase. Uh the next few lines though are all in the insurance areas and you heard me mention the insurance areas before but on average there have been significant increases of roughly 16 and a4% over there for just the past three years. uh really across the board on our insuranceances, but certainly look at our property insurance uh including our umbrella uh provisions, our cyber insurance is included in there and our school uh board legal liabilities. But that's why you see these large uh thousands of dollars in double digit increases in many cases. So overall, this will be a big one
021uh in terms of our summation, but this is roughly almost $500,000 or 22% increase just in these areas alone. Now we move to the area of human resources. Uh the only line we have highlighted for this is uh the contractual services line and this is to account for the new requirement by New York State. Uh there's a security guard hiring fee that they've implemented and so Dr. Cohen has reflected that in his budget. U that is the big driver as you can see and the reason for the 6% increase on his um budget. Without that mandate, you'd notice that he would have almost a flat or 0% increase on his budget in totality. And then moving to the area of childcare, we do have a 0%. Um this is proposed budget. I always point this
022out each year. These are estimates that we put in there for the school year uh supplies that we're going to need for the contractual expenses uh that are associated and also for our electronic attendance and invoicing software. But as a reminder, expenses incurred in this program are offset by the child and adult care food program, CACPFP, um and the corresponding revenue that's realized through the enrollment fees in this program. Now, moving on to the area of planned facilities. There's a couple things that Mr. Nun and I have been looking at as we try to navigate the challenges brought forth by our district. I alluded to some of these earlier. You're going to hear this theme throughout because it has been prevalent. uh we are experiencing u increases in this area and it's always been driven
023by utilities has been a big one but the number of repairs that we're experiencing and increases across the line have really been um hitting the district hard and despite our efforts to do as much as we can in-house we're experiencing uh outward pressures that are leading to these increases one of the first is on the line of custodial supplies uh we were looking at our three year average of our actual expenditures in order to keep up with with um the maintenance of our buildings um on the custodial side and realize that we need $20,000 increase on this to be on par with that. That's the first line with the 5.63% increase. Moving down though here, the utilities that I mentioned earlier, uh increases on these lines are significant in terms of their dollars. uh not
024so much in the percentages with the exception of maybe uh the the uh the water borderline but but in terms of the you know it's not so much the dollars but the percentage but we're very aware of these because like I said we we seem to find this out and we use the forecasting methods based on our previous year um measures but also what industry experts are telling us they could be um because we need to forecast this to the best we can and we're trying to predict out rough roughly 18 months into the future in some cases. Uh for the custodial piece of plan facilities, we're looking at a $76,000 increase or 2% 2.18% to be precise. Moving to the maintenance side. Um when we talk about the equipment line now we are looking
025to replace an older vehicle uh a new van with shelving units in it and also to replace one of the golf carts that is used by our grounds uh our grounds team. Uh that's the first line that you see there and the $15,000 increase on that line. And these are not the only things just you know these are not the only things within that budget certainly but these are some of the highlights within it. the reasons I try to give you the reasons for the big budget uh drivers or the increases that you'll see there. Uh moving down to the maintenance supplies line again on the material side, we're seeing those increases that we talked about from the marketplace, but we've tried to hone in more on this because we've increased this. We're trying to
026do more with utilizing our in-house staff to perform these repairs in hopes that we can start to see reductions on our contractual services lines wherever possible uh on the maintenance. So you'll see many of those lines down below are flat um with regard to our contractual codes where it says uh if you can see my my mouse my cursor rather but c is contractual building repairs maintenance and why we kept that line flat this year. So the overall increase would be about $113,000 just under 2% in terms of its increase 1.95 to be precise. Now looking at at uh security, Mr. Ahern has taken a look at uh this budget and the first piece that's highlighted is on our supplies line that is to account for the uniform requirements. uh we have a new collective
