Mount Vernon Board of Education Regular Board Meeting April 22 2025

001[Music] Good evening. Welcome to the April 27th, 2025's Mount Vernon City School Board meeting, regular meeting. Please stand for the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Please note student trustee de grandri will be joining the meeting via video conference this evening. Trusty McDonald present. Trusty Marabel present. Trusty Mitchell present. Trusty Middleton present. Trusty Anda. Trusty White present. Trusty Kerwin present. VP Kelly here. And President Saunders here. We have a quorum. student trustee the Grand Prix. She's on mute. She's on She's on mute. Okay. Student trustee the Grand Prix. Okay. Okay. Okay. We are set. Okay. Dr. Smith presentation. Good evening. We will begin by having a presentation for from

002Jose Famoso. He's our assistant superintendent of business and he will discuss the budget. Oh [ __ ] They're going to see Anybody want to for anyone wants a presentation? We're going to pass them around. I think you got to put Can you put it on? Okay. Good evening everyone. Good evening. My name is Jose Formosum. the assistant superintendent for business. Um, today we'll be presenting the proposed 2526 budget. Before I get started, if we could just go to the next slide, I just wanted to give some acknowledgements to uh a lot of the people who are involved in this budget. The board trustees, our senior cabinet, and the budget committee. Um, they have been involved since the beginning and have provided a lot of support in creating that as well as the overall staff. So, I wanted

003to thank everybody and acknowledge all the support if you can go. So, we'll start by just going over some key budget dates. Uh, today the 22nd, we are putting forth the budget for adoption by the board of education. After that, what happens is we transmit what's called the property tax report card to the state. Then on May 6, we'll have a budget hearing for the community. And then on May 20th, uh it will be the annual budget vote and the school board election. So there was really two things uh that we wanted to focus focus on in regards to this budget. When we started the year, uh we knew it was going to be a challenging year with the way things were trending fiscally. So the true priorities for us was to create a path

004to sustainability, put the district in a position where they can continue to support the programs that we have and hopefully grow those programs over the long term. The next thing was increasing fiscal responsibility. So, we're putting together policies and documentation to increase transparency from the financial side and also to make things easier to understand for the community when it comes to financial related terms in school districts. Uh, next slide. So before I get into the budget for 2526, I thought it would be important to discuss where we were um really when this when this year started and what occurred over the last 5 to 6 years here at the district. So this chart really just shows um everything since 2019. So what you'll see at the top is the operating surplus or deficit that the

005district faced from 2019 to 2024. And what you'll see is that every year except for in 2021, the district was facing a deficit of anywhere from 3.7 million to almost $7 million a year. What happens when you have a deficit is that your fund balance absorbs that loss. So in 2019, the district started with about $33 million in fund balance. By the end of 2024, the district only had $6.9 million in fund balance. And the trajectory that we were on and and honestly are still on to close this year because we can only do so many changes during the school year um is that we will have very limited fund balance by the end of the school year. We had reached out to the state. We knew the situation we were in pretty early on

006and we had been in contact with the state on a fairly regular basis and they are looking to uh support us in the best ways they can. One of the options could be what's called a state aid spin up. That's pretty much where you get state aid advance to you and it's payable over the course of 30 years. So in May we will know more about that but it is looking likely based on the conversations that we've had. This next slide shows the K to2 enrollment uh past, current, and future. So, we talked about that at a couple town halls, but I think it's important to to acknowledge it anytime we talk about the fiscal situation of the district because it really shows the path um that it's headed in terms of student enrollment. And

007what we've seen is even though the enrollment was declining, our expenses had decreased. And we are also with the same number of of buildings and infrastructure. Our enrollment currently is about 6,550 students compared to over 8,000 students in 2014. But the more concerning situation was the projected enrollment. So it looks like by 2034 based on the study that was done through Boseis is that we'll be down to roughly 5,200 children or a little bit over that. So what you would see if you look 2014 to 202425 that's somewhere around a 15 to 20% decrease. We're going to see that same type of decrease going into 2034 if these numbers all hold true. This just shows the reserves of the district. Um so the district currently has about 4.2 95 million in reserves. This year we

008are projected to exceed the budget. Um as we're looking every month we do what's called a cash flow analysis and a fund balance projection and we see where we stand. So the budget this year was $271 million. We have done some projections and it shows that we could end up at about $278 million. If that becomes the case, we would have to liquidate some of these reserves, most likely the reserve for debt service in order to support that increase. um which would leave us to about $479,000 in reserves for the district. So obviously a main goal headed into next year's budget is to put forth a plan where we can have operating surpluses and start to build back our reserves to the level not only the level it was but even a higher level than

009that. Financial adviserss for school districts usually recommend about 2 to 3 months um of expenses to be in your total reserves. So that would be roughly anywhere from 50 to $60 million for a district of our size. Uh next slide. Thank you. So we've received questions on well what is the financial impact of the reorganization? So what we did for this budget is we proposed we created two budgets internally. One was a budget where we just rolled over the budget um as is and took into consideration the increases in expenses that we were going to receive in health insurance and transportation, things of that nature. Under that budget, we were looking at about a $289.1 million budget. Now, at first that looks difficult to understand because our current budget is $271 million. But when you

010look at how we're going to end the year, it looks like we're going to end the year anywhere from $278 million to $280 million. So getting up to that $289 million if we had done nothing was very realistic. With the reorganization, we're proposing a budget of $272.2 million, which is almost a $17 million reduction going into 2526. Here's the measures the district has taken to address the fiscal condition. We did do a fiscal analysis through capital market advisors that was completed and presented in December of 2024. We're currently working on a multi-year financial plan. Um we wanted to have that done earlier, but one of the big things in the plan is making sure to see where we end with the 2526 budget. So we've now provided that information with them. And we are also

011looking to do it a state aid review. The reason you want to do a state aid review is almost about 40 something% of our revenue comes from state aid. So we really want to look at those categories and make sure we're maximizing our state aid revenue. So if all goes well, we're looking to to do that in June. We're also doing an efficiency study for transportation that's expected to be done the summer of 2025. We had to delay things a little bit when it came to the study because of the reorganization and the resoning of the district. Um, but initial estimates show that we're going to be able to decrease expenses anywhere from 1.5 to $2.5 million in transportation. And then the facility study was done early in the school year. So now we're going

012to talk about the 2526 projected revenue. So, we broke this down. We did two things. It showed a a pie chart um which just shows down the percentages. And what you'll see is property taxes are a little bit over 51. It's 51.6%. So, almost 52% of our total budget comes from property taxes. The other main category is state aid, which is roughly 44.4%. Um in there, we also have pilots. uh pilots current estimate for next year is $1.9 million. Trusty Mcdana had done a presentation last year where he discussed a loss of tax revenue due to pilot pilots and that number was roughly $3 million I want to state. And when you think of a number like that, every 1% increase in our current budget right now is $1.35 million. So the funds that we're

013losing to this is equivalent to over a 2% tax increase. The other big area the other revenue which is miscellaneous revenue um that's mainly interest from investments which is our banks and um money that we get from the utilities. So the total budget for next year would be 272 million26,615. So this slide shows an example of what a projected tax increase would look to a homeowner. So in there where you see the full market value, that's not the full market value that like the realtor would give you. What that is is a full market value that's on your tax bill. So we gave an example of one. Um, this one is has a full market value of 555,555. And we kept everything else equal in terms of the total assessed value for all of Mount

014Vernon. Um, because if we change that number, it would fluctuate. So, we base this on a 3.3% tax increase. So, what would that look like under this full market value of this home? That would look like an annual increase of about $289. broken down to per month, it's $24.15 and the amount per day to the taxpayer would be 79 in this scenario. The other question that we get, what exactly will this tax increase support? So, there's really two main areas that the increase is supporting. One, it's the ability to address outstanding union contracts. As many are aware, the Mount Vernon Federation of Teachers has been out of contract since 2022. That contract still needs to be addressed and it's a major priority for the city. By the end of this school year, all of our

015bargaining units will be out of contract. So, that is a big part of what this increase is supporting. The other thing is the preser preservation of things such as our athletics, our prek, afterchool programs and performing and visual arts. So this all will be go geared directly to support us uh making sure to preserve things and also getting us more in line with proper salaries for for our bargaining units. So here is a breakdown of the projected expenses. I did this in two parts. So this first slide is is a detailed list that shows the 202526 proposed budget compared to the 2425. And then on the next slide, what you'll see is a pie chart which just shows the breakdown for the 2526 budget. What you'll see is uh some major decreases in personnel services.

016So personnel services is down almost $1 million heading in heading into next year. This year the budget was a little over $122 million. Next year the budget will be a little bit less than $112 million. That was one of the biggest areas. The other area, as you see, contractual went up, but one of the big reasons that contractual went up is because you're doing a budget-to-budget comparison, not a budget to actual expenses comparison. Our current year budget um in contractual services have two really large increases. One is transportation. Transportation, we had to go out to bid last year and the bids all came back high. Uh it was over 40% increase for us. So by the time that came back, the budget was already approved. But what we're looking at in terms of transportation is

017a $7 million increase this year over what was budgeted. So that's a huge driver in why you're seeing an increase in the contractual amounts right there. So this next one is is just a nice way to show the budget by object. So what you'll see is a breakdown and really what's important to notice in schools it's very serviceheavy. So you'll see the salary and benefits uh at Mount Vernon School District accounts to almost 62% of the total budget. The other large amount is the contractual items and those support items such as transportation, our facilities and our our special our special education services. So those are really two big categories um that have to be focused on. The other one is debt service. What debt service is is the amount that we need to pay each

018year for our outstanding debt. That's at 6.91%. Um it is a reduction over last year. our true debt uh will really begin to fall around after the 2030 school year is when you see a significant decline and it completely falls off in 2033. Um the reason that's important to note is that's really when you want to tackle large scale uh largecale capital projects because you don't want your debt to completely fall off because then you lose building aid. You want to try to keep the building aid as level as possible is the best financial practice. So the other categories are really our Bosei services. Um we were able to reduce that too. That's now 6.14%. And then tuition. Tuition includes all the charter schools um plus any uh out of district placements. That's at 7.84%.

019For the charter schools each year the rate that we need to give um increases. So we projected at a rate at over a little bit over 19,500 which was similar to the increase in rate we observed last year. Um and that projection we used about 700 students to project the starter charter school number go to the next slide. So this slide talks about the key drivers what we're seeing and this has been throughout the state uh are health insurance premiums. So this next year it was going up 8.94%. Last year it went up over 10%. So what does that mean for a district of our size? Last year we saw an increase of over $3 million. That 10% equated to over $3.5 million to the district in expenses. 8.94% is also contributing to roughly $3

020million in additional expenses. This is not just a Mount Vernon challenge. This has been a challenge throughout the state. Health insurance premiums have been steadily uh increasing and it's something that we just need to carefully monitor and possibly next year look at any other alternatives for the district if we continue to see this trend. Transportation, as I explained before, yes, it's an increase to the to the budget, even though we're saving roughly $2 million on transportation, and that's because there was only about $12 million budgeted for this year, but our transportation is going to reach over $19 million this year. So, even though it's an increase budget to budget, it's actually a substantial decrease when you think of budget to actual. Um, our special education that is going up roughly $2.8 $8 million in this

021budget. We are also able to allocate vacancies in sped. We're able to budget for all 30 of those vacancies for next year. Then we have the key revenue drivers. So the first one is is the negative. What happens is every year we were assigning fund balance in order to balance the budget and reduce the burden on the taxpayers. We no longer have any fund balance to assign. So that 6.985 million that was assigned in last for this year's budget um during last year that is no longer available for us to do. So we are not assigning any fund balance uh for next year at all. So that's a loss of almost $7 million in revenue for the district. The other increases in our foundation aid. Um while the New York budget has not been passed

022yet, they have talked about that they will keep in place what's called the save harmless or hold harmless. And what that does is it gives an increase of 2% to your foundation aid even for districts like ours who are facing declining enrollment. So it doesn't penalize them for that. That's an increase of a little over $1.6 million. Uh below that I have our tax levy. So the 2425 tax levy was $135.9 million. With the 3.3% increase we'd be looking at a levy of $140.4 4 million, which would be an increase in revenue of $4.4 million to the district. Here's our three-part budget. It's broken down into three categories: administration, capital, and program. You'll also see that on the budget newsletter and in the budget book as well. Um program, which is everything that supports um

023the student learning, the teachers, that's 68.68% of the budget. Then our capital capital for a district of this size you would expect to be somewhat high because it supports even next year it's still supporting 13 school buildings. Um so you're always going to kind of see that in administration what you would like to see is a number below 10% is kind of the standard. So that's just a simple pie chart and then on the right is the amounts that that covers. So in conclusion, uh this is just a a quick summary comparing 2425 to 2526. It's a total increase of $940,298. The budgettobudget increase is.347% and the property tax levy increase is 3.3%. I I really do want to reiterate because sometimes when you look at it just budget to budget, it looks like we

024didn't reduce as much cost as what we truly did because the truth is that current budget of 271 is going to end up about 278 or 280. So we are significantly under in next year's budget what we are going to end the year this year. And I think that's very important to know and to understand. That concludes the budget presentation. Thank you. Thank you everyone. Thank you. Uh Mr. Fromoso um are we able to give questions? Um can we give questions? Questions? It's up to Sure. Um so we've talked about decreasing enrollment, steady decreasing enrollment. What if we in simplest terms, what can we truly dedicate is the real reason or what do we feel or what data says is the reason why we have this steady enrollment and we're still projecting it going down

