001Call to order the April 22nd, 2025 meeting of the Beacon City School District Board of Education. Please stand for the pledge. To the flag of the United States of America, to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. Vicki, can you call the role? Here. excused. I took it here. Excused. Here. Here. Matt, can you review the fire exits? Exits are in the back of the LGI. Yes, they are. Uh, open to the public. Does anyone have a public comment that they would like to make? Unless you are invisible. You do not. Okay. So, we are going to start um with the workshop tonight. So, we're going to get a final budget update from Matt and Anie. That's hers. I think I think it's after a while.
002All right. So uh we put we uh we we kept uh many of the slides from our last presentation that we will not go over but we have them in this in case people have questions and we want to uh go to those. We do have some new slides tonight. Um so just just to kind of review where we're at what the board is voting on tonight is the uh overall budget number. Okay. So that's I don't say that's it because that's obviously really important but like that is that is the number that is being approved tonight. Uh I also want to say we'll try to go through um to the best of our ability um you know different aspects of the budget uh what went into our thinking with this. Um there should be
003no surprises but please just answer ask questions whenever uh you don't have to save them to the end. Um we're happy to um get into as many. We may have some things not on a slide yet or we didn't think to put it on a slide and just just uh ask and we'll probably add it for like the budget hearing presentation and our community presentations too. um you know very the very first superintendent uh I ever worked for as a principal Kevin Castner he always whenever he talked about the budget he always talked about how it's uh it shows um our values and our beliefs uh as a community and as a district and so um you know back in February I talked about kind of combining the board goals and the strategic plan stuff
004under these four areas academic excellence and readiness communication and community outreach, culture of care, facilities, and fiscal sustainability. I'm not going to read everything on there. Um, but we've uh gained a lot uh over the years with our budget, and I think it's been very much driven by student need um and feedback from the community and our stakeholders in the community. The one thing I'll say for this part is just about the sustainability part in terms of fiscal sustainability. Um, one of the things that, uh, you know, I'm as far from perfect, uh, as possible, but one of the things, uh, I'm proud of here in the district is things we've rolled out. Uh, we haven't had to pull back, uh, in terms of new programming, new staffing, those kinds of things. Um, and you
005know, our goal is to always continue that barring issues outside of our control. Uh, so where we came from, uh, this is, you know, we probably could quibble with some of the dates on here, but it's it shows a pretty clear progression of things that we've been adding to the budget over the years. So, I just want to briefly hit on a few of these. Uh, the class size reduction initiative was one of the first things that we tackled as a district and as a board. We over the years, we added about eight elementary teachers to lower class size. when I came in eight years ago, uh many of our classes at the elementary level were bigger than our middle and high school classes and we wanted to fix that. Um we were able to
006add instrumental music uh through a grant first and then we added it to the budget in 2019. Uh I think if you ask any music teacher in the district, it's really been a foundational uh piece to the growth of instrumental music in the district. To have kids have two years of instrumental at the elementary level has been really key. Uh when I attended the music in our schools concert uh for the high school uh last month um the number of the both the number of students in the overall band but then the number of uh ensembles and specialty groups was just sort of mind-boggling uh the growth there and the way we've been able to uh meet kids needs. We had several small jazz combos. we have, you know, a large jazz ensemble, uh, both
007at the middle school and the high school level. Um, so we should really be proud of our growth there. Uh, I eight years ago when I came, the jazz group spanned middle through high school and it was about four kids and the teacher playing and now we have, you know, two huge jazz groups, one middle school, one high school with a lot of jazz combos and that's just part of what we're doing there. mental health. You know, over the years, we've added two social workers and a guidance counselor to the middle school. Uh really crucial uh to um to, you know, keep meeting the needs of our students. Uh curriculum, you know, we've added a lot of different things under there. I'm going to add one make one change to this slide moving forward and
008I'm going to add extracurriculars with curriculum because around that time is when we began the exponential growth with extracurriculars in terms of clubs especially for uh elementary and middle school. Um so first with the curriculum piece uh the science 21 piece the really uh experiential science uh learning program at the elementary has been fully phased in. when we started HMH into reading uh last or this current school year for grades three to five and this is just a sample we added the Italian language program so that was one of the things when I first came about only having one language we've been able to add a second multiple college level courses nine period day at the high school um in terms of the extracurriculars and the clubs um you know we went from really just
009having maybe one club at each elementary school usually it was like the running club And now there's uh dozens. We're close to about 50 to 60% of elementary students are engaged in some sort of club in any given year. Uh Brownout's clubs have expanded at an exponential level too. High school we've added some but they already had a long tradition of having clubs. Uh my belief and it's backed by research regarding clubs is uh students who participate in one to two extra extracurricular activities have a much much higher chance of graduating uh from high school than students who don't. If you're in a club in like first grade or third grade or fifth grade, I think you're much more likely to be to continue uh that after school um muscle, so to speak, and join