027bargaining agreement that took place uh this year, this past year went into effect and he's reflected on his line to make sure that we are meeting that contractual obligation and has increased that line in accordance with the uniform requirements requirements uh on the contractual services line. That's for the maintenance of our new new vape detectors uh that we utilize at our secondary schools and also to assist with the maintenance on our new roving vehicle that was purchased in the current year budget. Overall for this line for this budget, we're looking at about an $8,000 increase in totality. Uh just uh under 4% in terms of the overall increase on the print line, print shop line. Uh Miss has done a great job of keeping this budget nearly flat. You'll notice that uh if we didn't
028have to replace the cutting machine, she would actually have a negative overall budget. The cutting machine alone, we're looking at an increase of $12,000 on that equipment line. Uh it's really because we can no longer get the parts to have it uh ser uh to to get it fixed or to have it serviced. So that's why we see an increase on this particular line. Otherwise, um we're looking at right now a $790 increase, a 0.17% increase in totality. Now, moving toward technology, I mentioned earlier, one of our overall objectives is to uh keep our focus on our um onetoone devices and those initiatives. You're going to hear that come through on the I believe on the next slide. But first, we turn our attention to our uh data processing software. Uh unfortunately the company that
029we use for managing and hosting all of those um the district virtual servers has been acquired by another entity and as a result our renewal costs have tripled. Thus that's why we have a $49,000 increase on that line of 11%. On our contractual services line uh this is our for ongoing maintenance. This is for the integration of our security lockdown systems. Includes our our phones, our bells, our digital signage, and our public address systems that were done with the um co monies as part of the ARP grant some years back. That's the uh the reasons behind the $34,000 increase on that line. And you'll see that those are the big drivers. But overall, we see a nice decrease on our AV line, which we could have really highlighted. that's on the the lower section there
030where my cursor is. So, it really helps to to thwart this increase and bring it down to a $13,000 inc decrease uh for that particular line to try to offset the $82,000 increase up above. But here's where the devices come into play on our computer hardware line. This is the next phase and Mr. Rich and I have sat down and are looking to figure out how to to implement this We've utilized other uh sources in the past. We utilize our grant monies to a great extent. We've used other uh means from the state, but uh they were to help us b our time. We need to now replace devices. This includes the introduction for two grades, grades three and either grades six or seven. We're going to take a look at that when we get
031to year end. but to have the two installments for our students and also to be replacing our teacher laptops which have aged now and they're re nearing end of life. And what he does typically is he'll look at the amount of repairs required not just for our student devices but also for our staff devices. Um when we see those numbers increasing beyond what we can handle, that's the time when we look to replace them and we're looking to do this over two years for them. And then the last line would be the computer software uh line. This is the increase in costs needed for the number of license for not just our existing programs but we have new applications uh requested by our instructional directors. Uh this is designed also to assist with things such
032as homebound instruction, credit recovery and our summer school programs. In totality for all of technology, the previous slide included, you're looking about $832,000 in terms of the increase. This is the biggest impact on our operational areas, but for very good reason. As you saw, the $700,000 alone for the student devices, but it does equate to about a 30 thou 30% increase in all. Now moving on to the transportation area, you'll see we've highlighted the first line, the purchase of a bus. So the requested budget is for the request of a gasoline bus. Once again, we do have the uh permissibility to do that within the state. This was prescribed to be the last year we can do that. Um but it only represents a $2,000 increase on that line because the cost is slightly more
033than last year when we introduced the last bus. And this is always to replace our older models in our fleet. But we also are closely watching the uh zero emission bus mandate. Uh Mr. Tups, Miss Simmonella, and myself have been watching this and the state recently introduced a waiver. But taking advantage of the waiver will be very strategic for us because it is a two-year waiver. Uh we can wait till next year to implement this. Instead of having to comply by 2027, we can introduce this next year. um and then push that date out to 2029 before we need to be in compliance with our purchases. And I want to be clear, there's two dates. The first was uh the date by which we could make um non zero emission bus purchases, okay? So gasoline
