001Good evening. Welcome to our first budget workshop. We're going to go ahead and get started. [clears throat] >> Do you have presentation. Sorry. >> That's okay. >> Yeah. Next one. Thank you. >> Perfect. Thank you, Sam. Good evening, everyone. Welcome. Uh, as Jeff said, it's our first budget session of the year and I'm so grateful and happy to have Mike Vespie here in person. We're so glad that you're here. Um, I know it's no small feat to have come back and uh in addition to being here tonight, spent the last two days in Albany, so getting the full breadth of uh New York State winter weather. So, welcome back. We're we're so glad that you're here. Um, and of course, Nancy Weman as well. Welcome back. So good to see you. Um tonight, uh a
002lot of the work that you're going to see is due to the work that's been happening over the last several years with Mike's prudent long range financial planning. When we initially looked at this year, four years ago, we were in a much worse scenario. And the reason that that has closed has been through the work that Mike and um those in his office have done. Um, and to that end, I just want to thank Terry Hassler, who's here tonight, and Rachel Smith. There's been a lot of movement happening in the business office and their ability to be flexible and be boots on the ground and helping to support departments as they work through the budget process that we're going to see over the next few meetings, but also just the day-to-day operations has been significant.
003And just their clear communication and their their collaboration with each other and um, support for the department has been huge. So, thank you both so much for everything that you've done. So, tonight we're going to get started with um talking about our budget guidelines. So, I will walk through those with you and then uh Mr. Vespie is going to take us through just our major components of revenue, our executive budget overview, and when we start to look at state aid and throughout both our presentations, you'll hear us mentioning advocacy. So, we actually just had our advocacy team meet this afternoon and just talking about how to continue to work with our local legislators to um promote and advocate for fair foundation aid funding from New York State. So, we'll continue to be sharing that message
004and um sharing more details of that this evening. So, the board of course has seen the budget guidelines and approved them earlier this year. So I won't be reading them to you but wanted to just again highlight that this is a collaborative process. So through our district planning team we look annually at the budget guidelines and particularly in challenging budget years as we've been facing and we know we'll continue to face. The budget guidelines really help give us clarity and consistency in how we're making decisions and they help us give some direction, some guard rails so that we can be sure that the money and the resources that we're allocating are not only um using towards our educational priorities but also our fiscal responsibility. Um so they become more and more important uh the more
005challenging years that we're facing. So this first slide here talks about having a student-based budget. And when I look at things like having rigorous and equitable and authentic curriculum, for us that really means making sure that we have consistency across our programs, making sure that we're being efficient in our resources. And that can be really difficult when we have nine buildings. So when you look at having five elementary buildings and helping to ensure that there's a consistent approach, um that's really important and the work that Heather Clayton has been doing to help highlight our needs in our multi-tered system of support has been significant. So an example of this would be our Amplify Math program. So for the first time to have one math program that we're using in all of our elementary schools is
006educationally sound. It's equitable for our students. It's making sure that all students have access to rigor and to datadriven processes to assessments and strategies and resources that support them individually. It also is really important financially and aligns with our budget guidelines. So when we talk about having one resource that we're using, that's going to mean that we can really promote professional learning for that one resource. We're not bringing six or seven different resources in across different buildings, um different manipulatives, different training. So that's how some of those decisions also come out within our budget and how we can help make those decisions in a way that really shows up in in the curriculum within our classrooms. And another example I would just give of this is from the SEAL side and looking at habits of
007mind which is something I know you've heard of over the last couple years and um we'll be hearing a lot more about in the next few years. But from a social emotional learning standpoint it can be really difficult when you have different buildings across different levels to have consistent language for students. And when we want to have an impact over time we need to be using similar language. Kids need to understand what their expectations are and the expectations shouldn't be different based on what teacher they have or what building they attend. And so, um, the work that Dr. Ali has done to help bring habits of mind to our district committee and to several of our elementary schools and now bringing that training up into our secondary schools has been huge. It helps make sure
008that we're being financially responsible with our resources, especially since this is a free framework that we use. Um, and we can really focus our training and our professional learning in a way that's not splitting hairs and then um, trying to bring in lots of different resources or different authors to be able to come in when we focus on our professional development. I know we've talked about that a little bit tonight. And the more consistent we can be in our approaches within the classroom, the more high level professional learning we can bring in. And I would say this is one of the areas that's really uh something that we do so well here in Pittsver because we have one of the most robust teacher centers in the area. And so being able to really highlight having