010clubs as you move through the district. Um, prek uh we've always had prek through UPK funding. Before 22, it was uh it was a half day program um which is what most uh districts not only in Duchess but the region still offer. We started piloting the full day prek and we've added it to where we have 110 uh slots um currently and it's been a huge success. Um really meeting the needs of our students, our families. Uh and you know it's been pointed out to me that our prek program uh students have all the special classes. They go to art, they go to music, they go to PE. Most most prek classes do none of that. they're uh in the school building the entire day. Most pre-K programs do not do that either. So, this
011is something I think uh we should be really proud of in terms of we really stand out for what we offer there. And then uh partnerships. Uh I may do a slight edit to this because we're doing a uh we're proposing for next year a partnership with Aster for mental health as well, but we've had a partnership with Comic Ground and Land to Learn and Clearwater for years. Uh we piloted one with Compass Arts. Um I know probably some of you saw the play or the musical uh that Compass Arts did with South Avenue students a couple of weeks ago. It was awesome. And so we want to formalize that. These aren't highost uh things, but I think they really provide really valuable programming uh for our students. So uh I I went into this
012pretty deeply at the last board meeting. I won't um spend a ton of time here, but you know things and and you know, one thing I do want to say is um this isn't if you add all of this up, it's not a massive budget initiative here. These are really smaller type things. The summer student workshops at BHS, that's for incoming uh ninth grade students and also students interested in taking a college level class. It offers kind of like a two or three day program to get them ready uh for those experiences. Uh we're really excited about the site sitebased mental health clinic at Rambout and the Bright program at BHS which really targets uh feedback we were receiving about um needing to provide more mental health support. The halftime speech teachers to help meet
013uh student IP needs. Intervention teachers at the elementary level. The first order of business is to add a fourth math intervention teacher. Uh you um we only have three between the four schools. has become difficult to share. We through our data have a need there and then on top of that to add uh some reading intervention teachers too. At the last meeting sagging went deep into the professional development. We always fund professional development every year. So that's not really like a new initiative. However, it's very very focused and again this is based on our data but also based on feedback from our survey. It's really focused um on science of reading and not just for elementary teachers but also uh middle school. So, we want to switch gears and just talk about uh um the
014tax cap and the tax levy. I'm going to take a shot at some of these. Emry, you're going to be uh gonna be the the bullpen and come in and save me. Uh but you know one of the things about uh Beacon's um tax cap calculation this year we just wanted to go a little bit deeper uh into it. One of the things um factoring into it this year is the tax base tax base growth factor. So a couple things about that. One is that number is determined by the state. So that's not our determination and uh it is based on the amount of new construction that's in the district. Uh Beacon has the highest taxbased growth factor in Duchess County. So, this isn't a bad thing, but it does it does drive the tax
015levy number up a little bit because the state feels with all the new construction coming on that we have the ability to spread um the tax impact across um more new housing and more new businesses. How do I do correct? Pretty good. Do you want to add anything? No, I'm going to let you do allowable growth factor. So allowable growth factor is one of another calculation as part of the whole tax cap calculation. And I think that the confusing part is this is where they have the 2%. Um that everybody said, "Oh, the tax cap has to be 2%." So you're allowed to grow the levy by the average consumer price index or 2% at the max. So our our consumer price index is definitely higher than two. So we are kind of at the
016max of two right now. So um you first do the taxbased growth factor calculation then you do the allowable growth factor calculation and then the last piece of it um that we felt important was the capital exclusion. Um so you are allowed to add back to the levy to increase the levy by the amount of debt you have principal and interest payments um for your capital projects and then you subtract building aid from that and so that amount gets to be added back. um it's called an exclusion because to do a capital project you shouldn't it should not be included as part um of the of the tax cap calculation. So it's an adback. Um and then part of the 2024 capital project that was voted on last May um we had talked about there
017having a tax impact which means that our levy was going to go up a little more to pay for this 2024 capital project and that's what you're seeing in the capital exclusion. So the capital exclusion number is more than what it has been um to reflect the local share for the potent for the oncoming 2024 capital project. So um this slide is specifically about the 2024 capital project. It was voted on last May. Excuse me. It was approved uh by around 80% of the people who voted. Um, and we're excited to add something and we're gonna um we we did a couple of these slides right right uh this afternoon before submitting them to you. So, we're going to um kind of highlight a couple things after tonight. Uh but some of the things we're
018focusing on are more secure school entrances. We in the 2021 project, we did that with Glenum. Uh we're going to do that with the remaining schools and we're trying to create a schedule that that's one of the things addressed first. Um when we talked about this capital project, we talked about the creation of cooling centers. So that's still on track. However, we're really excited to add um our architecture team, our engineering team with our facilities team have come up with a plan to also add air conditioning to what we're going to say right now is up to 50% of our elementary classrooms. Um we talked about that at the last facilities meeting. I ran it past our facilities folks today and they felt okay with me saying it uh tonight in the board meeting. Um
019it could even be depending on uh depending on a lot of different factors, it could even be more than 50%. So uh they they've done some and this is all within that same budget. Um but they've done some really great thinking about ways to increase cooling. So, one of the things driving this is there's a law, a heat index uh law now that impacts all um all the districts in New York. We have to have a policy and a plan to deal with extreme heat situations in our schools. Last uh June, I I I have to go back and check. I think I did two half days at the end of the year due to extreme heat. um you know so I think we're going to see there's going to be more of those situations.
