001Good evening and welcome to the April 7th meeting of the Onure Board of Education. The meeting is now called to order. We have a tobacco policy in place. There's no smoking within 100 ft of any school building. Please rise for the pledge. board clerk, will you please call roll? Sorry, one one second, my computer froze. Trusty Smith >> here. >> Trusty Jared >> here. >> Trusty Mitchell Morell. >> Trusty Goodrich >> here. >> Trusty Jerome. >> Trusty Kunson >> here. >> Trusty Bishop >> here. Thank you. >> Thank you. We'll start off with item uh 2.01. The middle school principal, Mr. Don Simmons. I I salamini I do that every time. Uh we'll welcome the board and celebrate all county music students. >> Thank you very much. Um just want to get this moving along
002here. So at this moment, um good evening. Thank you for the opportunity to be here this evening. Uh I'd like to just deviate from my presentation for a moment um and take a moment to recognizing one of the strongest areas in the on program which is our music program. I'd like to just introduce the teachers who are across our four buildings our music teachers. We have uh Miss Boyer who's not here this evening, Mr. Miss Carol, Miss Djon, Miss Srirachi, uh, Miss Katalano, and Miss Levy, who are a music program, and they're here to recognize students that participated in the old county program. So, I'm going to turn it over at this time to Mr. Boyer. board of motive members, thank you so much for giving us this time to acknowledge our phenomenal music students
003across the board. Um I felt uh this is a tradition that once when I started in this school district that we would uh often have happen where students from across our count from across our district would be acknowledged for their participation all county and I thought I would like to bring that back. Um especially this is to me as a banner year um I don't remember having this many students across the board from all of our different schools in all the different programs and um a total of 85 participants participated this year in all county um 77 different kids participated um and there's many of you here and I want to thank you all for coming out here to receive this recognition tonight. I'm going to name off these students and I would like you
004to stand right where you are. Um I'm going to do first the high school, then the middle school, and then our elementary. Um we'll give a big acknowledgement after each uh school is acknowledged. And then after this, we're going to go out into the hall. We'll hand out some participation awards that we would like to give you for your wonderful achievement and um and get some pictures. So that's how we'll do things. We'll start off with our high school students. Many of them can't be here because they're doing different sporting activities. But this year for our high school jazz ensemble, we had Somo Canon, Cooper Nagel, Grayson Peltson, Sage Gearoff, Miles Amit. Once again in our high school band, we had four students. Somo Canon once again, Cooper Nagel again, Spencer Malloy and Jade Belure.
005And for our high school chorus this year, we have Casey McFaden. And here are M our middle school students. In our jazz ensemble, we had a humongous group of students. Ben Emer, Dylan Jared, Emer Lynch. Yeah. Stand up. Stand up, guys. Ever Ammon, Jameson Driscoll. Driscoll, Leo Peltzman, Baxter Bryant, and Golden Burger. In our middle school band, we had Ben Emer again, Dylan Jared, Emer Lynch, Ever Ammon, Anne Leot, and Anthony Dave. For our orchestra, we had Byron Resnik, Josephine Mallaloy, Everett Thomas, Aaron Han, Eva Herigfeld, Elise Yanucci Fitzer, Sunonny Peters, Cara Juel, Henrietta Phillips, and Ben Bon. And for our chorus, we have Marley Bishop Man, Kayn Liverani, Annne Leget, Ivy Bryant, Xavier Budenhagen, Crosley Phillips, and Shaun O'Keefe. And now for our elementary musicians, starting with the elementary band. Oh, and middle school.