009our own highly qualified staff, our teachers leading training for each other is something we take a lot of pride in. And that's really the bread and butter of our teacher center. So all summer when people are in and out of here and we have thousands of people coming in or thousands of hours of professional learning happening um that's our own homegrown professional learning that aligns with all of our standards. Um just a little highlight for our uh teacher center director Nicole Barry. She was recently uh just awarded a fellowship for women in AI leadership. So she is going to be helping us lead the way in um our AI learning uh across the state. and um she's going to be representing us really well with that work. And speaking of that work, um something that
010we really do hear well that aligns with our budget guidelines is making sure that we're all moving in the same direction when it comes to professional learning. So when we do things like superintendent conference days, we don't have nine different superintendent conference days have happen happening. So we work with building leaders with our central office team to develop a program that everyone is going to stop and do at the same time. So that way we know everybody has the same foundational information and we're using our time really efficiently. So for example, as you know earlier this year we talked about artificial intelligence and we were able to bring our guidelines to all staff. So now everybody understands here's great ways you could use it in the classroom. Here's ways to never use it. Here's ways
011that we can actually use artificial intelligence to deepen cognition for students within the classroom. Um and make sure that everybody has that that same basic understanding. So, one of the big things that we're going to be talking about now and think and decisions that we've had to make is really balancing the investment that we're making each day in our schools with maintaining uh responsibility when we have limited resources. So, for us, we're trying to maintain innovation knowing that we're not only needing to remain budget neutral, but we actually need to reduce our budget. And that can be really challenging and it's um causing us to do a lot of creative thinking which which has been good and it's been important for us to do. So our advocacy team, as I said, is meeting again to
012talk about what are the ways we can continue to promote the work that our local legislators have done um to be able to share the story of our budget across um for higherups to see in the governor's office and to really educate and engage our community so that they understand. Um, I think we all agree that the people who live here in Pittsver are taxpayers. Many of them move here to benefit from um our great education system and they already make a significant contribution to our schools. And so our answer is not to go beyond their tax cap, but to look to the state to say um what else can you be doing to make sure that we're getting our fair share of foundation aid? And in addition to that, it's just been important that
013we partner. So our partnership with PTSA has been so strong. I know every board meeting we have uh different donations that are made from PTSA to specific classrooms to programs, our visiting authors, special events at schools. So those are things that we do not take for granted and in many cases especially in years uh like we've had recently. We wouldn't be able to have those events without our partners at PTSA. And our other partner that I just would want to mention is our Pittsver Education Foundation. So partnering with them from everything from uh flexible resources we can use immediately like AP course fees for students who have a financial need to make sure that they have access to that level of rigor but also we've been talking about curricular resources some that are much more
014expensive $60,000 or more and they've been able to raise funds to be able to put toward some of those curricular resources so that we can bring in different screening tools um or uh different AI uh tools that can help us bring strategies to our classrooms that we may not have had um have been able to bring in otherwise. And then with the structures of running that through Boseies, we're able to take that one large donation and have it really work for our students year over year minimizing the impact uh on our budget. The other thing I would just mention is the great work that we've done and again this is in Mike's office but our energy performance contract to know that we have solar panels now on the roof at Mend Center which happened so
015quickly. um and being able to move forward with things like um composting in the backside of our kitchens now and doing that in a way that we can really benefit from the aid that's coming back on that has been something that was so important to capitalize on. And um that's that's something that has really come through that long range planning. And finally, of course, we want to maintain our fiscal stability now, but we're more and more often looking toward the future because we know reductions that we make now are going to impact us exponentially over time. So, I would just say we're so proud of our financial record. Um, we have the highest bond rating because we have such careful savings and we have had prudent long range planning. And um we're appreciative that the
016governor right sized us several years ago with foundation aid and made us whole again after many years as we know of um millions of dollars u of aid that we were missing out on. And so that was wonderful to see. We haven't seen that same level of support over the last few years. And so now, even though we know that we have some great local allies in Senator Bal and Assembly Member Lunsford, um we want to continue to ask the governor's office to help our local legislators bring the support that they need to our districts and um reallocate some of the funds that have been placed elsewhere um to get into the K12 public education setting. So with that, I'm going to go ahead and turn over our timeline to Mr. Mike Busby. >> I
017love when we do budget presentations and we talk about what's important, which, you know, are the curricular programs and the impact on students. That's really what the budget's all about. And then unfortunately, it's required for me to get into the the details behind how all that happens. But, uh, you're familiar with the with the budget process. Um, we do anticipate um a relatively on-time budget this year. Now, I'll say that based on my two days in Albany and it'll probably, you know, get extended out, but uh it's actually been less of an issue because we have a pretty good, you know, idea of our revenue, [clears throat] but we are expecting that budget approval uh on April 1st. But I think the most important part about this slide is the budget process really occurs throughout