020This will allow us uh to have school and have it in a comfortable uh learning environment. Um there's both common sense and a lot of studies uh that talk about the positive impact of air conditioning on student learning. And so we're really excited that we're going to be able to add quite a few elementary classrooms to uh the air conditioning list. It's not all going to happen in 2026. It's going to happen over 26, 27, and 28. Um, so it's going to take a bit of time to get it all done, but we're excited about that. Infrastructure improvements that we will always continually need like roofing and and um bathrooms and things like that. Um, upgrades to the baseball and softball fields at BHS. So, I know we're currently in a drought, but if we're
021in a a rainy spring, um, oftent times Uh there's been years where I've been here where the baseball softball team literally doesn't play a home game for two or three weeks because of rain. Uh this will eliminate that through uh some better drainage and uh better fields. Uh renovations at the Seagar Theater. We've met with all the folks who use the theater and and come up with a pretty comprehensive list of things that need to be improved there. Um, I'm excited about the baseball softball fields and the secret theater uh because those um things uh the secret theater is used by the community quite a bit. As you're aware, upgrades to the baseball and softball fields will allow those to be used by the community more. Uh and we're excited about making that available once
022those changes happen, too. Um the former uh little league coach to me is excited about that because um you know I would predict oftentimes that the fields wouldn't be ready because it would rain like 24 hours in advance of the game and and just because Memorial Field has so many problems with drainage too. So um we could lend some help to that as well. All right. So um so this is uh we just wanted to put the budget numbers up again and uh the number we're voting on tonight is 8. The budget number is $87,720,000. Um um and that's a 4.61% budget to budget increase from last year. Um the things to kind of just are notable um on this slide is the state aid number. So uh as you all know, we don't have
023a final state budget. So we're still using the governor's estimate um because we're not sure, you know, what the final number will be. And that's kind of the guidance that we were in kind of instructed to use. Um it also includes some building aid on the 2021 capital project. So when the governor's run um comes out, it does not reflect building aid that we generated on final cost reports that were filed last June. So that number is higher. If you just looked at the governor's run based on last year, we're we're closer to um a 2% increase, which is the 2% foundation aid um that she had given at a minimum to all districts. So, I thought that was important to mention. Um that number is higher because we are going to receive some building
024aid on the 2021 project that is that part of it is completed. Um, and then the tax levy, I thought, um, an important part of that is the $50 million of of tax levy that is at the cap. Um, that is what our tax cap calculation is. Um, so we're not going more than that. It's a simple majority. Um, and it's also going to be spread over um, and anticipated more properties, more houses, more um, businesses. We just don't happen to know that number until July when we get the new assessments from the city. Um but I did um a quick analysis of what our um assessments have done over the last nine years and as an average they've increased over 7%. So some years were 13% some were 10. So as an average of
025seven. So for the since 201516 our assessments have grown and it's not just a change in someone's assessment on their home it is additional properties coming on the tax role. So um some there's some confusion sometimes I get questions from people like well you're getting more money because there's more houses and there's more businesses but that isn't how it works. The tax cap the levy amount has to stay the same based on the calculation. The good part of that is you spread it over more people. And so what's what that's done over the years, it's made our tax rate per thousand decrease. So as our assessments were increasing, our tax rate was decreasing. Um so I think that's an important part as well. So um when we go I'm going to stay on this just
026for a second. Okay. We did make a slide for what I'm going to say next. Uh and these numbers are a little bit rough. Um but if we if we you know if the tax levy went down to just hypothetically because it's easy to do this way 4.09 um it would be about $600,000 um less in revenue. If we went down to you know 3.09 it'd be about 1.2 million. And so I just want to go back for a second. So if we went down to 4.09 these things would be off. We wouldn't we would not be doing these. We'd probably still have to do some of the PD, right? But a lot of the PD would have to come off. A lot of these would come off and we'd have to then start going
027into this, right? So, we'd have to start backtracking on some of these things. So, you know, this is obviously, you know, if we were in a mode where we had to be cutting, it's not just my decision. It's something that we'd all be involved in. But you look at these things and you have to look at, well, what's required, right? And then you start looking at things like full day prek or you know upping class size or do we really need to do music in fourth grade or you know do we have to do those partnerships and I don't like putting these things on slides. I don't like getting into like that sort of negativity or threats around things. Um, but you know, if we go if we went down like a full percentage point
028or or two, like we would be backing, you know, into these gains we've made over the last few years and we'd be having to eliminate some of them to um to make, you know, to make our budget. I just wanted to point that part out. Um I you know we totally understand uh um any concern around this uh and that's why we created a couple more slides to at least address some of them. Um so we just wanted to Sorry. Can I ask a quick question? Sorry. Is the federal income or federal revenue is that counted in miscellaneous on the last slide? Federal revenue is counted separately. Okay. So this is not including federal including federal, right? a federal has to be accounted for um in a separate fund. Um, so this is just what
029impacts taxpayers and what they vote on. And and then this is also not a slide, but our federal funds are about 1.7 how much? Between one Yeah, about 1.7 1.7 million. So, you know, it it covers our reading teachers. Uh, it supports um some of our like ENL or English as a new language curricular materials, some special ed. Um so obviously if we lost federal funding for other reasons um we would cover we you know those are things we would fund right so we'd have to you know go back I'm not going to keep doing this but we'd have to go back into this and and reduce these things to you know cover those and that's something that uh I you know I've said this a few board meetings like we're doing some worst case
030scenario planning for that uh because you know that possibility is there regarding federal funds as you know universities are seem like the first ones being hit with that. Um so just we we tried to create just some you know uh the tax levy rate is is a complex thing. Uh there's like eight different things that go into the uh you know creating the number. Uh but we try tried to create just some simple language around it. um refers to the total tax increase that we can uh raise across an entire district. It's not how much an individual uh taxpayer pays. It's not, you know, the increased individual taxpayer pays. Um you know, if new properties are added to the tax roles, uh tax burden is shared by more people, which may lower individual amounts. Again,