006Yeah, there are some middle school students that actually are sixth graders that are in our our elementary band. So, here we go. Alexis Pulz, Brooke Thomas, Carrie Raith, Emilio Wright, Emma Loe, Eva Brookner, Lee Simmons, Parker Laneir, Samuel Mack, Stella Dorser, Iris Herigfeld, Conrad Nazello, Jacob Rice, Bryce Ruff, Ruffo, sorry, Oscar Male, Leila Ber, and Nina Pettit. And in our orchestra, also a mix of middle school and elementary school, Fyet Jared, June Slips, Francesca Miranda, Morgan Nagel, Elena Pearlman, Trinity Waters, Jackson Tomkins, Veronica Widolf, Amina Rodriguez, Purcell, Gavin Kota, and Laya Our elementary chorus, we had Laya Burgerer, Llaya Scott, Corwin Jones, and Nola Greenfeld. And then for our young elementary music symposium where students get to do orf and and recorder and chorus and a bunch of different things, we have Dario Zanelli, Russell
007Kurjan Frank, Vivian Swinhart, Simon Swinhart, Lucille Lynch, Pearl Roland, Mary Delgado, Wilder Down, and Abigail Steiner. I'd also like to make one last uh final um presentation. Um this one's very special to me. Um this year I um had the honor of going to NISBBA with our middle school student Dylan Jared who is acknowledged and participated in Nisbeta as being one out of five students in the entire states to participate. It's really the equivalent in middle school of being an allstate player. Um Dylan represented our school so well. He was such a professional. He um just lived in the moment and just performed for our our groups. It was such a great occasion. I think that he would also testify how amazing it was an experience for him. So, I'd like to acknowledge Dylan Jared
008for our 2026 Nisba. And at this time, um, all of the students and parents, I'd love to be able to give you guys some some of those certificates in the hallway. And we're going to get a big picture of all of you guys that came. And I would like to thank the board of ed for having us this evening. >> Thank you so much. >> We're very proud of our students. >> Again, another round of applause, please, as a exit. And I thought they were all here for me. Well, I'll just jump right in and then just continue moving along. Um, and continuing the U review and the welcome uh of the middle school. In January, we hosted a presentation led by uh Thomas Grimes, a former New York Police Department detective who now works
009nationally on internet awareness. This was a direct and honest presentation. Students and families were given real world examples of online risks including cyber bullying, identity theft, and long-term impact of what is posted online. This is not optional anymore as we all know about the uh anxious generation book and all the other work that's being done around the world, Australia, what's happening in uh New York with the cell phone bands. But this is also part of preparing our students to function responsibly in today's world, understanding that their digital footprint and the lasting impact of social media. Now, moving forward in March, just a couple weeks ago, we had our seventh grade students travel into New York City. It was great experience for them. They had the opportunity to see a live production of The Outsiders and
010then eat at Bubblegum Shrimp uh and spend some quality time together outside of the classroom. Trips like this matter. They open up the students to different experiences beyond their immediate surroundings and community and reinforcing that learning just doesn't happen in these four walls. So that was uh some pictures here from there. Um really great day for our students. Then another um interesting event that we had, we had our community connections day that was uh in February I believe. I sort of remember it's been a long year so far. One of the highlights was our community connections day which is a reworking of a a previous done activity called diversity day. We offered seven different uh 17 different activities ranging from painting and candle making to improv and yoga led by two of our own Miss
011Jared and also Mr. Nudson for example coming out and supporting our students and then students had an opportunity to experience different activities. Again, there 17 different ones. This gave students the chance to try something new, step outside of their normal comfort zone and routine and engage in a different way and an experience in a typical outside of a typical uh academic day. This also highlighted something very important to me and to the school is that the connections with the community. Adults uh from within the building, from without outside the building came together to offer these activities for our students. When students see that the level of participation by our students uh by our our adults and putting in the investment of time and energy, it sends a clear message that school and community work together.
