001It is 7 o'clock. Calling to order the March 24th, 2025 meeting of the Beacon City School District Board of Education. Please stand for the pledgece to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for its one, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. Vicki, can you call the role? Here. Excused. Here. Here. Here. Shutter. Here. Here. Here. Here. Matt, can you review the fire exits? Exits are in the back of the LGI. Okay. Open to the public. Does anybody have a public comment that they would like to make? Seeing none. All right. We will move on to the workshop. Uh we're starting with our presentation on people personnel services and special education prek from Dr. Chadwell Dennis. So, good evening um Superintendent Land Landall and Board of Education. Um so, tonight I'll
002be presenting on the proposed budget for the 2526 school year. Um we're excited to provide you information on all the interesting things we've done um over this year and some highlights for the future. So, this is our current pupil services team. Um, I'm Heather Chadwell Dennis. I'm the assistant superintendent. Christina Bartley is the assistant superintendent for secondary. She chairs meetings and works with the middle school and the high school. Angela Sturbins is um a CSSE chairperson that is filling the role as a substitute as we have a open position for assistant director at the elementary level. You may recognize the name Jane Cerone. She was a former teacher here. She chairs our preschool meetings for us and we'll go through some of those numbers throughout the um presentation this evening. And then uh Jen Master
003Nicola is the elementary support person who's currently supporting Angela and Dana Quentana supports Christina Bartley. And then we have Terry Bettincourt who um has a very full-time job supporting our preschool students. And as just a reminder, it's age two years 11 months up into transition into kindergarten because we're responsible for the education of three to 21 year olds. We have um Esther Delgado is sitting right now as a substitute in the out of district homeschool support. She also supports individuals with 504 plans um in the K8 and that position is one that we are hiring as well. And we have Joan Edmonson who works directly with me who is here in the audience and Suzanne Dcastro as well who is our senior account clerk. So here's the overview of the topics we'll be talking about
004this evening. Talk about some highlights as I mentioned earlier for this year and looking into the future. Um the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and section 504 the rehab act and what the responsibilities are there for our department. what our outofd district programming looks like including any Boseies components and 853s or special act schools, what the contractual services are, what we are looking forward to on the horizon, any staffing impact, and then a budget summary, and of course any questions at the end. So, here are some very brief highlights. Um, we've done a lot of really um I think the staff has done some amazing things this school year. Uh but these are just some standout highlights. So you approved as a board um the uh training of five safety care trainers and just briefly
005because the question was posed what what is safety care and it really is deescalation techniques. So when a student is communicating with their um behavior, their needs, predominantly KA is where we use this where we talk about limiting our words, not engaging in the conversation of the struggle with the student, creating safe spaces. And so we have five trainers in the district. And for those five, they've trained 88 different people. We do not have 88 currently in the district as aids and TAs have moved quite a bit. Um but uh over the last couple years, we've changed about 88. Um, we have expanded our inclusionbased professional development for general education and special area teachers and transportation. It's been a hyperfocus of us this year really looking at the general education side. Um, special area teachers
006like music, art, um, physical education and then transportation because our students see their drivers first thing and last. And so on opening day, I met with the entire fleet of um drivers and monitors and really talked about inclusive practices on the bus and how we can support them as a department. Um this year we did a caregiver presentation and we talked about um it was a a 30 minute presentation on what parents can expect in the annual review process. I found out today the county is using it as a training video which is really cool because um you know there's always a breakdown in like what does the county do and what do school districts do and there's always learning from that space. So I was really excited that they reached out to me about
007that. So the county will learn what Beacon is doing. Um and then integrated co-eing, uh it was approved at this time last year to have GNR inclusive group come in and work with our sixth grade um teaching pairs and they expanded out to our special area teachers as well. And I met with those teachers and received really positive feedback. So we'll talk about what that'll look like going forward, too. So just as a reminder, um the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act is monitored out of the United States Office of Education. um is a federal law indicating that all kiddos who um are identified as having disabilities are entitled to a free appropriate public education. The part 2201 regulations are what govern New York State and we have about 215 more rules than the federal government
008has on service delivery, what does discipline look like for students with disabilities, and what procedural safeguards are for families. And then office uh section 504 of the rehabilitation act of 1973 um is an anti-discrimination law and it really is the basis of um ensuring that children or adults you know adults could have a 504 as well. Um it's served under the office of civil rights which is again part of the United States office of education um ensuring that there are not discriminatory practices in our spaces. So currently we have 74 classified preschool students. And so for a little one um it's an umbrella. It's classified preschooler with a disability. And there's 13 currently pending evaluations. I will say that those are active cases we have right now. This year alone we've had 147. So where
009students may have been evaluated, they received services for a short period of time, may have been ineligible, may have exited, may have transitioned in and out. So on our footprint right now from September to now, we have 147. These there's 74 students receiving services and 13 that are currently in the evaluation process. These are our students in our buildings right now um under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act that are receiving services. So the numbers that you see there, so for example, 32 at Forestl, we have 32 children with individualized education programs in that space that we are providing service to. So that number in total is about 458 students served inside our six buildings. And these are our children who have 504 plans. The majority of these are accommodation plans. um or they may
010have some related services. Um and you can see the number um there. The highest being Beacon High School. Obviously, it's the largest. We have a a little bit different system for supporting 504s at the high school. We have a designated psychologist that has a support person here for that. It all monitors out of the PPS office, but the K8 um comes directly out of the PPS office. All right, this is a really exciting slide. Um, and I just wanted to do the comparison for you. So, if you look at the yellow bars, that is children receiving their special education services in their home building. So, looking at Glenham, 65% of Glennum students received their services in Glenum. Um and then as of compared to 2425 so today 75% of students are receiving it in the
011home building you'll see the smallest impact on Glennum because that has been the location traditionally that a lot of the programming was housed. So if you had a um an attendance area at JVF and you needed services you would go to Glennom or another school that had those services. So, as you can see, looking at JVF in particular, which has um a 25% differential there, 34% of students whose home school was JVF, received their programming in that building in 2019 2020 and we're up to 59% now. So, if you were if you lived in JVF, um it is 25% more likely that you'll receive the services at that building. What is not described here which I think is another highlighted um effect is that there are many families that if a student had to move
012to a different building for the services their sibling was requested to go as well. So we had that happening and over time we're trying to build those programs kindergarten and slide into kindergarten um so that we can as much as possible have the children receive their education in their community neighborhood school. Okay. So, here is a an identification of our outofd district programming. Um, these are the locations that we currently have students in. There are there are others, but these are just happen to be where our 40 students are sitting right now. Um, a difference that you'll notice from last year was the Duchess County Boseies has changed their name to the resilience academy. That is what was formerly known as the alternative high school. They've just changed the name. So that is your 9th
013through 12th program. Salt Point Center is still remains K to8. Um so on the left are all of our Boseies that we work with. We work with Duchess Boseies, Orange Dolster, PNW and Southern Westchester. Some of the children like for example um the ones that are more southern may have transferred into us and that was their location and we need to maintain those programs. Then there's 853 and special act schools. Um, there's Abilities First, American School for the Deaf, which is out of state. Anderson Center for Autism, Center for Spectrum Services, which is in Ellenville and Kingston. Devo has multiple campuses, Green Chimneys, Kaplan, Hawthorne, the Orchard School, which is Andress, Sale, Discovery, Westchester School, and Yorktown High School. Of note, in that list there, we have six students who are residential. So, for example,