031back to that tax base growth factor. Beacon has the highest uh one in Duchess County. So the state and other people who own this are seeing all the building happening in be uh happening in Beacon and they're seeing um and they're seeing that there will be new properties added to our roles. And then lastly, all of what we're talking about tonight um is at the tax cap. It is not over. Uh it would only require a simple majority. So 50% plus one. If we were to go over the tax cap, that's requires a super majority. That's not what we're doing. We're not um close to proposing that. Um we've seen this question come up. Uh our school taxes affected by our purchase of EV buses uh last year. So last year we kind of have
032a two-year history with this. We we voters approved the purchase of one two years ago. Um we were waiting for the grant to come online and then we realized it would be better to package it together. So last year we asked the voters to approve two. Um we hadn't purchased the one from the year prior. We received the grant. Um so the grant that we received offset the cost of the EV buses um to make it like that it would be the purchase of a um of a regular bus uh so to speak. So saying all that, EV bus purchasing with the grant did not increase um folks taxes any more than purchasing uh gas powered buses would. Also uh we have no bus propos proposition on the ballot this year uh partially due to
033um looking at u our tax increase. So um okay so we wanted to give you an idea um so with the with the tax with the budget being what it is and with the levy being what it is um we did an estimate of median home values um in Beacon Fishkill and Wingers. So the tax rate right now um is all around uh 12.5 12.6 six. Um, an estimated tax increase for the year for Beacon is 175, Fishiskill 212, and Wingers is 213. Um, so I I talked a little bit before about the tax rate being decreased because there's more properties and more assessments. This tax rate is based on the assessments of last year. I don't have this year's yet. Um, I don't even think the assessor has finished that information. So what we
034found is every year when we do the budget hearing and we present the number ends up being much less than that when we do the tax warrant in the summer and the reason being is that there is more properties you know so just it's not really about your particular home assessment increasing although it does um it's more about the newer properties that are coming on the tax roles and it's making the tax rate so I always look at this as the worst case scenario that this would be the maximum amount amount that um someone would pay. So that is for um the tax levy the way it is. Um it that includes the budget and the additional increase into the debt because of the 2024 capital project. Um and again we're you know in in
035the summer in August when we do the tax warrant we then compare this and you know um over the last nine years we have seen the tax rate decrease based on that and it kind of all ties into the taxbased growth factor. they know we're building and so there's more properties and so we can spread it over more people. So, uh we didn't have this slide the last time, but this is uh a comparison of uh the tax rates by school district and Duchess. You can see where Beacon is. Um the I if you just to be blunt, if you if you did the same graph for average pay for all the different uh you know employee units in in the district, it would look something like that as well. It it transfers pretty clearly
036uh to that. We pro probably maybe one or two of the districts on this end would go to the other side of Beacon. Um you know, I've said this in probably dozens of different board meetings, we've been really uh working hard to get more in the middle for pay. Um and then beyond. Um we we want to be able to recruit and retain our employees and value the ones we have. Um but this is where we stand with the other districts in terms of uh tax rate. And then uh we did this slide last time. We just sort of rearranged the houses so they're in ascending order. But um this is just you know what that same median home that would be in our school district um that you know the yearly tax bill would
037be for Wood and Beacon and then comparing us um to when I say you know I think I use the word competitors uh in in the previous meeting and when I say competitors it's it's around hiring um it's around retaining employees primarily that's when I talk about competing I'm not really talking about like student competitions. I'm talking about uh hiring and retaining folks. But um that's what folks with the same um with the same valued house would be paying in those districts. Matt, before you move on, can I just ask that median home value? I get questioned on this by people that I know. So, so 304,000 that's all the homes in our school district and like how does what again I get confused median mode and things. So I there's a report in the
038info tax program that can run the median home value that the 304700 is beacon. Okay. Um the fish gill and wingers is not that much different. Okay. And it does seem low. That's why I'm asking. Everyone asks me where do you find a $34,000 home? It's just right. Right. Um it is the it is the calculation. I will change it every year and ask um our tax collector to rerun it. Um and I also know that you know obviously in Beacon there's homes that are worth a great deal more. Same thing in all those other four municipalities. It's just I tried to make it um apples to apples to try to you know I know that there's there are houses that are less that are assessed less. maybe some of the older houses in Beacon
039that they might have a value if they're sold of $7 $800,000, but on their tax bill, their assessment still might be lower, right? So, it's based on the assessment. Um, and so Okay. So, that means that there's Okay. All right. There's like neighborhoods I know I we asked about this in the past. My understanding is if there's lots of homes that have sold and there's been turnover and they've sold at a higher rate and that might trigger a reassessment in your neighborhood, right? But what you paid for the house and if you haven't moved and you've been there a long time, your taxes have only gone up incrementally. And so it's the the way the taxes are evaluated about how it's assessed, not like what it could sell for, right? That's how it's like it's
040grabbing the net of everybody here and you know who's been here for a long time and then people who are new so it'll tick up but it's still there's lots of people that haven't sold their house and might have bought it for a lot less or um and that's how it's it just seems that ticking would have happened faster to me like you know people selling so many houses you know that I would have thought neighborhoods would have tried to catch up you know maybe faster but I don't know you know we've always used we've always used median home off of off of our tax program. It runs it's not like a Zillow kind of thing. It's not like what you could sell it for. We could always, you know, we could always have a
041different value. We could probably do what you know what I mean? Like because I'm just trying to get myself because I don't really under I when people ask me I I couldn't answer it so I didn't know. So that helps me a little bit you know what you're saying. So that I appreciate that. It is fascinating because we do, you know, we we can look at a house and say, "Wow, you know, they can get five, six, $700,000, but when you actually pull the tax bill, Kristen is 100% right." If it's an older couple who's lived there forever and haven't done improvements on the house, okay, the assessment will be lower. Okay, that that makes sense. I mean the formula then I will so I'll say the part I don't understand which is probably a