012Uh here are a couple of the activities. We had uh crate making, we had yoga, candles, we even had karate. Um the oops where I moved a little too fast woodworking. So it was really um a great activity. We ended community connections day with uh BMX assembly. We wrapped it up um by with the BMX assembly. Also had a motivational speaker Manny Noggera. This was most much more than just entertainment. We asked him and we put together a performance to deliver a message about perseverance, choices, goal setting, and working towards achieving those. Students were fully engaged. We brought students down off the bleachers and actually had them participate. And we also had them jump over me and Mrs. Conston on the bike. And thankfully they landed over us and not on us. So um it
013was a little scary at once, but uh and having the students chanting was actually a lot of fun. Um so that was a good way to also wrap up as a culminating activity for a long day. Then we brought back the book fair. Uh we returned we brought back books into the students. We also um we partnered with the Golden Notebook, a local community um company and uh storefront. We raised uh sold 16 over $1,600 worth of books which brought in about $300 back to the middle school. Uh we partnered with the um the booster club also to help and support the program. This is not just about having the book fair, but again it's also about community connections, connecting with the community and also putting books into our students hands. We then further uh
014tapped into the activities by also having Ali uh Wyman do a voice acting presentation to our sixth grade students reading escape from Mr. Lemonchello's library um as a way to also connect literacy to our students and again also someone from the community coming in and working with our students. Um the students also had an opportunity to do Q&A asked about his different experiences and his career. So um they were the sixth graders were awesome about that. Then so where am I? Oh there I am. So it was a good activity for the students and you could actually pin drop while Ali was talking and the different voices that he puts on. Then we moved over had another activity. We had the um student versus student volleyball. We actually tried to do it um earlier in
015the year but due to weather right before Christmas break we weren't able to get it. We had a snow day so we brought it back. We had it um we had four students across different grade levels across different skill level and also um different students coming together and working. Um, so it was a very fun activity in the gymnasium. Uh, they organized themselves into different teams. We had four teams going. We had the students, the student council actually ran it. Um, they refed it, they ran it, they organized it with, uh, Mr. Freriedman as well supporting it. Uh, it was about school spirit, participation, creating a positive environment. Um, and it's not just about the academics, it's also about coming together as a group. um and that these are the things that students remember the
016most and it's to try to have those type of activities um to make the school really come alive. Then we offered um a science olympiad which is the we placed fifth fifth overall um where we competed at Mount Academy. uh students in sixth through eighth grade were participating on the science olympiad team and for some of the students that was their first time in the competition. Uh there were different activities students had to partner together and complete the task at the science Olympiad and we came in fifth overall. one of the smaller teams that were competing and we did very well. And again shows again what having the teachers lead the program but then also having the students volunteering their time coming together and working to achieve do you want to build a snowman was
017a very popular song a few years ago but we finally had our booster club sledding event. Uh previous years unfortunately the event had to be cancelled as a result of no snow. Definitely not a problem this year. Um, we had a ton of it. We had adults coming in. We had over 40 students if you see the pictures that the pictures I took definitely do not do it justice. But all the way across behind Bennett, they were lined up going up and down um the hills. Students were helping each other out. They were having fun and they were engaging. And I was amazed at how late they were staying. There was hot cocoa, there was cookies, there was adults, and it was fun. I also had a nurse there just in case. Um, but again,
018adults and children working together, coming together and experiencing um something that could be something different. Again, building community. Now, coming up, uh some upcoming events that we do have planned or in the planning stages at the end of the month, uh connected with the Catskill Catskill Mountains Production Company, putting on Hamlet here in the middle school, connecting with the English department. Um we'll have them here on April 30th. feel free to come in, stop by. Um I am working with Rob from NAMI to schedule the ending the silence um presentation to the middle school students which is a free evidence-based session where students learn about mental health um through presentations, videos and personal stories. So trying to work them in uh try to pick some dates in May. April sort of booked up so uh