034or diesel. Um we can do that now uh through 27. We like I said with the waiver, we can then take advantage of it. So we will be talking about this next year but right now they have not extended the date of 2035 by which time all buses in operation must be zero emission. So there's more to come on that. We have not heard anything about that date moving as yet but certainly that is our hope. Uh then moving down on the page for contractual transportation. Uh we're looking at at about a $480,000 increase. This accounts for the additional routing needs within our district. Uh this is also for students requiring attend uh sorry requiring transportation for those attending private or parochial schools outside of the district confines. Uh but it's also in addition to
035the contractual rate increases that are part of our agreements for our large and our small buses. And finally uh we've included um $5,000 increase on our field trip line. And that's because we want to include uh make sure we have the monies available for the special busing needs to address our students with disabilities attending those field trips. So to make sure that we have adequate uh handicap buses available for this for this purpose in addition to the one that we have in our own fleet. uh in totality for all of transportation uh with the big budget driver being the contractual piece, it's looking at a $510,000 increase or 5.32%. So here's the overall proposal for uh the first areas that that I just went through. In totality, we're looking at at $1.9 million in terms
036of its increase. This equates to a 9% increase overall. uh you see the the summations for each of the areas that I've previously gone through. But just to kind of put this in perspective, when you have, you know, 240 plus million dollar budget uh and you're looking at a requested budget uh for all these areas of just about 23 and a half million, this represents less than 10% of our overall budget. As we know, the benefits and staffing is our largest piece. And the next one will be uh in our budget workshop number two when we're going to cover all the different instructional areas. uh which will also include our Bosei services and those will be the big budget areas as well. Now uh let's let's talk about the property tax cap. So I mentioned
037earlier some of this information but just to reiterate um the tax base growth factor that we can apply when we start the process is just really a hair over one. It's 1.0021. You'll see that on the next slide where that factors in to the formula. Uh the next bullet talks about the inflation factor and I mentioned how the uh CPI is currently 2.63%. But we must use the lower of 2% or uh CPI. In this case, we're going to be going with 2%. Since inflation is higher than that, you'll see that in the formula. Uh the projected formula yield right now um would constitute our maximum levy for the district. That is $138,831,320. What this means in terms of our levy growth from budget to budget is just over 4.2 million. This is a 3.5
038one 3.15% increase. But you'll see that last bullet. This is what I alluded to earlier. our draft and this is certainly just a draft at this time because we still have to share a lot of information with the board of education and the community as we finalize this formula. Uh but we have to file our draft no later than March 1st. Since March 1st is a Sunday this year, they're requiring that we file it by this uh this Friday, the 27th. So with the board's approval, we will be file filing this draft uh tomorrow. And this is the formula that I just talked about. And then and it can seem very overwhelming, but we've highlighted some of the areas for your convenience. At the top, you'll see that taxbased growth factor. The next highlighted line
039is the allowable levy growth factor, which is the 2%. Some of the exclusions listed in that um second bold section. Okay, you'll see we have our debt service, that's for our new bond borrowing. Uh we have our capital exclusion amount from Boseies. We have the anticipated amount from the uh transfer to capital which is something we'll be covering in budget workshop three. But just as a quick reminder what this is and why this is so important. This is a way uh that we've included these numbers in the budget for our interfont transfer to capital each and every year because it's a way for us to do smaller capital projects and address the needs of our facilities that are rapidly um rapidly depreciating and breaking down. and the number of issues we can address these smaller
040capital projects without the need to borrow and incur more bonded debt. That's why that's so critically important. And then there's the purchase of the bus as well in there. Uh what it culminates in is the highlighted green number down below. The maximum amount that we can put in there for the tax levy is that number, that $138 million number that I shared with you. Um the allow a budget uh budget to budget levy growth is the bold number at the bottom which is just over 4 million and there's that percentage of the 3.15%. But I do want to reiterate this is just a proposal. More information to come before the board uh finalizes this on March 30th. Now speaking of um just to reiterate our next budget workshop presentation will be two weeks from this