014if you look at Green Chimneys, there might be a student who we might have a student that's in a day program at Green Chimneys, but also may be in a residential program at Green Chimneys. And I'll talk a little bit later about maintenance cost and when children live there, how the county and the school districts work together for maintenance cost. So, currently we have 40 students in these out of district placements. Last year um we projected 43 in the budget total and um we are solidly sitting within our budget from last year at 40. So that is our number right now in time, not what we're projected to have for next school year. Here are the locations of students who are parentally placed that we provide either funding for or services for. So inside Beacon,
015we have Hudson Hills Academy and New Covenant Learning Center. So if you're a student who uh attends Hudson Hills Academy, but you are in the um Arlington Catchment area, let's say, and you attend Hudson Hills, Beacon provides those services to the student. So if you look at the locations outside, the example is Our Lady of Lords High School sits inside Arlington. But if you're a Beacon student who attends there, we reimburse the cost for those services. So Arlington would provide the services just like at St. Mary's and Fishkill. Wingers provides the services and then they bill us um for the reimbursement. Um so we provide all those services for all those children. All right, here's another uh I think really nice highlight. We were looking at how many we're one of the things that a
016metric that we're measuring is parent engagement and you know h how do we bring parents into the conversation more and more. So if you look at 2019 2020 the blue bar we had 1554 meetings and of that we had 1,995 parents participating. Now you might have some meetings with multiple parents so that's why that number is higher than what the meeting number is. And then we had COVID 2021 was when we started going to the virtual. Most of them were in person. Then we moved to virtual. Um and then if you look to the right where it's 2324, you can see that um last year we had 2232 parents participate, we had a smaller number of meetings, 1,368 meetings. The reason being is because we have instituted a practice where it's something called an amendment
017no meeting. It's a small change to the document. Parent, we make a proposal, we send them legal documents, the parent signs off on it, and then we can update without a meeting. So, while we've reduced the number of meetings so that, you know, the teachers remain in the classrooms, care providers remain with the students. We've reduced the number of meetings, we've we've increased the number of parents that we're actually having at the meetings. And so, all the way on the right where you see 1612, that's just where we are today. So from July 1, which is our start um because we have the summer programming to today, we've had 1,02 meetings and of that 1612 parents have participated or grandparents or uncles could be extended family members. So district students managed or supported through pupil
018services, we have 69 homeschooled students. We work with Duchess Boseies because they have to have home plans, quarterly reports. Um, and of those students, some may receive special education services and we provide most of those services through a contract because many of it is in the home. And we h we serve 60 unhoused students through McKenna Vento. Um, some of those are siblings, sibling pairs. So we might have um a student at JBF and a student at Rombout that are in unhoused and make up part of that 60. Here are examples of our um contractual services and I'm just going to go through them briefly and I'm going to highlight Brooklyn Center, the Brookline Center again a little bit later, but Anderson Center for Autism provides um support through a contract. We have two very
019specialized classrooms in the district at JBF and we partner with Anderson to get um insight in the structure of the room and the makeup of the room and that room might change year to year based on the needs of the children what our visual schedules look like what our um augmentative communication devices look like already talked about safety care inclusive group has provided support and we're looking to provide that support into seventh grade at Rombout various professional developments. We recently had um Andrew Shannick come who talked about evaluations with psychologists and speech pathologists and how the two intersect and how not to over test our our students but get the right metrics that we need. We have braille services, teacher of the deaf. We have a speech language pathologist um for the students who might
020be in home placements. Uh BCBA, we have hospitalized student tutoring. So if a student becomes ill or um needs some psychiatric care, we provide that tutoring service as well. For students who are unable to leave their house at all, we provide services in their home. Skilled nursing, I looked at the back data for skilled nursing services. Um so that's a student who might need an actual one-toone nurse. The last time we had we have had one uh this year for a very short period of time for feeding. Um the last time was 2020 and we're in anticipating this year coming up we're going to have at least two or three that students that will need that high level of care coming in from our preschool programs an Aster clinic at Rombout um so I'll highlight
021that uh one of the governor's um supports was that she was looking to have more uh outside agencies working inside our schools and so it's taken about a year and a half to plan for Aster because we wanted to be really clear about what was the responsibility of Aster and what was the responsibility of our social workers. Um so what's really nice about this ASTER contract is it will be a provider at Rombout with flex hours so they can um meet with families after school and they will provide services when school is closed. So if we're on a holiday or um it's a summer break, they will continue to provide services and they will also connect us with psychiatric services um that has been lacking. Part of that work in the data was how many
022students at the middle school level were being served by Aster. Um, and it was five, which was really low. That seemed like a very, very low number. And after meeting with them and talking to the staff at Rombo, it was really about how do you get to an appointment in the middle of the day? You know, they're in school, they have to get there, families are working, and so this just seemed like a natural relationship to foster, and we're looking forward to that. Occupational and physical therapy services are contracted. Um, we're looking to, it was, I said it last year. We're trying really hard to hire a physical therapist. Last year, we recommended two. We were able to, uh, secure one and the other was on a contract and we're hoping this year to move
023forward to actually have two. And then the independent educational evaluations. So, this is our staffing impact for the uh, next year coming up. So um we are projecting that we will need a 0.5 additional speech language pathologist to uh make up for all of the services that we need particularly at JVF that's the location we have many children using augmentative communication devices which are like communication boards and they're using them in art and music in a lot of spaces and it takes a lot of collaboration so we're anticipating that we'll need that physical therapists like I mentioned we're still two, just one has to be on contract right now and we're looking to have two within our BTA contract. 4.5 occupational therapists, six psychologists, and eight social workers. So, no change there. We're anticipating that
024we'll need one additional special education teacher at the elementary level. Um, however, we are anticipating we'll need one less at the high school. So, there really, although we're going up one at the elementary, we'll be going down one at the high school. And we're doing that through retirement. and um the middle school, we're expecting no change. They currently have 13 teachers and we're anticipating that same meet for next year. So, talking a little bit about what's on the horizon. Very exciting. Um so, the Brookline Center, uh Mr. Dwire had mentioned this previously. It's for students who are experienc some mental health disruption or school avoidance and the connection to home needs to be at a higher level than what we currently experience. So it might be a student who has not come to school for
02530 40 days and coming back to school for that first day is really hard right now. Now, if a student is uh has a disruption to like Westchester Medical Center, they then try to take a down step to like intensive day treatment at Boseies or maybe an Aster treatment center and then they're transitioning again hopefully into the high school. We're trying to reduce that transition because every transition is very difficult. So, we're hoping to do and have been su successful with within other locations is going from the mental health disruption where they're getting the services right back to us in more of a um uh therapeutic manner because we want them to stay connected with their teacher that they feel the most comfortable with. So, if they're comfortable with their math teacher, that's the first
026class they go to and then the second class. And it's a six week build back up back into the full integration. So they're not waiting. The other the other real trick thing is that if they are discharged from four winds, let's say, they have to wait for a spot in a location. And so we're hoping to stop that wait so they can come right back into into their classroom. GNR inclusive, again, I mentioned the sixth grade. Um, I met with them, they gave really positive feedback. What they were looking for was to have the coaches in the classrooms more often. Um, and so we'd like to build that into seventh grade. But the sixth grade teacher said, you know, but we've started this great work. Can we keep open consults with them so that we
027can continue this, you know, problem solving together? I thought it was great. Um, and then the elementary has asked for some support u just in professional development. Um, not necessarily like lesson development, but more like tell us about more about uh co-eing. The contract we had with GR this year um also was for the administration, the psychologists, and all of our lead teachers. So, they all participated in it as well. And then looking at reading instruction on the horizon, providing seven uh special education teachers with really very specific designed reading reading instruction um to support our kiddos who are having the most difficulty learning to read. Um we're going to continue our inclusion strategies specifically around transportation and special areas. We have implemented AI uh into most of our spaces um which has been really