042like not true what I've been saying but the way I think about this is then I just do a multiplier for whatever you think your house is worth and that's what your taxes are. Yeah. Yes. Roughly roughly. Yes. Yeah. in the in the in if you if um you think it's helpful in the hearing I could actually when we did this with the capital project one of the slides that we did was if you had a house that was 300 500 700,000 what your taxes would be and what your increase would be we can do that too just to make it more real heard of tonight if there's other slides you want to see on May 6 like we're happy that would probably be helpful and then I think it would be if you did
043that because you do this comparison here it would be kind of interesting to just show that there hasn't been massive increases over time like that if for these do you know what I mean like if we had those different levels and then almost like a table of what what those tax rates have been over the years for those right like last five years so that it would just show the trend is not there hasn't been a big spike right okay well I think you know I we've had a slide like this for a few years now uh th this one is new and I think is pretty powerful. But I I always use this and that this is my sort of inert an inarticulate way of saying it. I think we're getting a lot out
044of being a lower tax district, you know, with with the initiatives that we've that we've been able to implement over the last few years. And so uh it's a point of pride uh with me and I I I think with our other administrators that were that were able to do as much with um with our other districts in the county. any of them bringing in way more revenue than we are. Um so just next steps tonight uh is you're adopting that budget number um or potentially adopting that or some number. Uh I say community outreach over the next four weeks. So that's already begun. Uh I visited four the four elementary PTO's the week before spring break. Two of them were on online, one was on a playground. Uh, one was um in the cafeteria,
045but really good conversations, pretty good turnout. Uh, you know, I think there are some really nice weather days on those, so you're competing against like a lot of kid activities right now. Um, but a lot of great questions, a lot of questions about the capital project. Um, but but that's just the start. You know, in May, we have all of our uh school concerts. We have the high school's concert is on is on election day is on the voting day. Uh but I'll be attending all of those and I'm just going to take like two minutes at the beginning uh just to talk about you know the um budget's impact on music in the schools and I'll hang around afterwards to just informally talk with whoever wants to. we'll do two um two like kind
046of like Zoom webinar type things and and you know one piece of feedback I've always gotten is people in the community who aren't getting my emails may not know about them so we'll look to advertise those in some different places so uh community members can log on to those too we're working on a couple inperson events that are more community focused and I'm happy to go back to those school PTOs I wasn't able to do roundout or the high school. So, I'm working on doing those. I'm happy to go back to the elementary. So, um you know, we're just trying to get the word out, be really clear about all the stuff that we've been talking about in here, what we've accomplished, what we're hoping to accomplish this, uh year, and and also getting into
047some of the difficulties we face in terms of, you know, comparing with other districts and things like that. So, on May 6, part of that community outreach is there is a budget hearing uh here. The state requires the budget hearing to be 7 to 14 days uh before the election. Um and so we're doing it 14 days before. So that will be in here where we'll add some slides uh to this and add some different um pictures and graphics just to so you're not like looking at the same stuff all the time. But uh so we'll do that. But like I said, uh we're we're over the next couple of days, we'll firm up our outreach, uh calendar, and we're excited to answer questions and, you know, and and uh talk about what we're trying
048to accomplish here. So, you know, uh we had all the other slides that we went through the last time. You know, we have them there just in case you had a question. We're not going to go through those. I'm happy to go back to any slide that we went through tonight or answer any question or if I think I've got a couple already, but if you have a slide that you think we should add for our public hearing and our community conversations, um we tried to make some adjustments based on feedback from the last word meeting. Please let us know. Um any questions or Yep. Anybody? I had a a question. Um can you just remind me on slide 15 the um the Bose services has gone up quite a bit and I think that's
049because we moved a lot of things um expenses into Boseies that because we get aid back on them. Yes. So we've there's been a huge conscious effort of being able to and Boseies has been better. If it's not Duchess Boseies, we then do a cross contract with Putnham Northern um and some other actually some other so capital region Boseies Nassau Boseis. So when an when a service is um offered it's it's advantageous for us to join Aboseis as a coaster because then we receive 57% Bosey's aid the following year. The bulk of your PD is through Boseies. Yeah. Right. 85%. And the community partnerships we mentioned um like we run the compass arts one through Boseies and um land to learn also and land to learn we run through Boseis. So um it's our our
050principles have also become very talented at identifying ways to uh run like a a speaker or you know some experience with our kids to run it through both. Not everything gets approved but more and more every year does. Maybe to Meredith's point then like there's a slide in between these where you kind of show that even though this is there's been an increase that there's been a savings by moving this money over here like which programs were funneled through OC's and then that way you can show even though there's this increase of $50,000 we've actually saved and you can probably estimate it right um and then some of a slide just about how we use Bosey's aid what what we get back the next year and what the coser is, right? Okay. Um I also
051think those programs as like federal funding becomes more volatile like explaining what New York State is doing and possibly like these options that we have within state to shore up um stretching our dollar more might be helpful like kind of just in a box on the bottom. Anybody else? I was going to say the last slide. Um I don't remember that being there about the if the assessments increase. I might have missed that the last time. I I think that's a good slide about the assessments increase 5%. Um you know what it's going to cost. Which one? I I final slide. The final slide. 20. I think it's 25. Oh, the one way at the end. I didn't remember seeing that part. That's new. Is that a new one? I think so. I don't remember
052the money back. I like Yeah. Let me Is that a new icon? And now I'm reading it. I think we were piloting this slide. We were and we made it really good. I saw that. I was excited about that. So we were so on the right hand side, the potential tax impact. We were piloting that information. And the reason we were piloting it is I've not presented that before. I've always only done the one slide that says worst case scenario. Right. But when I mentioned the average is 5%. Yeah. That's, you know, so I So, how about for the hearing we flesh this one out a little bit more? Because my worry about this one was it would confuse people more like, you know, like what are you saying? You know, like that it's only