018the entire year. Uh I mentioned earlier at our advocacy meeting that we know exactly what this budget looks like when we do the long range plan update in September, right? So uh by the time we get here, we've already been looking at the budget for, you know, six or seven months. Um you've heard me say this before. Um, you know, we've got the tax levy and state aid as our two primary revenue sources. Um, and you know, I'll go through the significance uh of both of those uh sources tonight in the presentation. Tax levy accounts for about 69% of our revenue and then the balance the 22% um comes from uh obviously state aid um and the tax cap in general. uh is still capped at the 2% uh level despite the fact that inflation
019now for the fifth year in a row and I'll show that that graphic uh has been higher than that amount. Um when I talked about that today in our legislative meetings, zero appetite to talk about the tax cap whatsoever. So really it's just something that we're going to have to continue to manage. I keep these slides in just be just for reference. Uh the biggest impact, you'll hear me say this at least three times tonight, the biggest impact is the debt service payments from the current capital project are coming uh u due from a bonding standpoint. So there's a bunch of state aid that we're not that's not like publicized yet. It's it's actually in the executive budget. It's not publicized. um and only because it's prospective building aid, right? So, as we borrow money,
020we file final cost reports. Rachel is the primary person behind that process and we work with our fiscal adviserss to do that and then we get prospective building aid and I'll talk a little bit about that in terms of the executive budget proposal. But the biggest impact and I was concerned about that level debt piece. That's the biggest impact that you're going to see and I'll show that uh later as well. But it's good to have you know kind of what's called the capital levy exclusion. It's good to have these here as reference and that's really you know what we try to manage. So again these are all estimates and and this is still uh this is still ongoing all the way to you know March 1 we submit. But really until you approve the
021uh adopt a budget in April there can be adjustments that are made to this. Uh but here's the uh the early indicators um that you see the rollover the taxbased growth factor was a little lower uh you know so that that reflected a little less regional uh growth um and then uh there's going to be there's going to start to be some uh changes with the uh payment in le of tax structure but you can see at the bottom the 2% tax cap is there right so it's it's 2% the amount's actually higher And you can see a huge jump up. See that huge jump from 8.3 million to 11.1 million. That's a huge jump up as the current capital project debt service payments increase. And then it's netted out with prospective building aid. Right?
022So you can see that capital levy exclusion. We try to keep that consistent. So we're anticipating a 2.69% increase on the levy this year. uh overall and again this is what I I've talked about and if there was ever a way to get some changes made um you know we would advocate for this worked well when you know CPI was 1.46% 46% we had to pay the lower of the two. But when it's been higher than the 2% it's capped at the 2%. And we we all know that the price of goods and services have gone up significantly. And this has been a mechanism that's eroded our budget. Um and you know I would argue the last three years foundation aid is not keeping up as well. So we've got some unique pressures uh in
023terms of the tax cap factors. The chart that the comproller puts out, it's just a nice graphical representation. You can see since um 2022, 2% and see the actual consumer price index factors much much higher. So that erodess our purchasing power. You know, I added the percentages at the top because you can it can get lost in terms of well, what's our actual tax levy increase, right? Because the cap is one thing. It's 2%. But actual tax levy, which is the actual amount, uh that we can um get from property tax that we actually levy uh is 2.69%. Uh it was a similar situation in 2025. And you can remember my first year in the district it was 08 but we started at negative -2.5 and then we got the capital project approved and some
024financing and we were able to to make some adjustments there. So you can see our tax levy history. We've been pretty consistent uh in terms of the percentages from a forecasting standpoint. I'm conservative so we're a little low right 269 this year and then 233 and 222 in the future. Those will be higher once we finalize the debt service schedule. I anticipate those to be in the 2 and a half% range like you see in the out years of 2930 and 3031 when the voters vote in March on the capital projects. Remember that's a separate pot of money does not impact our general fund budget and that's always difficult to communicate you know when you have those votes so close you know within each other. um has absolutely nothing no impact on the general fund
025budget. It's a separate pot of money. The only thing that we need to do when we have a capital project is you kind of vote for it once and then you vote for it again when the debt service, you know, impacts the um uh the tax cap and the and then the debt service kind of impacts that budget, right? So we really try to manage it and that's how we're able to communicate that we're looking at like level debt that gives us a consistency in terms of our tax cap forecast. So I just said all these things but this is just a nice summary page. CPI is diminishing our purchasing power. Debt service is the absolute biggest factor uh that's impacting the tax cap this year. But we've managed it. We've planned for it and
026we're in good shape. And obviously we're going to comply and be below um the limit. So now we'll get into the fund stuff that I just spent the last two days reviewing and going through. So state budget increase to 260 billion in all funds. Uh tax receipts are up. So the you know when the governor's budget talks about reduced projected budget gaps down to six and nine billion reduced from 10 and 12.5 billion that's a good sign, right? So, we know there's going to be future gaps, but they're lower. And so, there's a greater chance of negotiating power when the legislators uh come together and look at what their revenue projections are. Summary of school aid, 1.3 billion or 3.6%. And then when you added non-traditional funds, which this year was a substantial ina uh
