001e e e thank you welcome back to the uh February 25th 2025 meeting of the Hop hog Union Free School District Board of Education please rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible Li and justice for all thank you number four on the agenda is the appointment of acting uh district clerk uh Miss cenzo I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly uh we are voting on appointing her as the acting district clerk from today February 25th 2025 through June 30th uh 2025 I will make the motion Mr sco Seconds any discussion all those in favor 70 congratulations and I feel sorry for you at the same time yes questions or comments uh from
002the community concerning tonight's agenda only yes um should I stand or the only one yeah yeah only because we uh broadcast this online online so everyone can hear you thank you yes I see we have some um exemptions from firefighters and ambulance workers and I completely agree with that however I would wanted to know would just be logical why wouldn't the town include police officers that is the first line that people would automatically think to call and even if it's a fire or you need an ambulance you're not looking up the ambulance number you're not looking up the fire department number everyone calls 911 it goes through the police department the police department are your First Responders and after I was looking at it and I've never been to one of these meetings before but
003I'm part of the community and I was think those are old and we have a lot of police officers in this community that are on the job 10 15 17 years you know 20 years uh I think they deserve it also to have the same partial exemption that you're offering to the firefighters and actually a lot of the police officers drive those ambulances too so I'm going to have the attorney answer your question the board's attorney answer your question but just in full disclosure we have two of those police officers on our board Mr buscarino we don't we all call 911 yep you don't call 922 923 everyone calls 91 one absolutely all of I think the police officers deserve to be on that same agenda that you're offering for the firefighters and the ambulance
004workers understood thank you um I think that's a really great question um in terms of what the School District board is allowed to do um the tax exemptions come from state law and that state law that they're voting on tonight only addresses volunteer ambulance workers and volunteer firefighters So pursuant to that law there's no Authority now there may be another exemption that applies to police officers but that's not um something that the board's voting on all right I completely understand that but if you could also look into if there's any other exemption that you can offer to police officers that would fall with in the realm of the state guidelines that would be wonderful we will we will definitely do that thank you thank you so much thank you any other questions or comments uh
005concerning tonight's agenda only that we will open public hearing number one uh public hearing number one is a hearing on rptl 466a volunteer firefighter and volunteer ambulance worker tax exemption um Miss uh Sienna would you mind just uh giving us a little bit of a background exactly what this is sure so public hearing one for firefighter and ambulance workers currently there's a exemption a 10% reduction in assessed property value for those that are eligible there is new law replacing old statute uh tonight the resolution is looking to continue the 10% reduction for volunteer firefighter and ambulance workers and new language in that law is looking to lower the minimum service requirement from 5 years to two uh the impact to the taxpayer be little to no impact as there are only a few po thank
006you thank you any questions from the board uh concerning public hearing number one Mr sco so Mr SI once again it's pretty much no impact very little impact yes this one I just want to go make thank you any further questions from the board concerning public hearing number one any questions from the community concerning public hearing number one with that I'll make a motion to close the public hearing uh I'll make motion Mr discreto second any discussion all those in favor of closing the public hearing thank you 70 public hearing number one is closed number seven on the agenda is the adoption of the resolution uh which continues the 10% reduction and also lowers the minimum service requirement from 5 uh to 2 years this is what we uh just discussed uh the vote on
007this will be by roll call uh I will make the motion to adopt the res resolution do I have a second thank you Mr sco uh any discussion very good uh by roll call Mr bar votes yes Mr sco yes Mr sco votes yes Mr buscarino yes Mr buscarino votes yes Miss Collins yes Mrs Collins votes yes Dr crafer yes Dr crafer votes yes Mr Kylie yes Mr Kylie votes yes and Mr Michaels yes thank you Mr Michaels Mr Michaels votes yes uh the the resolution is there on declared uh thereupon declared duly adopted on this date uh February 25th 2025 with that I will um open public hearing number two which is a public hearing regarding section 480 uh 467 rather tax exemption to certain qualified persons 65 years of age or older uh
008Miss Sienna could you give us a little background on this please sure public hearing number two for those that qualify over the age of 65 plus the current language um and current resolution adopted by the board last year base income to qualify was 29,000 on a sliding scale up to 37,400 the new option is to increase the base income to 50,000 on a sliding scale up to 58,4 this would um also follow the town of ICP and the Town of Smithtown including schools a part of town of IC and town Smithtown and the impact to the taxpayer would be uh based on today's information that we have in current tax rates between 25 to 55 uh per household 2525 to $55 per year per household per year per household thank you for cl uh any
