001Um, hello. Welcome to the Tuesday, April 1st, 2020 25, 2025 heling board of education business meeting. I'm calling the meeting to order. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. President Clemens here. Vice President Valentine. Trustee Clemenson here. Trusty Popper here. Trusty McNau here. Um, okay. I don't believe we have any changes to the agenda. So, approval of the agenda, please. Be it resolved that upon the recommendation of the interim superintendent of schools, the board of education hereby approves the agenda as written. Do we have a motion, please? So moved. Second. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Um, so my comment. So our next meeting
002will be a workshop meeting on Tuesday, April 22nd. So actually three weeks from now because some people will be on spring breaker. um here at 7 PM in the middle school high school library. Um and oh, it's exciting. It'll be a special uh presentation um from CS Arch on an update for the capital project um as well as it's the night in which we'll um adopt the budget and then also do our PNW Bose's budget vote and trust trustee election. So, thanks to Megan forwarding that information to us recently. Um, as a reminder, um, we have two seats, um, on the board of education or up for, um, election this year. Um, and if you're interested, petitions are available in the district office or by contacting our district clerk, Megan Shields. They'll be due back
003in the district office no later than 300 p.m. on Monday, April 21st, 2025. So, time is ticking. Um, and as always, uh, the board is, you know, everyone on the board would be happy to talk to anybody interested in running. And then a reminder that our annual district meeting will be on Tuesday, May 20th, um, for these two three-year terms. Um, I have just a couple of comments. Uh, another spectacular issue of Hell Day Horizons arrived and at least my inbox this um, month that always reminds us all the great things going on. And um I'm sure others may talk about this as well, but um my husband and I went to go see Into the Woods on over the weekend and it's a joke in my family that I'm not personally not a huge
004musical fan, but I was been singing it was so good and I have literally gone to Spotify and listened to the soundtrack. So I thought it was really very moving and very impressive. But yeah, it was really pretty fantastic and I know Sean was one of the people especially thanked in the program. So that's great. They're lucky to Thank you, Sean. All right. Really, that's all I have, Mr. Albano. Okay. Just a few quick updates. Uh first, the state budget. It was postponed. Uh so they're um still uh working through some financial legislative issues. So uh it's only a two-day extension. So, I I'm hopeful. You know, in past years, I think last year, Katherine, correct me if I'm wrong. I I believe it was mid to late April. They did a few extensions. The
005year before it went a little longer, but it was a much more complicated budget. I think early May it got approved. So, we're hopeful by our next board meeting if there is any news or an update, uh, we will have that information. So, we'll keep our fingers crossed. It's always helpful to know where the state stands before we we finalize our budget. Uh the second thing is um I did uh put this in the board's update, but even for the community, um we've been back and forth with the mayor's office quite a bit over the past week, week and a half, and I'm very pleased they're extending. They were doing some paving, but the project got extended. Uh and that's going to happen this spring. Um all um adjacent to our school, the Craigside crosswalk
006is going to be made ADA accessible. Uh along the cemetery area there there will be uh paving uh sidewalks will will be um upgraded. Uh locust and mountain crosswalks will be reset, relined, which is all helping uh improved safety. And then sidewalk repairs on Locust. There's some aged trees that have lifted the sidewalk and there are some hazards there. you know, until the mayor um gave us the information and we went out took a closer look that there really are quite quite a few uh things that need to be addressed. So, we're trying to coordinate where this would happen over April break. That's not a guarantee, but it would be helpful just, you know, with school traffic to try to do it on on a vacation. um if it happens later and we need to
007notify parents certainly we will you know if there's any rerouting of traffic but um that is a real positive. Additionally, uh the mayor is and and the the village is pursuing a $2.9 million federal grant uh through Senators Gillibrand and Senator Schumer's office. And this is for a bigger uh traffic study and safety project really 301 and 9D in anticipation of the Fior trail traffic increase. and and uh this is more for engineering um crosswalks um trying to slow down traffic uh and I think it will be very helpful to the school district. So the mayor asked for a letter of support. I was happy to do that. I I sent her that earlier this morning. Uh and we're hoping and I believe the the village is going to commit about a half a million
008dollars to the project. So it's pretty significant. You're talking about three 3.4 million. Um, so I will keep you informed of that. Um, I I think I think it's going to be very helpful because there have been some concerns, you know, raised by our community, our parents, particularly at arrive one dismissal time. And then um, also how horizons I just want to thank Megan and and all the contributors. Uh it is really impressive when when you go through and just see academics, extracurricular uh new new and exciting things that many of them have have come from our students and and requests in the competitions, the balance salar in there, the little article on the new superintendent. Um so really exciting stuff. So if you haven't seen it, please take a close look. Yeah, I also