019trying to nail down those dates. TMI presentation um is an organization that will um come in see where I put them here. Um just got to remember all this. We're working with TM I'm working with TMI actually in connection with them. It's a storytelling based program that helps students find their voice, build communication skills and present themselves with confidence. And the focus of the tmi presentations will be on um the impact of social media on their lives. Having the students very often as adults we tell students what it is. This is a different viewpoint. Having the students tell us what they're experiencing and having them earn, you know, feel it and express it in storytelling. They're right out located right in Kingston. They work with Kingston High School. They have a a tmi club where
020the students work together on sharing their stories and then presenting it. So they a lot of the information they do they have actors come up on stage and tell stories. Um and it started years ago but now they've generated uh they've morphed into more of a a connection with schools. So um we're working on that right now. um actually a meeting tomorrow with DAR from TMI to hone in a little bit more about what what they could do for us doing a presentation and a series of workshops after school with the students. Um, and then as I mentioned previously about junior achievement, uh, they're going to be coming in to do some uh, workshops with our students on financial literacy, uh, career readiness, entrepreneurship, um, and money, just learning about money. And then, as you
021all know, we're doing testing starting next week. But, and that's I think all the students are looking forward to that one right there, all the tests. So, that's about it. Um, have any questions? >> Thank you so much, Dr. Solomini. I I'm sure I'm not the only one because we're reading the Brookings Institute paper on AI and these deep existential questions about what really is the purpose of school and these high values. and you literally went through every single one of them. You know, connections with the community, trust between students and adults, experiences in person that enrich your understanding of that it's not just a grade. I mean, it's it was just amazing to sit here and see take a tour of how our middle school is exemplifying all the the really core values that
022a school should offer our children. and I'm the lucky parent of two middle school children. So, I'm personally biased. I know how phenomenal their experience has been this year. But on a high level of how it aligns with what we're all striving to see our district become, you have just demonstrated what that looks like. So, thank you. >> Thank you. Uh the the program here is is incredible. And you know, the hope is to make those connections because a lot of times schools operate in a silo. We say that about some of the classrooms. Uh but then sometimes it happens as a you know there's a school building. The connection between uh the richness between the community and school has to be fostered, has to be encouraged, has to be developed. Um there's a lot
023that's in this community that I'm learning about as being new u in the community itself. So, as I'm learning it, I want to bring it in and share it with the students. And there's just so much here that we all can benefit from it because eventually in seven or six years, these students are going back out into the community. So, let's make them as, you know, ready and prepared as possible to be, you know, constructive citizens and and, you know, all aligned to New York inspires and global citizens and being ready for the world. and I thank you for the opportunity to be here tonight. >> Thank you so much. Really, thank you so much for everything you do. Um Jenny said it so eloquently. I couldn't agree more. >> Thank you. Thank you. Well,
024have a wonderful evening. Um take care and see you around. Byebye. >> Thank you. >> Uh next on our agenda is item 3.01. CJ Goodwin from Schoolhouse Construction will provide a capital project update everybody hear me? Okay. Good evening everyone. So I think you're seeing on your screen here our capital project schedule. Right now we are in the top bracket in phase one where it says design schedule and we are working our way towards that April submission for design development. So our friends at Clark Patterson Lee have been setting up meetings having uh information sessions, programming sessions what we call them. They've been working through that process with uh the scope for phase one. as they develop that design development, they start to work towards the details of what a project looks like. But right
025now, they're really concentrating on all the information that creates your project for each thing in each room and things like that. They'll submit that to us at the end of this month where we'll do our first estimate. So, if you remember, we did some pricing and things like that as we work through preref. Once we get the DD documents, we'll go through, we'll do an estimate there and we'll sort of do a gut check of where they are. It's not uncommon in that process as they're getting information together that they're not done with that process. So, we'll still have things in our estimate that say design contingency or construction contingency and things like that. And we'll slowly typically work that down to zero as we get to that bidding process that you can kind of