009questions from the board concerning public hearing number two Mr Scaro Mr s you said as far as today's information do we anticipate any change in this it's not going to go from $55 to $500 and then we got some explain right so it is possible that somebody moves out it's possible somebody moves in between now and um when the window closes but but not a significant Shi No correct um and then the other choice because the state is putting this upon the schools is could you left alone same way it's been now yes because the $50 that the taxpayer pays extra is making up the difference so somebody has to pay extra yes thank you is the idea of the updated resolution to um ensure or to hope that more people qualify for the exemption
010yes understood um and withdra uh any further questions or comments uh from the board concerning public yep public hearing number two Mr sco the resolution passes Mr Sienna and we find out it's now five is this something that can be taken back next year you know set forth yes so would it be anything mid year that we'd be able to do this time next year prior to March 1st 2026 we'd be able to revise that resolution yes the information being incorrect it is not that's and how how confident are we in the information um that's been provided that has enabled us to make the estimate uh that you discussed of 25 to 55 per parcel per year very confident I worked with both the assessor of the town of is and the assessor of the
011Town of Smithtown I've received exemption impact reports I've rece received different spreadsheets to be able to tie into these numbers based on assess value and number of parcels or cold okay and if again if we're wildly wrong for some reason um I know you won't be but God forbid we're wildly wrong for some reason and the impact is much more than we um predict or expect this is a yearly enactment or yearly adoption correct and we could always um adjust on a going forward basis and this is for tax year 2026 yes gotcha any further uh questions concerning public hearing number two from the board any questions from the community concerning public hearing number two with that I will make a motion to close the public hearing I'll make motion Mr discreto Seconds any discussion
012all those in favor 70 public hearing number two is closed number nine on the agenda is the resolution related to public hearing number two uh this resolution um uh encapsulates the uh increase of Base income from 29,000 to 50,000 and the top end from 37,400 to 58,4 I will make the motion do I have a second thank you Mr Kylie um any discussion on the resolution by roll call Mr baray votes yes Mr sco yes Mr sco votes yes Mr buscarino yes Mr buscarino votes yes Mrs Collins yes Mrs Collins votes yes Dr crafer yes Dr crafer votes yes Mr Kylie yes Mr Kylie votes yes Mr Michaels yes Mr Michaels votes yes uh there on this uh resolution was thereupon duly uh declared or declared duly adopted on February 25th 2025 uh with that
013I will open public hearing uh number three which is number 10 on the agenda this is a public hearing regarding section 467 uh tax exemption to certain qualified persons with disabilities Miss Sienna can you give us a little background on this please sure public hearing number three regarding disability exemption is looking to follow the same language and same parameters as public hearing number two for uh those that are 65 plus what that means is that the base income would shift from 29,000 on a sliding scale of 37400 to increase to uh base income 50,000 on a sliding scale up to ,400 the difference here is that there is little to no impact as there is only a very small number of parcels that qualify very good and um other than uh whereas public hearing uh
014number two dealt with persons 65 years of age or older public hearing three deals with persons with disabilities that is that accurate everything else is the same correct yes okay um questions or comments from the board concerning public hearing number three Mr sco just to reiterate say number two if the impact is a lot higher on the community as a whole it's not something that s yes we would revisit prior to March 1st 2026 thank you you're welcome and again you've stated that there are very few uh Parcels that actually qualify for this is the idea of increasing the uh base income uh to hopefully have more people qualifi for the exemption yes okay but even if more people qualify uh our prediction is still that it would have little to no impact yes uh
015on uh other taxpayers corre very good any other questions or comments from the board concerning public hearing number two questions or comments from the community concerning public hearing number two with that I will make a motion to close public hearing number three rather with that I'll make a motion to close public hearing number three I'll make a motion mrto seconds any discussion all those in favor 70 thank you public hearing number three is now closed number uh 11 on the agenda is um no number 11 on the agenda is uh the resolution concerning public hearing number three and again this resolution um increases the base income from 29,000 to 50,000 and the top end from 37,400 to 58,4 and again this is concerning persons uh with disabilities uh do I have a uh I'll make
016a motion to approve the uh or adopt the resolution do I have a second Miss Collins thank you um any discussion uh by roll call Mr Collins yes Mr Collins votes yes Mr Michaels yes Mr Michaels votes yes Mr sco yes Mr sco votes yes Mr buscarino yes Mr buscarino votes yes Dr crafer yes Dr crafer votes yes Mr Kylie yes Mr Kylie votes yes and Mr bar votes yes uh the resolution was thereon declared duy adopted today uh February 25th 2026 uh number 12 on the agenda questions and comments 2025 sorry questions and comments from the community concerning anything related to The District whatsoever [Music] uh with that I'll take a motion uh for an adjournment um our next meeting will be March 4th 2025 our community meeting on that date uh I'll will
017make the motion for the adjournment Mr Michaels seconds any discussion yes Mr Scaro Lindsay is the Veterans exemption still intact just so make we pass it should be okay that didn't change change that all the exemptions that you've passed in the past are still thank you any uh further um discussion on the motion for an [Music] adjournment very good uh I'll call the motion Mr bar calls a motion second Mr sco thank you uh all those in favor 70 we are adjourned uh we have no executive session this evening we've completed all our business earlier uh God bless hophog and God bless the United States thank you