009noticed I held many things that were new in there and it's it it I I think it's always great. We one quick question just because you brought up the traffic study. Do we know you know should that go through and you know should the community receive any grant or any kind of funding. Will that be coordinated in any way with our capital project? Because obviously traffic is something that's on our mind as well. Like it wouldn't affect it necessarily, but would there be any uh you know energy do you think put into coordinating those efforts so that they kind of seamlessly work together? I would think it seems you know it's funny even with the spring um repaving and the sidewalk upgrades the mayor gave us a chance to provide input. So I I talked
010with with Adam and officer Tolvie and we did give some feedback. Uh so I would expect the mayor's been really good at communicating what's happening. So when the time comes for the planning stage, Sean, I and I would fully expect that. So I'm sure there'll be opportunity. Um All right. So our special presentation of the 2526 budget you can jump in. What is yours? Okay. So, uh we're now back to we have our we have our budget relatively set um bar any changes to the state aid or the state budget. Um so, we're just going to kind of go through what you expect to see this time of year. Um, once again, we're just showing what our budget priority funding were for this year, the additions that we have added to the budget, um, which
011we've been talking about for weeks. So, I'll just quickly show them again. Um, and then we get into the meat of it. The revenue summary, um, it is a 2.8% increase in our tax levy. It is a 1.04% 04% decrease in state aid at this point. Again, we won't really know for sure until we get the final budget runs, which would be great if we can get them this week. Um, we have a large increase, 32% in our other revenue. that is primarily driven by the fact that we've been so conservative on our interest income over the past few years and we're taking that into account um for 2526 as well as increased tuition revenue from the uh numbers that are coming in from Garrison and St. Basil's. Um, and then we're continuing to use
012our standard $645,000 of appropriated fund balance and $250,000 of potential use of uh retirement reserves if needed to close any budget gaps. And then we have come to the time of year where the budget needs to be broken down into the three-part summary. So it's broken down first by our administrative component. Um, and as you'll see on the left, that includes our board of education expenses, superintendent expenses, um, financial expenses, uh, staff, not including maintenance and facility or our program programmatic staff like teaching and extracurricular. Um, as well as some special items which are primarily uh, how do I explain that? I'm sorry. Sorry, I should have had that like written down, but it is our um legal expenses, our insurance expenses, things like that. Um and then just the cost of administration and related
013employee benefits. And as you'll see over the past few years as we look at our actuals, it comes in somewhere in the 11 to 12%. We usually budget just about 12% and our projected for this year is coming in at our standard 11.84%. Uh the things that were popping out at me as I looked at it is our board of education expense is a little over budget this year, but that is because it includes the expenses that um took place because we did a referendum vote. So the cost of the um voting equipment and um things like that, the bold equipment for the signature um polling books. Um, and we also have a increase in special items, which was primarily because our insurance premiums were higher than anticipated. We didn't get our final numbers until
014after the budget was set last year. And so it that that category will likely be over a little over budget this year. We then break it down into our capital component. So this is our operations and maintenance staff and their related um employee benefits and it is also debt service for uh the entire district as well as interfund transfers that are for specifically capital. Um as you'll see and you'll remember from last year we were not able to make any um transfers into our capital account last year. We are hoping to fix that with one of our propositions this year. Um and I have put in the same I look at the bottom as our percentage of our total budget of capital. Uh it had been trending to 14 15 maybe 16% and it is
015a little lower but again you'll see that's primarily because of the uh intra fund transfers not being uh put into last year's budget. But it looks like we're coming in relatively on budget and as expected. So I have a question that feels a bit naive given no one board but I'm gonna ask it anyway. So that this is really so the actual for 2122 22 23 etc. that it's literally at the end of the year when you've taken anything over the 4% and put it into uh well right our actual is it's our our actual actual actual it's our actual actual expenditures for those given years. Yeah. And that's why there would be capital funds that there would be a transfer of funds into the capital reserve. Correct. Sorry, that makes a lot of sense.