041past Monday, March 9th. It'll be at Saxon Middle School auditorium at 8:00 PM and we'll be covering all the areas related to curriculum instruction. Um all the areas under the special education and people services budget codes and Boseis and at this time I'd be happy to answer any questions. Frank, can you just go back to there was a slide in the beginning that said something about prek and full-time. Can you can you go back to that slide? I just >> Sure. under the governor's. Yeah. Give me that. >> Can I can I compound on uh you going back to that slide with Diana? I was going to ask this, but I wasn't sure if this was the right meeting, but since Diana has you going back to it, um I went to two different um
042meetings recently, the uh legislative breakfast and another Boseies budget meeting. And from what I understood, uh, the governor is giving us$10,000. She's upping the money to $10,000 per student for prek and for universal prek, but we have to offer it to every student that wants to do a full day universal prek in our district. But I I I felt like we don't have enough space for that, right, Lori? So are we now bound if we have a space issue but it's in the budget and we can't fulfill that how do we go about doing this? >> That's that's a wonderful question because like us a lot of districts are faced with that same challenge which is why it's only a proposal at this time u because they are you are correct um that anyone who
043is eligible and is interested we have to have a we have to have a seat for them. Um, so this would be an adaptation. The year that we'd have to have this in effect, as I mentioned, is 2829 school year. So, there's a lot more that has to come out of this, but this was one of the pieces within the state aid um a special line within there of that $335,000 that we take a look at and we say, "Well, we don't know, like I said, necessarily um if this is necessarily feasible for us at this point in time, but it's worth pointing out because not only can things change between now and 2028 29, they may change between now and the time the legislative uh piece comes in and they finalized the state budget
044for this year. So, this may may may die before it even gets that far. But, I did want to at least point it out because it is a big it is a big amount right now. It's a big topic of conversation for many districts faced with the same challenge. >> And also to um kind of expand on that, uh Mr. and I have also been speaking because although they're giving us additional funding, they're also increasing the rate that we can be charged by other uh outside community-based organizations. So, even though they're giving you more money, it's going to cost you more money to service the students. So, sometimes you're really uh it kind of offsets each other, right? You're getting more money, but it's costing you more money. So how are we going to handle
045that as well? So, you know, one of the conversations is you again, it is a proposal, but if you are going to be required to provide a seat, not only do you have to have the space, but if the money that you're getting from um the state doesn't cover that, then where does that fall? It falls into your general fund, right? because there's no other way to compensate if you indeed have to offer a seat because right now we we know that our current UPK funding that we receive does not cover the cost of every child wanting a seat if they chose one. We have over 500 students that are in our district, let's say in a given cohort. So, do we have room for another 550 UPK students? And will the money that the
046state gives us cover the costs for all of them? The answer is absolutely not. My understanding is also that there were several different ways to offer the UPK. We could either do it in-house or contract out to somebody else, but then like Mrs. Kennedy said, it was it's a it's a cost factor of what they're going to charge us. But we don't have to have all those seats in house. We can >> correct. We don't. Right now we have about, you know, we we have scope, we have NIS, we have just kids. >> Um we contract out to the YMCA right now. And um we also had Head Start, but we also haven't received many when we go out to bid. there hasn't been many community-based organizations even looking to um go after the the
047bid award and if they are they're looking for space themselves right so that's one thing they're saying yes we'll we'll be a community-based organization but can you give us space for us to run it that's why scope is using our space as is just kids and NIS >> how many students students do we house in our prek in house as opposed to the number of cohort you know that comes into kindergarten >> uh Miss Maron is on but I would want to say right now we're just under 300 about 270 students >> 260 something like that >> yeah it's about 270 >> and our cohorts are like five to 600 right Right. >> Right. >> 530 550 somewhere around there. About half just >> Thank you, >> Trusty. Andrea, did we cover the points you
048were going to make? >> She's still there. >> Yeah. Sorry. I heard that this was um a conversation and a push from the state. So, I just wanted to see exactly when and and what this entails and you know obviously there there's transportation linked to this too and you know there's always more to to all of it. >> Yeah, it's a big it's a big conversation piece among among all districts right now. >> Okay. Uh other questions? >> I just want to go back to that for the transportation. I think it's only transportation if they're not in but for prek unless they're in special education. I believe the transportation is the parents have to drive them to the the prek. I don't believe in the conversation that it's actually us providing the transportation from what