026see on the screen there, which we're working towards. Um, we're doing going to SECD in September. So, that'll be the next deadline after April to ultimately go out to bid towards the latter part of this year, depending on SED's schedule. Soon as phase one gets submitted, they're going to repeat this process with phase two. So, it'll be a very similar process. They'll set up those programming meetings. They'll go through that process. We'll do estimates at DD in the SED submission and we'll work towards bid. The nice part about the phase two process is we should by a certain amount of time have hard numbers for what is phase one because we will have bid that and have contractors. Any questions on the capital project? Okay. I do we do this now or we do this
027later. The award. Okay. Sorry. So, the second piece that should be in front of you guys is what is our award letter for the elevator and the floor work over at the high school middle school. So, gave you guys some light reading with Amanda's help um over the weekend. Um so, if you go ahead, >> it might take just a moment for the trustees to find it because it's part of the board packet, not part of the presentation. >> So, Oh, it's not in there. >> Oh, okay. Okay. So, you could just walk us through it. It looks like this. It's 22 pages if I remember my pages correctly. Uh the important parts of the first couple of pages. So when you look through this, it'll basically be what the bid process was where we
028went out to bid to solicit for numbers and a public bid process for a GC, an MC, an EC, and a demo abatement contractor. So a general contractor, mechanical contractor, electrical contractor, demo abatement. You'll see in this packet bid tabs which will tell you who bid or if nobody did bid which we did have no biders for the demo and abatement which unfortunately no matter how hard we try we actually had three demo and abatement contractors come to our walkthrough. Nobody bid. Um which unfortunately does happen with some smaller projects. There are pieces to your procurement process that when you don't get biders, even though you solicit, we have to take the low bid, you're allowed to at that point request for proposals from whomever really you desire at that point. So, at that point,
029once we had opened and not received any bids for demo and abatement, we went through that process. Um, we followed up with your school's attorney, David Strong, and we reached out to two contractors. One was the general contractor, transitional builders, which I believe has done work here before. We ask them to solicit a demo and abatement contractor sort of on your behalf. Provide a proposal to us for what the costs are for that work and then we can execute that as either a change order or as a separate contract like we had planned. The other thing we did is we reached out to another company that's done work here before, uh, CNC Unlimited, who's done a lot of demolition work. We requested a proposal directly from them. You'll see both those proposals in here. You'll
030see that transitional builders was 584,000 I want to say off the top of my head which is just a hair scoch of maybe 30 or 40,000 under CNC trying to be fiscally responsible. We decided to go with the low bidder. We did the same interview process when you read through this that we did with transitional builders. We did it twice. We did it once for their work which was the general construction work. We did it again for the demo and abatement work. So you'll see two documents in here for that process. And just to talk a little bit about that process once I get to one here. We do what we call a poster interview which for us is 20 to 25 sort of yes or no questions that you'll see a copy of each
031one for each of the contractors in here. And what they are is our way of going through and sort of walking through the scope and doing a little bit of a page turn to say, did you guys include this in your bid? Did you guys see this like this in your bid? Did you include bonds? Did you include insurance? Did you actually read the insurance? It's not just a standard thing. Um, that way we can sort of gauge, did they have the right things? Did they not have the right things? Are they qualified? You can see a lot of those notes through here. I won't go line by line through them because I'm sure you guys have better things to do. But if you guys happen to and you have questions, by all means reach
032out. It's a very similar duplicated process with each of the contractors. So when we do a postman interview, it's typically schoolhouse, Clark Patterson, Lee, your architects, district is represented there by Kyle at that point, and then we work through those items. And these are sort of our meeting minutes as part of that process. Okay. The last part I just wanted to go through is Bear with me a second. For the mechanical contractor, we did have one bidder. Your mechanical scope is actually really limited. It's the installation of one um duckless split unit, which if you don't know what that is, it's something you've probably seen a hundred times. Just probably never knew that that's what it was. Looks like a wall cassette. Has air conditioning and heat that comes out of it. Outside of that,