016Okay. I don't think I've ever gotten that. Okay. Okay. Thanks. And they will be updated. They get updated after the close of the fiscal year each year, right? Yes. And so even projected is hard to do at this point because we don't know where we'll end at the end of the year. Right. Okay. And then our final component is our program component. So that is our um regular school teaching, our special services programs, our instructional media, our pupil services which includes our guidance department, our health services department, social work and athletics. Um transportation of our our students and this inner fund transfers are our reserves that we use to fund the cafeteria as well as if we did any debt service. Um but it's it's primarily for the cafeteria and then again related employee benefits
017and how I do related employee benefits is I take the sum total of the benefit expense for the year and it is allocated based on number of employees in each of the components and we tend to be about 70% going you know gradually getting higher each year. Our budget for last year was just about 75%. I'm projecting we're coming in about 72% of our budget is for our program component and it continues to grow a little bit for next year. Next year it's primarily due to the increase in special education funding that we have put into our budget as a priority. It makes sense that we want these components to stay relatively stable, right? But I mean when if you're the the trend seeing we're seeing here which is a trend upward in the program
018that's that is if if you'd want to see a real upward trend anywhere that's that's where I think most people would expect it would be it would do yeah the most good for the students would be in this component. Um then we get to the summary. It's just again we're going to start looking at everything in this three component summary for the remainder of budget season. So it just breaks it down the totals by your administrative budget, your capital budget, and your program budget. And then our chart we're very familiar with is just our budget tobudget and levytolevy increase. And you will see that for the 2526 school year, we have a budgettobudget increase of I believe that says 3.2 24 I guess. Yes, thank you. And the 2.8 that we know for our tax
019levy. And just another reminder of the propositions that we're voting on in May. We have Proposition one, which will be our school budget of just over $30 million. Our tax neutral proposition two for a 165 passenger school bus. Proposition three again tax neutral that is our change to our capital reserve fund to extend the duration for 10 additional years and increase our allowable balance from the 1 million that we have used to now being able to save 3 million in it. We have two three-year terms up for trustee seats. And again, Proposition four, which is not impacted by the school district, but we have to do legally, is the um increase in the Butterfield Library that they spoke to you about at the last meeting. And we did start our tax impact calculations and based
020on a tax levy increase of 2.8%. Um you can see with the chart it starts at about $118 for a home value of 300. Uh if we look at just some numbers a half a million dollar home $197,000 and then you know all the way up to anyone who has a house of a million $393,000. So that shows the annual tax increase. We just have a few more weeks until or a few more meetings until it uh gets decided. So on April 22nd, we'll do our budget adoption and we will approve our property tax report card. On May 6, we'll hold our public hearing. Again, that will be in the three-part component budget and then election or budget vote and trusted election on May 20th. And that is I don't know if I have a
021question slide. Guess I don't um I will entertain them even without the side that says I was writing a note when you were when you addressed this but I think you said that the increase in people transportation had to do with the placement increase that would be yes and we also and as you have known over the past few years we have had some struggles with consistency in Yes. So there's overtime expense that's included in there as well. That's been pretty consistent over the last few years. Yeah. For transportation. For transportation. Get your CDL, Sean. What's that? Get your CDL. Yeah, that's right. And you can I'm already on the road time. Anyway, there you go. Then I'd have to not run. You don't want me to run for the board then. But any questions
022on the budget components? All right. So, it's a quick one tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Catherine. You just hit So, we're now at the uh opportunity. The first opportunity for communication from the public. Uh the Hane Education Board of Education desires and values input from the entire school community. This first public comment session is referred is reserved for comments on any special presentations or active agenda items. Anyone who would wish to speak, we'd ask you to sign in and state your name. Keep your remarks to 300 minutes or less and to avoid disparaging remarks or discussion of district personnel. Y um next we have um the board had on our agenda um information report. So the financial documents that we'll be dealing with at our next business meeting. So there's our information and then um