027increase in prek funding, um which is a whole separate topic and the prospective building aid, uh it's 4.3%. What's misleading about that is everyone assumes, well, this is great. Pittsburgh did really well. They must have got like a 3.6% 6% or a 4.3% increase in aid and it's going to actually be much greater with our prospective building aid, but our foundation aid were kept at 1%. Again, you'll hear me talk more and more about this. And what I found uh this weekend is that 69% of school districts in New York State are kept at 1%. This isn't just a Pittsword problem. This is a statewide problem. This is statewide impact based on the executive budget proposal. Okay. Um, universal prek, uh, very interesting. Um, huge commitment, $10,000 increase per child. Uh, it's long been something
028that we've lobbied and asked for. What we have to clarify is some language that would suggest that in 2829, um, we could be it could be uh, an unfunded and unforced mandate situation. So, we're not going to get too excited about it. It's early in the budget process, but it is something to keep an eye out. So, we're happy about the funding. I'm cautiously optimistic about what are the rules that are going to come along with it in the future. Uh the lunch and breakfast program, I just wanted to put that out there for information. Uh that now there's a substantial increase statewide to fund this. It's a great program. It's been obviously widely accepted, but at a cost. What we never want to see is add costs to a program and then don't fund
029us at the foundation aid, right? We want to say the requirement is to fund public education first and then if you have extra money, you can fund whatever else underneath it. So between prek and the lunch and breakfast program, great programs, but we need the support for our operating um costs first and then fund. Right? So that's kind of what our advocacy uh efforts going to be geared to. And then when you start something new, you don't anticipate the participation. So there's a $43 million shortfall in the current year budget. Again, the state has more than enough money to cover it. So not an issue, but this is why you go slow and methodical and plan these things. You just have to be careful not to rush in. So, I think it was prudent that
030we went in at the elementary level and now we're looking at the middle and high school level. And actually, you'll see something on the board agenda about that tonight. So, overall, sorry, sorry for the small print, but here's the summary. Um, you can see at the top overall foundation aid at 2.96%. Keep an eye on transportation. It's 5.73%. They had anticipated about 1,200 EV buses and there's about 300 statewide right now. But you're going to start to see that line item grow depending on what happens with the EV bus situation. Um and certainly, you know, we'll talk at our next meeting in detail about uh our proposal. And then the largest increase you see is universal prek, a 40.5% increase in that funding. So really, I covered everything that's here. The one thing that we
031didn't talk about is we've got that solar project and the EPC. So, I'm wondering if we'll get extra aid in addition because the EPC project um would be about 60% aid uh unless we went out for voter authorization, which we didn't. We moved forward to get the federal grant or the federal uh incentives. So, it's a different topic, but I'm wondering if maybe there'll be something in there that allows us to get a higher aid for the solar project. So that'll be an ongoing uh discussion uh there. And then in the executive proposal, you get these two things. One is we always want to be able to pay prior year aid to districts because if there was a mistake that was made or a form wasn't filed, the district shouldn't be held hostage in terms
032of those funds. That's in the executive budget proposal to say, "Nope, we're not going to pay that." And then governors always want to freeze the aid limit and their proposal and everything changes in the next legislative run. So the legislative, you know, they usually say no to that, reject it, and it's usually okay. But if that ever did get approved, then we'd be stuck with whatever the aid was in the first proposal. So what happened with foundation aid? The district received a 1% increase. I like this graphic. Again, easier to read on paper than probably here, but I like this graphic because you can see that our combined wealth ratio has increased. So, the wealth the property and income wealth is continues to rebound in the district. Um, and as a result, we're we're on
033a hold harmless or 1% minimum due uh in the district. And like I said, that applies to most folks from an advocacy standpoint. that foundation aid amount. Um, that's what we need to study and that data that drove the formula is now 25 years old, right? So, you're going to hear us talk about that from an advocacy standpoint. But this is good because it gives you a little more in-depth look at, hey, how does the foundation aid formula work? uh our executive budget proposal foundation aids at 1% and overall it looks like a 713,000 decrease but that Bosey's aid figure always gets updated so they don't have all the information and this doesn't include the year-end money that we spend at Boseies so I'll give you a better idea of what we expect there and
034then if you see our building aid number at about 4.1 million it's going to be closer to 7 million when I get there. All right. So, this is a little easier to read and understand. This is in the memo that I provide to the superintendent and the board. This gives you an idea of well, what's it say in the media? Notice this year nothing for universal prek. They pulled all of that money back finally and put it somewhere else for districts that have those programs. So it didn't so it's easier to understand uh when uh you know the media publishes this as opposed to before they would publish the number of what we had. So you can see the actual percentages. Again most important one is the 1%. Um and then we're going to talk
035about that building aid number. This is good news. Love to share good news in these presentations. So we underestimated the amount of state aid that we'll receive in the current year budget by about $1.2 million. So this is good news in the current year budget. This is money that we use to help replenish the reserves that we're using to balance the budget. Reserves and fund balance. So it's positive that you know we've got to be a little cautious not to overestimate and and uh Terry and I have a lot of discussions about what we think we're going to get in these aid categories and and we go back and forth based on history. So we did a really good job and you can see in Boseis we estimated 3.8 8 million and then when they