028helpful. So you can take a standard any of the educational standards and have it differentiate based on a specific need and that's been really helpful even around our PE lessons. uh a safety care. Like I mentioned, we're looking at bringing in additional assessments in special education, looking more at reading assessments, and like I mentioned, the Aster services clinic here um in Beacon at Rambut Middle School. So, these are our supplies and materials. A little difficult to see. These are two different sensory rooms. Obviously, one is low lit, one is high lit. Um brand new room coming into Rhomboud. It is currently set up um on the second floor. We're moving the occupational therapy office right next door. We've provided a protocol for that space and on professional development day the teachers were able to receive
029training so that um they can use it whenever whenever a student needs to use it. But you know augmentative communication devices, updating test protocols, mobility aids, therapeutic materials and professional subscriptions. So these are funds that um come through the federal government. These are our 611 and 619 funds. Um this offsets our um salaries for teachers. So it's just under $900,000. We're expecting to receive that in this next year coming up through the federal government. Um and this helps us offset our teachers costs. Medicaid reimbursement. So this is our projected reimbursement. This isn't what we have right now, but if we're on par, um this is what we're expecting to receive back during this school year. That's a significant increase than what we've received in the past. Um, last year we were just over 200,000. So,
030we're hoping to get close to 500,000 this year. The reason why it's different this year is we've had a concerted effort in communications with families, making sure that they we're streamlining that communication. We have the consent signed. We have a different um contracted consultant agency that we work with. And we're also um for the first time looking at getting funds back for transportation for students who are higher cost. And so here's the budget summary. Um the projected cost for this year is um 5.9. It's an increase from budget to budget to about 700,000. Um as a secondary, the revenue that we're bringing in is we anticipate to be about $500,000. So um You know looking at the two budgets it's about 207 increase but if you look from budget to budget from year to year
031it's 700,7394. We are anticipating in that number to have um about 46 to 48 students who need out of district support. And what we're seeing is the level of need at the preschool level is um pro is is offsetting the cost for an increase in the budget. Last year when I did the budget, we projected at 43. Again, remember we're saying we're sitting at 40 right now. So we were about $140,000 in that in that range. Um if we were serving a 43 right now, we would see that we would probably be very close to exceeding the budget that was presented last year. And the reason for that is because there's an increase in costs overall. So I wanted to mention maintenance. So maintenance is when a student is in a residential setting and the
032county offsets some of those costs. Right now the district is sitting at um about 58% of that cost is build. So the county gets the bill and they bill us and we have to offset the residential fee of about 58%. So for a student where they might cost 113 114,000 to be in an out of district placement. The state sets that rate. There's also a maintenance cost for if they live in that location. Um the other impact is the nursing services. You know that is a person that we will be hiring um under a contract for supporting children with those needs. Um so that's some of the difference and again the Medicaid reimbursement we're seeing that increase due to better recordkeeping, better consulting and transportation. So that is the overall summary. Um and I'm here
033for any questions. Oh, thank you so much. That's a really detailed presentation. It gives a lot of context. I mean, I learned things I didn't know which was about the about the operations of um of the department. So, that's great. Does anybody have any questions? I I was just going to ask um I see we have eight social workers. Yes, we have six schools. Um I'm guessing does the high school h just because I don't Does the high school have two? And so the high school has three three three. They have three. We're looking at one to be designated uh to work with the bright program um this year coming up. So no increase. At the middle school there is one we're looking for an aster person to come in for that and then one
034at the elementaryaries. Okay. Y one at each elementary. Yeah. One at each elementary. We did last year or two years ago we added an additional guidance counselor to the middle school. Mhm. Um at the middle school level, they have more flexibility. They're not, you know, than a high school guidance counselor. So, they do a lot of social emotional support for students. Heather, when you do the PD with the transportation? Yes. How do you Does that happen? H how well how does that happen? So, because their schedules are right, you know, uh varied, right? So, um is it those that I'll just ask how does it happen? Yeah. So, opening day, so I stood in front of the entire room full of people. I took questions in advance, so you know, I kind of knew what
035they were going to ask. Uh, we talked about like what does behavior look like? Communication. One of the things that came up that I would never have thought about was the mirror. When they're looking backwards on the bus and they're talking in the mirror, if you're an individual with a disability and you're lip reading or something, you're not catching what's being said there. And so, we had conversations about what do visual aids look like? You know, music on the bus, all of those things. I will say professional development days are hard because they still are on runs, right? They still have kids in out of district placements or they have other responsibilities going to Lords or you know St. Mary's. Um so that's been challenging. Um but Debbie who's the director of transportation and I
036have been in many conversations about should we break them into smaller units, you know, do the morning. So I go over to transportation often and just stay and just listen to what they have to say. Bring lollipops and just listen. Um and they have a lot of great suggestions. U it's just like a matter of getting them all together is really difficult. Okay. I had one question. It sounds like a big um driver of increased cost is is uh students coming at the preschool level who have really high needs. Yes. Um and if they stay with us, I imagine those needs will continue to to be served here. So I I don't know if you know, but is that like a fluke this year? Is that like a trend that we're seeing of more students
037with increased needs? Um, yeah. How does that like broader pattern look? So, I I don't I wouldn't say it's hard to say in special education because you just don't know. Like one year you could end up with a student with a very high need and then not at all the next year. They could move tomorrow. Like so that's part of it too. We may have a student come in with a very high need and we need to provide all these services and then they're gone in a week. Um I I don't think it's COVID related as far as the disability level. Um I don't know how, you know, and part of that 700,000 isn't all preschool. It's the fact that costs are going up that, you know, maintenance costs. We're more responsible for residential than
038ever before. We have kids in out of state placements now. It's very hard to find locations in state um for any child who needs a higher level of service. So now we're crossing state lines. So that's expensive, too. Um, I I can't give you an actual answer as to why, but I could just say it's happened. Here it is. Thanks. Don't a lot of those students actually go off of those IEPs later. So, over time, that's the goal. So, you know, we have children who might need nursing services for feeding, but the goal is over time that they're able to eat. You know, we might have those. We might have students that, you know, have gate trainers or walkers or any, you know, additional devices. And the goal is always to have them be stronger
039and be more more mobile, but not always. You know, sometimes it's part part of who they are and we're going to need braille services for specific students for the entire time that they're here. So, it really does depend on the student. Okay. Thank you. Anybody else? All right. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. So, next up is the new budget update from Matt and Anarie. All right. Uh, tonight we want to kind of revisit the last meeting just for a minute or two. Uh, just to check in with the board. Uh, we want to talk about what um, uh, our proposed budget number is. We want to talk about what the year-to-year increase is. We also want to spend a little bit of time talking about um the transportation department and a potential bus proposition
040for the ballot and also what some of the technology initiatives are. Um so at any point we don't have to wait till the end just just uh holler. We had a great conversation at the last board meeting. So I'm not going to you know I'm not going to belver slides we've already been through. I'm just going to quickly go through them uh because we had a lot of conversation around these the last time. So this just a a review of where our revenue sources uh come from. There was some confusion in the community months ago about this and so we keep kind of reminding everyone that this is the breakdown. um our reserves and appropriated fund balance um what goes into the tax cap calculation um and the maximum levy increase uh is um 5.15
041and I just want to say a couple things about that that is uh at the tax cap beacon has um proposed budgets and had budgets accepted by the community um at the tax cap for the last 16 years I think since the tax cap was put into place. Uh so um this is this is nothing unusual. Uh and moving forward um our recommendation or my recommendation is going to be um to um um to review a budget that's at that number uh that's that's at the tax cap. And so uh you know what all the presenters have been talking about up until this point we'll talk about a little bit later in the presentation. Then at the April 7th meeting when we talk about instruction, it's it's at that uh tax cap that we're going
