Pelham Public Schools - School Board Meeting 4-2-25 (full)

001Okay. Hello. Welcome to the board of education meeting for April 2nd, 2025. Let's rise for the pledge of allegiance. I aliance 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. Natalie, could you please reiterate the executive session motion? Yes, we met in executive session to discuss employment history of a particular person. Thank you. Okay. Uh good evening. Tonight we are focused on 2025 2026 budget. This is our third meeting where we will review the budget line items. Um, on April 22nd, the district will present the finalized budget proposal. If approved by the board, it will then be presented to voters on May 20th. Um, setting the budget is one of the board's most important responsibilities. It's

002not uh just about managing finances. It's making decisions that impact students, staff, the community. Um, and naturally, the budget process raises important questions such as whether the district expenses are growing. um quickly uh whether there are risks to state and federal aid and whether there are sufficient resources to maintain the district's robust program. We truly appreciate the community's continued engagement throughout this process and will continue to address uh these important questions throughout our discussions on the budget. Um I also just will touch briefly on the bond proposals. Last week we held additional public comment. Thank you that uh thank you to everyone who came in and spoke about um the bond proposals. Um and we've set propositions to provide the community with choices. We understand that the project costs are significant. Um as the board

003of education, it's our responsibility to keep you informed about the condition of our school facilities and proposed projects that will ensure the facilities continue to meet the needs of all Pelum students. We encourage you to stay informed. I know there are current questions um on the the timing of borrowing, how debt service for capital projects impacts the overall financial picture for our school district um and if there are risks to state building aid. Um I've asked the district to provide us some detail on these important questions as well. Um Dr. Champ will review her upcomingformational meetings with respect to the bond and we will continue to share information as it becomes available. Um, so thank you for your continued engagement on these important topics for our schools. Thank you. Okay, that's my agenda. Got some

004minutes next. I'm sorry. 3.1 3.2. Okay. Do I have a motion? Can I have a motion to approve the minutes of uh January 22nd, 2025? So moved. Second. All in favor? I. None opposed. So that carries. Um 3.2. Do I have a motion to approve the minutes of the January 20 uh January 28th uh 2025 work session, the bond scope discussion? So moved. Second. All in favor? I. Okay. Thank you. Next is uh 4.1 the superintendence report. Yeah, great. Thank you so much, Jackie. Um and uh couple things tonight. We haven't gotten to do a report in a while, so I just I want to share a couple items. Um I just wanted to note uh uh Miss Cford is not with us tonight. Um but I wanted to just share when she returns, we're

005going to need a new name plate for her. Um because it will be Dr. Cmerford. Um she successfully defended her dissertation today, which is why she's not with us today. So kudos and congratulations to her. We're looking forward uh to having her back. It's very super exciting. Um I know it's been a lot of work and uh I know she's feeling a great feeling of success tonight. Um wanted to also I can't remember if I'd mentioned this um so I did want to share it. Uh the board I know is aware of our strategic plan and the work that we've been doing under the theme of we are Pelum this year. Um on March 20th our school culture coaches led an amazing event at Hutchinson School. Um, it was really the culmination of something that

006I've dreamed about doing since we uh were talking about building the school and that was to have uh bring all of our fifth graders together from all four schools ride a bus which was an experience for our kids um because they don't get to do that often but then to be there and to um there was a whole morning of activities led by the school culture coaches. Um we had a lot of administrators, the fifth grade teachers. Uh most exciting is we had our national uh science honor society students from the high school and the student ambassadors from the middle school that got trained by um Miss Gruber ahead of time on the different activities and protocols, team building activities uh based on um responsive classroom practices that are used in all the schools across

007the elementary schools. So it was just a wonderful event. The kids all got a t-shirt designed by Anita Dolphus. Um, and it was uh a lot of the kids came away, especially the older kids saying, "Gee, I wish I had this when I was in elementary school." So, uh, appreciative to the PEF for sponsoring that, all the folks that, uh, put effort into making that happen. Um, and we're looking forward to debriefing on that and then planning for next year as we hope to expand that. Um, our ultimate goal will be to have a couple events like that each year for all students in grades three, four, and five. That's we would love to grow that too in future years. So, it's a lot of work, a lot of time, but um well worth it.

008So, I just wanted to highlight that yet again. Um as uh Jackie mentioned, lots of different engagement events coming up. So, I'm uh certainly making rounds to see some of the different PTAs. I was with Colonial last night. Um thanks to Alex Wolf who's working really uh pretty much non-stop to pull together a lot of information to help with informing the community about the bond. So, you can expect a new website to launch, an updated bond website. We'll be launching um I believe by the end of the week. Um we're also trying to put together information that includes on that the tax cap uh excuse me the tax impact um and we've been you know Jim has been working with our financial uh advisor to get that information really make sure that we're as clear

009and on point as possible and we're hoping to also get a tax calculator. Uh it's going to be a little complicated because we have four different propositions and how those uh the different variations of how those could pass impacts how one calculates taxes, but we're hoping to have that up um in the next couple of weeks as well. Um so just we're we've reached out to a tremendous uh every community organization we can think of. Um, so in addition certainly to our our board meetings, our PTA council meetings, PTA meetings that I'm trying to uh to schedule with everyone, uh, our bond steering committees, uh, got a date on the calendar. They're going to be meeting very soon as well. And then we're meeting with with groups, representatives from organizations like recreation who use our

010buildings all the time. Uh, Pelum Children's Center, the mayors and and uh, town supervisor. Um, I will be um, uh, recording. I think it'll be recording, not airing. I'll be recording a podcast on the 803 uh podcast on April 28th. So, beginning of May, you can expect that for better or for worse. Um, and you know, meeting senior citizens. Um, we're going to be scheduling as well. So, additional walkthroughs and info sessions, one at Sonoi, one at the uh high school campus, and then a virtual one so we can try to make those accessible as possible, and those will be accompanied by more walkthroughs. Um and then again still working on dates with civics and junior league and uh retired board etc. So we we often reach out to these same groups every year for

011the budget and we appreciate the chance to meet with them and look forward to uh to connecting with them between now and our May 20th vote. Um so just want to make aware of that. One more event uh to think about too if you don't already have plans for this weekend. Uh Saken Boskin is staging. You're in town and it is phenomenal show, phenomenal troop, great date night. So Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday afternoon, definitely get your tickets for that. Um just one final piece uh not in the school uh you know student announcement but uh just some information that I wanted to share uh certainly with the board and the public uh about a situation that came up uh the board is already aware of this. Um there was a post on Facebook today

012uh uh v various Facebook pages linked to an article that was published by the Pel, our student high school student newspaper. It was published back in February pertaining to school safety monitors. um given that it's more than a month after the article came out, I can only guess why it's being posted today on Facebook. But in any case, uh I felt it important to provide some relevant facts about the situation. Um so I think a couple things to to know. The article is an opinion piece and it quotes anonymous safety monitors as sources. That's clear from the article. Prior to the piece's publication, I was asked a series of questions via email and provided those responses to the student reporter. Following publication, I also provided some clarification which was uh information that was publicly available

013but was not included in that opinion piece um and regarding certain assertions that in in the uh piece uh really were inaccurate. So it provided that uh factual information. Um important to know that decisions about approving or disapproving articles from the pel are not made at the district level. Any statement to the contrary is false. If that was the case and if there was censorship going on, why would that opinion piece itself have been published would be a fair question to ask oneself. Uh it's important to understand as well um that it is established legal well established legally that school newspapers and other publications such as yearbooks, literary magazines, etc. which are funded by the board of education in a school district can and should be provided oversight by the school district through faculty adviserss

014and administrators. This has been settled case law for years and that has that practice has not changed. There is uh routine review of articles, opinions and other content for accuracy, appropriateness of content. uh given that our audience is our students to whom we have a responsibility as a public school and that review is expected of our adviserss and our administrators if and when I myself am included on various articles I do provide quotes clarifications corrections whatever is appropriate it's simply factchecking and not censorship while people are entitled to their own opinions they are not entitled to their own facts and as an institution it's our an educational institution it is our role to teach our students um journalistic integrity and to hold them to high levels of that. Um it's a learning process for students

015at times. We recognize that but insisting on research balance fact is something that should be the standard for our student journalists. Um a couple more uh items just to pass on. The article did uh published article did include a number of inaccuracies uh which pro prompted as I said earlier me to provide additional information to the reporter. Um some of those uh corrections uh were added as comments or additions uh in the online version. Uh most notably uh I did not receive a $30,000 raise last year. Um it was a approximately 2% raise which we'll see in the budget uh books tonight which was just uh over $5,000. Most monitors in the article claimed had not received raises. Uh most monitors have in fact received 2.1% 3.6% 6% and 3% over the past three years.