036looked at how much we actually spent in Boseies significantly higher. So I always tell people don't panic about the initial Boseis figure but think about it if the executive proposal actually froze the aid that would be a huge problem for us because those numbers wouldn't be updated right and they get updated at mid year and at the end of the year right I kept the foundation aid history but I think by now we've gone through this plenty um you know we waited patiently from 200 07 supposed to be fully funded in 5 years and we were fully funded a lot later than that. We're supposed to be uh get about 215,000 or 1% in budgeted aid for 2627. And here's our history, right? We were fully funded in 2223. So, we're excited about that. And
037then this is exactly what I talked about with our legislative leaders. Then this thing has completely stalled out. Now we're just kind of held at, you know, like political um whatever the political battle is in terms of a percent allocation. This is where the foundation aid formula needs to be updated. The pieces and parts are good, but the co the base cost to educate a successful student needs to be updated. Um and then you wouldn't run into this problem. So now it just turns into a h what do we think 1% 2% 3%? If you look at that's what we've had no percent negative money actually then 2% last year which we really didn't end up getting and then the proposal this year is 1%. We can't have the state aid numbers in hands of
038politicians. We need a proven formula driven approach so that it's not political. I talked about our CWR. Every time our combined wealthy w ratio increases our aid factors decrease. So, a lot of times I'll I'll get I'll hear comments like, "Hey, they're doing this work over at this district. Why can't we have that?" And it's like, "Well, take a look at what their aid ratio is compared to ours." And as we get wealthier, the state, the formula, because it hasn't been updated, the formula will say, "You're getting wealthier, so you can afford to pay more." Right? that used to work when there wasn't a tax cap, right? So, that's the challenge in terms of our budget development. So, you always have to keep an eye on that. And you can see when I first got
039to the district, we had roughly 75% in building aid. Then it went down to 72, held at 72, and just before the presentation last week, we had to drop it to 70 and a half because it continued to drop because of the combined wealth ratio. So you can see how um our wealth factors impact the formulas. This is a very early revenue forecast. We're looking at about 176 million budget. A 7.9 million increase and we try to keep our increases at 4% or below. But the the largest increase in the budget uh you see is state sources. So you say, "Well, Mike, we're only getting a 1% increase in foundation aid. Why is the overall state source amount 10%. That's that building aid that we're expecting. We're going to budget more for debt service and
040then the state's going to reimburse us for that debt service. So without that increase in debt service, we'd be well below a 4% increase. So we just want to emphasize that throughout the budget process. Again, this is an early revenue forecast. As we move through the as Terry refineses the budget for the expenses, we'll be able to explain that when we work with Nancy this year in terms of the communications, we'll highlight that because, you know, um we'll get questions about that. Again, separate separate bucket that doesn't uh impact the budget overall because of the aid and the expense. So, what are we looking at in terms of a budgettobudget situation? I've never provided this guidance this early, but I thought it would be prudent. Our budgettobudget amount in foundation aid would only be a
04141% increase because we had expected more foundation aid last year when we set the budget. And then you see the big increases in building aid. We're expecting about 2.8 million more. And we've had two highle meetings and we're going to get a memo in place where we keep a constant eye on this throughout the upcoming year because it's contingent upon when construction gets done in the current projects, when forms get submitted and early aid start. There's a lot of moving parts to this uh piece of it. And what happened is the state went away from just giving that money prospectively because so many districts weren't filing final cost reports. And then when they did and they reconciled then the state was taking back a lot of money because what the assump assumed factors didn't come
042true. So they went to this model where you have to prove that you spent it. You file the form and then you get the money. We're expecting uh based on our conversations with our fiscal adviserss an additional 2.8 8 million in building aid in the upcoming year, but that's not reflected anywhere right now. So, it's really critical uh again in the upcoming year that we stay on top of that. Next steps of the budget process, finalize the tax cap, right? That portion that I just talked about. Make sure we're laser focused on building aid. Um so, so that we have that. We've got to evaluate staffing and retirements. That's a moving target uh every day and I know Sean's been super busy uh looking at that information. Um we've got to evaluate our Bosei services.
043Bosei services got impacted by the health increase. Remember that was our situation last year. They're a year lag. So now they've got to update their program fees. So our Boseies, we've got to take a deep dive in our Bosey's budget and we we're working on that. And then uh of course I mentioned a plan to purchase two EV buses. More information next time on that. So here's our upcoming meetings. We're excited uh about you know the the process. This is budget workshop one and um you know we'll follow up with uh budget workshop two with the individual budgets and then budget workshop three where we bring everything together. So we'll have lots of uh feedback throughout that process. questions. >> Yeah. >> Just wondering from an advocacy standpoint if you've heard anything recently about the
044prior year claims. >> Yeah. So, we talked about that they have they they really they're they're in a good financial position. It's just I think the advocacy advocacy efforts through New York State Asbo and through Niscus and I think you know Monroe County School Boards, we just need to push it. The money is there. it's available. And what we talked about is how lightning fast they take money back and withhold it. Terry get Terry and Rachel get those notices. U but then if we try to, you know, fire a prior year claim, then we're put on a waiting list. So I think you always strike like when the money's there. I think the money's there. I think there needs to be a bigger push legislatively to to go after that. So, that's a great question.