025for the next 10 plus years. Well, what that report stated was it stated um a decrease a lot of uh a lot of people left urban areas during COVID. So, it referenced that, but it also just referenced lower birth rates in Westchester County. So, this isn't the only while enrollment has gone down substantially in Mount Vernon, this is not the only district facing declining enrollment. It's pretty much throughout Westchester. Yes, there is a couple of districts that have been able to stay steady or increase, but you've seen that across the board. Um, Yoners is looking at closing a building. couple years ago, I think there was another closure, maybe a new rel. But we have seen districts talk about consolidating. Even the own district that I live in, they had to close a building a

026few years back and it was due to the same thing, the declining enrollment. So, the lower birth rates plays a huge factor. Um, some people are just not having children or they're only having one child and that has a long-term impact on school districts. And the main thing for us is just to constantly monitor that, right? look at our enrollment, look at our trends, project, keep projecting it going forward because that was a trend that was given last year. Um, if we're going to go out to do a capital repair bond hopefully in the future, they'll have to do another study because that's one of the requirements when you go to do that. So then we'll get another look at did that change at all. Um, but we can only go based on the data

027that's been given to us so far and that does seem to be very consistent with what is happening at Mount Vernon. Uh, regarding the pilots, how long were we aware that the pilots were impacting us so negatively financially? How long was it? How far back is it that you know to to be honest? I'm not sure about that. I started this year and when we looked at it, um, fortunately, you have Trusty McDunn on this board who's who's very knowledgeable with this. Yeah, I kind of that was a setup. No, it was a setup. I mean, he could he could give that he already did give that presentation, but I could tell you it's it's it's difficult because even when Trusty McDonald presented to think about $3 million in loss revenue to the district is

028substantial. When you equate that to over a 2% tax increase, you start to see what that is. And and it's a challenge. Mount Vernon's not the only one that has a challenge to pilots. If you look it up, there's many areas that are that are schools that are discussing that specific issue. pilots and wanting to have a seat at the table and a seat to vote for that. So, got it. Um, regarding fund balance, you we saw that the the fund balance was dipping. Would that is that because we basically were keeping well, for lack of a better phrase, keeping the lights on with the fund balance for those years in question. Sure. So, and um there was a presentation actually that uh kept that was presented through uh one of our adviserss and he

029talked about that there this was maybe seven years ago. I can't remember the exact time but the district did propose a policy to not increase taxes because it was becoming a burden to taxpayers. So they were trying to alleviate that. At that time they did have fund balance. So if you looked at 2019 that they did have sufficient fund balance but that can only be absorbed for so long. Um, that's the real problem. And when you see operating deficits like that, what that means is that you're in a structural deficit. And that's if you don't change the structure of your district, then you're going to continue to have that deficit. Which kind of speaks to the idea that the average district, and I just looked this up, the average school district of 7,000 students has

030a administrative budget of about 6.7%. So us being at 9.97 says we're still quite in the in the hot, right? I mean, I would that number I I told you was very standard 10. You would you would like to see lower than 10%. I understand that some districts have lower. Um I'd have to look at that specific district to truly understand it, but under 10% is considered considered a good practice for a district. All right. I don't I don't want to hog it up any further than I have. Thanks. This is great. Uh Mr. Formos, I have I have three questions. I'll keep them brief. The first one you mentioned the state aid spin up. Um sure was that factored into the revenue that you put in this model and and if not how much

031do you think it might account for? So that would be for this year. Um and based on conversations we've had with the state the legislation that they're looking to put forward is up to $8 million and that would be payable over the course of 30 years. What they do is they just reduce your state aid over 30 years. So if you take 8 million divided by 30, that would be the reduction each year. And really the big benefit to a district that is going through a reorganization is it gives us time to get our expenses really in order. This is truly the first year. Every year we're going to have to be very conservative when it comes to expenses and we're again we're going to have to keep looking at ways to increase the revenue

032at the district. Thank you. The the second question um how does the liquidation of the reserves impact our borrowing costs or or will it I mean it looks like we're going to take it down to pretty much zero. What do the the markets look look at that? How do they see that? Sure. So so it's not looked at posit reserves is is one of the indicators just like it's one of the indicators for that fiscal stress score. Um, a large indicator is what does a district have in reserves? Because as we've shown, we're we're heavily dependent on state aid. So, if there was ever a time when we will go through state aid cuts, were very susceptible to that because of our reliance on state aid. Um, so it is a very tricky situation, but

033to answer your question, it's it's considered a negative outlook when it in terms of bond ratings. Um, so it'll increase borrowing costs should we need to borrow. it would if you were looking at at that that as a silo but what's going to be looked at is what is the budget we put forward now and what are our costs now so I do believe that the budget that we put far counteracts the fact that we would have to reduce this year because we are making a significant impact on the expenses in the district and we're looking if things hold the same and we're able to stay the course with this budget we should have a surplus next year which will be very beneficial for us when we're speaking to bond rating agencies. Great. And the

034last question, sorry we brief. Um you you you talked about um the tax increase about 3.3%. That assumes 100% collection, right? You collect from all the properties. So we know that in recent past that has been a problem. We've been coming in around 96 97% which is really material. How and this year we've struggled in terms of cash flow. So this is about cash flow. next year if we are expecting 96 97% collection what is that going to do in terms of your cash flow? Sure. Sure. So um the one thing that we did do in this budget which is important to note yes we put the full levy on there but we did not put we the only taxes that we put on there for prior year taxes is the one that we have

035the agreement for. That's it. So, we did not take into consideration the prior year taxes that are due this May at all. So, our goal is that that will offset the fact that we won't receive our full levy. Thank you, Mr. Famosa. You did excellent job. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. I just want to know one question. Is this budget included will include all the contracts that we have to face this year? Yes. Yes. all the bargaining units um are accounted for in this budget. Thank you. That's all. Uh Mr. Formosa, first of all, thank you for a very wellthought planned out um presentation. It was very um comprehensive and also easy to understand where we are and how we got there. I do have a couple of questions. Sure. One, in terms

036of the recommended reserve, you indicated that a recommended reserve for a district of this size would be 50 to $60 million. However, in 2019, we were only at $26 million. So, even in 2019, that was not an adequate reserve balance for us. Correct. That's correct. Now, that number, the way that number is derived, it's two to three months of expenses. So, our expenses at that time were lower. Um, it's still like I I did do the numbers. So, it was still a little bit under, but a much better position than than where we're at now. Okay. and we steadily used that fund balance in order to compensate for not raising taxes over five six year period. That's correct. The other question that I had is what is the comparison cost per pupil for charter schools

037versus district students? I don't have that number. I I would have to I would have to look that up and get back to you. I know the cost this year for charter school is slightly over $19,000. Um when we look at our cost per pupil at the district since we have such a high um sped population, it's it's higher. So our cost, if you look at just uh what's on NISED uh the property or the I'm sorry, the NYED report card, it's about $34,000 a child. But that takes into consideration all of our students. And my last question is in this presentation did we consider a reorganization of staff or administrative staff at central office? Was there any discussion about that? Yes. Um everything was looked at I don't have the list but there was

038already so prior to going into this year there had already been substantial layoffs in terms of the administration. I can I can certainly give that list to the board. Um that's why we we did not really touch anything in regards to that. We actually have a vacancy um still in the cabinet. My um I guess my question is more specific to a reorganization of how the structure in terms of hierarchy. We currently have a superintendent. We currently have several associate and and assistant superintendent. Has anyone looked at maybe reducing the number of assistant or associate superintendent and making just changes in terms of the organizational structure and and and minimizing some of those those positions? Sure. No, that's a great question and it's not that it it did cross our mind, but we also are

039aware that a new superintendent will be coming in July and we felt it's best for that to be addressed uh when that happens. So there could potentially be some additional cost savings if we did that which we which could enhance the fund balance or build it depending on the thoughts of the board and the superintendent. Yes. Thank you. Any other questions from the board members? I actually have two uh just two more. I'm not going to talk about textbooks the cost of textbooks climbing. I think we discussed that recently um because the you know the students are in a more digital atmosphere now but that textbook costs are still going up even though we still you know our parents go in our buildings and they see skids of books just sitting there. Do we get

040credits for those books that we get that just sit there and don't get used by the chance? When when you say credits like like so we have how does the how does the textbook purchasing work? Is this a contract? Sure. I I could go into that but I believe Dr. Dr. Dog had explained in the last time and he did have further insight on that because that was an order. I think a lot of that stems back to an order that was like a five or six year um contract. Okay. So, if you'd like he he can discuss that. Yes. Um most of the books that you see are replenishment orders. Um, previously we had a six-year um, purchase and each year we have replenish replenishments that come in. So, if your enrollment goes down,

041you already still pay for the replenishment. So, it continues to come in and that leads to the overflow of books. So, for example, if I'm at a school and I have four grade four classes and now I have two grade four classes, I'm still getting four grade four classes of books. And then we have a certain amount that come in Spanish as well. we may get 25 and each year you get 25 25. We can't take those books that we don't use and use it for something else. The companies don't work that way. And I think that's I appreciate that. That was a clarity I needed. Um the other the only other question I have right now was regarding why and this is for Mr. Formoso. Why would we or would we not entertain leasing

042any of the three buildings that we just recently took offline? What would be the reason for that? Why would we or why would we not? Sure. And that has a lot of layers to that question, but I know that was looked at uh and I'm sure it'll be continued to look at. One of the big things with the building is when you lease it, the buildings that were closed, almost all of our buildings have roughly 20 to $30 million in improvements needed. So, that makes it very difficult. I'm not saying it's impossible, but you would really have to look into a lease agreement where um the whoever the lease is would be able to take on that burden because or else it just would not make financial sense. Thank you. Good. Any other questions, trustees?

043Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Very good. No, thank you. I also just wanted to say um thank you so much for the superintendent and the board for giving me this opportunity this year. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. [Applause] Thank you, Mr. Famoso. Next up, we have Aramark and they'll introduce them themselves. Thank you. ready. Good evening. Good evening. Um, just wanted to say thank you so much for the opportunity for us uh to present tonight. Um, my name is George Mcmanis. I am the district manager here with Aramark. Um, I have a team with me. It doesn't match what's on the slide because we gave in the presentation about a week ago and some people had to change their schedule. So, if you go to the next

044slide, um I have here uh Grace Machinsky. She's the New York um director of business development. I have Rob Campezy. He's the um acting food service director here at Mount Vernon currently. And I have Carrie O'Donnell who is a general manager um for Aramark um in a school in Long Island. So, um I like I said, I appreciate the opportunity to come and speak. Um, I've had the opportunity to speak with uh the wellness committee chair a few times this year to go over um the operations, the current operations. I've also had the chance to meet with some other board members to kind of catch us up to speed as to where we're at with um with food services. So, um I wanted the opportunity to go over um everything with the board at large.

045So, this year was a new year for me. I started um here at Mount Vernon this year and we really hit the ground running. So the first thing that we did is we got a team of managers from culinary experts, chefs. I got some uh managers from Massachusetts to New York to New Jersey to come on site to every single school and spend a couple days to try and assess where we were at at Mount Vernon, where were the employees opportunities, where were their strengths, and develop an action plan. Right? The one thing and the first thing that we really realized was that the staff have seen a lot of change here at Mount Vernon when it comes to food service, right? So you've seen a lot of flow of food service management companies in

046the past years, right? So it's been really difficult for them to get traction and the program to get traction and the staff are I'd say frustrated with that. So what we did is we spent time kind of understanding, you know, what they needed from a culinary aspect. What do they need in food quality? How do they understand how to read recipes? We looked at USDA compliance. Do they understand what makes a meal? Right? Do they understand food safety, personal safety? Do they know how to use a knife, use gloves, pot gloves to get the stuff out of the oven so they don't get hurt? Basic stuff. And then just the general operation, right? So, we observed all of these things um with the team that was here for over a two week span. So what

047came out of that I'm still on that slide, sorry. What came out of that was um the staff needed some training, right? So we developed an action plan for the staff um that we put into place and we're currently working through that action plan um to try and you know do some hands-on training. We bought some additional support back to do some culinary onhand training in the CLA in the um in the kitchens. And we also did some inservice training with the staff. We did food safety. We did um allergen training. We did all kinds of USDA compliance training. So, we really spent the time trying to catch the um get the staff up to speed so that you know we could progress forward with the program. And then I think the biggest challenge um

048and I would have to say is that the staff really the food service staff here, you know, they really have such great hearts and and they struggled with, you know, and I know was very frustrating for them is the number of um pieces of equipment that were not working properly. So we either had freezers, refrigerators, um we had um just general serving equipment that was either broken or in disrepair or we were waiting um because of supply chain issues for to for these items to get replaced. So what does that mean for us? It means for a very frustrating day for the food service worker, right? So because we have a plan in place and now we kind of have to shift everything around. We're either taking stuff from the high school, bringing food over

049on a daily basis because they don't have the the proper storage, but we need to make sure that the food is being held properly where we may be also um preparing it at the high school and bringing it over to the different um schools. So, that has been a huge challenge. I think we've worked with the district. Um we've made good progress. Um we've we work with the district with Mr. for Ramandi's um team identifying those pieces of equipment that were not working and we came up with a plan and we've been slowly chipping away and those things have been replaced and it's been it's been a great relief to the staff. You can go to the next one. So just a little bit about the federal requirements. Um so why do we serve what

050we serve? We serve what we serve because the USDA kind of dictates that, right? So in 2010, the Healthy and Hungry Free Act came into place. And basically what it did was overhaul the whole national school lunch program so that it was healthier and it would address childhood obesity. And what we have um is it kind of goes over it address whole grains, fruits, vegetables, um serving lowfat dairy, um and just overall less sodium and less fat. They also made sure that the portions were dictated by grade level. So, right, so you had different portions for K to 5, for 6 to 8, and for 9 to 12. Um, and then what we did is that every time you have to plan a menu, right, you see these little eye charts on the right over

051there. That's not something that I'm going to go over in great detail, but for you to all understand, and I have here um a takeaway, I'll give it to you before I leave, is that every time we plan a menu, we have to make sure our menu meets all of those standards, right? So, we have to plan for componentry throughout the week, which is fruits, vegetables, milks, meats, um a variety of things. And then we need to make sure we're meeting all the dietary specifications, which are calories, saturated fat, um sodium, and um sugars, right? So, every time we plan a meal, that whole chart we need to make sure that we're in compliance with. And um the the thing that's happening this year is the USDA, they have a five-year plan from that um

052from the federal changes. And this year, what you'll see going into next uh school year are three big changes. So the first one is a restriction on sugar. So no more than 10% of the weekly calories can be uh can be from um added sugar. when we plan that menu and you look at that chart, we're going to have to make sure that nothing no more than 10% of the calories are from added sugars. Um a sodium reduction. So there'll be a 10% red uh reduction um of sodium at breakfast and a 15% reduction um at lunch. Right? So that's you know those are some big changes and the whole grains are here to stay. So moving forward 80% of all of the grains that you see on our menu have to be whole grain.