023next is moving into our consent agendas. The first is the consent agenda minutes for our March 18th meeting. Um, may I have a motion, please? So moved. Second. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Next is the consent agenda financial. May I have a motion, please? So moved. Thanks. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? And next is consent agenda personnel. May I have a motion, please? So moved. Thank you. Um I just want to note that we have the um the resignation uh for official resignation for Dr. Tishan who notified the community last week I guess that she was taking another position and so we want to thank her for her service and wish her well. Um, I think that's really only thing we want to note. Um, all those in favor? I I
024Any opposed? And so unfinished business, we have um the policy manual audit. So the second meeting and adoption. Um, may we have the recommended action? Be it resolved that upon the recommendation of the interim superintendent of schools, the board of education hereby adopts the policy manual audit revisions as presented. We have a motion, please. Second. Um, anything our policy committee wants to say about these policies? Nope. the majority of it was updated language and [Music] um you know recommendations from the state things that we have to do for but I don't think that there was anything nothing exciting other than um thank you so much to the policy committee for your work on this um it's great that it's becoming so I don't want to say wrote but really so systematic right manageable for and
025and yeah, the fact that there's not so many policies and it it's great. I will say one thing just to keep an eye on the wellness um policy that had gone through our wellness committee and they made some wonderful recommendations and changes that we talked about and then we got this one back from the state that sort of put other changes in there. So, I think it's one that we'll want to revisit and make sure that some of the language is, you know, parallel with what the what I I I held my tongue because I figured that's what was going to happen. You know, this is the more boilerplate stuff from the right from uh Erie. So, I think we should go back and we'll do a revisit maybe maybe after the next meeting. Yeah.
026Yeah. So, I guess just making sure that that committee knows that so that we're in compliance. We want to make sure to adopt what we're getting from Erie Boseies, but that doesn't reflect that the board isn't interested in. Yeah, we can go back and tweak some of it. And I don't think it was anything major, but it, you know, there's some some changes that the state had that um that I don't know if you guys have seen yet. There was a good amount. Yeah, I've flipped through that. um a lot of blue on the wellness part uh for sure that they were putting in especially regarding to times of you know language of of eating and things like that and kind of structural. Um but it seemed like it was more flexible the the language
027felt more flexible than less flexible. So it must be frustrating though that they spent so much time thinking that you know there's a whole but anyway they've gone through their thinking so hopefully it won't be too much. All right. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Moving on to new business. We have the C recommendation. May you have the recommended action please. Be it resolved that upon the recommendation of the interim superintendent of schools, the board of education hereby approves the recommendations of the committees on special education and preschool special education as presented. We have a motion, please. So moved. Second. All those in favor? I I. Any opposed? All right. So this next is a discussion item just to touch base about our uh July 1 reorganization meeting. So, I've had a chance to
028check in with people. I know July 1 works, although it's possible some people may have to join remotely. I think that'll be fun to join remotely, but it's certainly doable. Um, the one thing since we're all together, so that's set. Um, Dr. Duffy, which and I'm smiling because my husband's name is Duffy. So, anyway, just Anyway, Dr. Duffy says, um, a suggestive that we might think about starting at 6:30. I don't know if that works for people. Evening. Yeah. 6:30. Yes. In the evening. You know, I kind of had the same question. So, I appreciate Yeah, we have done morning. We haven't done quite that early, but we have done morning. No, suggested 6:30 in the evening. Well, we've been doing our reorg meeting right before we did our Yeah, there was a time when
029we did it at like 9 or 9:30. We did and then we went to I think we'll need a little more time. I um Dr. I mean I I think the fact that we can even have our reorg meeting on the new superintendent's first day really speaks to her commitment to beginning the transition process well before July 1st because at first I contacted her and I was like well there's no way we're going to do it on July 1 and she was like she you know she really thought that she could do that and and and plus I know that Mr. Albano and Megan will put a lot of work into the agenda. So anyway, 6:30 on July 1st, it'll be the first day. And okay. Um so next is um an approval of the
030agreement between the Haldane Central School District and St. Basil Academy for the administration of the SAT and AP exams for this year, I guess. Okay. Maybe I have the recommended action thing. Can I just ask is this instead of the wreck or in addition to the wreck? This is in instead instead. And you know I big thank you to Oh, let's let's have the recommended action motion and then that's okay. We can we can have a chance to that's fine. It's not a big deal. Be it resolved that upon the recommendation of the interim superintendent of schools, the board of education hereby approves the agreement between the Haldane Central School District and the St. Basil Academy for the administration of the SAT and advanced placement examinations for 2025 and authorizes the board president to sign