045And our our biggest advocacy um approach that we're working on that we just discussed is really exactly the things that I highlighted in terms of foundation aid. That's our big focus, right? We want we need updated data and we need we're not supposed to ask for a number but we know that roughly $180 million would bring all the districts uh you know the 471 districts that are on the 1% it would bring them to 3%. So when you look at the state's fiscal situation it's not a big ask. Um a staffer said that. So I can only say that because a staffer said that. I could never say that first because that's still a lot of money, right? Any other questions? [clears throat] >> I had a question on the uh lunch program. So you
046said in here it was a total of 395 million which was allocated but it was a shortfall of 43 million. Does that mean basically all the schools across and this is state level? >> It's statewide and that's all in now. Yeah. >> So the cost was actually like 450 million roughly. >> No that number I think now includes the adjustment. Oh, okay. So that 395 includes >> Yeah, that includes the total proposal for this year. That's a great clarifying question. >> And what does that mean for then future years? Like do we think the state will continue to budget more for that or should we continue to be >> you have to operate within the reimbursement parameters that you have otherwise you you have to subsidize with general fund budget, >> right? >> So we
047have to keep an eye on it. But those are set rates for federal and uh state reimbursement >> for 26 27. >> Yes. >> Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And actually Rachel and I have been talking about doing a separate because it's a first year program and we're looking at going into the middle high school doing a separate report to be a little more transparent on that process in terms of participation is through the roof, right? Which is great. But then how are we doing in terms of profit and loss? And during the federal shutdown, I asked those questions from afar. We didn't know. And we're now just getting to the point where Rachel's able to put together a little more detailed information on a on a P&L so that we can analyze that >> which then
048would deter uh influence our decision to like do a broader roll out >> 100%. That has to be looked at before those decisions are made. >> And uh again, there's some information later in the board meeting that helps that's going to help us look at the equipment that we need to be successful and we need help kind of determining what that equipment is. So great great fiscal question there. Any other questions? >> Thank you. Mike, I was wondering if you would just take a moment and just share about the CashFest award that the district received and the exceptional work of one of our colleagues and helping. I'm so happy to be able to stand here and you know that I intentionally last year highlighted every single time that we would just crush it in terms
049of interest earnings. But that's all the work from Rachel. So we did receive the cash vest award from 3 plus one. They talked about the remarkable speed in which Rachel operated. Right? So I had the I had the meeting, I pushed and had the meeting, right? And then Rachel took everything over from an operational standpoint. She's done a wonderful job with that. And you'll see that we've got 1.5 million budgeted. Even though interest rates are going down, we're still in a very strong financial position because she takes an active role of investing that money. Um, and 3 plus one partners with us to kind of show us the best best way forward. Not just investing our money, but I mean, how many accounts did you don't have to answer, but closed countless accounts? ch, you
050know, really due diligence in terms of where our money is invested and she's just done an amazing job with that. And um we're in competition with some other districts that have this. And if you look at our our actual score, uh they made a comment that we were the fastest to get there and it's because Rachel took a very active role in this. So, it's a very prestigious award uh you know from the company and we should all be proud that we're maximizing in these tough fiscal times. You know, Shaya mentioned all of the other things that we do with grants and foundations and you know, other revenue sources. This turned into a whole completely separate revenue source because of the work that Rachel has done. >> Thank you so much, Rachel. [applause] We have
051just a small certificate of our appreciation for you. [applause] Thanks, Rachel. And with that, we have Mr. Clark with the human resources report. >> All right. Thank you very much. Um, we'll try to get through this efficiently so we can get a little break before the regular board meeting. Um, I'd also like to introduce Orlando Benzan. Um, happy, so happy to have him presenting with me tonight. Um, he's a wonderful thought partner, just trusted colleague and couldn't be happier with his work in our department. So, [clears throat] our team, I introduced uh, Orlando. But we also have Tammy Vanderbilt, um, who's our human resources assistant, Jill Adams, our personnel clerk, and Carol Vonberg, our district receptionist. Um, we're a great team, like the Incredibles, I would say. A lot of work behind the scenes that
052people don't see and sometimes appreciate, but um, they they are very very hard workers and just wonderful colleagues. So, our areas of responsibility. So, these are the overarching areas that we cover. Um, I would say depending on the time of year, it's not that one is more important, but certain things will take precedence at at certain times of the year. Um, but these are the overarching responsibilities that our department covers. And um, tonight we're we're going to highlight just some things like department goals, a bit about our budget, sectioning, and staffing. Um, wanted to share some interesting trends, uh, talk about hiring for a little bit, and then where we are with negotiations. Um I'll turn this over to Orlando. Uh the first thing we're going to talk about is uh the electronic onboarding. [clears