042to be talking about. But obviously um the final decision uh for these things resides um with the board. That final adoption date is April 22nd. Um so uh about a month from now. So also during this process, any questions you have that we need to follow up on, please just let us know. Um but there was some conversation at the last meeting uh about um the 515. We did a little bit of calculating. We didn't put this on a slide. Um but we just wanted to get a sense of uh revenue at different numbers. So if the if we um brought the levy down to 4.68, uh then we would have u $225,000 less in revenue uh in that overall budget. If the tax levy uh was brought down to 4.15 uh then we would
043have $475,000 less in revenue. Um I just wanted to um have that be a part of the thinking. Um, so I don't, you know, on April 7th, we're going to get into detail about what some of our proposals are for the instructional budget, but I have been open about talking about, uh, we'd really like to add, um, two additional math intervention teachers at the elementary level and a math intervention teacher at the elementary level. We're also looking at, you know, changes to the middle school schedule. I've talked about phasing these things in over two years or or doing one and then doing the other. um at that first number I talked about, the 4.68, what we would probably do instead, is just sort of stick with what we have and not uh propose any additional
044uh positions whatsoever. um at the 4.15 number, uh we would be looking to make reductions across the board because that would be a number that um we would have to probably look in each of our schools uh to find um less spending um and at the obviously at the district level too. Um, so moving forward, I just wanted to um talk about that uh briefly talk about and and we'll put some slides together that show this uh Beacon's history uh with with um having budgets be at the tax cap um and and what it's meant for us. I think the one other thing I was going to talk about this the end, but I'll mention it now is we will at the next meeting have a comparison of our tax rates compared with all the
045neighboring districts. Um it in Duchess County I think we're in the at least last year we were in the bottom third of tax rates across the county. Across the region were have some of the lowest tax rates across the entire region. So when I say region I'm talking about Orange County, Putnham County, um Westchester, like all the people we're competing with when we're hiring um and Duchess. So uh so so with all of that uh we have one of the lower tax rates across the region and we'll have a slide that shows that the next meeting. Um so uh capital project um just briefly about this. This is um uh one of the um main reasons that the tax levy rate is is higher. Um we were very open when we proposed this to the
046community last spring that it would have a tax impact. uh and it has had a um a bit of a tax impact with this here. So, if you go back to um what we were proposing um to the community last spring u when it was on the ballot, this $50 million uh capital project um there was a tax impact over three years. And so, this would be year one of that capital project tax impact. This capital project again uh it's the first time in 20 years Beacon's done a capital project that's impacted uh taxes. Usually we've done much smaller projects that uh don't impact um the uh the tax revenue. Um doing that time after time uh has put us behind uh with keeping up with uh with keep our keeping our infrastructure uh improved
047um and functioning. So, uh, this project has a lot of infrastructure in it across all six of our schools. Um, it also has some programmatic things, but it it will be would be adding cooling centers which are very needed uh to our elementary uh schools and middle school. High schools already air conditioned. It would um add improvements to the theater here at the high school. It would add improvements to the softball and baseball field. Um, so it's a huge project for us. Uh, we're loving the planning part of it. Oh, I forgot. It would also uh s um create more secure entryways for our buildings as well. Um, which is which is also super important. So, these are much needed improvements. It does have an impact uh on what's collected. um that that is uh
048the number for the estimated tax uh impact on an average home and usually that goes down once the assessments come out. Uh so the preliminary budget number is um 86 million in there. That budgetto budget increase is 3.6%. Um today and the uh following meetings um we're going to get into what is going into that increase. Um but we're going to start um well first this shows over the last few years not including this 3.6 that we're proposing um what the budget increases have been for the last five. As you can see we've been over 3% um three of those years. This would be another year um that we're proposing it would be 3.6. Um so we have some things driving it. Uh Amry is going to jump in and talk about some of these
049things, but the employee um retirement system shows an increase. Um when some people ask, well, why is the budget why are we proposing a budget that's increasing 3.6%. Um we have health insurance costs that are going up 7 to 8%. Um our general insurance, and this is a regional thing, this isn't a beacon thing, um is going up 11%. Um just uh technology Chromebooks uh which we we use Dell uh Chromebooks um Chromebooks are going up 10%. Um they're not saying tariffs. The company that we purchased them for are not saying tariffs. Uh but it seems implied that that's part of that cost. I will put an asterisk here. for the last four years. Uh I've talked about inflation. I've talked about supply chain disruption. So this is not about um right now, you know,
050it's not any different from how I talked about economic factors um in the prior administration, but when we're having like 10% increases put on the number of Chromebooks we buy without really much of an explanation, um we've all probably could figure out what that is. So, uh, we that's part of the overall increase in equipment, materials, and supplies. The health insurance one though is a large driver. How much do you have an estimate of health insurance as part of our overall budget? What the percent is? I don't know the percent. It's it's about $13 million alone. So, 13 into 86. So, that's probably that's 18 19%. So, I can do the math in a second. I can't do it in my head. Um, so I'm gonna have Emry explain this one. I'm just did a
051quick slide to show you, you know, how the ERS and TRS rates have. So, um, t just so you know the difference. Employ ERS is employees retirement system. It's all for the civil service employees and their pension and TRS is teachers retirement system. So, we do have a small decrease in teachers retirement this year, which is helpful. um employees retirement is definitely um going up a lot more. Thankfully, it's on a smaller dollar amount of payroll. So, you know, it's it impacts us a little bit less. The teachers retirement payroll obviously is more. Um but both are funded differently. TRS has its own fund. Um ERS is through the controllers's office. So, it's the way it's it basically is is kind of dependent upon how the market does and the investment of the funds that
052are in it because they're all both separate entities. And just just kind of an overall um comparison and we'll get more into detail on the next meeting. Um but salaries for us is about $45 million. That's rough. Uh benefits are about 25 million. Our debt service is 6.6. So those three areas come up to about $76 million, which is 88.5% of the budget. So the budget's driven mainly by these three areas and then the others are materials and supplies uh you know all of all of the rest of the budget pieces. It just kind of gives you an idea of you know where our money is definitely going. Um and just to give you an idea too of debt service um I know there was a question at the last meeting. So um it is
053for school in um construction. So a ban is a bond anticipation note. So that um right now in our current capital project everything is through um a bond anticipation note. We are planning to do permanent bonds because a lot of the work is done already. Um there is some discussion about should we go to bonds? Should we do another ban for another year? Is the interest rate going to go down? Is you know so there's so we're working really closely with our financial adviserss um to make the decision within the next month of what would be best for the district. Um, and then on the bottom also we we do bond anticipation notes for our buses. So we structure them over a five-year period so that that it matches the um transportation aid that we
054receive on buses. So that's how we um finance them. So the difference between 2425 and 2526 is what we spoke about earlier. It's the addition of additional um debt that we need to pay for the current for the new project for the 24 project. That's just a reminder. We had this one up. Um I took some of the slides out of the previous one, but we kept this one in. Uh just an update about prek. Uh we do um we were planning in the budget we're uh proposing to do um a repeat of 110 total students served. We opened registration uh this week. Uh we already have 87 students registered. So um you know I think we've seen our student numbers starting to kind of level off in a good way. There was a there
055was a decline when we did the student numbers in the last meeting uh kind of during the COVID like the four or five years ago. Those KN&N one numbers were down a little bit. I think an obvious uh part of that was the the co years. Um but I think having prek full day prek has helped bring our numbers back up. Um but it seems popular um this upcoming year. Um transportation. So just a quick overview on transportation. We'll get a little bit more detailed. Just um some facts about it. We have 23 buses and 24 vans. Vans are the small buses. That's how they refer to them. The number of students transported in the dis in district is uh 1765. Number of students transported to out of district placements 143. Um currently we have
05632 uh bus drivers and two are currently training. Matt and I were more excited about the two that we're currently training because that's optimistic. Um and we have 14 bus monitors. We are still looking to hire bus drivers. We do train. I don't want to sound like a commercial, but um it will allow us to bring some of our children back. We we do have um runs that are out through Boseies in total transportation. So, the more drivers we do have, we have the vehicles um and we have a really good plan of turning them over and making sure that they're all well working, but u we would like to really bring back as many routes as we can. So, we're hoping that number goes up a little bit. What What's your ideal number of