016That is similar to or larger than those raises given to all other employees in the district over that time. Those raises were intentionally awarded in response to their conversations and advocacy with us following conversations with both Mr. Ricky and myself where they raised concerns about salary. Uh as part of an organization, we have the obligation to balance the needs of all employee groups within the budget and have worked over the past three years in particular to address those concerns for all monitors in the district recognizing we have multiple groups of monitors and what impacts one impacts all. Um, additionally, uh, as we first shared with the community, um, when we started hiring, uh, the third-party security monitors, uh, Briger is the company that we contracted with, that is very common practice for schools. Other districts

017who do that include Bronxville, Byron Hills, Croin, Irvington, Eastchester, Ry, and Scarsdale. Adding security staffing through Bryer uh was an effort on our part to continue to assure student safety by ensuring that we have sufficient staffing especially when there are absences and unfilled positions. Um and and also the need to cover afterchool hours of activities all of which have become more difficult uh staffing in the recent years due to shortages in staffing. These are shortages that impact all manner of job titles, especially those that happen to be in uh hourly wages such as bus drivers, monitors, uh kitchen staff, uh security, anything of that nature tends to fall in that category. And we are not the only districts experiencing shortages there. The hourly rate that we pray pay bger has been published. That's 32.9 $32.95

018per hour. However, that is not what those reg reards receive as actual pay as that rate also includes overhead costs uh and for paying the company to uh cover training, insurance, etc. So despite our ongoing efforts which we are still engaging in to recruit and successfully fill several spots and we have filled successful successfully filled several spots, we still have been able to fully staff up. Um and that was why we went uh with Bryer initially. Our preference is always to have internal staff as those positions. I want to be very clear again that we value our our safety monitors and recognize the important function they play in our schools. Many of them do have backgrounds in law enforcement, which is an incredible skill and provides a level of comfort and training that helps our

019schools to function properly, our students and families to feel safe. We will continue to do all we can to make sure that our students and staff are safe. Um and just uh hope that this provides some additional information um as we move forward from this topic. Thank you. That's the end of my report for tonight. Um and with with that um I think we're ready to move into the line by line budget. Actually, are we doing committee reports? Um we can do whichever order you would like, Madam President. Um, I did list it as part of attached to my um the line by line as attached. It it may not have come out in the printout. I realize it went afterwards. Um, to do to do the line by line, I did add it to

020my report at 4.1. Oh, okay. Let's do that first then. Okay. So, let's move to 4.1. Um, the line by line budget review. Thank you. Sorry, Jim. I'll let I'll let you start. Uh again, uh good evening board. Uh tonight we have just a couple of areas. We're going to finish up the the rest of the budget book. Uh speaking first is uh John Condan, our director of facilities to talk about operations and maintenance. Uh in your budget books, we can start on page B5 through 7. Good evening. Thank you for this opportunity to speak tonight. Um, I'm here with Jackie Vehill who's going to help me out with anything I mess up. So, um, I appreciate that. Thank you for coming. We're going to be going through, as uh, Mr. Ricky said, starting on

021B5 and we'll work our way through. There's additional detail and backup that um we can go into if you if you choose to um want to go down into that uh level of detail, we certainly can. Um starting off with uh the 160 code maintenance salaries. Um you see uh as discussed is a double bump. It represents last year and this year on on that uh salary line for for a settled contract 162 summer help salaries. These are the kids that we um hire in the summer, for the lack of a better word, um to help out in the uh district to get the buildings ready. They f do fillins for uh guys out on um vacation, but it's also necessary manpower to get the buildings turned over um and also supply separate services for

022the schools um during the summer. As as you all know, we have the buildings um largely occupied in the summer with summer camps, uh summer school um and the like. And we also have to clean the whole buildings and get them turned over and ready for September. Uh 165 substitute covered salaries. Uh that's for when people are out. Um covered fill fillins for uh those folks that are out whether it's somebody out on an injury. We did have some open p positions this summer are beg I beg you pardon um through the year which we filled in. We're actually finally at um full staff which is a nice place to be but um that's what those funds are for. um school related slashemergency. So um emergency events would be quoteunquote snowstorms um schools are closed

023or uh weekend snowstorms, flooding issues that would take effect, but it's also events be it, you know, cheerleading or socks and bucks on Sundays and Saturdays to call in additional staff. We had made changes a couple years ago with staffing. We used to fully staff on a Saturday. We made a change and made uh that staff member on the Saturday, Monday through Friday and we pushed um Saturday to more the overtime because that reduced overtime cost uh because we don't always have events and we push all the events with the help of recre uh with the help of um athletics to push them to the mornings and not stretch them out during the day. bit of a learning curve in the beginning, but it's been uh helpful so that we don't have to fill in

024every single Monday and it's more normal for that guy um who has a regular um position during the um the normal week. uh grounds equipment um self-explanatory uh 201 uh whether it's weed whackers or new lawnmowers or just tools um to do um replacement in the ground department um all small equipment a drill or uh you know line painting machine or something to that effect. building equipment. Again, small tools, whether it's floor stripping machines, uh auto scrubbers. We've we've um in the last couple years, we bought um a bunch of auto scrubbers for the machines, uh walkbehind machines. They've done a tremendous job. They've helped us in the summer uh expedite the cleaning where we don't really have the time, and they've really sped things up. It's been a a little learning curve for the

025guys that have always done it with the mop and bucket, but they're uh uh grasping the uh advantage of it and how much quicker and more efficiently and time-saving we can do it. Mechanical equipment, replacement of motors, equipment, pumps, you know, uh water pumps, uh heating pumps, you name it. Um that falls in under that. Um general equipment. Then we go into the big ones. uh fuel which is I'm sure everybody's uh problem at home as well. Um as we know fuel prices are going up. We do burn uh gas and oil here. All our buildings are dual fuel uh meaning that we burn number two oil or uh natural gas uh except for Hutch which is fully natural gas and uh Glover Field which has a oil burner only. There's no natural gas there.

026Um as a sidebar we do have interruptible gas service at the high school. What that means is when it gets really cold out and um g there's not enough gas supply, uh KED uh forces us to go to oil. We get a reduced um rate because of that. Um and because it's such a big uh burner of fuel, the high school for its size. Um it's it's worth it for us to do it, not necessarily worth this to do it at the smaller schools. Light and power again um going up. There was also uh as noted on your uh right hand side there on the explanation there is contingency money on both of these funds. I've seen um in former district where fuel prices have doubled in a year and I think you have to

027be prepared for that but I I know the board is aware of that. Water service as we know we've gotten our water bills at home. Water keeps going up. That's for water for the buildings. Um everything from cleaning to drinking water to uh heating systems to irrigation systems. our buildings are used, you know, more and more. Those those those costs are going to go up. Telephone and internet services also uh through us. Uh regular phone service plus uh you know desk desk services uh all our equipment has phone lines or you know uh every elevator has a phone line. Every uh every alarm system has a phone line. It's kind of um it's unbelievable actually what has it and they have you'll hear you see reference if you go into the detail of a POTS

028line and that actually is an acronym for plain old telephone line believe it or not um but uh they are getting away from the copper and switching to everything to fiber but we still do have copper lines. Um we're still on the same page. So now we're moving on to 440 professional consulting services. U we do have uh roof inspections done. We have masonary inspection done. We will use engineering services on time to time. We will use architect services from time to time. We're currently obviously in a a pre-bond um uh phase. So So that's uh the represent represents the pre-bond work the architect there that bump there. Contracted services. We do have bids for all our contracted services whether it's sewer cleaning, plumbing, uh dust mops, uh electricians, um uh that sort of work.

029um as needed, uh we will use that. They have three-year bids, uh uh that go out after the third year, we'll go out to them again to see if they'll hold their pricing. They can go up to CPI. Um when I first got here, we used to actually give them the choice of 1%, 2% or CPI. And I said, let's just pull it out and ask if they want to rebid. Um some of the older contracts have been around a while and ask what happened to the CPI adjustment. I'm like, well, if you want it, you can have it, but I'm not going to offer it to you. So, it's a it's been a little bit of a cost savings there cuz some of the newer contractors don't know to ask for that. Um, now

030they do, I guess, from listening to this. But anyway, um, building equipment and repair. Um, this is uh access controls for uh that we put in for senoid. We put all uh um hardwire access. Um, there used to be all um wireless access around the district. It was um kind of about probably 15 18 years ago passed its useful life. We've now hardwired the district. Expenditures such as that have gone out. Uh air conditioning as you know um I know I think it was discussed about uh putting it into the elementary school. So repair uh that kind of work coming out of that. Uh ground service and repairs. Um, we did have a a big expenditure that we took out of us for the Colonial Playground, which I look outside my window and I watch

031kids on every single day pretty much from morning till till night. Although they do go to school sometimes, but they're in there and they love that playground. It's a pretty awesome playground. So, some of my uh uh the expenditures went out uh came out of that. But um outdoor cost um uh for Julian's playground uh fencing that sort of thing at the uh outdoor areas are used for that uniform CSA contract. In our contract they get uniforms. We've supplied uh summer uniforms. We actually supply um summer um uh t-shirts for the summer kids to keep them uh so we know who they are. They're easier to spot the blue wave coming to work in the morning as we like to call them. Um they do get a shoe allowance. They uh we are also purchasing