031the agreement on behalf of the district. I have a motion, please. So moved. Second. All right. So yes. So you wanted to know is it in addition to the sounds like it's taking the place of the wreck. Is it just more more comfortable situation? It it's closer. Um they have plenty of space. The classrooms are beautiful and um it's free of charge. So we appreciate that from from St. Basil. Nice. And yeah, the agreement just makes it official with insuranceances, liability, that kind of thing. So Mike Lambert put this together for us. Great. Appreciate it. Much appreciated. And it is actually when we first moved here, St. Basel's there was more activities on St. It's a It's a gorgeous Oh my god. I believe Babe Ruth was signed to the Yankees at that building. Oh,
032really? You can on that, but I'm pretty sure the main, you know, it was the house, right? Was the house of the owner, the owner of the Yankees. Yeah, sure. Um, uh, all those in favor? I I Any opposed? All right, we have our second opportunity for communication from the public. All right. Um, board reflections. Uh, well, I mean, we're all volunteers here, but I I I I wanted to just note how many parents have been present as far as making Into the Woods happen, as well as the middle school play that's coming with lots of lots of weekends spent constructing and deconstructing and reconstructing and painting and repainting. Um and uh you know work is tireless and the folks that you know that manage to uh get really qualified individuals to come and do
033that work is admirable. Takes a lot to coordinate and also to execute. I was uh can't remember the conversation who I was having with but they had mentioned that they had gone to another high school production and they uh not here at Howling and they said it really it it really opened my eyes to how incredible how productions are because it ours are just light years just just incredible what we're able to do with so little and uh obviously that's talented parent obviously that's a lot children but a lot of parents and like Sean said highly qualified individuals who are donated their time and it shows it really shows um just sort of building on Mr. Albano's opening statements. I mean, a huge thanks to Mayor Foley and the rest of the village board, but
034to Mayor Foley for her communication with us around these safety issues. Like I I it sounds like there's been really quite a lot of back and forth and that's really so appreciated. Um and then also actually um I um I spent an hour and a half uh doing a free NISBA training session on Robert's rules of order which what good you be a union president. I did and I it's interesting because Joey looks like he's like why'd you do that? I could see I mean it's interesting my front page it reminded me why you want some more juice. She wants some juicy stuff very sort of these sort of I mean it's a so weird like Robert's rules of order is weird and it doesn't feel very natural and it I I'll be honest it
035is kind of a struggle for me sometimes to remember but what I really what was good about the meeting was that and it's even why like I always read that communication from the public you know st um section even though people aren't here it's like we just want to set up our meetings so that people have a chance to talk, people know what to expect and that in in the in the long term it does serve the purpose. So I'm not I mean and we don't have to use Robert's rules of order. It's just what we use. But there is anyway um it was a good reminder to me about the importance really mostly of just making sure and I think we've been able to do that recently of really making sure that people everybody
036has a chance to to speak and be heard and um you know on the board and that we have um you know some real uh you know conversations important conversations on the boards. We'll refer to our parliamentarian for actually I need to print out they have all these cheat sheets. All right, that's that's um all I have. Um Mr. Obana, do you have any final thoughts? One last announcement that I I forgot to make. Um prek we have um 18 students. We're at max. Fortunately, there are seven people on a waiting list. So we we did have 25 total. Um people signed up at the very last minute like five last night. So Miss Gammon performed the lottery today, a random lottery. Uh parents were notified. Those on the waiting list are notified. Um but
037but it's exciting to have a full class in year one. But it's also so upsetting to have a waiting list, too. So, but I'm going to remain hopeful because, you know, remember the Assembly and and the Senate are making a push um to increase that per pupil. So, I think if if it goes through and if it doesn't continue to lobby next year because then maybe a partnership becomes more realistic and we c we could, you know, serve all those who who were potentially looking for a placement. So, we will hope. Yeah, it is great though because when the initial enrollment was a little low, there were some concerns about it. It does really show how important everyone's work is to get this class off the ground, that it is something that the community wants
038to see. So anyway, all right. Um well, that's great news. Yes. Thanks. All right. So the board is going to convene into a brief um executive session to discuss the employment um actually don't have the exact right language but basically the employment history history of um of an individual um we won't be making any um uh taking any votes or anything and we'll adjourn from executive sjourn into executive session. May we have May I have a second, please? Second. All those in favor? I All right. Thanks. You