049I remember the calls but I'll make sure I'll get back to you on that. But I almost believe that the parents have to drive their children to and from. >> Currently that is the case. You're correct. the UPK, you're not required to supply transportation. Again, um not knowing what this new mandate is going to hold for us, but currently transportation is not included in UPK unless uh their IEP. Uh I have a question about the data proc the triple data processing fees because the company was acquired. Uh, first I want to say $13,000 decrease on that budget line. Yay. Well done, sir. Um, um, but the with because that was a new is there a possibility that we'll be able to get a new vendor for that or is we got what we got and
050we we don't complain. >> Well, I will let Mr. Rich speak to that, but he and I are of the same mindset. He's constantly looking for for alternatives. We don't just we don't just take these um them sitting down meaning at at face value I should say. >> Uh we're constantly looking but I can let him speak to more of the specifics because it's certainly not as easy as that. >> Sure. Thank you. Um so what happened is VMware um was purchased by Broadcom. It happened probably about two years ago, maybe a little longer. Um that's kind of really the brains of our entire network. It houses um all of our virtual servers, allows us, you know, to connect to the internet, filter, do all that fun stuff. Um, and what they did is, and
051this is something districts and all of education is kind of dealing with right now, is they came in and they jacked up the price. Um, and they're kind of really making it known that they're they don't really care so much about education anymore. So, it's something um other districts are struggling with as well. We've been very lucky. Um, their billing is not so great. So we have not felt um the increase that other districts have felt initially about two years ago when they started seeing the increases. So we didn't see the increases um until this upcoming year as they sent us finally the renewal that reflecting the new increases. We are actively looking for alternative options. Unfortunately VMware is kind of the industry standard. It's the best out there. It's the most secure. Has the
052best reliability. Um, so new players are starting to enter the enter the realm, but it's just nerve-wracking to switch over and kind of the brains of the daily life of everything that we do from, you know, card access, entering the buildings, students getting on, teachers getting online um to to to an upstart. So, we are looking at alternatives, but I there isn't a clear winner right now that I would feel comfortable making that switch to. >> All right. Thank you, sir. Can I also ask uh about the the iPads? Where are we as far as um who has them? I know I know kindergart kindergarten and first >> grade. >> Are we Is there a plan to expand it into second grade and have them keep the iPads home? And I because I know I
053know there's kids, you know, there's there's damage that's done to some of these laptops that being being traveled back and forth. So, is that a conversation of expanding the iPads into some of the lower grades so that we can, you know, defeat that purpose of of damage? >> I can answer that, Frank, if you want. >> Sure. >> Um, so we are king one with iPads. We did that last year. Next year we're looking at doing second grade with iPads with keyboards um and keeping them in the classrooms and and you're correct we have seen a dramatic increase decrease sorry in damages to laptops. We have only one broking iPad sorry iPad one broken iPad in K1 so far this year which is is tremendous and that's a huge savings. Um, so expanding it at
054K12, leaving them in the classrooms, providing them with the keyboard so they can get their typing skills up, um, and get ready for the state tests. And that's really the tricky part if we look to expand it any further into third, fourth, fifth grade, um, is that's when they start taking the state tests and typing and stuff like that. So, um, we'll evaluate next year at second grade, do the trainings and stuff like that, and then we can take it from there. But for right now, um, K12 would be iPads and and, uh, laptops 3 through 12. Thank you. >> Okay. Did anyone else have any other questions? >> Not for here. Thank you. >> Great. Well, thank you all. Thank you everyone for for being here uh being in attendance this evening. Um and
055for your support. Like I said, I want to make sure that you see this and it it's always helpful as you remember when you go through a budget uh development to see that it's all going to slowly come together. Uh it's hard when you when you are looking at just one particular area, but to start to see in totality. So I try to give you that frame of reference as to what to expect and when because I think it helps uh the conversation in terms of what we are as a district. But I thank everyone for their for their time and attention this evening. Hope you have a nice night.