053throat] >> One of the things that we have done, we've been working on for the last year or so is um taking our onboarding systems and having them become electronically on so we could electronically onboard individuals. What happens now or what we're working towards is when we hire someone, we actually it the system can send an email to the individual that says you have been hired and we're this is the offer sheet and then the individual can accept the job. And once they accept the job, it autopop populates probably about 70% of the paperwork that traditionally when they came in, they would have to hand fill in every the tax form, all that information. The civil service application, all that information, all the things that had address, phone number, uh date of birth, [clears throat]
054social security, those things had to be handone. and the process took about an hour to an hour and a half. What we've been able to do by onboarding people in the on the electronic platform is we've been able to narrow that down to about half hour to 45 minutes. that actually then gives us the opportunity to have deeper conversations with the individuals so that they we can um talk about our core values, talk about our the the mission and vision of our district and of um HR and provide them with the resources and the information so that when they get to their starting POS job, their their location, they have a better understanding of what it is to be an employee of the Pittsburgh Central School District. >> Thank you. Um I'll talk a little
055bit more about the branding and recruitment efforts later on. Um the New York State STEPS planning. So that's our APR process. Um we are currently working through the professional standards committee on that work. We just had a meeting this afternoon. We've had a handful of meetings. We have a large group which is our think tank and then we have a small group that's our decision-making consortium. And um really the the the look is how do we want our evaluation process to look to look so we can support our teachers moving forward. I think the state's done a nice job of taking it off of the accountability piece and and solely looking at data and student performance. Not that that's not important, but it's shifted more to how do we support teachers long term and treat
056them like professionals, which I think is very appropriate. So our mission statement in the uh human resources office again we did this work last year as we pulled together our um our uh members in our department and we just decided how do how do we want our mission to look in relation to the district's mission. So where we after a lot of work and many meetings um we landed on this mission statement. So um we're here to hire and retain exceptional talent that is representative of our diverse school community. We provide comprehensive resources and guidance to meet personal and professional needs that foster a positive and productive workplace, ensuring a supportive environment for all. So, you hear some of that language from our core values and our our own district's mission statement echoing. Um, one
057of the many benefits of our building walkthroughs, um, specifically when we were walking through Thornell Road and I don't know if you remember the beautiful mural they had in their cafeteria and I thought, hm, this might be interesting to look at some branding things in the human resources department just to punch up that level of professionalism and really showcase um, because every employee comes to the human resources office and we really wanted to showcase that level of professionalism. So on the lefthand side you'll see as you enter that's where Tammy's desk is. Um we have that branding. Um in my area where I have many meetings and where I on board our professional staff, we have our mission statement there. Um in Jill's office we have the Pittsford Schools logo with our um our three
058mascots. And then the right hand side that's Orlando's office um with the I am Pittsford schools. Um it just really it looks really nice. The pictures look nice, but when you see it in person, it just really pops like, wow. Um, it's just something that we thought uh because every employee does visit our office, we just wanted it to look very professional and, uh, representative of the district. Um, I'll shift a little bit now to our budget history. So, this is a five-year look. Um, and what you'll see here is, uh, the proposed budget for this year, um, which is a 4.8% increase over last year. And I'll break that down a little bit for you. Um obviously within our department um the majority of the budget is in the people that work in the
059department. And then our next largest area is our contracted services and that that's for things like our cipher works. That's where we have our mandatory training uh for our all of our employees. Um our employee assistance program. So that's a free service that the district pays for. It's confidential. It's accessible to every employee. They receive information at on board or when we have private meetings with them. Um, but again, if they have any personal or professional things that they want to talk to a trained professional, they have access to that. Um, and then our our mandatory fingerprinting. Um, many I wouldn't say many, but there are some districts that that cost it's a little over $100 for fingerprinting. Um, we will reimburse employees after they've worked with us for 5 days. So, um, that's a
060cost certainly when you think about the number of people we hire, um, what that looks like. So, um, I'll talk a little bit about elementary sectioning. So, this is a trend uh for our kindergarten through fifth grade. Um, I put a little asterisk by kindergarten because as we're planning for this year, that number is probably the most challenging when you look at our our projection numbers and and how reliable they are. They're very reliable 1 through five. Kindergarten is always the wild card because we never know if parents are going to maybe hold kids back, put them in an a different program outside of the district. Um, so that's always a moving target for us. Um, we have 113 sections this year. We could, depending on how our final sectioning numbers run. Um, we could