057bus drivers? Um, I guess it depends if we took every route back. Um, probably closer to 40, over 40, and there were times when we did have that. Unfortunately, the pool of bus drivers overall across all of the districts um and counties is is less. So, um, any little bit helps. I'll I'll take that. So, transportation propositions. So there's there's some thought um on the mandate that the governor has and whether that's going to stay. Um right now we have no um idea that it isn't. Uh this 2526 school year technically would be the last time if there is no change that you can buy gas and diesel buses. Um and you know um so I asked our transportation supervisor um what she would like. This is kind of more of a wish list. So,
058um, she would like three 72 passenger buses, um, and two smaller buses. One would be a wheelchair bus and one would be a small van. Um, that's her wish list. We're not quite sure. Can I jump in? Sure. Just on this um ju just to remind just to do a reminder the um two years ago voters approved one electric bus. Um then we you know we did the study and we we found you know disco not discovered we uh um figured out the capacity the electrical capacity and so and then we also got the grant for two or the possibility to get the grant for two buses. So last year we kind of revoted with the public for two electric buses and it was approved. So our rough timeline for the two electric buses is
059this summer. Yes. Um, with the charger and with all of that, the governor's mandate, Andrew's talking about is to for districts to switch completely over to buying electric buses by 2027. Um, this um, you know, we only we only have the capacity of working with Central Hudson and like the review team, we only have the capacity right now to do two electric buses. um to do more than two electric buses, we would have to do a capital project at um the transportation department uh to increase like the charging capability. It wouldn't be a huge capital project, but we would have to do that. Uh it was not part of our plan for the $50 million capital project that went in last year. I think we felt the needs of the buildings were too great uh
060to to also add that in. So we to to do more than two electric buses, we would need to do probably a small capital project to start addressing the issues at the department. Um does it what does what does small mean? I'm sorry. What does small mean? Like 10 million. I don't have a number. We'd have to come back at the next meeting and have a number for that. I I think it would probably be less than that, but we can get a very rough estimate. I think it would be helpful just for us when we're talking to our um representatives to so that they can start to understand the kind of money that we're right you know that we can't even move forward right to the the conversion to electric buses um is is
061something I personally support um however it doesn't just require voter approval of the purchase of the buses in many instances it requires there's, you know, a capital some sort of capital project to transform your department, which is in some ways more complex than per well, in a lot of ways is more complex than purchasing the buses. Um I just you know I know we talked about um so we do replace buses regularly whether you know either the two electric ones or or these and we do do that for um they hit a certain year in mileage and we have a formula for replacing. Correct. And that's what this would fit. Right. This is this is still part of our plan that we have been doing over the last couple years. Um we're going to evaluate
062whether you know um they definitely need a wheelchair bus. So that is that's a a definite um if we feel this proposition doesn't fit within our other budget priorities then we might reduce it a little bit. But this would be her you know her wish list you know worrying that we might not be able to purchase gas and diesel going forward. That's kind of how I'm looking at it this way. But we are excited. Um the purchase order was done for the electric buses. Um, so they're on schedule to come. We need to um install the chargers before they deliver the electric buses, which um that part of that grant was for chargers as well. Um so the chargers are on order as well. So um we'll keep you posted as to when when they're
063going to come. So it'll the two buses actually give the transportation department a really good idea of how they work. We're going to put them out on routes, see how they function. Um there's a big learning curve with them as well. So, um, we're hoping they get here sooner than later. Are these three buses replacing three that we currently have in our fleet? Correct. Yes. So, those buses would, um, would be traded in. So, that's how the, you know, the value would be. So, that we'd get a credit for those buses for trading them. Okay. And then would the other So, would the electric buses be um extra like or would they like be in the bullpen or would we be using them as well? you know, just because, you know, we we our square
064mileage is smaller than say a bigger district. So, they might be able to work within a city, you know, regularly uses the plan. Yes. Part of like a regular So, they'd be in use replacement purchase. Yeah. Um I mean, you're right. We we have a smaller sort of footprint than most districts. Um but we'd probably use them on our the shortest routes or the short shorter routes than we have, right? Just to be on the safe side. I mean, we'd like to use them kind of all over like a smaller run or a larger run like just to see what the capability are, see how the battery charges, come up with a plan on how to, you know, charge them overnight, make sure they're ready, you know. So, there's a lot of learning to do
065with it. And I think it would be great to kind of put them all over the place just to kind of see. It lets it lets the bus drivers get used to them, too, because there's going to be training for them. There's going to be training for the mechanics. Um there's some training for um fire departments locally too. And that and the bus company actually provides all of that when we purchase the buses. I I what I guess what I'm asking is so if we had the three new plus the two electric, which we we're not sure we're going to use them both. Does that mean that we have five buses that would be going out or only three? Like we would have five going out. I'm not sure. We probably would only trade in
066three, you know, like not and and not not do five, right? So, we would have the electric buses. We would use all five of them, but trade in three. Okay. And these electric buses are supposed to be ready this year. This this summer. This summer. And we have space to house them. Just these two. Just the two. Exactly. The two that were voted on last year. Okay. And we do a three tier drop off. What I mean is you do a high school run, middle school run, and then elementary run. It's not a two-tier where it's like the middle school, high school together, and elementary. Right. So, they're going out three times and then they would have to be charged charged and then do a three run going home, too. So, that's all the the
067logistics I think that we need to probably figure out. Probably put them on the shorter runs, right? I want I want on a long run. See if it works. And are these electric buses on that bus? Right. They are. Okay. is wasn't part of the electric bus deal that two of our older diesel buses had to be permanently removed from the fleet. Yes. But they are not they are currently being used as within the requirements but as little as possible. So two diesels will go. Um, so for this, just to kind of talk about process on on April 22nd is when we would finalize what's on the ballot. So I think for this to give you a little bit more background at the next meeting. I think what we could provide for you is what
068buses these would be replacing. We So we've established the wheelchair one. We have to put on the um ballot no matter what. Um, but let's maybe put together which ones it's replacing. Um, so just so you have that information. Yeah, we usually see like the mileage and the year and everything. So, you know, just so then we can make a final decision I think on April 7th, you know, just about or you get the last information you need to make a decision about the propositions. Sure. And sorry, is this 710 part of the 86 million budget or this is separate from that? It would be um the the debt related to the 710 would be part of the budget. So um we would have to do a bond anticipation of those numbers that I showed
069you in debt service that the amount to finance this over five years is in the $26 million project. Does that make sense? Okay. and just technology. Maybe we'll kind of tag team this one, but uh just to give a shout out to the guy behind me, right, Micah Dam has been doing an amazing job as our interim director all year and um so we are going to do our best our best at just sort of talking about what some of their initiatives are. Uh but just can't thank Mike enough for stepping up this year and really uh helping out the entire district. Uh so um we we have several projects we're working on. Um so one is a new phone system across our phone system is very outdated. Uh in fact it it really um
070it won't the like it the the contract for repair and all of that ends um January January. Uh so we'll be working on we don't have all the details set yet but putting a new phone system in place starting this summer and over the course of uh the fall. We may be able to sort of run both concurrently while we put the new one in. Um new switches at the high school uh partially funded by um update to firewall for network security. Uh just a shout out to the whole technology department and uh Mike with the attention they pay to our network security. they're extremely vigilant uh with what they bring and and so um obviously we want to support that. Uh we do have a Chromebook replacement uh cycle and uh it tends to
071be uh eighth grade is like a is a uh give or take like seventh and eighth grade is tends to be a replacement uh year. That may be good news in my house because the one my son has is kind of on its last uh on its last legs. But so um and and as I mentioned uh the price for Chromebooks has increased at least um the ones we're purchasing, but it seems pretty much across the board. Do we get a credit for returning or do you return these Chromebooks and do we get credit for that? No, they get recycled. When they're done, they're done. Yeah, they're uh I mean we we dispose of them responsibly. Uh we have a whole uh plan for doing that, but yeah, when they're when they're done, they're they're