033on the outside of the building, there's a condenser. Has a couple of lines that run to that. And then they had to do some underground plumbing. That's probably 30 or 40 feet of piping. Um, as their only and low bid, they were at about 140,000. Following some discussions, they're certainly a little high whether they knew they were the only biders. They're also out of the capital region. So whether a good chunk of their funds are coming from the capital region to you, which is unfortunately probably something you guys have experienced before. Um, we had a conversation with Kyle and with the rest of administration. Kyle felt like he could take on that work. So, we're looking for you guys to not award that contract. So, when you look at my summary, you're going to see
034a couple of things in there. You're going to see as you get to page three, it'll say, "We recommend award of really the general contract and really the electrical contract." Then you're going to see we recommend that you reject the mechanical contract because onora central school is going to take that on as part of the summer. And then the last part is you're going to see that we had no biders for the demo and abatement. And then as part of your next meeting, we'll have a change order put together for what is that contracts requirement which will go to transitional builders. So, we didn't decide to make them have two contracts, per se, which has happened, would totally be normal. We decided against that because they'd have to carry bonds and insurance again, which they're
035already doing. So, it's actually a little cheaper to just have them increase what is their bonds and insurance for what they have. Um, so you had a little bit of savings there. And so you'll see a relatively large change order and as part of one of these meetings once it comes through which will be $584,000. There's really no issue with that. SED does have stipulations that change order should really be under $35,000. They do that because they don't want you to sort of circumvent the bidding process. So you guys have a procurement process that is limited to 20 or 30 or $35,000. You guys have to get three prices as sort of part of that process. SEDD works on the same thing. It's sort of the same thought process. We did that bidding process because
036nobody bid even though it's a change order. We went through the bidding process. Nobody provided a bid. We solicited on your behalf two bids. We reviewed those. So, we really followed that process. We'll just have to inform SED of that process. And I suspect once they hear that, you guys probably won't have any issues at that point. I just said a lot of things. Any questions? >> Yes, sir. >> Thank you. Um, so we sometimes shorthand this project as the elevator project, but it's really like a three-headed project, right? It's the the elevator, the middle school gym floor, and the front hallway in the middle school, high school. >> You could even say maybe four if you want to count the electrical panels. >> Yeah. And is the the cassette unit you mentioned is that
037for the service room the server room? >> Yeah. So what that's for is um your elevator equipment. I think your server sort of share a space and in order to keep the um heat load down so things don't overheat. We're throwing an air conditioning unit in there which is honestly relatively standard for any sort of server room at this point. So I guess my question was is are these contractors are these projects siloed from each other or like does do the do the demo people can they work on both the gym and the front? Yeah. So they're they're looking at this as one as a collective project. Y thank you. >> So we do benefit a little bit. Um there's nothing wrong with how we bid it. Um some sometimes like um what's a good
038example is uh like the construction fund college university system they do a single prime bid which is one contractor and then they open bids for mechanical electrical plumbing as part of that one contractor's bid. That's how they interpret Wix law when they do projects. The benefit of that is you call one person and you go, "Hey, this isn't the way it's supposed to be." With multiple contracts, we call each person. So, we have a little bit of a a less of a headache to now call transitional builders for those two things. That said, there's no reason that sometimes that's an issue. You know, we have that happen all the time. It's fairly standard in K through 12. Anyone else? Thank you everybody. >> Thank you CJ. >> Absolutely. >> Try not to be Do you
039want this off? >> I can't hear you. >> You could please turn it off. Yes. Thank you. >> Once I figure out how I'm going to nail it. >> There's a button on the side. Never mind. Never mind. Um, John will turn it off from the top. Thank you, CJ. >> All right, we're going to move on to item 5.01. Um, the uh the board is going to um motion to enter into executive session to discuss OA and Antia negotiations and to meet with legal counsel. May I have a first? Trusty Smith. Second, Trusty Kudson. Any questions or comments? All in favor? That's unanimous. Thank you. Um, we should be back in 45 minutes. We are back from our executive session. May I have a motion to exit executive session and return to public session?