053So the good thing is is Aramark has been working hard on this. We knew this was coming. We met with our vendor partners. Um we made sure that we said, you know, these changes have to go into effect before the school year starts. We've been work our chefs and our dietitians have been working um revamping our recipes. And you'll actually even see some of the products that are uh that are slotted for next year. We already have in some of our breakfast cereals we already are using this year. So, um, the great thing is that, you know, although this feels like a big change, we're we're ahead of it. We're on it and we're making sure that it will be a seamless transition for the students. I think the biggest thing will be, you know,

054obviously we have to be a little bit creative, right? Because the more sugar and the more sodium you cut out of anything, it affects the taste, right? So, you know, we're really working on our recipe development to make sure that, you know, it doesn't kind of affect what the kids um are tasting when they come to breakfast or lunch. So this is a good example if you take a look and and you see maybe on our menu um a bacon cheeseburger and fries um and what you would see at McDonald's. So this just shows you side by side uh the difference in the calories. Um so there's you know 200 around 200 less calories um half of the sodium right and um half of the fat. So just to note on what we serve is

055you'll see that the the bun is whole grain. There's no added salt. So, there's no salt on those French fries. They are not fried. They are baked. Um, and they also get um a choice of uh of fruit and uh low-fat milk. So, when you're looking at maybe when you're looking at our menu, not really kind of understanding why we serve or what's different from what you would see if you were out at a fast food restaurant, it's completely different. what we serve is not you cannot go to ShopRight or AM and buy the same products that we serve in student nutrition because they're formulated just to meet the specifications of the USDA. So when we um bid on um Mount Vernon, we heard that quality is a priority, right? So you want to make

056sure your students are getting the best possible food. So, we heard you and we make sure that all of the products that we um serve your students here at Mount Vernon are of the highest quality. So, you can see a lot of brand recognition here. Um these are the products that you know the students are receiving every day. We don't cut back on um the products that we're serving. We make sure that they are of the highest quality. Um and you see that you know in our participation um numbers. So, I just wanted to add some photos in here. I mean, I would love for everyone on the board to be able to come to any of the schools anytime um without even, you know, an invitation or having one of us uh food service

057people meet you there. This is what the kids see um at some of the schools throughout the district. Um here I just went through took some pictures of of uh some of the food that they're serving here in Mount Vernon. Um it's it's quite delicious. Um, I know that, um, you know, the the food service staff, like I said, they take such pride in what they do every day. They would love for you guys to come, um, and and see what they do every day. Um, and like I said, you know, make an make an appointment with your your building principal if you want to go in one day and take a look and and see what it is that they all do. But we just wanted to share some pictures um, and kind of

058toot the horn of uh, of the food service staff here who really work hard day in and day out. So, I'm gonna have Grace come up and and talk a little bit about the finances, about the most boring stuff of the night probably for all of you. And I So, I will try not to be terribly long-winded. I think um one of the great takeaways that I have had the privilege of being a part of this evening is really hearing the mission of the budget and the sustainability of the financials for this district moving forward. Thank you. Sorry. So when Aram was engaged to participate in the bid a couple of years ago, we did do a tremendous amount of work to look into what was going on in Mount Vernon, what has happened in

059the last decade when Aramark was not your food service provider. So we we did a lot of research and we understood again some of the similarities we've heard tonight. financial responsibility, sustainability to your program. Really, really important as well as what Dearra explained, quality, preserving variety, making sure we can drive participation in the program of an area where we certainly do have a need to fulfill when it comes to food insecurities in the communities around Mount Vernon. So we wanted to make sure we were very specific and pointed in what Aramark was going to propose in terms of our financial structure. So what you see here is a breakdown of the meal rates that were included in our proposal and exactly the amount of profitable return after errors billing to the school district. So that

060first column that you see on the left that's a little bit darker in your chart, that is the amount of revenue that the school district receives per meal served. So between state and federal funding, that is the total amount that you would receive in the breakdown between breakfast, lunch, and snack. The number on the chart to the right shows what the Aramark prescribed billing is for each of those meal parts in separate. So the star highlight at the top of that is showing you really the delta, the variance between what the school district receives in revenue and what Aramark bills. So that you can see based on every single program you are receiving a profitable return. Now, that return is used to continue the sustainability of your program to pay for those equipment replacements and

061repairs when they're needed to ensure that every year as program costs go up, inflation goes up, you know, across the world, the cost of goods go up, that your program is going to be able to maintain those increases with a tremendous amount of support from the federal and state governments. Hence the reason why we have to still follow their rules when it comes to those nutritional regulations. Right? But again, this is just a highle breakdown for you of how each of those meal groups is broken down in billings to the district. If you look at the next page, this kind of looks at your program as an overall return. You may need to click one more time just so the full pie chart shows up there. Maybe a couple more. So, what we're looking at,

062the contract that Mount Vernon advertised at the time of the IFB showed a guaranteed return of a break even, which means that any food service management company who would wish to do business with Mount Vernon would be required to make sure that the school district breaks even at the end of the year. So, that chart that I referred to before, they could have been exactly even, right? We're not required to promise you a return on your investment or have any layers of additional funding going back into that cafeteria fund. We heard tonight about the general fund and how that supports your school budget. The cafeteria fund is a separate source of funding that generally is self-funded. In the case of Mount Vernon, the management company contract is funded by that cafeteria fund. So, this is

063a breakdown of what that looks like. So if we are to charge you over the course of the year, that total meal rate that we looked at that was broken out by meal type, if we put them all together and weighted it, this is what we're looking at. So for every single meal that Aramark serves in Mount Vernon, the school district returns a profit of 79 cents per meal. What we spend on that, you can see the vast majority of that was actual cost. So that's the labor, the food, everything that goes back right back into the spend of your program. Aramark's actual fee or profitability there is only 2 cents in that total meal rate. And that goes to cover those overhead layers of support. some of the things Dearra mentioned when it comes

064to, you know, bringing in culinary support, having people that are there to extend the resources the district has in terms of menu development, procurement, uh, you know, again, our pricing agreements that we have in supply chain that allow us to do this at a lower cost to the district that helps to support Aramark's resources in that way. So again, you can see here our priorities came down to food and the people who are going to be preparing the food. Our breakdown in cost is almost a 5050 split between those two with a small amount reserved for supplies. And that is literally the plate that the food goes onto and the cleaning supplies that are used to uh keep your kitchens clean and sanitary. So, while the contract only required that we break even, in our

065first year here in Mount Vernon, we returned a profit to the school district of $1.8 million. Those are funds that went into the cafeteria fund that are used to help cover the costs that the district may incur over time. Again, leaning into the s sustainability of that program over time. Those sustainabilities only exist with a driving of your program. Our goal at the end is to increase participation and increase the number of programs that the district is eligible to participate in. This year you see a slight decrease to the projected return. Uh and that again falls in line with the enrollment decline. So uh your program relies entirely on the participation of the students that are in the buildings participating. So again, it is our goal to increase that level of participation by increasing the

066quality and the value of the food served so that more students are driven to participate, helping to offset some of the decline in enrollment that you are expected to continue to see. So that program will still be self-funding. And then the last slide here is really just where do we go from here? So again, we talked about the fact that Aramark was really purposeful in its intent with this contract. We have an awful lot of changes coming up when it comes to a regulatory environment. Uh we all know there's been administrative changes at the federal level that are also going to have some change potential to the reimbursements and the funding that school districts will see. Those are some things that we're paying very very close attention to. Um and our goal again at the

067end of this is to ensure that we are understanding the needs of the district and making sure we have a program that will sustain you moving forward. We are our Airark's capabilities truly are endless. We are here to serve and it is our goal to make sure we understand exactly what your priorities are and that we can continue to partner with you in the future to deliver on that. Questions? Thank you. Any questions, trustees? Um, is there a way we can get Yeah. Can we have our student trustee on? Liz, is she still on? Hello. Can you hear me? Yeah. You have any question, Liz? Um, I do have a question. I was looking at the photos on the U presentation. Are those current photos like from school lunches right now that like if we

068walk into let's say Rebecca Turner, you could see this in the cafeteria. Yeah. I mean those pictures were taken not necessarily at Rebecca Turner, but they were taken at the high school and maybe one other elementary school, but yeah, those pictures are current pictures. Okay. um with the new regulations and meeting and what at least in my understanding it sounded like the portion sizes were at least going to be bigger. Were there going to be opportunities or can there be opportunities for students to give feedback and say, "Hey, like listen, like four out of five days I'm not super full or like I only feel full when I eat these couple meals. These other ones aren't making me feel I'm still hungry after. or is there going to be an opportunity for that? Yeah, that's

069a really good question. So, I would say that's there's two answers to that. We will always take feedback, right? And there are things that Aramark is able to do to help make more restrictive regulations a little bit more comfortable for the students. And the only way we could ever achieve that quality and satisfaction is by constantly reaching our students and their and their parents, right? Especially for our younger groups. Uh when it comes to the regulations of the program, we're not expecting them to get more relaxed. We're not expecting the portion sizes to go up. That is actually expected to become more restrictive. So, it is at that point that we can help and we can help the districts be a voice to your local legislation to advocate for change to those regulations. And we

070did see under the last Republican federal administration, there was a roll back to those regulations where they became a little bit more relaxed. So again, this is where we're sort of in a state of unknown right now. There's a lot that's going to be coming with the change of administration and the focus on nutrition specifically. But again, don't ever think that you're not going to be heard or that the students, the board members, administration, and parents of this district wouldn't be heard and that there aren't going to be ways that we can still make sure that no matter what happens with the people up there making decisions that you still have options every day that you want to eat that make you feel full and satisfied, we can still make that happen. All righty. Just

071because like I know personally like I have like I am very very grateful that I have a mother who passed me lunch but like I have friends who eat the school lunch every single day and they're asking me to get them another plate because the first one is not filling at all. And as a senior it's a little concerning that like we're getting a portion that seems like it is the exact same size as an elementary school kid. And I've seen the elementary school size plates. I used I ate them myself, but it's like concerning that you're expect sorry that like the portions seem like they're the exact same size for like a 9year-old compared to an 18-year-old. Yeah. Yeah. And I know dear just showed earlier there is a difference, right? She showed the

072chart. It's again it's a really cumbersome. It's our job to know that not yours. But I think that this district is very very fortunate to have a student like you who is getting up and speaking on behalf of the other students and saying we need to understand this better right we need to know it's sometimes it's a matter of what are we allowed to take with our meal right you can take up to two portions of fruits and two portions of vegetables plus the milk plus the protein plus the whole grain right we can you we can leverage these partnerships with the school and the students to make sure that we're communicating that we're hearing again from your peers of what are the things that they need, want, need to understand better and and you

073can help be that advocate that they need. So, we're again we're here for it. And I would say is that a majority of the students probably don't take the five components that are they're entitled to. I mean, oftentimes I see, especially in the high school when I'm there, it's a slice of pizza and maybe a piece of fruit or a vegetable. they're not leaning into all the um the five components that they could take, which is the way the menu is planned by the USDA. And that's the calorie point is if you take all of the, you know, the the the componentry um that you're entitled to. Hi. Thank you so much. I'm so excited for Wy. You're welcome. Hi. How you doing? Hi. I know you all know who I am. um food services

074and wellness is I have a passion for it for the last five years that I've been on the board less one um and I have been very vocal about what we're seeing in the buildings on a regular basis that the the pictures that you showed of the meals today were beautiful. Um I've just never seen them in any one of our buildings, but I'm certain. Have you been to the high school on a regular basis? So, yes. And and truthfully speaking, um well, I welcome you to come. I mean Oh, I'm coming. Yeah, go. I'll be I'm going to bounce through some schools. So, um and and this is every day. This is not like this was not done for my benefit. I promise you. And I know you mentioned that you visit the schools.