061expand to 115 for next school year. And when we look at a trend over five years, it's kind of what that looks like. So 115 is not far out of the ballpark. We're kind of in the range of where we normally would be at the middle and high school. Um, middle school is probably the easiest in terms of staffing because they have the team model and things remain very consistent that way. Um, secondary is always uh a lot of hard work and um a significant thanks to our um secondary principles. Um, they do a lot of work. We meet for full days multiple times and we go through every single area, English, math, all the the subject areas. We look at what students currently want for um programming and they make such thoughtful decisions um
062trying to balance that access to programming with being fiscally responsible and um just the the expertise at that table. I've learned a lot from them over the years and they're they're just so thoughtful and professional and we appreciate that. So from a hiring standpoint, just wanted to share a little bit of information. This is a breakdown of the hiring that we've had um since uh July 1st. And um I would say we've probably added even since uh I created the presentation. Um so when people say what does HR do? Well, 164 employees um just this school year. So it's a lot of information to input into systems into the retirement system into our payroll systems. A lot of work on payroll um so this school year which is certainly a higher number that we've seen
063in um the past year. So, compared to last school year, we've hired 73% more teachers, 25% more transportation staff, 73% more food service workers, which makes sense with the um the free um program at the elementary level. Our hiring areas of focus um continue to be the science, technology, special education, and Latin. Um obviously, support staff um are always areas of high need. Um we'll talk about our recruitment efforts coming up here soon. I wanted to share I've never shared leaves of absence reports with the board, but I thought as I was reviewing the data, I thought this was something that was interesting. So, when you look at this five-year trend, so 2122 school year, that's coming off of COVID. So, we had kind of a spike in our overall leaves. So, the blue bar
064represents our child care leaves. Um the maroon is our uh FMLA or unpaid leaves. And then the um the gold is uh just the consolidation of both of those numbers. So you see coming off of COVID we kind of spiked and then we kind of came down to more of a a normal number but each year we're seeing an increase in people needing um leaves for a variety of reasons. So currently this school year we're at 136. So I think we're going to even surpass that 190 um probably by a significant number just based on where our current trends are. So that impacts things like substitutes and programming for students and things like that. Just another challenge. So, when people say, "What does HR do?" The processing of that paperwork, that Family Medical Leave Act
065paperwork is significant. A lot of follow-up phone calls and a lot of trying to support staff as they're dealing with those situations. so far in order to uh try to work towards eliminating some of the gaps that we have in terms of positions in particular when it comes to our clerical bus drivers, maintenance mechanics, um cleaners. We've actually have participated in we in October we went to the East View Mall and did a a job fair at the East View Mall. Um, I actually as a result of that job fair got in contact with a gentleman that works for the New York State Labor Department and we've been talking back and forth and he's actually the New York State Labor Department now places our help wanted ads on their their site and actually forwards our
066our our um openings to p prospective candidates. Um we've also have uh created Handshake account to try to hire uh individuals through uh other employment platforms beyond the school front which is what we use. We did a recruitment fair at Roberts and we are also scheduled to do a recruitment fair at Gates. Uh prim the one at Gates, Nazareth and Brockport are all in March. Those are primarily going to be focusing on the teaching staff, but we will also work with continue to work with the New York State Labor Department to uh target the the bus drivers, the bus attendants, the clerical clericals and other support services that we need that we are having a hard time locking those people in. >> Thanks, Orlando. Um I'm on the uh one of um the leaders on
067our regional RASPA um group for this regional teacher recruitment day. Um there have been events in Buffalo um down in Courtland. They have a teacher recruitment event, but we haven't had one in Rochester in a long time. So we just Homegrown created this with all area districts participating and um that's going to be a wonderful event for us. So um we put in a lot of time. It's a lot of nights and weekends um uh preparing for and and attending those recruitment events. Um so for contract negotiation, so this year we have bus drivers in attendance, um maintenance, custodial and transportation and uh food services. And thank you to Nancy and her department when we when we do put out things. Um I kind of going back a little bit. I forgot to thank Nancy
068for um her department just putting out information for when we are doing recruitment events. They're doing a great job with that. back to contract negotiation. So, this year you can see the work here um that's being done. Uh a significant thank you to Mike Vesp. He's done a lot of work behind the scenes um working with the the different units and making sure we have competitive contracts but also are very fiscally responsible. Um next year forecasting ahead uh the big one is PDTA. Um we are planning for that already. And then we have our office professionals as well. So that's a a summary for all things HR. Happy to answer any questions questions? Doesn't look like there's any questions. Thank you, Sean. Thank you, Orlando. Much appreciated. And thank you, Mike, for your presentation as
069always. We appreciate your ability to um you know, really distill down some complicated topics. Um it's it's really beneficial to the board and to the public. So, thank you. And thank you to Terry and Rachel as well and everyone else working in the budget process. Thank you. With that, we'll take a few minute break and then we will start our regular board meeting.