040Trusty Jared. Second, Trusty Goodrich. Any questions or comments? All in favor? That's unanimous. Thank you. All right. On to item 6.01. The assistant superintendent for business. Monica will present the 2026 superintendent's recommended budget. >> Well, good evening. Um, I'm actually joining Assistant Superintendent because it is the superintendent's recommended budget. Um, and I do recommend it. Uh, she's done, as always, an incredible job and gotten us through this process so smoothly and we are incredibly fortunate. So, our budget highlights of this year. Um so we did as everybody knows bring our security vestibule online um during the current school year. So in next year we've added um the associated costs for maintaining that security vestibule. And then uh this year, Assistant Superintendent Laughen has been working with some of our elementary uh faculty and administrators and
041looking to adopt another um component for our literacy instruction that uh aligns with the science of reading and really focuses on phonics so that we can really address literacy in our early grades even more robustly. and we are continuing with all of our uh academic and extracurricular programming. We are continuing to um try and ensure that our staffing is appropriate for our enrollment. We do look at every uh retirement that we have and decide whether we need to replace that position as we look forward. Um we are continuing with our all of our student support services. Uh we have wonderful counseling staff. We have social emotional learning programs. All of our mental health supports will remain in place. Our special education services are again continuing and we will always staff appropriately to meet the needs
042of all of our students and remain in compliance with all of the mandates that we have. But truth be told, we often go above and beyond the mandates and do what our students need. We are continuing to support our English language learners and provide equitable access across our district for all of those students. We continue to provide robust professional learning for our staff. Um we have a professional development plan and we follow it and it is very much based on what our teachers are looking for in terms of support. Technology uh continues to be something that we focus on and thankfully we have uh our director of technology who is often the silent hero in our district and make sure that all of our students and teachers have access to the technology that supports uh
043the programs that they need to have access to. Um and we continue to provide obviously all of the curriculum materials and resources that we need to to align with the New York State learning standards. And we are continuing to work to have an absolutely safe and very supportive environment in our schools. Uh as is evidenced often by our principles who are giving uh welcomes like Dr. Salamini did today. I do the boring part, the numbers. Whoa, that's loud. Sorry, you must speak really softly. Um I have a very robust voice. I always have. So, our 2627 projected revenues, these numbers have um not changed. So, we're looking for a 2627 revenue budget of $62,519,015. We have not gotten um state aid numbers yet because they have not finalized the budget. Um if they do, then
044obviously this the budget will not change, but what we receive in revenue will obviously be hopefully higher than what we budgeted. Um, and so as far as the recommended budget, um, we are recommending a $66,481,500 budget, which is 4.55% higher. But, um, I just realized that there's a typo with the dollar difference and the percent difference because there is actually a million dollar difference between the in the current year interfund transfer and the 2627. and that is to support the um elevator plus project that CJ presented earlier. His $2.2 million um budget we had we had originally thought it would be about 1.2 million. So that additional million will come out of that transfer to capital. Um, other than that, um, you know, some minor adjustments here and there, but again, employee benefits are going
045up by $691,000. Um, instruction by $710,000. Those are the biggest. Operations and maintenance is going up um, as a percentage, the highest, and that is, as I mentioned before, has to do with the utilities in addition to the um, safety and security increases that we will see because of the vestibule. So, uh, that 1.75 million transfer to capital includes an additional $1 million, as I mentioned, for that, we call it the elevator plus project. Um, in addition, we are looking to use some of that other money to refurbish the flooring in the school counseling suite, refurbish the flooring in the learning center, repairing the server room, and then paving and roof repairs where possible. I don't know if anyone's hit that pothole in front of Central, but I miss it every day, just barely. Um
046so as far as our recommended appropriated uh fund balance because our revenues don't match our expenditures um we are asking for fund balance to be used in the to the tune of 2.9 million 2.9662485 and then the additional 1 million which is going to be a one-time appropriated fund balance and that again is strictly for that elevator plus project as the far as the components that make up our budget. um 44.7% is instruction which we like to see. Um employee benefits is 33.25. So when I say our budget is made up 75% of it is instruction and employee benefits that's how why I say that um general support is um 3.74 operations and maintenance 5.81 81 transportation a little over nine and um our debt service community service that's uh still even though we add