032um uniforms now for our um monitors in the building, our security monitors in the building to um make them more um uniform for a lack of a better word. training and education. Uh although it doesn't reflect a large number here, we do send guys uh and I say guys because we all have we have all guys with the exception of my assistant. Um to uh training uh if they're interested in receiving training whether it's outdoor skills or uh safety training that cost but a lot of these costs are built in through Boseies. So you wouldn't be necessarily reflective. We do have training um specist awareness, bloodborne pathogen, that sort of training which is mandated every year that we go through and that's picked up probably through human resources. I'd be lying if I could tell

033you exactly where that came from. Uh the property lease um represents some money and is not reflective of the actual cost. Um and I'm told as an accounting area uh that could be um the actual cost could be addressed by um somebody else other than me. Um, we'll get to that a little later. That that that'll that'll fall under Jim, but um I do pick up uh the internet. We're keeping John away from accounting pronouncements. Yeah, there you go. That's not my that's not my belly wake. Uh custodial supplies, you know, for the lack of the glamour, it's toilet paper, paper towels, soap. God bless you. Um so, uh waxes, strippers, um that sort of thing for the floors. Um you name it, it's in there. Um ground supplies. This is, you know, salt for

034the winter, sand, clay, top soil, um that sort that sort of thing comes out of that. Um all of the athletic fields. Um we buy uh extra rubber every year. We take um we also do um we have an outside um company that does the maintenance on our um on our turf fields once a year, but we do the uh a monthly maintenance on all the turf fields and which extends the life dramatically. As we all know, the turf field, the main turf field is being replaced this summer. Um that is in the final uh phases of being um approved and uh the design it's going to look pretty awesome. It'll be the the same P. It'll be pretty much identical what'll be there, but it'll be pel pelicans in the end zones, which will

035look pretty cool on your flight in on LaGuardia. You'll know exactly where you are. Um, maintenance supplies. This is, you know, maintenance repairs for anything, whether it's locks that get broken, door closes that need replacement, sticky tape for signs to hang a sign that mysteriously fall off the wall sometimes. Um, repairs to bathroom uh partitions that mysteriously fall off the wall sometimes. Anything that happens in the schools, that's where that comes out of. Um, you know, repairs for uh that sort of thing. um vehicle and equipment fuel. Um pretty self-explanatory. Some of our fuel we get from actually the manor um we purchase it from them. We get our diesel through them. They have diesel there for their firet trucks. They so we purchase through them. Um and our gas we get from a gas

036station for our you know small equipment and for our um vehicles. And um here we go into Did I bounce everybody? I didn't bounce everybody in B7. All right. So now I got to move you to B. We're going to go to uh D4 now. D4, beg you pardon for uh there's one page here. There's a one page um which represents uh recreation. We have an intermunicipal agreement with um the recreation department that goes back 25 years or something. um that reflects the half price of um one grounds person and um half the uh or what it represent half the maintenance of the fields. Um we do maintenance on the fields. Um Richie Bell we use min minimally for the school district as you know in intermunicipal agreement with recreation. Um they have first dibs

037on the fields after the schools are not using them. So Franklin, um, Engles, um, they, you know, scheduled soccer, recreational soccer. They do, um, travel soccer, travel lacrosse, inside lacrosse, um, rugby, that sort of thing. They use Prospect Hill exclusively. The district really doesn't use Prospect Hill except for um, um, recess for uh, Prospect Hill. Um so those fields are primarily used them but they also use our fields uh softball adult men's softball that sort of thing plus um you know the cost of running basketball and all those things that our kids enjoy in the schools that recreation does a phenomenal job at. We have a great relationship with recreation. We work very closely with them. We have meetings with them all the time. We're on you know um so and that's where we are.

038Um, as I said, I can go into any um, detail that you are interested in. I'm always available if something pops up that you want to talk about in particular. Um, and uh, that's the exciting world of facilities there. So, and and for the board's um, information, there's there's detailed backup to pages B5 through B7 in appendix 3. It's kind of the buildup to all of those numbers under G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G1 G2 G3 all the way through you can get into the littleer detail. So which just to provide greater detail which I did last year but uh I was can I ask a question? Yes ma'am. Um B like on B5 on mechanical equipment will we see

039some savings there if u given our infrastructure projects proposed projects with some of those expenses? Oh I certainly hope so. Yeah absolutely. I had a similar question. The HVAC um yeah that HVAC line item as we get the new HVAC. So for this building uh we would certainly hope to see improvement there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they they've been failing. We've been putting um a great deal of effort and money to keep them running to get us through to the summer. The the machines are on order. We have a follow-up meeting on Friday um with the vendor um like a touch base to get uh scheduling um and all that done. It's all to be scheduled this summer. We're not obviously we know we're not moving uh can only do it in the summer

040because the these units in these building this building not only runs heating, cooling and ventilation. Um that's the way it was designed. Um Hutch we designed a little differently. Um we have a little more op optionality at Hutch if when that you know 35 years old by the way if you didn't notice. Um but uh things break that things, you know, um you know, some of the maintenance costs you did see go up. I mean, we've added a lot of equipment, you know, just elevators and equipment. Um you know, we've added two elevators at Hutch, added an elevator at Prospect. Um those are additional costs. We have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. seven elevators and our lifts um here at the high school and middle school. Actually, I have two at um Prospect

041as well. So, they're all they're all cost. They all have to be inspected every year. They have to be maintained. They have to be tested every year. Those are additional costs. during the last year the performance period and and as we kind of say and John John reminds us you know think of having 3,000 visitors to your house every day with our facilities team you know we've got there's a lot of people 3,000 plus people coming in and out of our facilities every day and uh they turn that building they maintain it and they turn it around so it's ready every day for our for our students every morning. So, I think uh they do a tremendous job with their staff. I agree. Thank you. Thank you and and the team for everything they do

042every day. Yeah. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right. Thank you, John. Thank you. Thank you. Very much appreciated. All right. Thanks. Okay. Our next item is uh page B1 to B2. It's the board of education's budget, district clerk, and central administration. Yes. So, thank you very much. Um, yeah. So, B1, this is really kind of these lines are a combination often of of the board of ed as well as myself. Um, so starting on B1 with 10 10 uh 164. Um, actually my Yep, that's the right one. Um so the first line there is for uh clerical support for the budget vote. So we're keeping that flat year-to-year. Uh next is uh contractual obligations. Um that uh you see some larger numbers in actual expenditures that relate back to strategic planning since we're

043not doing that this year. Uh that's why the is uh reduced back down to more actuals. Uh supplies and materials just again a small fluctuation there. Um and line 1010490 is where board docs our uh our uh dashboard for managing all of the board and district related documents uh is paid out of there through both. Uh moving into the district clerk stipen you see that there uh last year was a 3% increase. Um and those uh for non-represented staff um those salaries are uh determined at the end of each school year and that's any non-represented uh employee such as uh not clerical clerical that are non-representative uh myself monitors and the cabinet um district meeting that has to these are really expenses related to the budget vote itself. So uh again just kind of right

044sizing some costs there based on what we're experiencing from year to year. So things like printing, voting machine rental, etc. And the board has started to see some of the approvals for items related to the uh upcoming May 20th vote. Um that's B1. Moving to B2 is into the central administration which uh begins of course there with my salary. You see last year's increase to this year's salary rate which again the number I mentioned before just over uh 5,00 5600 5,654 which represents a 2% increase. Um then uh clerical salaries uh again that's the clerical that support my office specifically and HR. Um so it's two in my office, one in HR that are in the budget here with a 3% raise from last year into this year. Contractual expenses relate to a variety of

045different things. Um, a lot of them really relate to consultants for professional development, uh, title grant work. Um, uh, those were the bulk of those. Uh, also, uh, professional, uh, Judy Wilson, uh, professional coaching services, etc. So, any contractual expenses related to, uh, my office come through that line. And then supplies and materials. That's really it. pretty pretty small number of budget codes that are direct to my office. Okay. Thank you. Just a quick just a quick question on the the cler the part-time clerical support for the the budget vote. Yeah. Just given the way voting the the the actual administrative burden that Yes, that's I think I know what you're saying. We have enough. Yeah. Um you know that it's it's interesting. That's something that we've got to take a look at. Um I

046know that we we have felt the increased need for clerical support to support the budget especially since um early voting and absentee ball absentee balloting has always been there but early voting made a significant impact on workload last year. Um I think part of our challenge is we can give extra hours to folks internally which is where most of that goes. Um the depending on the volume I mean we probably could have used an additional person last year but you don't know until until it happens and then there's civil service uh procedures that would have to be followed as far as getting a seasonal employee uh etc. So it is something that we've talked about. Um we did not budget for extra there given that we were you know trying to be really um you