053going to be this much. So, let's we'll work on this one a little bit more, right? Yeah. I can do two different like I can Yeah, because I have the data of what the assessments have been increasing over the last nine years. Okay. Okay. I I have one more question. I know we were so excited about that, too. Um I have one more question. The use of reserves um and fund balance and fund balance. So is that coming from a specific reserve fund of ours or it is coming from fund balances from unappropriate? We always we always um as part right before the audit comes we always evaluate our reserves because we have to make sure they match what they're they're meant to to be. Um but most of that um is fund balance. So,
054the the $2.5 million um is lower than we've done in the past, but it's, you know, as part of our audit, our audit, our auditors tell us to really be careful about not appropriating too much fund balance to use. Just right now, our fund balance is at 5%. Um it should be at four. It has been at six. Um other districts, it's much more and they have a different conversation with, but you know, that's really our safety net. um in case anything happened that we would need. So we want to maintain it to a certain extent. So we don't want to go too much. I do think it's important to say that you know it should be at four. That's the state's rule. But NISPA has consistently advocated for it to be higher than that
055and it's commonly agreed that it's that's actually too low as a safety net for districts. Yes. So you're saying add a slide about um I I don't know. I mean this is already 25 slides. I I feel like that I I think that's okay. But I think I think it is important to note that that is you know that is reducing the levy. You know that is something that we're a tool we're using to reduce the levy. We could we could put that money into into reserves but we're using it to some of these slides. you know, we can kind of quickly go through. Chris, would you say add a federal funding slide even though it's not part of, you know, this like to to do a little bit on federal funding? I think there's
056just so much like confusion and uncertainty about federal that I'm trying to clarify that a little bit could be helpful. I think if we do a question I have now, I wasn't sure whether to ask it is like the expenditures also adds up to 877. So, I think what y'all were saying was that the federal revenue is like 1.7 million and that pays for things that aren't reflected in the expenditure slides here. Is that right? That's correct. So, they are accounted for separately. Yeah. So, if we lost federal funding, those expenditures would have to be incorporated into the general fund and other things would have to be reduced. We can do a we could do a very simple slide showing what the federal money covers and how much we currently get. I think that would
057be I think it's a good idea. Okay. Okay. And you know, just to be clear, and I I'm I'm not the expert on this, but a few weeks ago, the education department sent a letter to state education departments. Um, you know, I'll be a little bit inarticulate about what exactly the letter said, but it was, you know, that they want were wanting states to certify that they were not doing certain things regarding uh diversity, equity, and inclusion. um that would then you know asking states to certify it or not certify it and then sort of threatening funding with that. New York's response came I think a day or two later saying we have already certified this. We certified it a number of times. We're not certifying it again. I think there was about oh I
058want to say 10 other states that answered in a similar manner maybe more. Uh and then it's been kind of radio silent ever since then. So, so you know, I I you know, and I said at the last board meeting like we we don't have a slide on it, but like we all of those things that the federal government funds are um are things that we um morally should fund, right? Like these are things we could not ignore. We couldn't just say, "Sorry, we're not going to have the reading teachers this year because the federal funding uphold. we would have to figure that out. So it would mean cuts in other places for us. It would have a ripple effect. Um so you know not trying to dwell on it too much uh because it
059seems to be being uh negotiated for lack of a better word at the state level, the state and federal level, but that is the landscape right now regarding that. So I think it's something that's on the mind of probably every school board and superintendent and probably every single state um regarding this. So it's just something that's there and we on some level need to mentally prepare for it. Um I think the thing that could be really disruptive is is if it happened at like you know once the school year began or you know that that kind of thing. uh they're not worried about if they are worried about that money or pulling that money, they're not worried about our budget timeline, right? So, uh so that'd be something that we would deal with. And so
060I do want to be clear and I it's stating the obvious maybe, but those things if we did lose that federal funding, we would then come back to you and say this is how we're covering this out of our own budget, but it would have a cost. We would have to stop doing some other things to do it. Um, so, um, so anyway, that's that's just a brief thing on that. You know, googling it and reading actual articles about it would be more educational than than hearing, you know, my version of it. But in a sense, that's what it sort of boils down to for New York. Um, and, you know, another thing that we're thinking long-term wise is, uh, does state aid continue? Um, you know, so the governor currently proposed a 2% increase.
061That's what we're building this whole thing off of. The the Senate and the legislature or the Senate and the House have have put forward 3.0 and 2.9 is their proposals. So whenever this budget gets settled, it may end up being a little bit higher than two. Um, so all you're approving tonight is the overall budget number, but if that changes, I think that would be a conversation at a future board meeting in terms of like how we might utilize that. It might go towards fund balance, using less of it. It, you know, it could go towards uh a variety of things. So, I think that would be just a future board meeting. it doesn't impact what we're doing tonight in terms of board approval, but that would once we get that information from the state,
062I think we talk about it at a future meeting just in terms of options. Um, so I'm just trying to think of anything else. Um, so we have a we have kind of a list of slides to add. We're not going to go crazy. Um but um I think with some of the we're going to try to add just like a little bit of a number story to some of those uh things we've implemented over the years just in terms of like number students and extracurriculars and you know we have the number of prek full day that we'll do a little bit of number stuff to that just to so people can see the bigger impact of those things. Can I just ask not having a bus prop, um, is that u a a significant
063dollar amount that we normally that would the taxpayer would pay per year like you know like it's divided over five years so it's not a significant amount. Okay. It it it I mean we could run some numbers and come back to the hearing with those. It it's not nothing but it okay it's not significant. I just going to say if it was it could be something that could be a positive of not having the bus project. I think I think we're trying to frame it like that though with this with this capital project. I mean we will need to do buses in future years but it's a year where we don't have to and it's you know the the part of the proposition last May was also for two gas diesel buses which we have
064not received yet. They were on order. So um it's basically four buses we're getting. So there was really no need to do a prop this year. I'm just asking because if let's say we're raising this amount but now we're not doing that prop does that help at all like if I'm a a taxpayer to say okay they're not doing the bus prop so that's it would help the debt let's uh we'll run those numbers a little bit and have that for the hearing I it is something it may not you know if it's 12 you know you know what I mean you know it's no I I hear you it's something and so We will run those two. We'll add it to that bus slide. And I see it as a like just trying to