072pretty done. And then to replace the virtual server. So, uh for the next meeting, we'll um put some numbers to this. We just we're kind of working on this on Friday. Um but um we just wanted to talk about what some of the initiatives were for the technology department. And then just just next steps. Um so these these aren't on the slide, but uh bring in more information about the buses we would be replacing uh to help make a final decision about the proposition. We'll um have some numbers attached to the technology budget. We wanted to start sharing uh what their initiatives were. Um we're going to talk about the instructional budget uh at the next meeting. Saggi's going to be presenting. she's going to attach some data to some of the things we're proposing
073uh to make a case uh for for those positions. And uh this slide Heather had a great slide up where she kind of showed the number of staff uh in each building uh that served um special education. Um and we'll do the same um just sort of for everything for each of our buildings in terms of at least um certificated staff um in terms of showing really no increase besides these two positions um that we're talking about um for reading support. Uh the math intervention teacher at the elementary level that we'd like to add um we're using a retirement uh to fund that one. So, we're really just talking about an increase in two positions. Uh, no administrator increase. Um, no. So, no increase in the amount of administrators we have, just uh um two
074teachers. And we'll get into much greater detail at the next meeting on that. Uh we'll have slides that compare our tax rates with other districts as I mentioned verbally, but it'll be more powerful visually. Uh we're kind of in the bottom uh 30 40% of Duchess County in terms of tax rates. at least last year we were and uh so regionally we're um we're we're low uh compared with many other counties and all of the districts in those counties and then we're also going to do a little bit more of the expenditure breakdown. Um, like I said, just to kind of sum up, uh, this budget that we're in the midst of these meetings and proposing, uh, would be at the 5.15 tax delivery rate, uh, which is at the tax cap. Um, it's a
075budget, uh, again, we'll be making this case over the next few meetings, but it's a budget that allows us to keep doing the amazing things we're doing with also targeting some really specific student support that we think is needed. Uh we also will have like a multi-year plan that in the in the um future year in next year hopefully we're able to address uh changes with the middle school schedule uh that we'd like to do. Um but that said it's that's the proposal. The budget number is our proposal, but we're happy uh to entertain adjustments or talk about adjustments um with you all that you want to see us make. April 22nd is when we need to finalize things uh for the ballot uh for our work in communicating with the community uh things like
076that. The last part I'll say is we've really tried to um we've really tried to address uh in this budget a lot of the things that we learned about in the survey we gave in the fall. We obviously cannot uh meet every single item in that survey. um we would need probably twice the amount of money that we currently have. That said, uh I think it it really um with professional development that we'll get into at the next meeting. Um Heather started talking about it tonight. It really addresses uh supporting reading instruction both through PD and additional teachers. Uh it supports uh mental health um supports in terms of like the Astro Clinic being added to Rombout and the uh addition of that Brightite program at the high school. Like it we feel like it's
077a really powerful step uh in a really strong direction for the district. Um but like this is a conversation and so um so tonight and over the next couple meetings we want to make sure we're bringing back the information that you want uh to help sort of guide you. Uh last thing I'll say, I don't have this on the slide. Uh but we'll have a bunch of communication things in place over the next um eight weeks. Uh first week or two of April, I'm gonna I I think I have every PTA meeting. I may be missing one, but I'll be at least a part of the agenda for a PTA meeting at every one of our schools just to talk about where we are with the budget. Uh once we adopt once you all adopt
078the budget in April 22nd, I'll do uh a few community forums. I always will do one digitally, but then I'll do some in person uh at different locations. And uh we're working on just a number of other uh communication sort of vehicles uh to talk about what's going in the budget, including some short video uh that we'll have for social media and our website, things like that. Um and also lastly, we're working on an FAQ regarding the budget uh that'll be up just in terms of questions people have, uh frequently asked questions that people have and answers to them. So, we have a number of uh things we're trying to work on over the next um really two months, a little bit less than two months uh to get ready for the budget vote. Just
079a question, have you started to think about with the governor giving a 2% increase and then the assembly and the senate saying one was 2.9, the other was three, if we got additional funds, what you would use those additional funds for or would you look to like credit it back to the taxpayers? I don't need to answer but just start thinking about as to if we do get some additional funds because they usually negotiate higher than what the governor proposed right and they were at 29 and three. I think I think what would help me um with that is like uh when we talked about um what the implication would be for less than 515, right? And we talked about specific numbers. Um, I think what maybe we can play around with there is with
080like additional revenue. um you know what we can do with that with either with either scenario you're talking about like I'm not saying like we talked about if we reduced it from the 5.15 to a 68 or or 48 or something but if you had things that you wanted to implement and and things that would be reoccurring cost where you'd say hey look if we got this additional fund this would be the first ad or oh look to stay at the tax cap or this would be the second ad or would it be like oh if we're going to get the additional fund, we're going to go down to that 4 48. I think I I need to get a better handle on how much we'd be talking about. Like if I I feel like
081uh my experience with this negotiation is they try to meet somewhere, right? There's like a some sort of compromise that takes place and um so then we have to kind of guess and figure out what additional revenue would come from that compromise. Um, I will say this, like what we're proposing with like the two additional reading teachers at the elementary level is tight. Um, so there's not a lot of wiggle room there. We really want to get these teachers in. we, you know, if if it was like a lot more revenue, I would consider maybe this uh um moving this middle school idea up or coming back to you with the idea of like this would be some additional money and like how could that impact what we're thinking about um what we're thinking about
082like tax levy rate and all that kind of stuff. I um I'd want to play around with that one. Now I've got something to I haven't I haven't I think I I sometimes get a little cynical and I tend not to think about additional revenue too much. Um but I'll start thinking about that. Now I'm going to be off like you know in my mind on that. But uh what you know what we're proposing is pretty tight. Um, and so it will probably would provide us just with some breathing room for unplanned contingencies that happen during the year, but also I think I think that could be a conversation with you all at the next meeting. Right. So, what we'll we'll play with some of the numbers and sort of put it out to you
083in terms of what you all think about that. Okay, Matt, I'm I'm just a little confused because I thought at the last meeting that um I knew about the two elementary, but I thought that this also included some staffing at Rombout as well for the possible new program. Is that in for this year or not? We were going to get into that more in detail at the next meeting. Um but it probably have to be in year two of like a two-year plan. You mean the nine period? Yeah. Yeah. So, the nine period it would be nine period day would be probably adding about four staff uh to pull it off, right? Three to four. And um right now we're getting these two reading teachers in like and it's tight. So, when you mentioned uh
084when you said going to um 4.68 I think was the first number. Yeah. You said that would be reducing um the two reading teachers that we're proposing. It would be that would be more in my mind like a flat budget like we're just kind It's not the reading and the Rombout. The Rombout wasn't in that. We can't use that as a to get below five. Right. Okay. I think I was in the same I thought that was my Yeah, I was going that route, but Okay. My my um the struggle I'm having right now is not is not having that Rombout thing here is difficult to look at. You know, what we're doing for, you know, because it's the end of March here and we're getting close. Um and I don't want to cut AIS
085staff. Um but I'm just concerned at being over five. I said at the last meeting, I'd like to get under if we could. Um, but that's just where I'm at with it. I just think I mean, can you It's a little high. Can you talk about um what the savings would be? F first of all, I just want to say that I feel like the reading and the math um support is is based on data that we saw earlier in the year and and we we know the need is there and and you know definitely want to fulfill that need. Um, so thank you for kind of building the case whether you meant to or not with, you know, with information we received earlier. But can you talk about what the possible savings would be
086to, you know, if the if the um cost per family is around $122, if we went down to the 4.68, do you know how much savings that would be per household approximately? I I don't but what I can say is over the last five years, you know, with the change in assessments and not just people's assessment on their homes, but new properties coming in, that $122, for example, for Beacon will not be that at all. It will be less. Um, so I Eric, I know you struggle with the 5.15 and it's a high percentage, but it definitely will not be what people are paying in taxes. Um, so I think that's, you know, because that levy amount, even though we're increasing it by 5.15, it's going to be spread over more property owners. So everybody,