047know streamlined in budgeting this year. But it is something that we may, you know, we may need to look at bringing in some extra help. We do usually get a higher turnout on bond years as well. So I would anticipate that if it's all on the ele if it's all on the budget vote day, that's a much easier u load to manage. It's really the early voting that's added significantly. Right. So fair question. I don't you know we're going to have to give it another year, I think. Okay. U but potentially use some contingency funds if needed to help offset that. Thank you. Okay. Uh thank you. Ne next next on the list is human resources and personnel uh page B4. Thank you to the board for the opportunity to present the human resources personnel

048budget. As uh Mr. Ricky said it's tab B, general support. Um, we'll specifically be focusing on page B4. Uh, it will cover six budget code lines under the human resources personnel heading. So, the first uh code you see is 143150. That is um my salary for next year, which includes anything we know by contract. Uh please note that salary increases are not reflected here because that's a separate board of education action later this spring and that is at your discretion. But you will see an increase there based on just contractual items. In line 143158 that is the um this is really a placeholder for potential salary increases for employees that are not covered under a collective bargaining unit. um the actual amount becomes again another board of ed action item later in the spring and

049if it is approved then these items are actually transferred out of this code and into the correct code. So it's really just a holding place for you for later in the spring. Um line 143160 that's the um the salaries for the clerical assistance. So remember the HR department has a 1.5 FTE budgeted for that. So this line actually covers that 1.5. The other.5 is shared with technology. Um and we are hoping to have that filled this year if possible. Um and so you'll see that increase there from year to year. Um line 143200 is our equipment line. You're actually going to see a decrease here. We we don't really purchase much equipment. um we're pretty stacked in our office. The only thing we would possibly would need is a file cabinet. Um so those aren't

050as expensive as you would expect. So you see a decrease here in that item. Um in 143400 contractual expenses, this is actually going to remain flat from last year to from this year to next year. That's really the professional memberships I hold, any professional development or conferences I may attend. It also includes any recruitment or hiring advertisements that we may do. Um you will see that the number this year is a lot higher than um what we had anticipated it being this year and that was because we we tried to do a big recruitment effort for the retirements that we had especially in the um certification areas that are a little bit more specific. So we tried to be a little bit aggressive there. Um I'm not anticipating that that is going to be a

051practice on a year-to-year basis. So that's why it's sort of held flat there. Um and then the last line item you'll see is 143450. Again, this is held flat and this is just basically um office supplies and postage. So there's there's nothing really magical in this part of the budget. Um what you don't see here, but what Mr. Sabalos did allude to um when he presented his budget is that we are looking at um adding some HR efficiency software. So currently we work with frontline education and they have different modules that you can um purchase. We currently hold the absence management system which is where we hold all the attendance for um you know our teachers, our administrators, our teaching assistants, our clerical and that really helps us to maintain our staff attendance. Um and

052it we also have the professional growth module which is where we have all our evaluations um posted in there as well as if teachers take workshops or conferences or go and do extra coursework. What we'd like to do is add three more modules to that. And this is because when you think about um hiring an employee, it starts with the actual posting. And so uh Frontline has a module called recruiting and hiring which starts right at the minute you post for a position. people will apply, you start to recruit through them um and it begins as applicant tracking. So the data that goes in is then filtered. So that now you hire somebody and it goes into the second module that's called um frontline central. And what happens is then it starts to create a

053workflow. So now you're onboarding an employee. All the documents are digital. the employee can do the documents and then there becomes a workflow so that the documents are then sent to the the departments that need them to move forward. What is happening now is everything is done on paper. So an employee comes in, we sit with them, we complete complete all the onboarding paperwork. Once everything is filled then we connect to the next department. They do their part then they collect to the next department. So it's it's a very slow inefficient way to do it. we get it done but this would really allow the data and information to onboard people faster. It also provides employees um with the proactive way to also then um complete forms on their own once they are hired. So

054for example, an employee may may need to go on an FMLA leave. They would be able to access the FMLA paperwork. it would prepopulate with the information we already have in the system which again would create an efficiency and a better tracking of some of the processes that we do. Um and so and then the last piece of it is they have an analytics module and the analytics module will take any of the modules that you are currently using the data from them and then you can pull data from the different modules and use it to uh actually compare the data and make better decisions. So, it will really increase our ability to use data and to access data quickly um by taking all of those modules and putting it together. The the most important

055piece of it though is once you um you recruit through the posting and using all of these modules, you're actually tracking um an employees journey throughout your organization from the moment they start to the moment that they retire. So, I just want to give you a little bit of background because you you did see that number at Mr. Sabalos's um technology budget is something we're super excited about because I do think it'll create a lot of efficiencies but also give us some quick data we need. So any questions for me? Fully supportive of anything that improves HR performance and services because I do believe it will serve it's going to save a lot in terms of efficiency in terms of what you will be able to accomplish given the help of the technology. So yeah,

056thank you very much. I will add that that'll also help our payroll group as well obviously with the onboarding. So uh we're pretty excited about it too, the recordkeeping accuracy, lots lots of different things. So it's night and day. Yeah, I was just going to say it'll transform. Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Fitzgerald. Uh, next we're on uh page B uh B1, excuse me, B3 and this is we're going to finish off with the business office, some legal and then uh transportation benefits and debt service. Uh so uh as as uh Dr. Fitzgerald just shared that top that top line is uh in budget the 150 is is my salary. Again, that's my current salary. doesn't take into consideration anything uh moving forward. That's certainly at the board's discretion moving, you know, there's nothing included

057in there. Uh next in line is our clerical salaries. Uh following that is our contractual expenses related to um the ACA compliance, postage, bid fees for um for advertisements and the likes, conferences, memberships, etc. And then uh $12,000 for supplies, office supplies, paper, check, stock, and uh the last the last one is our contractual expense for um our auditors. So we have external auditors, we have internal auditors, we have claim service auditors, um our financial advisors and uh fixed asset management fee. So there's uh just a number of regulatory items that we maintain and that they fall under this particular uh contract contracted services uh expense line. If we go to B4, we were just looking at B4 with Dr. Fitzgerald. The top line though is related to another contractual expense related to legal. Uh

058this is predominantly our retainer with the district's uh legal council plus a little bit of expenses uh above and beyond that retainer. Um so as you see it can it can it can vary a little bit. Um and then on the bottom line we have the salary related to our public information officer. If we go to page B8 u again we have some un unallocated expenses. U you see that top line is is insurance. Uh so as you see, I think what we've all experienced in our private lives, we've kind of seen a little bit here in insurance as well. We've had a little bit of a double bump in this one. Uh we were a little bit short this year with insurance and next year we're expecting a a 12% increase year-over-year. Um so

059that that's what explains that that uh increase over the two-year period. Um second to that, we have some school association dues. Uh primarily that's covered in the in the curriculum and instruction area. again related to memberships for uh lo New York State uh National School Board Association and different different other associations, honor societies and al like um we have judgments and claims. You'll see that's um budgeted $1,000. I think everything falls apart if we don't approve that. So, we'll make sure we keep that in the budget. But again, that that could be for um you know, any small claims not covered in insurance. If we have um in all seriousness, if we have somebody's personal property damaged at work uh and by contract by their labor unit contract, uh we we may have to make

060restitution up to a certain amount. So that's what that that line is used for. Um the next line is for assessments for sewer taxes. Uh that's just based on our expenses. um is the next one is uh refund real property taxes. That's for tax certiary claims. Uh there's nothing there this year because we haven't had anything yet this year. Uh we don't budget anything there because we have the reserve though. So when uh when those are settled, we will eventually move those monies in from the tax certiary reserve. And the last item is uh the Boseies administrative charge. And again, that's that's the kind of we'll call that the membership fee for Boseies. That's part of our cost of being um being a component district of Boseis. And if we were to look in that

061tab, uh that makes up um that that just that that first section of it. I was going to just bounce to it. And that's part of that that administrative charge. It includes some of those uh uh so uh Boseies has some expenses related to whether it's employees um you know for oped expenses um their rent different overhead things like that. So those that's related that's our portion of our expense and that's prorated prored out to all other school districts. So that's page B8. I have a quick just a quick question about the insurance and sort of that increase. Yeah. Um I'm just curious what the like process is around competitive bids or how it works for you like when you think about Sure. like just the trends versus you know that it's um it's a

062it's an interesting uh market to be in specifically for schools and because of that in the 80s u a bunch of schools created a consortium called nicer New York State Insurance Reciprocal. So, we work with uh Nicer and they work on our behalf and they go out and they shop that insurance every year for us. Uh and they're able to shop that insurance for for school districts because again what we're looking for is a little bit more unique than what say uh a uh you know a business or or or a household is looking for. Thank you. Yeah, we've had pretty good experience. I have to be honest. So, um this is obviously disappointing. It's kind of where we are. Although, uh Mr. Cond was speaking earlier. Some of the other benefits we get from