075How often are you in the 16 13 different buildings, 16 buildings that we have? How often would you say them? I mean, between the team on the ground, I mean, that's there. They're there now since we have the action plan in place. We have someone one of our managers there every day. Okay. So, um, Trusty Deg Grand who was just on the screen, she did a student survey, uh, of students in the D across the district about how they felt about what they're seeing in meals, be it taste, quality, portion, options. Um, and yeah, it was a low turnout, but I think there's value in the fact that 85 students took the survey, 41 of them had not so good things to say with 26 of them being taste quality being just beneath. They won't

076take the food, they won't eat the food. Lots of colorful statements were made their students. And we're not just talking about one building. I'm I've got one, two, three, four, five, six. And this report was shared with all the trustees when Miss when trustee de Grand Prix did the survey. And thank you, Mr. Grand Prix, for your input on this. I couldn't have done it without you. Thank you so much. Um, but you know, I know that um you I had questions about reimbursement. So, the reimbursement comes from the state. Yes. Federal and state. Got it. So, how are those reimbursements per meal substantiated for the for the for those of us here who don't know? So we there has to be how do how do we substantiate or prove that we're entitled to those

077reimbursements? Okay, understood. So we have to it starts with us. We have to plan a menu that meets all of the requirements that deer put on the screen before and then we have to through the staff and your existing infrastructure using point of sales systems watch as every child goes through the line. make sure that they have all the required components of the meal and then record that on our production records. Then that again is all entered through your POSOS system. The school district has access to that and that's what they use to use their claim to make their claim for reimbursements and they're literally going into a system entering in the total number of meals that were served to the students and population and the district receives the claim for reimbursement. I appreciate that.

078Thank you. So imagine what things would you say top three things, five things, four things, whatever that you've done. And I've been making questions as I'm going because um you know, we've been told, we've talked before. I was one of the ones that sat in the room. We talked. Um what changes would you say you've made since you entered back in the district in 2023? Because I believe we did have a contract with you guys back, I believe in some point in the '9s, but what changes would you say that you made materially since you came back in 2023? I think it starts ma with the menus for sure. I think it what happened was we came in with very high expectations. We heard like you said we heard you right. The number one priority

079was food quality and variety with fiscal responsibility. Right. That was still part of it. Uh so we jumped in with guns blazing and we admittedly may have been slightly ambitious for what we came to understand were opportunities that were needed in retraining with the staff as well as you did say there's a number of buildings and each one of them is a little bit different when it comes to the kitchens, the facilities, their abilities um you know operationally. So we then scaled it back, went back, looked really closely into each individual inter environment, we did speak with, you know, principles, we met at buildings and tried to get as much feedback as we possibly could. And then we started fundamentally with the staff. So it was training on food safety, food handling, execution, menu, portion

080controls, making sure that it was consistent from building to building across the district. Uh and it was really kind of again fundamentally going into the basic training of recipe and food production preparation. Okay. So I mean and I'll be honest, I've been in buildings. I have a lot of communication from parents. Um the feedback is in contrast. I will say that I know that there's a struggle. I know. Um uh but as even as trusty de grandp stated um we do have students in the district who are receiving the same portions and they're as as uh kindergarteners in elementary school and they're in in high school and um how have you dealt with the challenges of running of them not getting deliveries on time consistently having uh food quality issues delivered to the school and

081things like that. How have you addressed these issues? Or I should say I should I mean we've heard this. I'm not going to ask you to to explain. I don't want to there could there are things that are outside of our control right when our you know our vendors who you know bring food and supply to us on a regular basis. There could be number of things that get in the way from a union strike to a snowstorm or you know something that gets in the way of us getting our food. I would say that's more of the rarity than it is something that happens every day. We always have um you know a plan B in place. If you know if we can't get the food that day, it might mean a menu change

082to what we were planning to serve, but the students are still going to get something to eat, right? So we have to be prepared and we are prepared for those moments where you know we have to maybe make a pivot because one of our vendors you know something you know unforeseen happened but we're prepared to make sure that the students are still getting all of the components and we work with our vendors and you know if there are issues we address it with them. you know, we leverage our size and we make sure that they understand that if they're not meeting our needs in times of delivery or, you know, when they're delivering, you know, that we will put them on notice and we leverage our supply chain team in Aramark and and we go

083to our vendors and and you know, we let them know these are our standards. And I think your point, Trusty Mitchell, is that if if everything is going well the vast majority of the time, then those little interruptions should not be felt by our community, right? they shouldn't. It should really be the the minor times that it happens. So our goal has to be that the 99% of the time when you walk into the schools, you see that consistency. You see the pictures that you saw on the screen. And again, when we have a lot of change and turnover to management companies, Mount Vernon has seen a lot of change over the years. Getting that traction and consistency can be a little bit different and difficult. However, we do believe that with time and efforts

084that we absolutely will get there and we have again made huge strides this year. I do think that you will you have I heard you say something else earlier that I thought was interesting. There's always risk with change in that you are starting back over from where you were. There's also financial and monetary risk when you know you decide you're going to put a bid out there or you know invite competition to re-enter the group. Right. You had a 40 was it 40% you said increase to your transportation costs when you when you put a bid out. Right. So our goal when we came into this agreement was to last this the stand of time of that five years of that contract that we'd be allowed to serve this district. And then our hope was

085to continue our partnership from that point forward because with time we will be able to elevate this food service program to really run at the standard that you've come to expect. And and and the truth is the USDA decides exactly how the food service company's supposed to move. So I think that and I understand change is difficult. People hate change and changes things. But um the USDA is determining exactly how food service is supposed to move. So, US USDA has a standard. The state of New York determines the contract in Yes. They determine how that the contract structure and every food service company has to adhere. So, I mean, I understand what you said about change, but every food service company has to adhere to those state regulations, right? Correct. But it's really more about

086your specific contract. Okay. So, you mentioned, and this is my last question, you mentioned that Aramark reaches out to students and parents. In which ways have you done that? So we we offer the student viewpoint surveys. Um and you can I mean you can talk about I mean Rob you probably have a better idea of like you know talking to the students and the different things and any wellness committee. It's really it's customized to the districts that we serve. So Aramark has we are a data insights driven company. We have a lot of different platforms that we can use to survey the students receive their feedback. We do anything from building based nutrition meetings that are held by the principal and the you know a group of interested students. Oftentimes it can be student council

087members or you know students that just have an interest in wellness or or sports athletics. Um they're driven at the building level. We also have district wellness committee and policies and then again like the nutrition committees things that our board members and administration tend to sit on with us. We receive feedback that way. Right. I mean, I think the wellness committee is usually the overarching program that like, you know, it that's a district committee and then it fans out into um different committee chairs at each building level. Um that's typically what we see in a district where you have at each building you have a chair um that can kind of champion that type of um parent outreach, student outreach, and also um with the principal. But we have lots of different options and we

088can explore all of them with you. Trusty Mitchell, can I interject just real quick? Sure. Um Royce Russell, legal counsel, um to feed off of what uh Trusty Mitchell is is stating or at least questioning is that I hear things about feedback from students and getting it correct. Um, what I'm interested in knowing is how does Airmark outside of the district communicates with the community when we have something like a food spoilage because we had that. We've had um food come in that was spoiled um and I don't really recall what what the plan B was except for on the ground um building kind of managing that. I don't recall seeing or having any unless you guys saw something like that any of the board members see any communication from airmark that reflect to the

089community yes this happened today we apologize or it came from the vendor um it was out of our control what I hear you saying and what I've seen by way of our student trustee is feedback as to what students want but I think the community needs feedback going, "This went wrong today. We're responsible in some type of way, even though we didn't make the the English muffins is on our name." And so, we're sorry for that. This is how we're going to change that and do that over and above what the district or whoever's in charge of lunch and food service. So the community can know that there is a double checks and balances because on our level what we're doing we're reacting. Mhm. Right. We get a call or we find out the day

090after right or maybe later on in the day that something was wrong with breakfast. And as a board me, excuse me, as a cabinet member, I would love to see that communication and I'm sure the community would love to see that communication that the people that are in charge for what we try to serve our kids are on it like not only internally, but hey community, we see it not just on the feedback that we get from students. Well, and I think that's very fair. We again our answer will always be yes. We can we can provide all of we had did a very thorough investigation that was an isolated incident that was specific to you know a a product that was just here. So it was not a larger error mark issue per se,

091right? But what you as a district choose that you would like to communicate out to your community will always be your choice. But we are here to provide you with any information you're comfortable sharing. So if we can do better in terms of what was communicated out to the administration to make a decision about what's shared publicly, absolutely let us know and we can do that. But we will always defer to and have respect to the district as to what they would like communicated out to the larger group. Okay. Um just to follow up with that, I think that the uh attorney and also Trusty Mitchell was really referring to the partnership that you um sent in the one of the slides and making sure that it's not just the onus isn't just on the

092school district, but if the onus is on our mark and those situations occur because of whatever is going on in your back office that we should not have to bear the brunt of it and then the fingers are pointed at us as opposed to not sharing the responsibility. And I think that that was pretty much what um he was saying. Yes, ma'am. Um but in addition to that, in terms of partnership, um as you know, we have um we're working on on staff members. They're reduction in forces. There are currently members that are part of a different uh bargaining unit that currently work in some of our schools. And my question to you is, is our mark because you said the answer would always be yes. So I'm going to ask for a yes today,

093right? that you could absor absorb those individuals who may be losing their jobs in face of our reduction in force and where our mark would be able to absorb those staff members so that our students would still have a familiarity in front of them when they go into the schools in September. So that's a question and you said and you're saying yes, right? because all it's always a yes always any in any contract that we entertain with any school district that we serve if it is the desire of the school district for Aramark to hire on their existing staff the answer is always yes okay so long as they meet the background check requirements they will also I mean those those uh Mount Vernon employees who are interested in working for Armark will have to

094go through the hiring process it is a different union they will have to go through the same steps we you know a as they as any would to become hired onto Aramark. We'd have to do our background check. Understood. Yeah. So, they would be eligible absolutely to apply for any position that was available. Yes. 100%. And we we've communicated that to the district. The other question I had, are there different menu tiers in terms of like a tier one menu, a tier 2, tier three menu? I've had this come up a lot in the sales field. Um, and there the true answer is no. Every single school district has really specific and unique specifications that write they write into their contracts. Uh there is not a structure of tier that's provided by either the management

095companies or by the state. It is truly customizable to the needs of the district and we are happy to work with you to kind of understand what that looks like for you. So the cafeteria fund which is the profit that the district receives can be adjusted in a different way depending on what the needs are of the of each district. So if we are a district who needs more financial assistance so to speak to in order to repair or provide equipment then our profit margin would we would probably request it to be higher than say another school district who may be more affluent who may not necessarily need the funds in order to provide them with equipment. Is that what you're saying? That could be abs. It depends on where the funds are coming from.

096So some school districts may have it allocated from the general fund that that's going to cover the cost of the equipment and it doesn't have to come out of the cafeteria fund. Most school districts that we serve want their food service funds to cover the cost of the program. But to your point, how those funds are spent are 100% the decision of the district. Okay. And in terms of partnership, who is actually responsible for the maintenance of the equipment? Is that a partnership with Armach and the district or is it solely respons the district solely responsible for maintaining the equipment? Yes ma'am that would be the district. So our our part of that partnership is to make you aware when equipment is not working properly and is in need of repair but the financial burden

097of responsibility does sit with the school district. Aramark makes if you think of it as anything any item that is purchased that would go with the meal and go with the student. So the food, the plate, the chemicals that we talked about used to clean and sanitize the kitchens, those are the things that Aramark pays for. Anything that stays with the district belongs to the district. So the the small wares, the pots and pans, the ovens that are cooked in, that is all the district's equipment and their responsibility to maintain. Okay. And then I have one other question in terms of um has there is there an inventory on which meals are more popular with students or survey where you've identified and said okay maybe we may serve these more frequently than other meals so

098that students feel that the uh meals are more appetizing. Yes, we have a very intuitive platform that we use that allows us to track the meals by building by day by meal program. So we can see breakfast at the high school on this day of the month was really wellreceived. Our participation went up really high. We can pinpoint to exactly what was served on that menu day. And we drive our menus based on your specific student population participation. And if you if you talk to any one of the the food service staff, if you go around, they know exactly what their babies like to eat. I mean, they know what these students like to eat. And they give us feedback like, "Take this off the menu. This didn't go well. they we tried something new.