087that's the only reason. No, I fully I I get that. Okay. I get that. Yeah. I Yeah. I I I just want to jump in like I I apologize for any confusion about um what we're trying to propose. I think the reason I've been dragging it out is I've been spending an enormous amount of time behind the scenes trying to figure out ways to get it all in or to see what it would look like to get it all in. And probably a couple of weeks ago, I just like we just were really hitting or I was hitting my head up against the wall um probably too often to try to figure out a way to address the roundabout schedule and the additional reading uh teachers at the elementary level. So then I I'm trying
088to shift my thinking and we've never done this before. Um and I know you know plans can change but to really try to communicate about like what we want to do in next year's budget is address um the 2627 budget is to address the roundabout schedule. We tend not to talk about things. We always talk about things yeartoear. I'd like to shift that um and have that be the case but I apologize for confusion with that. We part of it has been we've been trying to spend we've been trying to figure out ways behind the scenes to pull it all off. Um and it's just hasn't been possible every which way we've tried to look at it. Do we I don't want to speak like doom but if we're looking at Rombout being at four
089possibly a four per FTE increase right next year. Um, and right now we're looking at adding two, I think.5 with the PPS. Uh, you know, I would imagine we're going to have a struggle next year getting Rombout in as well if things stay the way they are. Correct. We also have eight retirements. Yeah, I was going to ask retirements for part of I mean part of this being able to get this get the reading teachers into this 515 is retirements and then we have another group retiring. Okay. Next year. So that mean but part of part of it Eric though is um we would if we had a year of flat state aid like you know a year from now that would make things a lot harder if we if we had foundation aid it's
090another election year right after the election I can't I'm sort of lost track of election but um you know so my hope is that we would get two years in a row of state if increase state aid. Um, this would be year one of that and year two. So, um, in the communication around that, I would make sure I talk about state aid being pretty crucial to that. Um, but yeah, we it's, you know, it's disappointing to me and I'll get into a little bit more in detail at the next meeting, but I've been trying to figure out every which way to try to do it all in this and we can't do it um, with what we have. Well, and maybe um if this is a philosophy that we have for next year, maybe
091we have to go on a um you know, a soapbox about why we feel that that the nine period day is so important and we have to sell that if we're fearful that the amount might be the same or more next year. So, you know, it might just mean something we have to do across the, you know, district here if we really feel that way. And if we don't feel that way, that's fine, too. I mean we go in a different direction but right you know right I mean I think also though it's you know going to the cap is a is a way to help us towards those improvements next year. It's part of planning ahead in a lot of ways and um and I think that the you know the impact of cutting
092it a little bit doesn't really change the taxpayers's experience that much but changes our ability to do some sort of larger programming change like this. You know that it sets us up to be able to do that more more reliably. One of the things um I think one um and this may be sort of foundational to all of them. One budget accomplishment I'm proud of over my eight years here is things that we've expanded. We've never pulled them back. And um and I think you know I think uh that's a lot to um your planning and Marie and and the rest of the you know team the administrative team's planning but things we've things we've moved forward with we've never had to say whoops and and yank it back. And so um and so I
093think that's part of what led to my thinking um about sort of phasing things in over two years and being clear with the public or you know like this is at least what our goal is. Um, and because I I think my biggest worry of trying to get everything in. I mean, it was pretty impossible, but also like that we then have to like we have just one year of the new schedule at roundabout and then we have to pull like pull it back as a budget cut. And we've managed to avoid that. Um, I I honestly think part of part of avoiding that has been us going to the tax cap every year, too. um it allows us like kind of a reliable sense of revenue. Um and um so you know even with
094like things we've done in extracurriculars, classes we've offered from sort of smaller things to bigger things like the elementary class size, prek expansion, um mental health expansions, all of those things. We've never had to pull back on any of those things. So, um, and and part of what goes into that, like last year, we really didn't propose any major new thing in the budget. It was it was in a sense kind of a hanging on to what we already have. Um, this year, we've kind of clawed and scratched to get like the two reading teachers in. I think we'll be prepared and ready to do that again like a year later for the middle school schedule change. Um, but I think that's something that's been um I don't know the word. It kind of creates
095a sense of uh reliability maybe with staff and and the community and also like a sense of trust I think in terms of like you know that we haven't had to pull things back. And so you know it's it's sometimes hard for me because I want things quicker. Uh, and so this has been a tricky winter for me because I put a, you know, we spend a lot of time trying to design um, what would go into a new middle school schedule, but um, but I also think I want if we're able to do it, I want to do it so it lasts. Um, you know, and and uh, so that goes that's kind of goes into that two-year thinking, too. The last thing I'll say to that is just um I I think we've
096always even though like some of our work has been really intentional like around um class size reduction at the elementary level think prek there's a lot of things on that list um I I've never talked about stuff that I wanted in like sort of the year after's budget. I've always been yeartoear and I think that'd be a positive shift for us to clear out with like our administrative team at the very least to say like next year this is what we're going after like we're going after this change at the middle school and and everything else is sort of beneath that and a priority. Um, sorry for the for the long speech though, but um, so we, you know, we're trying to put things um that we think really support um, our young people without
097having to pull them back. I think that I mean, it's hard to shift your thinking given the way the state works and that, you know, 40% of our budget is stated. I think I I think it's a really good thing, but I think it's it is a challenge to allow yourself to think that way because we're just always on eggshells wondering, you know, what it's going to be. But you know, but the other part of it too, and Eric, maybe this is a little bit linked to what you were saying, like if we set a goal, you were talking more about really kind of uh communicating the possibility of a change a year out, but the other thing it enables us to do is to really prepare for finding different ways to pay for it,
098you know, and and uh so may, you know, maybe there's grants we can go after at least just to get it started. um you know things like that. So like it it gives us a chance to look at other options. Um what other questions do folks have or uh so we talked about some of the things we're bringing back to the April 7th meeting. Um we'll do a little bit more in terms of the numbers with the technology budget. We'll talk about the that bus proposition, the buses they would be replacing, so you're aware and can make a informed decision about that. We'll talk about our tax rates in comparison with other communities. Um, we'll get much more detailed about the instructional uh part of the budget proposal and this two-year thing. And and again,
099apologies for confusion with that. Um, uh, I have Yeah, I have one question about the buses. just just knowing that we don't have as many bus drivers as we would like to have and that we maybe have buses sitting around if there is room you know looking at the bus budget to to maybe reduce there if I mean I'd love to think that we're going to hire eight bus drivers for next year but it it doesn't seem realistic given the climate in the country that it's just hard to find bus drivers so maybe that's a a place that we could save a little any other in terms of um information that people had? Well, what Anthony mentioned in terms of um aid from the state potentially increasing. We'll do some work around that in terms
100of what that means. Great. Um for us, too. Any other questions or comments? No. Okay. Thank you guys. Appreciate it. Okay, looking at um tonight's agenda, there is one change. It's 15.05. Um the revised cash flow chart for February 2025 was added. And that is it for tonight. Uh, can I get a motion to adjurnn to executive session to review the employment history of a particular individual? So moved. Second. Second. Second by Chris. All in favor? I. Passes. The board will return in about 30 minutes. We are back. Uh, Matt, can we have your superintendent's report? Yeah. Um, I will be quick. I just wanted to uh provide an update on something. back on February 10th, I gave an overview of um what I wanted to do with board goals and the strategic planning. Um
101so our our goal for the um April 7th meeting is just to submit at least to start submitting a few of these short uh plans, these sort of component plans for the strategic plan to the board and we'll talk about them briefly at the board meeting. But uh my goal is as we go through like sort of like that final phase of the budget season, we can refer back to some parts of the plan. So um you know, Heather's presentation tonight uh showed what you know what she's uh wanting to do with her department for next year. So there'll be no surprises there. Uh Saggy will be talking about you know academics, reading, math, um etc. at the next meeting, but she'll also have like a short overview plan to share for those two areas.