063nicer uh they do help with our asset uh tagging. They give us kind of every five years they do an inventory for us and then uh they also provide uh regular training for us. They make it available for regular training uh for like custodial group how to lift not to you know how not to mix chemicals the things that for good workplace safety. So we try to take advantage of those items as well. Thank you. Uh if we could go next to uh C25 tab four uh and these are the expenses related to our our monitors. We have um the top line we have monitor salaries. You see there was we spoke a little bit earlier at a prior meeting how one position changed from a 1.0 no FTE and it was a reduction but

064we held that we held those hours kind of those hours remained but on an hourly basis so that's why you see that drop on the salary line um then we also have the expenses related to hourly monitors and then uh our contractual expenses related to contracted security guards uh so I mean as we look at this um you know this this year uh our estimated expenditures for contracted expenses uh we'd certainly see to be a little bit higher right Now, based on what we what we experienced from January moving forward, when we put this together, we're working in December time period. So, that's why we're kind of that's why it's lower at this point in time. Um, but we're working back and forth. So, if there's uh surplus money's in the hourly line, it can

065flow down to contractual. If there's surplus and contractual, it can flow up to hourly. That's when you may see a budget transfer from the, you know, put before the board. So, so this is how how many monitors we have? 24. Is that what this says? Yeah. The equ the budget reflects the equivalent of 24 of 24. Yeah. Um, and how many are, you know, hourly kind of it on staff and how many are employed? I don't know if you could do it that way because it depends on So, I mean the 24, the assumption for the 24 is that they are hourly workers. uh they they uh don't receive uh health benefits. So, it's a strictly it's an hourly position. Um and you work at I think it's a seven seven and a half hour

066day depending on where they are. Yeah. So, that includes your monitors, your safety monitors, the front door of the elementary schools, certainly the three here at this location, two at the high school, one at uh one at the middle school, and then your hallway monitors and then also your monitors that would be in the cafeterias as well. in the cafeteria here. And Jim, uh the uh cafeterias would be often shorter schedule. Correct. They can be on a shorter schedule. So some people on the cafeteria may just do um just the lunch hours. Say 10 to 10:15 to 2:15. Um and then we and the special education monitors. So special education monitors are not don't do not fall under this this particular budget category. they fall under the special education uh area. They civil service-wise they

067they fall under the same job title, but um for for budgetary reasons, they're kept in two separate two separate buckets. Okay. If uh there's no questions here, we can go to page D1, transportation. Uh so the top line is salaries that that uh there's a person in our business office half of their salary is allocated towards transportation. That's the top line that you see there. Um then we have some contractual expenses mainly related related to advertising. We place an ad in the paper every day every excuse me every year related to um sign signing up for uh out of district busing. Next you see um the $390,000 that reflects transportation for field trips and athletic events primarily athletic events. Uh going down some supplies and materials uh services from Boseies because we participate in a

068consortium with Boseies. Uh we do incur a fee to that. There's a coordinator at that level who uh really deals day in and day out with the bus company and coordinates between every dis with all the districts as well. And then uh we have uh contract transportation. Uh that is a transportation expense related for yellow buses that transport our uh in and out of district special education students, our private school students out of district and our occupational education students uh to and from their occupational education program during the day. So uh that's that's what makes up that number. And the number beneath that is the uh the expected annual expenses for public transportation uh for students for Pelum students attending private school out of Pelum. Board policy uh first first priority is to see if

069the students can be transported on public transportation. Uh when they can we provide bus andor train passes. So this is the expense related to that. Jim we continue to see an increase on that. Is it based upon more students seeking services or you know going outside of the district or is it because of an increase in just the transportation cost? It I could take a closer look. I think we've seen some increase in transportation cost but there can also be an expense if someone if they're getting a bus a train and a bus especially in Westchester it there can be a little bit more of an expense. So it depends on the type of transportation for each student. If it's just a train pass or something, that's that's usually pretty um pretty straightforward, but sometimes

070it can be that combination. I'd have to look a little bit deeper, though. And this is also an area of of contingency. I'm sorry. I see that on the in the bold there, too. So, that that may explain some of that increase there. Uh just on the bottom there, there I think it's just important to also note. So, I mean, the district does receive uh New York State transportation aid based on qualified transportation expenditures. So, last year uh that ratio was about 46%. It's kind of like that expense driven aid that we talk about. You pay the money the first year and you see it in the second year. And uh when we first launched the budget this year, we we demon we showed that we did see an increase in our transportation aid. And

071that that's related to the expenses, the qualified expenses that we've incurred here. So, I wanted to make sure to kind of point that out and tie that back to our our meeting from uh one of our earlier budget meetings. If we move forward, um there's some backup to here for transportation and kind of how the buildup to the budget was made. Um if you look, we have kind of this year what it looks like. Our students that are transported um through the BEP consortium to different different schools. uh the qu the the number of students and then the uh the cost that we've that we've incurred um and then what we budgeted for the upcoming year. Again, as we looked at this for for upcoming year, we looked at our we looked at our December

072bill. So, if a student didn't ride the bus that December, they're not going to be here. Doesn't mean they're not going to get a bus. If the parents submitted their application, they're going to get a bus because I was made aware of of of one that that wasn't here. But that that's the purpose of of you know why that would happen. We every year we just pick our December census and that's kind of the that's what we that's what we work with. Um now that we have the April 1 deadline has come forward uh we will have an updated number for the board for the final budget action. So we'll be able to update that number and the final budget book will reflect uh what those requests are. [Applause] If you go to the following

073page, you can see the students uh that that are transported via public transportation. Again, I think as you look at it, the numbers haven't changed much. We've assumed four contingent positions in the 25 26 versus two. Um it's a it's a much lower dollar value, I'm sure, as you can see, public transportation versus the uh the yellow bus. If you'd like to move forward to um tab three, employee benefits on D5. These are some these are some larger numbers here. And uh these are these are the uh some benefits salaries and benefits numbers. Um and again when we put these numbers together uh we work on a database and we work employee by employee. Um, and then we look at every employee, we look at what their benefit election is. Um, and based on that,

074we determine what what the employee cost is for the year and building the budget. So, if you have somebody who um is eligible for benefits, but but waves them, they they may receive a waiver or a a uh a buyout for that. Or if somebody receives a family plan, whatever the net cost is to the district is for that family plan, we assign that cost. So we we do that employee by employee when we built up the census every year. Um so the top line as you look here is for the state retirement. There are two state retirement plans. The um the the New York State the ERS plan which is uh the retirement plan that's uh for our non-eing staff uh our predominantly our our clerical staff and our um custodial staff. Um and

075as you look on the right here you'll see some detail. So the district is assigned a contribution rate by their retirement system. So the employees are are enrolled in this pension plan and as you look at this for every dollar they earn the district is required to make a contribution to the pension plan of 16.5%. And uh that number changes year to year. If you see the prior year it was 15.2%. So it's about an 18 and a half% increase year-over-year. And that number is based on the valuation of that pension fund every year. And the pension um this actually pension fund I believe is um solely managed by the uh office of state controller and they they assign that fee um every year and that's this is what all all districts and public entities

076pay. So uh as you see there's about a again a 13.6% year-to-year increase. Um and you're going to say wait a minute you said it was 8 and a half% increase and this is 13.6. We had a little bit little bit of that double bump when we talked about the salary increase year-toyear. And of course, everybody's your your employee census is is a little bit different, too. So, there's going to be some variations, but I just uh figured I'd point out the obvious, and I'm sure that was the question you had. Um, if you go down to the next one, you have the teachers retirement. So, there the other pension system is the teachers retirement system. Uh, again, this is uh this is managed by a different group uh up at the state. Uh but

077again, they assigned a uh a contribution rate as you see that decreased 5.1% year-toear. Um but it's certainly a much uh larger contribution by the district. Uh it makes sense because most of our employees are teachers. Uh again, as as you look at this, you may say, well, wait a minute. You know, again, it it went down 5.1%. There's only about a 1% decrease year-over-year. Just to kind of explain that last year, we had some it's an area of contingency that we have there. And then we also have the the um the actualization of people retiring and the replacement of those people being brought in at lower salary bases. So there's there's that impact as well. The next line is social security and the employee share is 6.2% of social security and uh and for

078and for Medicare and again another area of contingency. Uh like every organization, we participate in workers compensation. Uh similar to NICER, we participate in a consortium with other school districts to self-manage that. And uh we've we we work really diligently to try to manage that and and uh keep it in line. Uh unemployment insurance, this is an annual expense. Uh we we have had a credit um from COVID as you can see. So that that's helped cover some of those prior year expenses. Um, health insurance, uh, it's the biggest number on this page, just under $12 billion. Uh, yeartoyear, uh, the rate increase for our active employees this year was just over 9% 9.08%. Um, and a little bit over 8% for our for those uh, retirees that which we provide uh, health insurance. So,