065be uh efficient, right? You know, we have enough and we have the two that we didn't come in. I think that's you know, the district, you know, working with what we have and you know, trying to do what's best. So, I think that's a I think it's a positive thing. So, anybody else? Thank you guys so much. Appreciate it. Okay, back to the agenda. In terms of changes um Meredith, you had one you wanted to bring up. I just I um I just noticed that the policies are not on this agenda um that we talked about at the last policy committee meeting and I don't think it's a big deal for most of them, but one of them we were asking to wave the first read. So I think it was more important the inventories
066and accounting of fixed assets. Is that an issue that we need to try to resolve tonight? Okay. Okay. I'll asking and I'll let them know. Okay. Great. Okay. Great. So, there are no other proposed changes. Can I get a motion to adjourn to executive session to review the employment history of a particular individual? So moved. Second. Second. Meredith. All in favor? I. I. Passes 70. The board will return in about 30 minutes. So, we uh missed something earlier. I would love it if everybody could stand and we'll have a moment of silence for Jan Morel um who is secretary to the superintendent. She retired in 2006. Thank you. Okay. Um, Matt, your superintendent report. I'll just be brief, but I just wanted to also mention about Jan. Um, I've met her a few times. She
067worked our elections, right, for many years uh after retiring, so she was a really special person. So, my thoughts go to her family. Um, just just a a couple of quick announcements. Um, one, uh, I took a I came a little early tonight and I kind of snuck in. I didn't want to like ruin anything, but I listened, you know, around the corner just to Guys and Dolls, uh, getting ready. The the Beacon Players is doing Guys and Doll this weekend. And, uh, it sounds amazing. And just wanted to remind folks, uh, that I'm sure there's, um, still some tickets, uh, to do that. And then before a break, uh, we had, you know, this for the second year, um, kids at South Avenue been doing like an after school thing with Compass Arts to
068do a musical there and they did their performance the week before break and that was also just really outstanding and heartwarming and all that good stuff. And so, um, you know, all of it just good reminders of the amazing things our kids can do. And since our budget presentation was super long tonight, that's all I have to say. All righty, then we will uh move on to uh board comments and committee reports. Uh starting with Seamra. Yeah, thanks for the clarity on those slides. I think it's hopefully it's helpful to the community to you know understand what we're doing and why. Um and I thought the play at South Avenue was great as well. My daughter was one of them as well. Congratulations. That's all. All right, Kristen. Uh, yes. Amazing presentation. The narrative is
069really sort of coming through and it's much more uh easily understood, I think, especially in a year that's there's a little bit more complexity. Um, tomorrow night at 7 there is an audit committee meeting. 6 6:30. I'll see you at seven. Six, right? Wait, where is it in this room? The first there's a Zoom group is 6:30. If we could assemble a at least a little bit before that just to organize ourselves uh and we're at the district office. Okay. I will text a reminder. Yeah. No, that is that is a that is a serious challenge and then I will be there to the tar or bike or feet towards the district office. Wait, it's the district. So where's this meeting that I'm chairing? District office conference room. There's new furniture in there. Oh, what?
070Well, it's probably been needed for at least six or seven years, I think, and about to go. Um, two two are zooming in. First one is zooming in. Second one is in person. The third one is zooming in. Okay. All right. Okay. Yeah. Um, is that everything? Okay, great. Uh, Chris, no comments tonight. Thanks. All righty. Um, Leavon, no comments. Thank you. Okay, Eric. Uh, just a reminder, I believe May 6th, we're still facilities committee is at six o'clock. Uh, we continue to work on the, um, upcoming, um, facilities pro capital project. So, uh, we're moving along and doing some great work there. And I wanted to also just thank, um, Matt and, uh, Ann Marie for the clarifications tonight. Um, I've kind of been a little bit of a thorn in Matt's side over
071the past couple of days with some questions and he really helped out tonight and I thought did a great job. So, I appreciate it. Thank you. All right, Meredith. Um, I also thought it was a great presentation. I think it's really important to understand that this budget doesn't exist in a vacuum, that we are impacted by the state. We're impacted by the federal. Um, and we're impacted by, you know, having to plan for the future, not just this year. So, thank you. I think it's I think there's a lot of great communication there. Um, uh, we had a policy meeting on the 10th and there are a few policies that will be on the next agenda and our next meet, our next policy meeting is on May 20th, um, which is also the canvas of
072the votes. So, I think we're going to do the policy meeting at 8 o'clock. what we decided is that and then um I also wanted to let everyone know that um tonight there's a meeting at Texico. Um I have I know some people that are there. Um so I'll I'll report back on that, but I I think it sounds like they're sounds like things are heating up a little bit there. So I'll try to get some more information for you on that. And um also I was at a meeting on Friday with um the Fishkill Town Supervisor and a bunch of people from Empire State Development about the downstate property and um the developers who are called Conifer and um they there's not really a lot to report there. They still haven't really settled on
073the number of units. Um there's a lot of back and forth between them and the fire department about what is feasible. Um but in general, I did ask them like what would the timeline be like when would the first person be, you know, handed keys and it sounded like five years. um at a minimum. So I will keep you updated on that. Okay. Thank you. Um I wanted to just uh say thank you for the presentation as well and I feel like this this series of discussions that we've been having around the budget has really helped me to understand how you're arriving at the numbers and but also like what that money is accomplishing. And I think that's it's so important for us to remember that especially right now. I feel like there's so much
074uncertainty. There's uncertainty around what our foundation aid is going to look like in the future. There's absolutely uncertainty around what our federal funding is going to look like in the future. And I feel like our budget is such a great balance of um providing opportunity but also being responsible. I and I'm just really appreciate how thoughtful it is and I can tell that a lot of thought and care has been put into this and it feels realistic and it feels manageable both on the taxpayer side and on the on the um student achievement side. So, I really appreciate that and I fully support it. Um, and I thought this would be a good opportunity since we're going to segue into um, board of ed business and we're going to start with the vote for everybody