099Besides having the production records, the staff really are the ones who are know exactly what it is and give us lots of great feedback on what the students like. And when they leave the excess on um they don't pick it up, what happens to it? What do you mean? When you said that sometimes they don't always take all of the food choices for that particular menu or that particular food that day. So, what happens to that food? And is it is it available so that maybe there's another student who wanted three apples and then the other person only wanted one apple where that person can get the other apples. Good question. So two-part question. Firstly, we produce based on our prior production results. So if the menu today says it's going to and there's lots

100of things on the menu, but we'll just use a basic meal. It is a homemade baked pennet with apples, steamed broccoli, and low-fat milk. If we know the last time we menued all of those items in combination, this number of students took this many portions, it gives us an idea the next time we prepare that we should prepare at least that plus a buffer to make sure that we don't run out. So, they're preparing in amounts based on previous production records. They should also be preparing in batches for every lunch group that comes in so that it's fresh for every lunch period and there is not a lot left over at the end of that period or at the end of the day. There are lots of regulations that state that the food that's left

101over cannot be given out. It cannot be donated without really specific guidelines around that because again it is taxpayer and federal and state funds that subsidize your program. So because it is federal and state funding, they are very very particular about how it can be used. The onus is on the district and the food service management company to make sure that we are advertising to the students all of the things they can take with their meal and the state expects that they take it at the time that they go to take their meal all in one shot. Okay. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. I have one more question. Someone else is going. Yeah. Yes. I would like to I'd like to know if Aramark ever sponsors parent um taste testings. Yes, absolutely we can. Instead of

102having like each building inviting parents in in the beginning of the year when you have something new on the menu, we love to do it at parents night when or back to school night and that's something that back to parents are coming in. We flow them through the cafeteria and they can see kind of what the experience their students, their children have going through the cafeteria and they can take a look and see how it's all set up. Okay. And that and that would be through the wellness uh committee work through the wellness committee. Yeah. They can coordinate and make their request and we can we do it you know in various places. So how often would you do it? You would do it once a year. We could do it back to school night

103if you felt like we needed to do it again or whatever you know whatever the need is do it. Okay. Thank you. I got a followup really quick though. Uh I never I've never seen a survey uh from Aramark at all. Um I got some multiple children in the district. Uh Trusty the Grand Prix, you are in one of our buildings on boots on the ground. Have you ever seen one of these surveys that was mentioned about how we're getting uh feedback to Aeromark? Have you ever seen one of these things? I've never seen one. Okay. So that was what I was running. I have my daughter comes home. My daughter does not eat the lunch from school. I cook and she takes leftovers every day and she has various contrasting stories about what goes

104on and you've heard them because I've shared um for instance like I'm looking at the the lunch menu right now for the high school, right? Um, actually, no. How about we look at can um elementary school lunch is mini waffles, chicken sausage, tater tots, and a banana. Now, the issue would be cool if we actually went in the building and saw that being served. So, the issue is that we get parents who are hitting us up saying, "My kid got three tater tots and two French fries and they called this lunch." And that doesn't happen once. And if you were to talk to our food service workers, they have different renditions of what they deal with on a regular basis as far as having to scramble from school to school to go find macaroni or

105to go find cheese or things like that so that they can make those menu changes on the fly like you've mentioned. Again, I think it still speaks to being proactive rather than reactive. And I think that's where the challenge is and because it's so consistent. You there's the my emails. I am the email villain. I send emails and I get text messages and I send them out. I think this is this is the hardest part is hearing exactly and what you're saying is amazing. I I love everything you guys are saying, but what we're seeing is in great contrast and that's the hard part. So, we had parents. Yeah. I mean, I I'll say is that, you know, part of that is, you know, the things that we saw when we were out there and

106part of our action plan is making sure people are ordering the right things. Um there is part of that that people are very used to well I used to you know the kids with the previous company like this and I'm just going to instead of following what's on the menu we're going to go ahead and just make because we know what the baby's like and you know that's part of our training is to say to them you have to follow the menu for all the re the compliance reasons. So, we really, you know, working with the staff. I mean, they have the best intentions, but really making sure that they're following the menu. They're ordering the things that they need to order and the correct quantity. So, that's all in works that we've been working

107on in the past. We totally recognizes that one being one of the challenges here and we have been working with the team on that. I mean, I do think it sounds like we have an opportunity for communication, right? If you're getting a boatload of emails and we're not seeing them, then we don't know that that's happening. We're not receiving that feedback. And the same on your end. If we are not doing a good enough job of asking our students and our parents for their direct feedback as often as you will allow us to do, there's an opportunity for us to hear that way as well. So again, there can there can be nothing that we'll never be hurt by receiving more feedback, right? We will only be able to learn and grow from that. So

108I do think we can collaborate more and you being the committee chair of that trusty Mitchell will help us to understand can we connect with you directly. Can are there other ways we can connect with the parents and the students directly so that we can continue to to make changes. Absolutely. And one of the things that I heard you mention was that I I think Trusty Marabo said something about um absorbing some of the employees that have worked with with your company and food service for the district. Mhm. Right. Well, absorbing I mean they'd have to apply for the positions, right? Yeah. So that is not saying that they'll get priority. They just have to apply like everyone else. I mean, we would take priority if the district was saying this is the priority, right?

109Again, we're you we're here to serve you. So, if that is your opinion and your goal and you think that they are priority, there is no reason that we wouldn't say same. And again, if we're stacking them up against somebody who worked in a different district with the same experience, that would prioritize them. They know your buildings, they know your students, right? So yeah, I mean it would be we would evaluate them for what is the best for the district, but we would always take your feedback if you're saying they're the ones, right? And then their rate of pay will be dictated by the current union that governs the our contract, right? And that is again like she said specified very clearly in the contract between the school district and Aramark as well as with

110the collective bargaining agreement the union and Arar. that that may be there may be a difference there for them on that and that's not something we have control over. Any other questions? Trustees, thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. We appreciate that. [Applause] Okay. So, we're going to move on to communications from the public. There is no legal requirement to recognize public comment at meetings of the board of education. However, the board recognizes the critical importance of community discourse and involvement in the education of Mount Vernon's children and accordingly members of the public are invited to speak at each regularly scheduled board meeting subject to the terms of the board policy. Please state your name, address, and the organization if any you represent. A speaker must register in advance by no later than 400

111p.m. the day of the meeting by contacting the district clerk in person at 165 North Columbus Avenue, Mount Vernon, New York, by phone at 914665-5235 or by email. The board welcomes all respectful comments whether praise or criticism. However, identifying and criticizing a specific student, parent, teacher, administrator, other Mount Vernon education official, or employee is strictly prohibited. Any such complaint must be presented and addressed through the proper administrative channels. Each speaker is allowed three minutes to speak. Up to one additional minute may be used for the speaker to summarize and conclude their remarks. If appropriate, board trustees and/or the superintendent or other staff members at the direction of the superintendent may immediately respond to a speaker's remarks. Our first speaker tonight is Linda Castro. Sorry, I'm really quick. I'm I'm read I'm sorry. Um, Madame District

112Clerk, can you direct me to where in our is it in our bylaws that members of the board who are elected officials, our information is all public. Can you direct me where it dictates documented our names cannot be mentioned during public comment? I know that the I know that employees of the district and and students are confidential, but can you show me where it is in writing where our names can't be mentioned? I'll have to get back to you. I appreciate you. Thank you. Okay. Um, thank you for uh letting me speak. My name is Linda Castro. I live at One Park Lane here in Mount Vernon and I'm just speaking for myself. Uh when I spoke at the last meeting, I gave a general overview of how some of the lunchtime staff treat our

113children. Tonight, I'd like to give a few specific examples of that treatment. A seventh grader came to the cafeteria late one day because he had been working with his teacher. When he asked if he could have lunch, a server began to scream at full volume that lunch was over, the kitchen was hers, and it was closed. I gave him a tray of food and told him not to worry while she screamed that he should be giving the lunch back. Another seventh grader uh got short with a lunch server who asked him why his mother hadn't taught him to say thank you when he was served. I spoke with him about his response to her. And after he thought things over, he went back to the counter and he apologized. She looked him in the face

114and said to him, "I don't accept your apology on A third grader was standing in the hall waiting in line for her teacher to pick up the class. The child was holding a capped pencil sharpener. The cap popped off when she attempted to put the sharpener back in her lunch bag and the saving shavings spilled on the floor. She was trying to sweep the shavings up when a monitor be monitor began screaming at her for making a mess. The child attempted to explain and was told, "You always have an excuse, don't you? I'm not interested in your excuses. While outside playing, a fifth grade special ed child kicked a ball so hard that the ball flew across the street. The person watching the class proceeded to scream at the top of her lungs in front

115of everyone. What's the matter with you? Do you think you're smart? That's not being smart. You'll never play with that ball again. Not ever. You're you're not going outside for the rest of the week. Do you hear me? A second grader spilled some milk and was about to get a paper towel when the classes were told to line up now. She stood in place for a second, not knowing if she would if she should wipe up the milk or get in line. Suddenly, an adult started screaming at her. Who do you think you are? What do you think you're something somebody special? Clean that up now. Children who were scheduled to come to the cafeteria at 12 were being made to throw away their lunches at about 12:20, then proceed to the hallway outside the

116cafeteria to wait in line for their teachers to pick them up at 12:40. During that time, they were required to stand facing forward. No talking, no leaning against the wall. If these rules were broken, the offending child was made to stand in front of the line with his or her finger on the wall. And just as threatened, the teacher was promptly informed when she came. In the fall of 2021, the district hosted Dr. Karen Dunley, an internationally recognized educator and social justice advocate. She presented a well-defined and demonstrably effective educational philosophy predicated on the imperative that we treat children with respect, compassion, and a firm belief in their ability to succeed. Since the administrators that I spoke with have indicated to me that similar uh examples of adult behavior as those mentioned above have happened

117throughout the district, Dr. Dunley's recommen recommendations need to be implemented throughout the district with actual training sessions. Our children deserve the very best and they deserve it right now. [Applause] Thank you, Monica Leki. Monica Leki, Randolph Scott. Thank you very much, sir. Good evening. My name is Randph A. Scott. I live at 642 Locust Street, Mount Vernon, New York. I basically just wanted to read the public participation at board meetings. Members of the public, including the press, are welcome to attend all meetings of the board of education subject to any limitation under applicable laws, including public meeting laws. There is no legal requirement to recognize public comment at meetings of the board of education. However, the board recognizes the critical importance of community discourse and involvement in the education of Mount Vernon's children. And accordingly,

118members of the public are invited to speak at each regularly scheduled board meeting subject to the terms of the board policy. Any resident of Mount Vernon or any student, parent, or guardian of the student, teacher, administrator, or employer employee of the Mount Vernon school district are permitted to speak. No other person shall be permitted to speak without approval of the board. A speaker must register in advance by no later than 4 p.m. the day of the meeting by contacting the district clerk in person at 165 North Columbus Avenue, Mount Vernon, New York, by phone at 914665-5235, or by email. When registering, speakers are requested to indicate the nature of their remarks. For example, whether comments relate to a specific item on that meeting agenda, to a concern about a particular school, or to a general

119concern of the district, the board welcomes all respectful comments, whether praise or criticism. However, identifying and criticizing a specific student, parent, teacher, administrator of or other Mount Vernon education official or employee is strictly prohibited. Any such complaint must be presented and addressed through the proper administrative channels. Each speaker is admitted allotted three minutes to speak. Up to one additional minute may be used for the speaker to summarize and conclude their remarks. If appropriate, board trustees and or the superintendent or other staff members at the direction of the superintendent may immediately respond to the speaker's remarks. In no event shall public comment exceed 30 minutes total at any one meeting unless all bus board trustees in attendance consent to grant additional time. In the case of a special board meeting with business conducted in public session

120as opposed to a special board meeting consisting only of an executive session, public comment shall be permitted. However, all public comment at such board meetings must pertain exclusively to one or more items on the meeting's scheduled agenda. A speaker wishing to make comments of any other nature may do so at the next regular scheduled board meeting. Finally, the board the fourgoing paragraphs 2 4 6 and seven and in the case of the special board meeting paragraph 9 shall be read to the public by the district clerk immediately prior to opening a board meeting to public comment. This this comes from the board of education policies 3000 community relations code 3220. It was adopted July 12th, 2006 and last revised January 21st 2016. Thank you very much. Thank you, Cynthia [Music] Quaw. Cynthia Krenshaw, Mount Vernon,

121New York. as the I think the treasury came up and said a building at these other places was um closed but this board went rogue and closed three buildings. One was a historic black school and um they did not take our legacy under consideration also about in the '9s and I think one of the board members might remember this that we protested because we wanted a board to look like the community that they serve and the jury is definitely out on that one. Another thing the longlasting impact of particular events action etc that took place in the past or of a person's life. That is the definition of legacy. What will be the legacy of our acting superintendent and board? Will it be the closing of three schools? The fact that teachers have no contract.