079this is an area I know um, private sector is is facing as well. Uh this is really the second year where we've seen some considerable increases in in uh in health insurance. And again, we're looking at that increase, but we see that year to that budget to budget year to year is minus 132,000. There was some contingent dollars in there prior year. So that's why on the budget to budget look, it it it doesn't play out kind of and match up what that narrative is. Next is you have your employee benefit fund. Um so in some of our labor contracts in lie of us contracting with say a uh an insurance company for dental insurance we make a contribution to the employees bargaining group for that for on a per employee basis. So that covers

080that covers that part of it. We make a contribution to their employee benefit fund. And then the last part is uh the other employee benefits uh whether it's any incentives and a like. So when uh when employees retire, if their contracts provide specific incentives, um that's budget in this particular line item. If we're okay, we can move uh forward to pages D9 through D11, debt service. So uh picking up on what Mr. Condan shared previously with the with the rent for uh for the Sandborn building. Um so there's an accounting pronouncement that requires us to uh present multi-year leases as capital leases which is why we find it in this particular category. That top line you see there is um is is the rent for uh Sandborn and then the the item beneath that is

081our copier leases. So we follow the Our copier leases is the second item. Yeah. Uh further down we have a transfer to special aid. You see that $40,000? That's the district share of 20% for our extended school year program over the summer for our special education students. And then uh that that other line that you see there, those other two lines where it says capital improvements, that's our debt service uh for for next year. And that's the scheduled principal and interest payments for the upcoming fiscal year. uh that also matches the backup to all of that follows on the pages uh after this. I know the board's seeing the debt schedules. So, and that's the last page. Thank you, Jim. Thank you. So, uh, again, again, the timeline is there's, uh, more budget discussion next

082week. Uh, if any board members have any questions or thoughts or anything else, uh, please, um, however you want to have, however you'd like to, if you have a question, please reach out. We're happy to answer any question we can. And we're planning a finance committee meeting in in the upcoming week as well. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Jim. Thank you, Jackie. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Jackie. Thank you, Jackie. Thanks, Jackie. Um, yes. Thank you. He's putting a coat on. I'm hot. I know. I'm supposed to sit over here. I know that there was just a couple a couple items you want to do a little followup on just kind of more some context. Um uh maybe one would be starting Jim put together a graph which I think is speaks to

083something that uh it's in your folders either your manila or blue folder um just to kind of get a longitudinal look at staffing. It's kind of a follow up to some questions from last time. It's the in the folder. Um and uh this it's an updated version of something I believe we looked at last year. through looking at this last couple of years or something with the similar kinds of data. Um just so for the boards uh in front who's listening. So the the graph really shows our overall FTEES inclusive of all staff over the last 10 years. Um the blue block at the bottom is the um that's your general general support. So that's administrators, clerdians. Um I think that's basically Yeah. Yeah. Um so that number you can see you know ranged was

08444.6 FTEES two years a back 10 years ago we're at 46.4 so uh you know a net increase of just under two and again that's administrative uh clerical and custodial. So our custodial staff has not changed in number at least the last eight years, right? Um so I think that's been steady across even though we've grown in facilities, we've maintained the same level of custodial staffing. Um administratively we did reduce an administrative position several years ago that was the IB supervisor. Um we added a special education supervisor. So that was just a ch net swap. And then a few years ago we did also create an additional cabinet position. So our net gain administratively in the last eight years has been one. Um and then there have been about two to three clerical positions as

085well over the last several of years because as we've grown program and as requirements from the state business office uh registar a lot of different uh and personnel um that has added just additional workload that has needed to be supported. So again overall net there you're less than that you're it's a it's a very small gain in that general support. The larger gain that you see then is in the instructional. So the top of the bars is the total number. The the lower number in yellow the just above the blue blocks is the instructional staff. So it' be your teachers, counselors, psychologists, social workers, anything in the teaching teaching ranks. Uh TAs as well that would be listed there. it's not inclusive of hourly staff. Okay. Um so I think that's where you see the

086the larger gains. Um and the the black line that goes across is our enrollment student enrollment just to get a comparative. So you can see student enrollment we did climb uh you know a little bit uh as we went from 2015 up into 2019. Uh the pandemic did drop down a little bit and then we've seen it's relatively steady but a little bit of growth going on right now. Um actually a little bit downward trend right now the last two to three years. Um and of course we have demographic pres uh projections you know that could add extend it further out. Um, what you do see is some of what we've talked about over the last couple of years, some growth in staff, instructional staff, and that uh is I think largely associated with our

087strategic plans and the programs that we've wanted to bring to our students. We did have a little bit of a uh a reccalibration of that back in 2122 school year about five years ago uh similar to this year where we had number of retirements and we took the opportunity to uh to streamline and sharpen the pencil on staffing at that point in time to make sure again that we're thinking about long-term sustainability. Um and we are doing that again uh this year as well. So you see the reduction that has been talked about in our budget process uh there heading from this year into next. So going from uh you can do the instructional 32 325.12 down to 320.51. So again it's culmination of a lot of different positions but that's you see the reductions

088that we've been talking about about close to five overall. So give you a minute to kind of absorb that. So Dr. Champ. So from 2015, our student enrollment population to the last school year that this school year 2425 um we've seen we've seen some fluctuations throughout the years up and down, but um we're about seven students higher within those 10 years, but we have seen an increase in our um teachers or any like actual curriculum staff like not admin. Yeah. Um versus administr administrative staff. Yeah. If you go back to 2015 year, you've got 298.15 instructional staff. Yeah. As that's 298 as compared to now 320.5. So that's the increase in instructional staff. That's your main Yeah. that and the increase in administrative staff has just gone up for 44. Uh administrative was just one

089and the general staff which is administrative, clerical and custodial. That's the one that's gone just up just under one net. Just under one net. Yes. So all of our growth you could say came from the instructional staff. Yeah. Sorry. So the the the general support bar here that is what? Just define that one more time. The blue the blue block the blue uh administrative. Yeah. Custodial clerical. Okay. So non people not in classrooms. Correct. Okay. Yep. And uh just as another way of looking at it is that number if you look at the percentage of overall headcount for employees. If you look at the percentage of overall employees that are nonclassroom, so the general support, it's basically flat. It's actually lower now than it than it was 10 years ago as a percentage. Yes. As

090a percentage. Yes. Yeah. Of the total. Yeah. You know, another accompanying piece I would share in your folder um is uh see there's a it's probably the second sheet in your folder. the uh it's the ratio of student to administrative staff. I thought that might be uh of interest. Um the smaller the ratio. So the smaller you know student to administrative ratio is at the top and then as the ratio gets larger so more students to administrative comparison that's farther down. So you can see and this was a this was a um chart through our uh school meter that draws just you know public information from all different school districts. This grouping was the southern Westchester Boseies grouping. Um so of the 33 districts represented we ranked 28 out of 33 on the administrator to

091student ratio. So again the higher the number the larger the ratio between students and staff. So 28 out of 33 is definitely I think you would see that reflective of what we believe is a a relatively skeletal uh administrative um staff compared to the size of our schools. the number of our students and the number of programs that we run. And I think this, you know, these numbers bear that out. In your folders, we did also provide similar reporting for um ratio of students to classroom teachers. Um 29th out of 33, which does mean our classes run larger than you may see at other schools. And again, that's efficient use of staffing and being uh fiscally responsible with that. Um, additionally, because some of our growth over the last several years has really come in

092clinical support. So, you also see in there a sheet that represents uh guidance counselors, school counselors per pupil. Uh, we certainly rank a little bit higher there, 20 out of 30. Um, social workers 17. Uh, there's a smaller group. There's only 22 in that group, but ranked 17 out of those. And then psychologists, uh, 21. So I think you can see where we've invested especially over the last several years post pandemic in a lot of um social emotional and mental health support clinical support. You're seeing that is we're we're ranking a little bit uh more highly compared to the Southern Westchester schools yet still below the median in all cases. What does that what does that mean that it's only 22 districts versus the 33? Um I would take that to mean not all districts

093have social workers. Okay, that's what I thought. That's what I thought. Yeah, they were actually we didn't have social workers until about five years ago. I think we hired our first one at uh other than uh Miss Charles at the middle school. She was there originally actually through a grant. I remember. Yeah. Um and when the grant uh did the grant ended, we we were able to uh work out an arrangement to keep her on part-time and she's been, you know, wonderful asset all these years. Dr. Champ, on this chart, when you're looking at total instruction, let's say for 2425 or even 2526, and you may not have the answer, but is there a general sense of how much of that increase is due to um special education versus new programming? Like, do you have

094a sense? Uh we'd have to we'd have to do an analysis of that. that I know last several years that you know we've our budgetary increases have been largely in special education. Yeah. Um we do have the sheets in the book. We could certainly come back at the next meeting with a comparative from five years ago, 10 years ago within each department. Um because we the business office has maintained similar staffing charts, okay, over the years. So we can if if the board would like, we could definitely come back with that next time. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. This is helpful in understanding over time um what stamping has looked like and as well as administrative support or general general support. Any other questions, followup or I guess reactions? That is the end of our