047we're adding a million dollars this still only makes up 3.25% of our budget. Uh one of the things that we're required to do is to put our budgets into a uh into three components. The administrative the capital and the program and to show you and the public um how it's changed from year to year. So in twi 2526 79.86% of our budget was in program. For next year it's looking to be 77.8. Um again the reason why program went down is if you notice capital went up. Why did capital go up? Because of that million dollars. So what is included in those three-part budgets? So administrative has administrative salary and benefits. That's where your our insurance, our legal fees, data processing, our Bosey's admin fee, which I mentioned also went up. So that is increasing
048by a little over 392,000 from this year. Our capital has all of our school bus purchases, our debt service, our facility costs, our utilities, maintenance, custodial, all the capital work. So that's increasing by 1.5 million. A million of which is that transfer to capital. That's going to the elevator plus project. see a theme there. Um and then the remainder is in what's in program. So that is everything that teachers, TAs, paraprofessionals, everything that is in that instructional piece. Um including the transportation. So transportation salaries are actually considered program um and that is increasing um by a little over 937,000. So the total increase from 2526 to 2627 is um $2.892 million. So what you will be approving at the next board meeting is this prop this resolution that the proposition one will say be it
049resolved that the entou school district board of ed and be and is hereby authorized to expend the sum set forth under the various headings which are voted upon in gross and not in detail in the total amount of 66,481,500 which includes $20,000 to support public libraries for the year commencing July 1, 2026 and ending June 30th 2027. and the board is authorized to levy and collect the necessary tax thereof on the taxable property of the district. So that is what we'll show on our ballot. So proposition two and I apologize that this is so small but lawyers get involved and resolutions and propositions get really lengthy. Um I did want to point out the highlighted area. There was a comment at the last board meeting about including the ability to to save this money. So
050we did add the language. Hold on. Let me put my glasses on. Um so besides as we normally have for for buildings it says as well as the purchase of zero emission buses and machinery and apparatus including any infrastructure necessary to support the maintenance of such such zero emission school buses. So that will allow us to use any of that $10 million that we do end up saving towards electric bus buses and electric bus infrastructure. So thank you. I can't remember who who suggested that. Thank you. Great idea. So the other thing I need to uh tell you and the public is if the budget fails, what happens? So um if the budget fails on May 19th, there are two choices. We can either submit well actually technically three choices. Um submit the same budget
051to the voters on revote day, submit a different budget on revote day, or go directly to a contingent budget. So, a contingent budget has changed in the years that I've been doing this. And it currently a contingent budget means you can't raise taxes any more than you have in the current year. So, our current tax levy is $49,42,800. Um, we're proposing a tax levy of 50,626535. If we're on a contingent budget, we can only raise the $49,42800, which means we would need to come up with $1.2 million of reductions. Um, in addition to that, there are other rules. So, the first thing off the top, if there's equipment in the budget, it all comes out. We can't purchase a bus, we can't purchase a truck, we can't purchase a tractor. There's $394,000 in the budget
052for equipment. So, that would come right off the top. Um, there is an administrative component cap, which kind of confuses people, but I'll show you. If you look here, currently in 2526, the administrative component is 10.22%. If we are in a contingency budget, it has to remain the 10.22%. So, we would have to reduce the administrative budget. It cannot be the 10.36 that it's currently showing for 2627. Um, and then in addition to that, the district will be required to charge fees for outside agencies including PTAs and booster club to use our buildings. That's another rule for the uh contingency. Um, in addition, we have three board trustee seats up with terms starting July 1, 2026. They all have three-year terms through June 30th of 2029. And petitions are due Monday, April 20th by 5:00
053p.m. to the lovely Miss Amanda Gates over there. And um 54 district resident signatures are required. So, where do we go moving forward? So, April 21st um we will have the budget for you to adopt. We will also have you approve the property tax report card which is also required. And in addition, the board will vote on the Bosey's administrative budget that night. May 5th, we will have the public hearing um here at the middle school high school. And then between the months of April and May, um Amanda Gates is already working on setting up meetings um with with the towns. We have Hurly set up, but we still have to do Shandake and Olive and Woodstock, excuse me. Um May 19th we is budget vote day. Um, and just as a reminder, we are
054voting here in the middle school high school down in the wrestling room and the hours are ex extended from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. And then we have June 16th, the budget revote