122The laying off of approximately 150 employees, most being teachers and teaching assisting, the unethical actions to keep your friends and their family members employed as well as those in inner circle that conform to your unethical ways. Will it be the attempt to remove trustee Lynn Militin, a board trustee, which I found out at various churches that they were anticipating removing this trustee? the removal of a principal at RT that has given so much to students, family, and this community, or just your outright mistreatment, all those who work so hard to make the Mount Vernon City School District great and improve student success academically, social, and emotionally. Let me just emphasize this principle that was removed is a man who showed the young men how to tie a tie, how to tell them to put young

123ladies inside and they walk on the outside to hold the doors for ladies. He is an upstanding principal. Also, has it truly ever been about the students and family the district serves? In all my years, which has been since 1984, I have never seen so much destruction taking place at the expense of others. Things need to change. We have to have a superintendent and board that is going to make positive change to this district. We have board members that have been trustees for 10 years with the positive impact on the district, but yet they continue to run. Why community? We have to come out to vote and put members on the board who truly have the students, family and educ educators best interest in our students. Also, the trustee that they have trying to well

124I heard they're trying to remove has most votes than anyone. And the community, this is all over the community community as of now. So, we must get out and vote and vote for our superintendent, vote for our trustees, and please show up and vote. We must we must make changes to this board. We vote. We wanted to have a board that look like us to manage and do what they supposed to do. Like I'm emphasizing again, the jury is out on that. and the removal of this upstanding principal that has done so much for this community, even going in his pocket and um planning various food functions, provide rides for students. When they were told that the principal was leaving, the girls cried, the boys walked out. Why interrupt the school when we only have

125two more months to go? It's unethical. It's unfair. And please do not try to move this trustee. She was voted in with over 800 votes, more than anyone on this board. Listen, Mount Vernon, don't boo. Don't sit on your hands. Get out and vote. Thank you. Thank you, Bren. Brenda Elcrump. Good evening, everyone. Good evening. Um, I want to start out with I believe that um, and I won't read the part the policy because it already has been read, but there are some parts in the policy in reference to um, the board recognizes the critical importance of community discourse and involvement in education of Mount Vernon's children. And importantly, members of the public are invited to speak at each regularly scheduled board meeting. When the public come up here, it does not feel like you

126think about them being critical and their importance. How you treat the public um doesn't feel that way. Doesn't look that way. And when you go on down to number nine on that sheet and you talk about the um special board meetings, you have regular meeting where the public can come out and speak on any topic that they want. Then you have um special board meetings where there is going to be an executive session and there is no agenda. So the public does not speak. Then you have special board meetings where there is an agenda and the public should be allowed to speak but only on the agenda items. That's how that should be. I've spoken about this many numerous times over the years and other people have come up here and read this policy into

127record and I've asked the question other people have asked the question in regards to will someone the board president the acting superintendent please give a directive to the legal to explain this policy to us because the community is just not understanding or the trustees are not understanding. Um, it also speaks about, and I'm not going to I'm scanning it, but it speaks about um if appropriate, board trustees and or the superintendent or other staff members at the direction of the superintendent may immediately respond to a speaker's remarks. I asked about when we had the public hearing for um Ammani Charter School, I asked if our board president and or our acting superintendent wrote a letter of opposition to the state. I still haven't received an answer. That's either a yes or a no. And if

128if it's a no, then I asked why not. I don't understand why as a community person simple questions like that which would be appropriate to answer. Why would I have to wait 2 weeks and then in the case of maybe like last week there was no board meeting so then maybe 3 weeks for a simple answer like that. So now I don't know what the answer was cuz maybe I couldn't attend the next meeting that was held. That's if an answer was given then. So, um, the board members really need to think about how you treat your constituents. So, we are at campaign election time and this is the time of the year where the board wants to go around the incumbents to all the cottage parties, the churches, people's homes or whatever, etc., and

129they want to hear from the community until they are elected. Then they don't want to hear from the community. You remove the meetings off of Facebook. You don't allow the public to come and speak during the special meeting when there is an agenda on that a on any agenda item. It doesn't sound like you are interested in hearing from your constituents. I say to the community, Tuesday, May 20th, 2025 is a school board trustee election and the budget vote. Now is the time to make the change. If you are upset about your schools closing, come out and vote. If you are upset about the meals that your children are receiving, come out and vote. If you don't think your child is being properly educated, come out and vote. Thank you. Thank you. And then we

130have Trusty Lyn Middleton. want to say I read very well. I want to say hello to the Mount Vernon community. I am Bishop Dr. Lynn Middleton. Whether you like it or not, coming to all of you as God has instructed me to come here tonight. I come before you all not just as a member of this community who elected me to the seat that I sit on and not just a lifetime resident of Mount Vernon, New York, not just a product of this school system, retired school counselor at this school system and member of the Westchester United Black Clergy, but also as somebody deeply committed to the well-being of our students and the integrity of our educational environment, witnessing how negative behaviors have tried to overshadow battle the optimistic mission of fostering a supportive and

131a positive educational environment which is totally disheartening and I like a good word y'all. The Bible said that there is no weapon that is formed against me that shall prosper. It won't work. And I want to tell you that lies won't work. I want to tell you that defamation and character assassination won't work. I want to tell you that bullying won't work, y'all. Harassment won't work. You can do it all you want. Intimidation won't work. No, it won't work. Be not deceived. God is not mocked. He's not fooled. Whatsoever a man seweth, male, female, that shall he also reap. And I just want you to understand this, that the early or only bird that dares to peck on an eagle is a crow. The crow sits on an eagle's back and bites its neck. The

132eagle does not respond or fight the crow. It doesn't spend time or energy on the crow, but instead it opens its wings and begins to rise high up in the heavens. The higher the flight, the harder it is for the crow to breathe, and eventually the crow falls off due to the lack of oxygen. So learn from the eagle and don't fight the crows because they keep ascending. They might be along for the ride, but they'll soon fall off. Do not allow yourself to succumb to distractions. Keep your focus like I am things above and continue to rise. I like Maya Angelo what she said. And still I rise. No matter what the circumstances, I don't give up cuz still I rise. You can't fly when there is dirt on your wings. Let us unite

133to build a stronger community that prioritizes the truth, that prioritizes respect and the well-being of every individual in our school system. Sojourer Tru famously quoted this saying. She said, "Truth is what powerful and it does prevail. He that hath an ear to hear, let him hear what the spirit of God says right now. I mean what I say and I say what I mean. [Applause] Thank you. Thank you. That ends public comments for this evening. Thank you. Thank you. Reports are superintendent. Good evening. Mount Vernon. Let me first thank the administrative professionals for their services. Tomorrow is administrative professional day. I recognize the services provided by the administrative professionals for our children. And I want to say thank you. The Mount Vernon City School District is partnering with the city of Mount Vernon to discuss

134collaborative youth safety solutions. The partnership includes members of the Mount Vernon City School District. Um it also includes uh individual board member um snug youth detectives the youth shelter and truth parents parent layers and councils will also be involved in our we met last week as well as today and last week there were three areas that we wanted to focus on the focus focus This year will be student workshops at the 16 schools that will focus on this year that will focus on youth violence. There will also be a rally at Hartley Park and lastly a selection of student ambassadors. We anticipate the workshops will begin the week of May 5th. Trusty Mitchell. Thank you. Uh Dr. Smith. So, we all hear about what goes on. Um, we know about uh the McDonald's on Graton.

135We know what goes on on the street. We know how the violence spills from the street into the schools and from the schools into the street. We know about the resource issues. But what we also know about is the fact that the city and the school district, they do need to work together. When you hear someone continuously keep hopping and saying something that's obviously designed to keep a wedge and a separation, you have to ask yourself why. Because the truth is the only way we're going to heal, if you know how skin works, I think everybody got skin, but if you know how skin works, skin comes together and it seals and it heals and becomes one again. So, at some point, we have to stop dwelling on one thing and start to dwell on

136how we move past that to heal this school district and this city and the children in it. Cuz it's not going to be a future of colorful wonderfulness when everybody wants to leave. If if what we've talked about about fiscal uh issues that we've been facing is not enough to make and see the downward enrollment, these are products of that separation that's been kept insistent and the wounds have been kept fresh and salted on purpose. It has to be a time we move forward. So this meeting, these meetings are about us working with the school district. We already know nobody has money. We already know we owe money. We already know all these. We know we know all this. But what are we doing about keeping these babies safe? cuz the babies don't care. They

137don't realize about what the city owes in taxes. They could care less. What they know is when they get out of school, so and so was talking smack on TikTok and we going to have to handle that the way we handle that. That's the problem. We don't It's beyond the school purview to have school safety monitors on the streets. We know that. But it does not rule out the conversations that we could have where we're sharing information. I thank Dr. Dogget for being in that meeting today. Very helpful. um and we discuss tactics on that we're going to expand on and move forward on these rallies that are coming up. It's regarding youth violence prevention week which starts April 28th through May 2nd. Our rallies are going to go beyond that because of the timing

138of testing and challenges of having students available and able to kind of de you know decompress to be at those type of rallies and see what the value is of them. I was at Benjamin Turner today. Uh what what grade is it taking Dr. Dr. Dog, what grades are taking to state exams tomorrow? 3 to 8. So, I was talking to three to eight graders today. And all I did was walk in and say, "Breathe in breathe out." That's the first thing you got to do before you take this test. Take do while you take test. Nobody's talking to the babies like that. And this is what this initiative is about. I thank Dr. Smith for hearing and seeing one of my 241 emails and from the city from uh Miss Tyene Turner who led

139the communication with me so that we can begin this conversation and please just stay tuned and it's going to include parents. This is not just about us doing something with your kids and you don't know anything. We need the parents to come out and say hey we want to know what you guys are doing because not everybody has their kids in check. Nobody knows. How many parents do you run across to say I don't know what to do with this kid. I have no clue. This is what these type of meetings are geared toward. Everybody trying to build that village for that for those for the for our babies. So keep your ears open. Thank you very much. I do appreciate the partnership and we our team seems to be task oriented. So yes, please

140stay tuned. We look forward to the Eiff Kaplan scholarship dinner dance that will take place this Friday um April 25th, 2025. It's going to be at the Green Shri Country Club in New Relle. Um it's usually a very lovely affair. Uh it honors um staff members throughout the district, but it also raises scholarships for our students. So, it's a a wonderful event. Um, people get real dressed up. Um, for those of you who buy gowns and have um suits, you have an opportunity at least one year, once a year to wear those. So, I look forward to seeing all of you um this Friday at the Edith Kaplan Scholarship Dinner Dance. And again, it will honor not just staff members, but it's also for our children. Um and the the um it's usually for seniors

141um and you have to come out to see what it's like. It's wonderful event. The New York State assessments are in progress. computer-based testing has taken place and this computer-based testing has been difficult throughout the state but theu computer-based testing was something that we um started here in Mount Vernon a few years back we've had some difficulties with it but it's required for the e e the English language arts grades 3 to 8 and mathematics also grade 3 to 8 thereafter the paperbased testing will remain for the nicer slat science foreign language and um regions exam. So I wish all our scholars well in terms of taking those tests. Um the state assessment results do help us um understand where our students stand regarding the teaching and learning here in the district. So I want

142to again say good luck to our students. Um please students get your rest and your nourishment so that you could be prepared for the testing. Also please note that the diagnostic tool for school and district effectiveness that's the DTSDE survey review survey is out. Um it was sent and we're required um did you want to speak to that at all? Okay. So that's out. So um please when you receive it, could you respond accordingly? I also want to say best wishes to our track teams. They will be representing Mount Vernon City School District at the Penn Relays. That's our boys and girls track team. Um so I want to say let's go Mount Vernon. And that ends the superintendent report. Thank you Dr. Smith. Um, we'll go on to committee reports. Um, first committee report

143was would be the audit committee. Oh, I'm sorry. Um, trustee ground. Trusty. Oh, hi. Sorry. I didn't have any um I don't have anything to report. I got all my questions answered while we had the arrow on my presentation. Okay. All right. Thank you. Okay. Next up is the audit report. Uh we have nothing to um report for the audit. We have not met yet. U budget finance report and so the budget was presented um tonight. So that is from the budget um committee report. Thank you. Uh the claims committee met um around April 8th. Um the insurance and claims committee met and we um were um was presented with a new billing system to quantify legal expenses concerning the litigation cost. Uh a full presentation is going to be presented to the board in

144the future sometime in the next week or so. Next is education. We haven't met but we will be meeting Monday, April 28th at 5:30. Thank you. Facilities report. Uh we have a an update from uh Mr. Raundi who was kind enough to share my spiel. Hold on one moment. There it was. we did not meet but I will say that um he recently shared I'm I apologize um uh Mr. Mr. Ramundi actually recently shared a list of uh of broken machinery in our kitchens which is quite important. Um you know we've had discussions just this evening um and I will say across all buildings in the district there are 41 broken pieces of machinery that are food service related. So, um I didn't get to ask uh our arrow people about that, but um I

145have other questions about I know they mentioned that the district has to pay for that, but I'm got further questions. I'm a little foggy because I remember hearing something different um I believe in the past. Either way, um where the heck is this thing at? It's somewhere. Hold on one moment. Please bear with me. a lunch student. I'll hold off for now because I can't find the email. Um, there's several things going on in the district facilities wise. Um, we're still moving forward. I try, you know, trusty white. Do you know more than me? Probably. No, I did not take that. I know all of our work is done in house. That's all we have for now. Okay. Thank you. Um, family and community engagement. I think that we meet on Thursday. We meet Thursday.