075to just go around and maybe say uh, say any thoughts that they have about tonight's vote, about the budget itself. If you feel like you've had you've said all you need to say, then you can just say, you know, yes, I'm you know, I've said what I need to say and I support it or whatever. But I think it would be good for us to just go around and each of us share our thoughts about it before we vote. Um Eric, can we start with you? Sure. Um I'm in support of the budget. Um I did have some earlier questions about where we were with the uh levy increase, but uh I feel that uh what we're proposing is best for the students and for the district. And um I uh and again I just
076appreciate like you said the work that's been done to make this um uh I think efficient and um what's best for everybody uh in the district. So I am in favor of it. Okay, great. Chris. Yeah, I'm also uh in favor. I think it's a big responsibility to ask for the these resources from the community, but I think the the district and and Matt in particular has done such a good job of um being responsive to both uh voices through surveys and data that we're seeing about what our students need and um and just responsive to a lot of inputs. So, I think the investments that um we're proposing here are really important for our students. Um, and I echo your thoughts, Flora, about the kind of responsible and even really conservative nature of not
077overshooting um where we could be going if we wanted to ask for sort of like everything. Um, so to me to me it strikes that balance in a way that um is is responsible and will kind of contribute to the sustainability of um serving Beacon students. Great. Thanks, Merida. I agree with both of you and I think that um you know after having like a really really tight budget last year it it's it's nice to be able to add these um these intervention teachers that I think we really need as we're still seeing these gaps from COVID. Uh so I I think this has been a a good process this year and even better process than years before. I think we're we're we're starting to explain this better for the community to understand because it
078like you said it is a lot to ask of the community. This isn't this the tax system I would choose. Um but it's the one we have and so I think we're doing the best we can with it. Agreed. Kristen, uh yeah, I think one of the this is yeah echoing what everyone else has said about the um how valuable this process has been, how um intentional it has been and what has been added. I think the other key thing that really stands out for me is that we have um very carefully over time added and built um from a place of lack honestly and our programs have been put in um sort of very uh with a lot of effort and um over time we've created something that is now feels like a much
079stronger foundation that's almost like a flywheel that it took us a good bit of time to get going and now anything we add, anything that we continue to do has the potential to have that much more efficiency behind it as we put it in place. You know, that's the music program being a great example. Looking at fourth grade music added only a few years ago to now having all of these ensembles and all of these different opportunities and all of these things at not a lot of additional cost if any really other than that first investment in that program. and then finding some really good teachers. Um, these are the things that you create efficiency by creating that sort of strong root system. We've really been building that root system. The thing that I do
080not want to see is to move backward in any way. And I think this is set up to weather some pretty strong headwinds and um and even has some flexibility in it if we hear different numbers or if something shifts a little bit that we can um still maintain that strong foundation and continue to build and hopefully get into more tailwinds so to speak. So yeah, I'm I'm in favor of this budget. Great. I'm also in favor. I'll just take the baton from you thinking about where we were and that this budget feels like a really future um thoughtful in a future way. We've we've we've addressed a lot of issues from the past and now we're really thinking about the future and how we can continue to build programming. And I've I've seen it
081in the just few years I've been here. The amount of programming that came online within just a few years, it's it's transformational. And um you know, we want to support the great teachers we have here and keep them and and um and that's that's the backbone to me and I feel like we're building a capital and an organizational budget that's responsible and um and great for our students. Great. Um I'm also in support of the budget. I do want to appreciate I do appreciate the uh slides that you guys have put uh together for us and the information provided. I think it's clear for uh you know the taxpayers and what they'll be expecting. also the time that you took to show that it's student first mentality and to show that the progress we have
082made over the years and how we do want to sustain that. So, um, yeah, I'm in support of this budget. All right, great. So, moving on to 9.01. Vicki, does this have to be a roll call vote or can Okay. Um, so do I just say do do you for a second and then Okay, I'll take call. Okay, great. Um, so can I get a motion to approve 9.01 adopting the proposed school year budget for the 2526 school year? So moved. Kristen second. Second. Second by Meredith. Okay. Mson. Yes. Yes. Mr. Yes. Yes. Mr. Shudder. Yes. Yes. Passes 70. Now for the other three, do we have to do those as roll call as well or just that one? I typically I've always done them separately just so that we have like the record of
083them, but those together. Okay. I mean um I don't mind doing them separately. I just meant like can I do all in favor for those individually? Okay, then that I think that's easier. Um so can I have a motion to approve uh 9.02 O2 uh the property tax report card and school district budget. So moved. Second. Second. All in favor? I passes 70. Can I have a motion to approve 9.03 the Duchess uh County Bosey's 2526 administrative budget. So moved. Move. Uh secondmber. All in favor? I passes 70. Okay. So for 9.04 4. Um, this is electing the Duchess County Bosey's board members. There are a total of three vacancies. There are five candidates. We've got Ralph uh Chuento, Mark Fleshower, Bryce Holland, Judy Moran, and Gully Gully Stanford or Stanford, I can never remember.
084Uh, we can only vote for three candidates per uh total. So, I'm going to propose that we do a single vote for a slate of three and that we just go with the candidates that we originally nominated. So that was Gully, Mark, and Bryce. Is everybody okay with doing this? Yes. Yes. Okay. So can um can I get a motion to approve 9.04 uh to uh to vote uh Gully Sam Stanford, Mark Fleshower, and Bryce Holland to the Boseies board. So moved. Second. Second. Second by Kristen. All in favor? Passes 70. Well administered. All right, moving on to the consent agenda. The use of the consent agenda permits the board of education to make more effective use of its time by adopting a single motion to cover those relatively routine matters which are included. Any
085member of the board who wishes to discuss individually a particular piece of business on the consent agenda may so indicate and that item will be considered and voted on separately, thus preserving the right of all board members to be heard on any issue. Are there any items that any board members would like to have removed from the consent agenda? I have one 12.05 E4. 12.05 E4. Okay. So, can I have a motion to approve 11.01 through 15.03 minus 12.05 E4. So moved. So moved. Uh second. Second. Second by Kristen. Uh comments or questions? All in favor? I I oppose. None passes 70. Okay. Can I have a motion to approve 12.05e? So moved. Second. Second. Okay. Um, all in favor? I I I forgot to do comments or questions. I'm sorry. Comments or questions? All
086in favor? Abstaining. Abstain. Okay. Passes. Uh, six to one. One abstaining. Uh, can I have a motion to adjourn the meeting? Motion and second. Second. All right. Comments or questions? All in favor? I passes 70. Good night.