095line by line which feels a little anticlimactic. Uh I know it's a lot to take in but um uh really just other questions, reactions or you know like other questions that are still lingering out there that you would like us to uh to address or to do some research on to help inform next step. I think um I have just a question. I think I know the answer because it doesn't seem too much but just to check use the microphone. Okay. Can you hear me? Sorry. As I just You're welcome. Got a tickle in my throat. Um the um the instructional increase, which makes sense, you know, regarding what we're hearing in the strategic plan. Are are we anticipating or are we at capacity with the other support right if you have more staff? Does

096HR I don't know. Just are there other things that you anticipate? It's a small amount, but just checking on sort of that level of staffing. Are we good with the sort of operational or support staff as we're increasing the other staff? Do you see any sort of um areas of you know deficiencies that might come up if we grow more? Uh it's always an interesting question. I think what we have you know as the program grow there's more work associated with it and I think that has always that's been a struggle I think for all of us. Uh and I would say even at the building levels as well. Yeah. Okay. You know I I think with more program comes more people comes more uh more work whether it's oversight you know support supervision professional

097development um or just the you know the day-to-day manage business office all of that. So I I would say I mean you know ideally I think all departments could benefit from more support. Um, we try to find and, you know, I think of the like the new system that Dr. Fitzgerald's bringing in. Finding ways to do work more efficiently, I think, is what we try to do all the time because it's there's never less work. Yeah. So, trying to find ways to do it more efficiently is what we've been trying to do because our goal has been to keep the resources in the classroom as much as possible. No, I I Yeah. No, I agree with that. I think it's just yeah keeping an eye on that because if you grow too much on this

098side and you don't have the support could be problematic ultimately right like I mean this is it doesn't look like it's huge yet but that's okay you know and one of the things you know I think about the slide that we put that we had in the budget presentation about future considerations that's where we kind of tried to to put that um you know I know in working with the uh the administrative team you know we compare ourselves to other districts in the instructional side there's often a lot more teachers on special assignment at that are uh instructional coaches or instructional um staff developers. You know, we have two. We when I when I first started, we had one and a half. We've grown that to three now, actually. Um full-time ELA, full-time math, and

099full-time instructional technology. Um but that's an area that, you know, we always talk about what more could we do to support teachers. um and you know to continue to p to you know to to push and support the instructional approaches if we had more support there. Um you know I think of our directors they do K12 work now um but we don't have department chairs or um you know like a lead teacher structure districts call it different things at the secondary level. So they function you know as kind of as like the department chairperson and lead as well as the director K12. And there's a lot more, I'll say, technical and operational things that that a if you had a department chair, they they can manage the budget. They can manage a lot of that

100day-to-day operational where the directors could be more um I say bigger picture, more strategic uh functioning. Y but so there I think there are places like that that you know if the budget were ever there y I think we would benefit greatly from being able to invest more in that structure. I do think, you know, clerical structure as well. I think of our custodians. We've expanded buildings and they've and facilities and sites. Yeah. You know, so um and then, you know, I also think about our our support staff for um you know, we always talk about like kindergarten and uh you know, those areas that if the opportunity ever came, you know, I think we could do some really great things to support the work of the district. But we recognize, you know, already, you

101know, how expensive things are. So, um, people do a great job without those. Yeah. Um, but but it's a lot of work for a lot of people to keep the balls in the air. It is. So, yeah. Thank you. No, thank you for thinking of that. Yeah. All right. Well, it's a lot to take in. Um, and what I would say is next week, our next meeting, do we have a meeting next week? We do have a meeting next week. Okay. We do not have any additional information for next week except for the next Wednesday, Tuesday. The 22nd. So, don't show up on Wednesday. Right. Yeah. So, we have meeting the 9th and then Yes. I think after that we had to go off cycle because of uh some of the require the the requirements

102for um budget process. Yeah. So our but our meeting next week we had designated as budget discussion. So I just raised that. So as you think about it, you know, you could be thinking about what are those questions and discussions because that's where we'll be really looking for final uh kind of directional guidance adjustments that you may want to see in the budget. I know Jim's planning a finance committee next week as well in preparation for that. So, uh, any, you know, any thoughts that, you know, of what you would, uh, like to know more about or changes and adjustments you might like to see, that's what we'll be looking for. As I shared, if there's any update on the state budget, which has not yet uh been settled yet, we we'd be able to

103bring that to the board. Um, if any due yesterday, it was only due yesterday. So, you're right. Yeah, we have. Um, if there's any changes in cse, we certainly work with uh, special education if there's any changes that um, would have an impact on the budget. Uh that's another thing that we would be made that we would make you aware of. And uh reconciling transportation just like we shared before now that uh the deadline is uh has been yesterday for uh those to submit for transportation. We'll give it a few days and then we'll we'll uh have the most up-to-date numbers for the final budget. Jim, if there's a a change in the state budget, sort of generally what type of change could that be? Is it just state aid, building aid? like what what

104slice of the budget generally affects us? So, in my experience, it's really been uh your foundation aid, which is uh largest part of state aid. Uh and again, in my experience, what I've seen is that uh it's been uh the governor comes in and it's it usually ends a little bit higher than what the governor's initial proposal was. Um, so you know, as we've listened to what's happening at the state level, we haven't heard about uh education aid being in jeopardy. We hear them talking about a lot of different things. I think they're working on cell phone is one thing that they're going to try to come to some consensus on. It's a big item and there's some other other um items outside of education that the legislaturator is working on. Uh but again, I

105listen for those those those words, you know, if anything would put education funding in jeopardy. I've not heard anything at this point in time. I mean, again, but those those are the types of things. Yeah, I'm knocking on wood, too. Thank you. Um, those those are the types of things that we would um what we would expect, but we just don't know the level or to what degree. Okay. All right. Thank you. Um we can move to board of education committee reports. Do we have any do we have any committee meetings? Uh policy we will get to second readings. So I don't think we have I think we've been busy with other things. Yes. Yeah. We will in the coming week have next week. We've got facilities, we've got finance, we'll have another policy before

106the end of the month, so we'll have a lot to report next time. Okay. All right. Um, then let's move to 4.3, but Claire's not here, so we'll Yes. I'm sorry. And I was not able to get uh any updates from her before uh Okay, wonder before today. Okay, no problem. Um, we'll move to 4.4. Assistant Superintendent's Update on Belonging and Wellness. Teresa, hi. Thank you. I'll keep it brief. I know it's late. Um, but we haven't had board reports in a couple weeks. So, just a few things I do want to highlight. Um, our ICT coaching is winding down for the year. Secondary was completed um in at the end of February. Um, elementary has just a couple of more coaching sessions, so that will be finishing up. Um, I also did want to

107mention, um, it was last month, but we were talking about staffing and, uh, March, the first week of March was National School Social Worker Month. So, I just really wanted to make sure that I acknowledge the work of our secondary social workers, Miss Sahed, um, Miss Schneider, and, uh, Miss Charles. Um, they provide a lot of support to the families that they work with, um, to the school teams. um it's it's quite busy um you know supporting uh students social emotionally and for the academic growth. So I just wanted to make sure we acknowledge them. Um also in March we completed the student resilience survey. That's something we do in conjunction with Pelum together. We do that every other year. That's a survey that's completed in grades 8, 10, and 12. Um we did that

108um in on Tuesday March 11th in social studies classes and uh Dr. Chant, myself and uh Laura Cruso from Helm Together have a meeting set up um I think at the end of or sometime in April to review the results of the data and we'll be able to share more with the board on that. Um I also wanted to uh mention last month was developmental disabilities month. So I think it's important to highlight and acknowledge that. Um and I also wanted to mention actually today is natural na is world autism day. So um and the theme this year is advancing neurodeiversity and the UN sustainable development goals. Um so um I think they the theme highlights the sort of the inter intersection of neurodiversity and global sustainability. when you think about planning, when we talk

109about playgrounds and offramps and things like that, and in general, April is um World Autism Acceptance Month. So, important to talk about that. That theme is celebrating differences. Um and uh it just promotes recognizing and celebrating the unique um qualities and and differences that autistic individuals bring um to the world. and also the idea of promoting inclusion and support and um acceptance. So I think it was important to highlight those things. Um in terms of um special education, we are in the middle of what I lovingly call my tax season, which is annual review season. It's a very busy time. We're sort of in the throws of it. We start after February break and pretty much go almost through the start of June. Um, and um, you know, a huge thank you to my staff,

110especially uh, Miss Mselli who just schedules meeting paperwork. It's it's a lot uh, to manage. So, I want to thank her for that. Um, I also wanted to talk about um, we didn't talk too too much about superintendent conference day, but there was a lot of professional development sessions that went on that day in relation relation to training faculty for 504. our consultant came in, met with all middle school uh teachers, high school teachers, and our nurses. Um so that went on and a couple of a good additional uh professional development sessions that went on that day. Um also in terms of our counseling department, uh Mr. Frell and his staff have been very uh busy with the course requests that were all finalized and went home. So I know they're putting that all in.