146Uh, food service and wellness. Trusty Mitchell. Um, you've heard me say before that I've been asking about taste test, but here's the thing. Taste tests are wonderful. They're amazing. But when I come in the building for a taste test, you get those pictures that you saw on the screen. But if I come back two weeks later, I get three tater ties and one chicken finger. That's the issue, right? So, um, they Aramark did offer that they're going to do taste testing with parents and students as well. Um, and that's that's great. Um, it's unfortunate that I've asked for so many times. I've been asked for several months now for this and it just hasn't happened. Um it's nice to hear that they're attempting or or something. But um that was for the most part all

147that uh what they brought to the table today was what I was pretty much and my questions were all I had for the one committee report at this time. Okay. Thank you. Um human resources. Um um I took some notes but I tried to copy it to my phone and I am not the best. So I have partial comments. So Don Trusty Marabel wants to chime in on what we did but we really talked about the reconfiguration and the staffing. Everyone should have received their letters if they are being laid off and going on to the PEL list. [Music] Um a significant number of people that are being laid off including some from the food service and also some cleaners besides teachers, teachers aid, teachers assistants. Um there's some they I don't have the all

148of it, but um Lisa and um Jessica have been on some um college fairs and trying to um um speak with seniors that would like to come to districts especially in special ed and that's about it unless Donna do you have something else to add to it? I don't have anything to add. Thank you. All right. Thank you. IDA Thursday. Yeah. Hi. Uh the IDA we met uh on April 10th. I'll try and be brief. I had read a lowhead article about a vocational program in New Relle that involved two groups new shell forward and soulful synergy. I don't know if anyone's ever heard of them. So I suggest that maybe we can model that and have a a add this to our CTE program here in Mount Vernon. and I said it might be

149a way to collaborate with the city uh the way you guys are through through youth um and the mayor like that and so I think in the coming year we're going to look to do that maybe she was aware of these groups uh new shell forward and soulful synergy so I'll let you know if we are able to move forward with that in a formal way that could be good uh fun city on Sanford Boulevard uh this is moving into the vacant space that I guess what was it Bed Bath and Beyond or Best Buy was there. Um, they need to get a zoning amendment uh to add recreation to the zoning. They're hopeful though that they'll be able to open it within a few months. It should be pretty straightforward, I think, to get

150that zoning amendment through the planning board. just the uh on on the the bad news is the developer which is Heritage, one of the largest uh um uh pilot receivers in the city, is going to be looking probably to submit uh a new application to extend that pilot. Um and again, the pilots are payments in lie of taxes that generally are far less than the real property taxes the the business would pay. That's a concern. I'll keep you posted about that. Uh we talked about the Sentinel project uh which I've described before which is another 100% uh low-inccome housing high-rise development that the is looking for a 30-year pilot. They're looking to move forward with the land lease agreement. What they need to do is cobble together a bunch of properties owned through the IDA,

151the city, and the URRA. Um Dr. Morton said that striking an agreement right now requires uh input from the real estate committee and action by the city council. I noted that if they give a land lease agreement to them now before we've done the economic impact analysis, it's essentially giving them tacid approval for for a 30-year pilot. I mean, if you're going to lease in the land, then you're essentially saying we're going to give you the pilot. Morton agreed that that was bad. So hopefully we're able to push to make sure we get the economic impact analysis before they consider leasing on the property. Uh there was a proposal by a company called Urbanomics. Um they have done work for the Portchester IDA. Good work. I read I read the work that they did there.

152They do analytics. They would do uh one of the things they that the IDA in Mount might contract them to do is to help understand uh the impact on the school district more. um the the um um the multiplier which I've talked about which is the number of kids per unit which they have I think done a poor job of estimating in the past and that has hurt us um because if they don't estimate the right number more kids come in the pilot doesn't cover the cost of those students as I showed in 2024 so that would be a good study the total cost of the study was 50 he's proposing to be about $55,000 I was kind of surprised to hear the mayor suggest that we should pay some of the cost for the

153study. That kind of bummed me out to hear her say that cons considering that I really don't agree with any of what they're doing, giving away real property taxes. So, the idea that we would pay for that uh seems like adding a financial insult to financial injury. Um I think they backed off that. I think it was clear I wasn't pleased with that. The uh Q West project is planning to close in June 2025. If that happens at that time, we should get that $1 million payment that they agreed to pay in addition to the pilot. That should come through at the time of closing. So, we'll have to watch that. I'll I'll know more after the next meeting, but I would expect if they close in June, we'll get that $1 million payment. That's

154all I have. Thanks. So, um Chris, the um you said there's going to be some type of uh fund place over by where Bed Bath and Beyond is. Yeah. That was already a pilot. How many years is left on that particular pilot and asking to extend it? How many years are left on that particular pilot? I don't know how many years are left um off the top of my head, but they will look, you know, this is going to be a wellspring for them. They're going to look to keep the pilot going as long as they can. Um I don't know how long Heritage has had. They have two pilots, Heritage North and Heritage of South. Um, and it's a little bit tricky because the pilot, and this is one of the things that is

155really troubling is it's hard to keep track of the pilots because they have multiple names. So, you have to sort of dig through the number of companies to find the one that's actually getting the pilot. Often times, the names that we're using are not actually the names of the pilot recipient. So, um, it's it's just another layer of complexity. So, I think they'll look to renew it for 30 years. Um, and so, yeah, that's that's kind of a problem. Um, oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. No, go ahead. Trusty Mcdana. Um, so it it's almost like a a doing business as sort of. Yeah, they they they what they do is they set up a separate LLC just for the pilot. Um, and then sometimes there's another company behind that. I mean, if you look at

156the the transactions for 115 McQueen, it's pretty astonishing. The closing documents, it's hundreds and hundreds of pages of legal documents and many, many, many LLC's. Um, it's not unusual for them to do that way. It obscures things, makes it hard to understand. Thank you. Yep. Thank you. Um so we had um we have the an insurance committee but the insurance and claims committee are as one. Did we combine them? Yeah insurance and claims we combined merged. Yeah we merged them. So we don't have anything to report on insurance other than what I had mentioned earlier but the policy committee uh met on the 21st yesterday and um the policy committee went over 11 of the 22 policies that were suggested by the board back in the fall. Another meeting be will be scheduled for next

157week and thereafter the board will receive a quasi final production of the last edits. Safety and security committee you want to read it. You want me to Okay. Um so um Mr. Raundi shared uh that I I'm not certain if I was on this meeting. I might I know I did miss one. Uh but he did share that there was uh you guys discuss discussed uh training, operational planning, staffing and summer pre uh preparations. Uh building officers have uh undergone infinite campus photo training to enhance security procedures and community reviewed summer supply orders. Uh schedule maintenance for security equipment and consider budget approvals for necessary repairs. Staffing updates included the introduction of three new full-time officers and ongoing restructuring efforts to ensure appropriate coverage for the next school year. Additionally, the operations department reached out

158to Mount Vernon Police Department regarding the need for additional crossing guards and learned that the city is facing staffing and retention challenges. Both parties are working together to address this issue. I do have a question, but Mr. Roundi is not here and I'm not can do we have we released to the public how many summer schools are going to be open? How many buildings? Not yet. When will we? Do we have a projected timeline? I have to follow up, Mr. Raundi, but I'm thinking um miday we would know. Okay. And we would have security guards accordingly, but only for those buildings. Correct. Yes. Okay, that's all I have. Okay, so that's it. That's all I have. Okay. Okay. Special education. Yep. Special ed. We met on the 10th. Um related service staffing, we're down about

159four and a half full-time equivalent psychologists. Um, we talked about Ammani Ammani Charter School. They're short on speech. That's an issue. There are many due process complaints that have been filed. Um, which pulls this into being a legal matter. We talked about next year maybe trying to solve it by hiring and assigning one full-time equivalent speech language pathologist to Ammani to head that off to do better with that preschool. Um there's also a CPSE issue around staffing, finding the special education itinerant teachers. Um parents are complaining that it's hard to find them. Um it is hard to find them. Um there is a shortage of special education itinerant teachers for preschoolers. Annual reviews are underway. Right now it looks like about 156 preschoolers are going to transition to kindergarten, requiring 11 classrooms. We talked about

160the ongoing issues with Medicaid consent for prescriptions. It's a challenge. Uh next year, we're going to do as much as we can to get when people come in for meetings, that's when we try and pin them down and get signatures. Compliance monitoring is ongoing with Julie Elliott. Uh they met in late March, knocked off another three items, expect another three items to be knocked off in May. Uh they like the uh MTSS manual that we presented. That's good. Um training um IP progress reports will be going through the frontline portal. Um there was a CPSC to CSSE meeting that went very well that was hosted by Boseies and we talked a little bit about extended school year dates will run from July 1st through August I think it's August 11th, right? It's a awkward because

161it it's a Tuesday to a Monday which is so you can get the July 4th holiday in there. And that's all I have. Thank you, Chris. And lastly, technology. We will be meeting on May 5th. Okay. Thank you. Can I just say one thing? Sure. Um going back to Miss Castro's um um Mr. Campbell. I think that maybe starting next year we can have meetings with lunch monitors or make a booklet or something to how they should talk to the children. I've been in the school system and I've seen what you've seen. And um I think we need to really crack down on these monitors and let them know how they are supposed to respond to our children because that's the time that they are allowed to talk and are allowed to socialize. But um

162they can't sit quietly. So I'm just that's my suggestion and if we have time we can discuss it at a further date. C could I add add to that? Um uh what is the the uh sort of the chain right now in terms of who provides oversight to the monitors? Is it the building level administrators the the like assistant superintendent I mean sorry assistant principal and a principal? I think we probably need to get with them and really lay down a sort of a zero tolerance. It's critically important that we are encouraging children not not discouraging them in this way. That's unacceptable behavior in this. I'm going to mention also that for our parents, talk to your babies. If your babies is coming home and they're saying, "Hey, you know, the lunch lady said this

163and smoking cigarettes in the yard and was on the phone and texting and was yelling at me in the hallway." Write an email, send an email to us so we can get on the scene because we can go and talk to Dr. Smith and talk to the principles to come visit and we should be looking into training up to-date training for our lunch monitors that is mandatory so that there's checkpoints checks and balances to how they're being treated and who's watching them to say hey do observations why not you know I think it's much value thank you again Miss Castro for coming in again and for following up appreciate you a great deal thank you Amen thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. That concludes committee reports. Next is old

164business. Right. We have no old business to follow up on. I have a qu I'm sorry. I have a question. Um I did hear uh Miss Crump indicate that she had a question. I'm not sure if it was ever answered. Is it possible for us to answer that question if it was asked previously? We that was actually addressed at the big five conference about um charter schools and there I think um Dr. Smith had read her statement about what her feelings were. It's on the record. Okay. I think the specific question um may I ask Miss Crump to repeat what her question was so that she can get an answer. Would the board allow Miss Crump to repeat her question? Yes, please. Is everybody okay with that? Okay. My question was, did our board president

165and or our acting superintendent do a letter of opposition to Ammani Charter School to the state? If no, why not? If yes, then I'll foil for it. Dr. Smith, do you have can you answer that question? I want to say this that our assistant superintendent business wrote a letter. I spoke about um I had a statement for the big five that was taken to um Albany. Oh well it was in Albany and we had a conversation about this. So I I felt my voice was heard. So is so does no. So is that a no or is that a yes? Okay. So in terms of our cabinet, a letter was sent out. In terms of my voice, I spoke at the big five when this issue came up and where we stood in terms of

166um approval of the charter school in our district. Was that communication shared with the rest of the board members on what was stated? Um, I had two board members that was present at the time, the president and the system, the vice. Did you not read that letter when we came back? Did you not address that issue when we came back? It was read into the record. I'm just asking for clarification. No, I'm just trying to remind the public and our trustees that um the big five address uh charter schools and the how they weigh in on our school districts, but it there it's on the record uh the comment of Dr. Smith, the acting superintendent for Mount Vernon. I just wanted to know if there was a written document that was submitted to the rest

167of the board of trustees indicating what your comments or your feelings were during the big five conference since we did not have an opportunity to attend. I don't know that we really had a major discussion in terms of what took place at the big five. Um, it was minimum, but we get a lot accomplished at the Big Five because we have people that advocate for our district that pertains to the charter schools, that pertains to funding. So, did I have a conversation with you guys? We had a very brief conversation and we talked more about dollars and cent about it. But in reference to her conversation um excuse me you had a letter. Yeah. That you presented at the conference concerning also there were you have a copy of the letter. You have the copy

168of the letter. I can I have a copy of the letter. So she'll give us a copy of the letter. A copy of a of what letter? Is it a letter? I'm I'm just want to make sure. Is it a letter of opposition to Armani school? If you're telling us about an umbrella or overarching letter to cover several topics, the answer to Miss Crump's question should be no. And then if there was no letter of opposition, there was a letter of opposition regarding the charter school and where we stand. What charter school was it in was it in detailed specific to Armani? I'm just trying to get that one answer. It's yes or no. It was a letter regarding the charter school increasing in the Mount Vernon City School District. Okay, that that doesn't that

169says no. We did not I don't think it was targeted towards Armani. It was but that was the question was a general specific to then the question the answer to the question would be no. Ammani isn't the school that's trying to increase. That was the question that was the school that Miss Crump asked about. She didn't ask in general. Not the school that is put is trying to increase. It's the um intellectus. No, it was both of them. Ammani as well. Well, K through Ammani put in a request last year. Intellectualist is the one that we spoke about in terms of increasing. Was an opposition written letter written for each of them then or did you write or I'm trying to get this a clear answer for Miss Crump. This I think it's a yes

170or no. Well, the question wasn't just pertaining to myself. Yes, it Yes, it was. So, let me just ask let me just get clarification. The letter that was presented to the big five, are you saying that it was generalized for all of the charter schools here in Mount Vernon? Okay. So that's including and intellectuals. Is that correct? Present present at uh the big five isn't just the big five. It's also the commissioner and her her cabinet. Okay. So it was Okay. Thank you. Okay. So I don't know if that answered Trusty Crump's question. I guess it answered. So, um, so in answer to your question, if it was particularly to addressed to Ammani, I don't believe it was it was it was a general letter that was sent regarding all of the charter schools. Madam

171President, Madam President, is there any update on the policies and procedures that we worked on last fall? Yeah, I just said we had we had there was a meeting yesterday. Oh, that was about those 22 policies that were uh reviewed by the board back in the fall. They we looked at 11 of them. I'm sorry, I'm not going to say we because I wasn't able to make the meeting, but the other pol the other people on the policy committee um met and there were 11 that were addressed. I'm going to let uh Sorry, I didn't finish the trusty trusty McDonald. Let me let me lend clarity because I wasn't there. So what we what the board spoke about did amendments drafted from the retreat that translated to about 22 policies and in that translation what