102Um, a few of the areas like the people are in transition, but we'll have uh special education. Uh, we'll have um reading, math, uh I'll have a communication piece done. We'll have the um uh athletics and health one done. Again, we're talking short, easy to read, like onepage uh snapshots of what our goals are for the upcoming year. Um PD will be sort of uh a foundation for all of SAGI's work, but we can also separate that one out for PD. Um some others will be a little bit uh later just because of um transitions happening with uh people who are in charge of the departments, but we'll have those ready to share with the board and then share publicly later in April on the website and stuff like that. Again, you know, shouldn't be
103big surprises, but um uh we want to start making that shift with that work. Okay, great. And that's all I have. Okay. So then moving on to uh board comments starting with Simra. Um thanks for those reports. I think they were clear on numbers which is super helpful for us. Um and I look forward to hearing more about it. Thanks. Great. Alina, no comment. Okay. Chris, I just want to note that the um deadline for um nominating petitions to be on the school board is coming up in about a month. So um I think last year, as I understand, was one of the first kind of competitive where there were more candidates in seats for the first time, which I think is good for voters to have a a choice and and express a preference
104there. So um just encourage anyone who's watching or all of us um and the folks that we know to think about it, consider it. It's been really rewarding. um beginning of my first year here. Um and I hope that we um continue to get some interest in that. Um but that's all. Thanks. Okay, great. Leavonne, no comment. All righty, Eric. Uh just we have a facilities committee meeting coming up. Um we had to postpone it from tonight till uh 6 o'clock on April 7th. That's all for me. Okay. And then Anthony, no comments. All righty. Merida. Um, we had a policy meeting um and you'll see one policy on the agenda tonight for approval for a first read of the exeicio student member of the board. Um, we looked at a few other policies which
105um the student harassment and bullying prevention and intervention policy which um needs a little bit more looked um to be looked at by legal and then um advertising in the schools which still needs a little work as well. We're going to meet again on April 10th at 7 PM. And we also had a PL meeting last week where we just basically discussed um communication around the budget. Um it was a really productive meeting, I think. And um that's it. Did we set another meeting for Pearl? Do we have another meeting? We did not. Okay. But we can hold off on that. We don't need to do that. I think we can. Yeah. Okay. Um, I just wanted to say that um I uh thank you to the folks who completed the um self- evaluation on
106Super Eval, Anthony, Meredith. Um I also completed it. I just wanted to let everybody know that I extended the deadline to this Friday to give people who maybe didn't finish or haven't started a chance to um to complete it. I um I think I would like us to use this information to sort of figure out what we need to do more of or better or or start um talking about for other retreats. I think it would be um really helpful insight. So, if everybody can please fill that out. Um I would, you know, love to say if you fill it out then I'll put you in a like a drawing for like a free iPad, but that's probably illegal, so I will not do that. But just do it out of the goodness of your
107heart. Flora on the um valuation. Yeah. So I did it right. So I did all the uh boxes, right? Yeah. But it still says 50. So do you have to write a comment? You do have to put a comment in each of the sections, but you can put you know, you can just put great little trick for the ones that you don't want to expand on. Just put NA. Yeah. Not applicable. Yeah. all that. Come on. I'm I usually write a sentence or two just because I'm verbose. The things that that movies Eric, you'll learn. No. Well, when I I just assumed that when I saw 50%, I figured I had to do every one to get 100%. So, I was like, I'll just do the check by I I didn't Okay. So, okay, I
108got it now. Yeah. And I would say, you know, if you have a if there's if you feel like there's context there for what the reason you're rating it like that, it's it's very helpful to have a sentence or two. No, I understand. Yeah. I just wasn't I just didn't feel that I was going to write in each one like some I would. No. Yeah. No, I'm good with NA. Just do the NA. Yeah. Yeah. There are ones you will see because I think we could see each others, right? Yeah, I think so. Yeah, you'll see. There's Okay. I didn't even I didn't And then Got it. And then I Okay. Yeah. Um, and then the last thing I wanted to I you know I feel like we've kind of um nudged this and this
109is a really a question for you Matt like when do you think doing our like having a workshop to talk about board goals when do you feel like that works into our plans um you know should we do that further down the line? I mean, you know, it's cuz it's something we've been talking about, right? Um, uh, we'll share some of this planning at the next meeting. It won't be completely done. Yeah. Um, and then um I we are so immersed in the budget like maybe Yeah. June. Yeah. Okay, that's great. I just want to give give us sort of like a a window in the future to And just while I'm thinking of calendar, um Vicki and I might work with you just to start creating like a draft board calendar for next year
110just cuz Yeah. Yeah. Like especially those summer meeting dates can get tricky for sure. Okay, sounds good. All right, that is all from me. So we can move 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 member 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. Okay. Uh 12.07 07 G14 12.07 G14.
111Correct. Okay. Any more? All right. Can I have a motion to approve 11.01 through 15.06 minus 12.07 G14. So moved. Meredith second. Second. Alina second. Uh comments or questions? All in favor? Opposed? No. Okay. Passes 8 to zero. All right. Uh, can I have a motion to approve 12.07G14? So moved. So moved by second by Alina. Uh, comments or questions? All in favor? I abain. Abstaining. Okay. Passes 720 to Z. Is that If it's abstaining, is it 7 to one? No. 7 to zero. Okay. With one abstension. Okay. With one abstension. Got it. Motion to adjurnn the meeting. So move. Moved by everyone. Second. Second. Second by Chris. Comments or questions? All in favor? I I passes. 8 Z. Good night.