111that information is critical as we've talked about staffing and bu building the um schedule for next year in the middle school and high school. So they've been very busy following up on that. Um in addition I wanted to mention as well they have been continuing the collaboration with civics on the um career seminars. Um in uh February they had a career seminar regarding education. Just this past month in March, it was careers in health. And coming up in May, it's going to be careers um involved in foreign service and national security. So, lots of uh good opportunities uh there. And um I believe um oh, and then just in nursing, we were also busy last month. It was March was National Nutrition Month. So, I worked with the nurses to put up some uh information.

112They gave information to the principles to send out in their newsletters. They put up information their offices and I also worked with um Mr. Ricky and um Witson's to make sure that there were things promoting nutrition month in our cafeterias. And that's it for me. Thanks. Thank you. Okay. Next we have 4.5 executive director's update on human resources and leadership. Thank you. So March has been a very busy month. So I'm thankful for April. Uh but I would be remiss not to mention two new retirements that actually came forth in in March. So uh Mr. Victor Torres who is our maintenance mechanic who has been with us since August of 1995. uh he's really been the cornerstone of the pel public schools and an impressive 30 years here with us. Uh he is dedicated and

113hardworking individual and um we extend our deepest gratitude because he is planning to retire in August of 2025. Um the other retirement to announce is Miss Pasco Parino who is a vital part of the Hutchinson School and I can attest to that one. She has been on the team since June of 2010. uh she's been here for 15 years serving as a secretary of the principal. She is the heartbeat of that school and um we are really thankful for her service and the smooth operation she has provided and the efficiency she's provided in the Hutchinson school and she will also be retiring in August of 2025. So those are two big retirements for our district. uh and but also wants to celebrate because they've have given so much time and talent to our district and

114we're sad to see them go but I think they're looking forward to their next journey. The other thing to mention is that the Lower Hudson Council of School Personnel Administrators which I'm a member this past Saturday hosted a virtual job fair. So Pelum had 45 potential candidates that we met with. We screened them. They were 10 minute screening virtual interviews. A tremendous thanks to Dr. Thompson, Mr. Laauo, Miss Sabia, Mr. Sabalis, Miss Keen Thompson, and of course, Miss Holtz for helping me pull this off. So, I was your switchboard operator. As candidates came in, I threw them into breakout rooms with our different administrators, and we really did get some viable candidates out of there. So, what happened early this week was um all of our viable candidates, we sent their resumes and information out

115to the hiring committees that are already in process. So, we're looking to see um the benefits of that, but it was it was a great event. It was a nineto- one quick quick event, but um and it was really one that one person couldn't do on their own. So, without the team behind me, we wouldn't have been able to do that. So, I am incredibly thankful for their support. Um and that's really it for my reports. Quick question for what kinds of jobs? Everything. So, um, what the Lower Hudson Council school administrators did was they put it together based on the postings we had in our OLAS vacancies. And so, we had everything from biology, chemistry, special education, childhood education, social studies, ELA, literacy. I mean, it was across the gamut. Um, but we really

116had some amazing candidates come through there. I think the council did a a wonderful job of promoting it and getting word out. So, you had candidates coming from all over and um you know, and talking to some of the candidates around 12:30, they they were kind of exhausted because they were on this 10-minute roller coaster going in and out of interviews and and talking with different districts. But I think it also allowed candidates to see the variety that we have here in Westchester. Great. Thank you. Thanks. Um, next we have assistant superintendent's update on faci facilities and sustainable learning environments. I I have to say I'm kind of out I'm kind of out of material. I was going to say what is it? The grass is growing. Spring is coming. So sports sports have started

117again which is wonderful. Um, what else do I have here? We had our budget meetings. The state budget remains uh incomplete. We've got committee meetings coming up. Uh, we're going to do a finance committee within the next week. uh bond steering will be short will be following next week and then we're working on scheduling a safety meeting for after the spring break. So I'll be holding all those meetings in the April time frame. Uh Tracy mentioned World Autism Day. Now I know why my wife wore a blue shirt this morning when she went to work. So I Good to know that. Thank you, Tracy. And I I have to echo uh Dr. Fitzgerald's comments uh certainly with about Pascal Pino and and Victor Torres and uh congratulating them on their well-earned retirements. Uh certainly have

118more exper most experience working with with Victor. The phone always will be answered when you call Victor. He's uh he's reliable that way. And uh he's always got a great great way about himself. We're certainly going to miss him. Uh but we're also uh a little jealous and uh we we're really excited for him and his family to move on to their next their next journey. Um, and I'm going to and again, if there's any questions or thoughts or comments or anything else on the budget in the upcoming week, please reach out. Uh, I'll happy to happy to meet with you on the phone, virtually. Um, whatever whatever works for you guys. Um, really uh that that extend that you know before work, after work, what whatever works best for for the boards. Thank you.

119Thank you. Okay. Um, next is 5.1, communications and comments from the public. No. Okay. Thank you for coming. Okay. Um, I think we could take 6.1 and 6.2 um as a Do I have a motion to take 6.1 and 6.2 as a consent agenda? Some moved. Second. Okay. Um, any qu comments or questions on these? No. Okay. Just one of the items is really what Mr. Conton spoke about today. We're renewing some of our vendors and you'll see some of them uh renewed with the with an increase and most of them did not. Okay. All in favor? I I um none opposed. So that carries. Um let's move to section seven. Um we have four policies for second reading. We talked Sid take it over. Yeah, we talked we talked we talked through them last

120we talked through them last time. Um has there been any updates since? No. No. No. Okay. So, does it make sense to um wave the make a motion wave the third reading and then approve them? Be very happy for that. So moved. Okay. Second. Okay. Valer, we had a second. We had first and Natalie made a second on that. Okay. So, is that to wave and then do I make another motion to adopt? Okay. Do I have a motion to approve um policy 7.1 to 7.4? It so moved. We needed to vote on the first one. We had a first and then a second to wave usually. Yeah. Okay. We've got a vote on that. We have to vote. We have to vote on the the waving. Correct. Okay. Do I have a All right.

121All in favor to wave the third reading. I I none opposed. Sorry, I always mess this up. Okay. And do I have um a motion to approve policies 7.1 to 7.4? So 7150, 7220, 7420, and 7440. So moved. Second. All in favor? I. I'll get it right. All right. Thank you. Thank you citizens. Thank you very much. Again, thanks to the cabinet, to Suzanne, to Valerie. Yes, it does. Lots of work. Yes. Thanks everyone. Okay. Um, let's take Do I have a motion to take 8.1 through 9.1 as a consent agenda? So moved. Second. Okay. All in favor? I I Okay. None opposed. So those carry. Uh 10.1 is new business. I have a little bit of new business. Okay. I just want to talk about um that the village of Pelum uh they're exploring

122the possibility of a development project at the uh the vacant gas stations on Wolf's Lane. Um which would involve expanding the picture house and potentially more. um they have reached out to ask if the board of education would join a working group to um help identify the project's components. Um uh I I understand there might be some hesit hesitation on our hand on our end given how um the stormwater project at Julian's was handled, but I think it's important for us to have awareness and offer input and perspective on any potential municipal projects um that could impact Pelum schools. So, um I've asked Sid and Natalie if they would if they would like to join some of these to join the working group. There's no action needed by the board um at this time. I

123I um but I welcome your comments on this, but I asked Sid and uh Natalie to join those working groups so they can give the school district's perspective on things. Happy to do that. Yep. Exactly. Happy to participate. Okay, wonderful. Any comments, questions? I don't have many answers, but I don't think I have any answers, but uh my only question is um thank you both for doing that. I think you know there's there's only upside to being informed and having input. Will you all be able to kind of like report back or is there like a communication sharing and will we continue to do that like Okay, cool. Yes. Thank you. Okay. Do you know when it begins? No. No. Um Chance reached out to us. Um Okay. We're going to try and we're setting

124something up for the next in the next week. Next week. Okay. Okay. And it's just to discuss the project or what they're thinking of. I I noticed just in walking by a big for sale sign on the I think is the gas station over there. That's the area we're talking about, right? I haven't seen it. Yeah. On the one right next to the picture house, I think. Yeah, the one right there. That's the this project we're talking about is there, right? Yes. Yeah. Is it that first G? Is it the two gas stations or is it the I think it depend, you know. I don't know. We'll find out more. Okay, great. I look forward to hearing more. Okay. Thank you. Um, okay. 11.1. No communications and comments from the public. Okay. I'll take a

125motion to adjurnn. So moved. Second. All in favor? I. I. Thanks everyone. Seems early. Well done. I know. Oh my gosh.