172had to happen was to take the drafts that you that the board came up with then compare those to what may have already been on the record decide what is dup duplicative what we can amend then next procedure is presented to the policy committee to get just a smaller micro focus group of that's fine what about this because not being there I had questions so you have a policy and then it ends on like for what for who how drilling down even more detail so then after that what should take place is that we will then the policy committee present to the board what we think is the final rendition and then the board will say well let's look at this and the board may add some other things well you missed this or my

173reading of this is a little different than what your intent is because even though it's the English language sometimes subjectivity of how you read something is different so we have a two-phase attempt at it policy committee will draft up everything try to clean it up then give it to the board the board will look at it and say as a group okay great or not. I'll be honest really quick. I'm concerned that the board members who were involved in November with creating this process guide are still going to be on the board by the time it actually gets come to fruition. It wasn't meant to be abusive, but No, no, no. I understand. I understand. But policy should live through any particular board member should. No. So, so, so whatever whatever this board and and

174I'm not talking the end of May and I'm not talking the end of June. I'm talking next board meeting. Whatever this board does and reviews and decide whatever edits needs to be made, that'll be put into place and then that document lives. If new board members come on and you go to a new retreat and you look at the old policies that were just amended in 2025, given that there's a historical layover and continuity, those issues will be addressed cuz really policies need policies really need to be addressed almost on a yearly basis if not every other year basis just because dynamics change, you know, especially when you have closing down and movement and possibly new superintendent and things of those natures. So, things do change. Thank Thank you. I think I I misunderstood what

175we were doing last fall. I I I didn't realize that it was going to get bogged down in committee like this. Um it's a little disappointing because I feel like we put a lot of time in. I took a whole day off and then and then a Saturday that was many many months ago and I feel like we've lost the initiative on this. So, sorry. No, I just want you um like don't feel like that because it's it's just not like a two or three sentence, you know? Um because when you're doing the comparison, you got to look for that, right? So it's almost like, you know, I say this, but then I have to look to find what's comparative to that, right? And it was everybody's input. So when you do nine board members

176input and how they feel about how it should go, it takes a lot to break it down. So when you're talking about 22, that's a lot. Okay. I totally get that. I was there. I was there in the room. I know. I'm just saying that, you know, I don't want you to be disappointed because, you know, we're going through it now. If you if you want to ask him, you know, to see what we've already done and how far we've gotten, you know, I mean, would it help? Well, no. I'm just wondering what what the point of doing what we did what was in the first place. Why we should have just sent it straight to committee and let you guys work on it, right? We should have done that. No, it's extremely important because

177just like he said from the time we got on this board three years ago, there were policies from 2006 that hadn't been touched or looked at. Okay, we literally in the past two years updated almost 200, right? It's a lot. And then in the process things change. Especially when you're talking about transgender children, transgender bathrooms, when you're talking about, you know, special ed. There's a lot to it, right? It's like, it's like fixing roads, right? I mean, you know how it is in New York. It's like, you know, I start painting at the end of Brooklyn Bridge. By the end of the year, I'm back starting all over again. So, this is where we're at, you know. So, I just want you to know like we're not just like fiddling around. It's a lot. Well,

178on top of that, too, it took us two days to do it. Now, we the policy the policy committee meets maybe for an hour, you know, so not that it's going to take us 22 hours to do it, but we're trying to get through. Okay. So, uh we're going to go on to the um agenda. Yes. Okay. And there's a a block on the board docs. They're not able to open it. So if you guys have your computers, did you have a problem? I did. Oh, I don't know. I didn't realize you had a problem. I can. Okay. So, can I have a motion for 6.1 human resources 124A certified? Motion. Second, questions, concerns, discussions, question. Um, I just like to ensure because I notice there's a date here for tenure that dates back to

179January that we um I would like to ask um Superintendent Smith, is there a checks and balances system in order to ensure that tenure dates are not missed and tenure is not granted by a stoppple? There is a check and balances. Um, so HR sends it out to all the principles when things are due. That's sent out almost annually. So you have from the beginning of the year and you have a a sense of when things are due. Um, now whether things get slipped through the cracks, that could happen. But there the the check is that it's sent out. there's reminders throughout the the year to make sure that people follow through with that. Um, in terms of slipping through the cracks, we have different things that happen. Some of some people are on FMLA,

180some people um there's various things that happen, but to your point, do we need to do better? Yes. But it is um in place and um many many um memorandums go out to that effect. Is there followup on those individuals that are not adhering to the checks and balances? I just think to just reiterate what Dr. Smith said just that we do send out reminders when we have our meetings. We just remind them that um about the tenure dates and if they have tenure packets that they need to make sure that it gets over to the superintendent's office. And is there followup on those individuals who slip through the cracks or who allowed things to slip through the cracks even though they have received all of these reminders and checks and balances so that we

181are not left with individuals who may not may or may not should have received tenure but receive them by estoppel is my question. So I believe I believe your point is the followup. Do if a principal was supposed to send it, what do we say or do to the principles? Um like I said, we speak to them often, reminders are sent. they for the most part I would say 99% of it we receive all the package from um principles uh um if there's a few that um fall between the cracks that's unfortunate but we have a real good track record in that regard so in other words there's no consequence for missing that critical date not that And the principles do have supervisors. They're supposed to address to what extent they send in their packets.

182They evaluate their staff and that becomes a part of the evaluation. And that supervisor would be you, correct? That supervises the principles. No, it's divided up between me and my between my cabinet by February. I guess you get my point. Thank you. So, um, hold on a second. I'm sorry. I'm going to actually piggyback off off the Trusty Marvel's question. So, I've been asking about this topic because there's a lot of cracks, a ton of cracks, a lot of cracks, a lot of slipping. Um, we I've asked for the exact timeline when the board will have received those performance reviews and evaluations so that we can actually review them and ask our questions so that we do not repeat the debacle. That was last year when we were at a board meeting and we had

183a gang of teachers and principles who were supposed to get tenure and we had to go into executive session because several of us had questions that were not answered. We had not seen performance reviews. We had not had a time to ask questions. And I've been on this board for several years. We keep doing resolutions for tenure. Basically, the week before they're going tenure with by Estoppel. I've sent more than one email on this and I've heard back my response. Their response, Dr. Smith, was we send them out all year round or something like that, which didn't speak to the answer. It didn't give the answer when are we going to do this right where we're seeing it it's already now end of April May is here they teachers and principles get get tenure ship

184by a stoppple if if we haven't let them know by how student in advance 60 days is it not 60 days 60 days so anybody who we haven't seen a performance review evaluation on so we can ask questions those folks are all going to get tenorship based on the stople which is something that we have been asking I've been asking questions about for the last for the better part of two months. This practice will stop. What do you want to see? All in all in favor. We don't know. Oppose. Oppose. Oppose. Motion carries. Okay. I have a motion for 6.2 human resources 124B classified. Motion second. Questions, concerns, discussions? Question. So on some of the assignments there are assignment and location. On some other ones they're just general like board I guess. Um, can we

185have a a description on why on where some of these assignments are are going and some of the movement because there's a a a title change for one. There are and then I understand that there's some movement that's happening with some of these positions and one of the positions I think is in um payroll and we know we have a lot of issues in payroll. Are we still going to continue to have two positions in payroll? Is it going to be 1.5 positions in payroll? Can somebody please explain what's happening? I I could explain the payroll one. So although I'm not really sure what I can say in public versus um exec in this case, but I could say that the the plan is um to move a payroll person into a position that makes

186more sense for that individual. Um I can get into detail if you want. Maybe we could do that because it is actually going to there is going to be a conflict now that I realize this. Okay. So but I can go over it in detail because this was a plan that we developed. um internally. Okay. Can we table this until after? Sure. Sure. Does the board want to table this? Yes. No. Yes. So, who said no? Okay. Do we want to table it? just table it into are we pulling it for exact to discuss because we can Yeah. Okay. We'll discuss it in exact. Yeah. Also, I'm I'm actually asking to table it because I don't see the compact committee in the backup and I don't understand why there should be is it supposed to

187be compact comm I didn't see it. I saw a lot of documentation but it's an executive. I'm looking now. I don't That's the first one you'll see when you when you go into exat. Yeah. I don't I'm going to if we table it, we can address all those. That's fine. Thank you. Okay. So, so pull this. Can I have a motion, please, to table 6.2? So moved. Second. Sorry. Second. All in favor? I. Any oppose? I motion carries. You have a motion. Can I have a motion for 6.3 request for leave of absence? Motion. Second. All in favor? Opposed? Abstain. Motion carries. I have a motion for 7.1 authorization and hiring of staff to conduct the 2025 2026 adult education program at Lincoln School. Motion second. Questions, concerns, discussions? Question. What is our revenue related

188to this program? Do we have an an estimate of the revenue that we um gain from the adult education program at Lincoln School? I don't have I don't have that data right there, but I know it's I know it's grant funded. Um so that Yes. But I'll what I could do is I'll pull the actual exact information and I can send it in an email. All right. Thank you. Thank you. It's all grant. Yeah, it's confirmed actually. I'm sorry. Jamal has it right there. It's fully grant funded. Security everything is fun. Thank you. All in favor? I oppose. Abstain. Motion carries. See it. I have a motion for 7.2 Two, authorization to pay Mount Vernon Steam Academy teachers to participate in online training for engineering courses, computer courses, AP Calculus, and AP Government. So moved.

189Second, questions, concerns, discussions, all in favor? I oppose. Abstain. Motion carries. I have a motion for 8.1 approval of pupil personnel services memorandum number 18 dated April 22nd 2025 motion second questions concerns discussions all in favor I oppose abstain motion carries have a motion for approval of appointments of impartial hearing officers resolution 8.3 to 12 case number 650824-650833 motion. Questions, concerns, discussions. All in favor? I oppose abstain. Motion carries. Okay. I have a motion for 9.1 adoption of the 2025 2026 school budget and property tax report card. Motion second. Questions, concerns, discussions? All in favor? I oppose. Abstain. Motion carries. Can I have a Can I have a motion for 9.2 two, approve their internal claims audit report dated March 2025. Motion. Questions, concerns, discussions? All in favor? Just a just a note. Um, if

190there are none on the on the claims audit report, can they just say none as opposed to just having it blank? Just a just a comment. All in favor? I oppose. Abstain. Motion carries. I have a motion for 9.3 approve the treasurer's report dated March 2025. Motion second. Questions, concerns, discussions? All in favor? Oppose. Abstain. Motion carries. I have a motion for 9.4 approve the settlement tax proceedings for 18 Sergeant LLC, Fleetwood Stores LLC, and 650 Columbus Avenue LLC project. Motion second. Questions, concerns, discussions? All in favor? I oppose. Abstain. Motion carries. Can I have a motion for 9.5? Authorization to accept a monetary donation from Mayor Sha Patterson Howard for the Mount Vernon Leadership Academy. Motion second, questions, concerns, discussions. All in favor? I oppose. Abstain. Motion carries. Okay. We have a motion for

19110.1 approve the 2025 2026 Southern Westchester Bosey's administrative budget. Motion questions, concerns, discussions. All in favor? I oppose. Abstain motion carries. I have a motion for 10.2 Two, election of trustees to Southern Westchester Boseies. I'm sorry, election of trustees to Southern Westchester Board of Cooperative Educational Services. Motion. Second. Questions, concerns, discussions? All in favor? Oppose. Abstain. Motion carries. I have a motion for 11.1 to enter into executive session for the purpose of discussing pending litiga litigation, the financial history of a particular person or corporation or matters leading to I'm sorry. Do I have to I want to ask a question. Do I need you to finish reading this first before we vote? Yes. Yeah. I just had one question I want to answer on the mic. Okay. Just one moment. Yeah. Um Sorry. Discussing pending

192litigation, the financial history of particular person or corporation or matters leading to the appointment, employment, demotion, discipline, suspension, dismissal or removal of a particular person or corporation and to receive legal advice on a pending matter. The motion second questions, concerns, discussion. I have a question that's not related to executive session. Mr. for most. So for the we're having our budget hearing with the public supposedly what? May 6th. May that's a projected date? May 6th. Can we please ensure that we have printed copies, maybe 20, because you see a lot of people took them, including trustees, and it was helpful for them to be able to follow along. Can we have make sure we have that? Second, um, why is it we don't read in the minutes from the last meeting or I'm sorry, approve the

193meetings from our last minutes from our last meetings every time we go into board meetings. Like, normally if we go to other public meetings, they they uh they have a resolution to accept the minutes from the last meeting. Why do we not do that? I mean, I understand that we just never did it before, but is it something we should probably do? I'll look into it. I mean, the minutes are released to the public and everything after. So, right. I'm just talking about from our standpoint because it kind of says that we're approving that what are in those minutes we're resolving, we are aligned to. Okay. I'm just wondering if we should, you know. Okay. Thank you. So, all in favor? I oppose. Any oppose? Abstain. Okay. Motion carries. We're in executive session. Yes, please.

194[Music] Maybe I'm tired. Are we coming back? I think we will be back. Are we coming back? I don't know. We have to I don't know if we're going to approve it. So I I can't say I can't say that we're coming back. Do we open the door? We have to open the door. I said we're not coming back. I said we're not coming back.