001I'd like to call to order the February twenty-sixth, two thousand and twenty-six meeting of the Park Place Board of Education. I pledge allegiance to the- Very funny. I just want to get out of here. Very, very funny. I'm just joking. Will you all please rise for the pledge of allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Please remain standing as we make our meeting invocation. In the spirit of fostering an atmosphere of unity and purpose, we seek a harmonious existence for all members of our community and strive to bring humanity to our deliberations and our work. And may all please be seated. Thank you. So, the February twenty-sixth meeting of the
002Park Place Board of Education. We will start comments from the board, and I will take them. I hope everyone enjoyed shoveling the snow. We all have spring fever, except spring is not here yet. Um, I also would like to thank the facilities. They worked throughout the night to make sure our campus was clean and safe for everybody. I'd like to thank Wayne White, Vincenzo Colandrea, Jessica Napolitano, Nicholas Moran, Salvatore Genestri, Brian Del Martin, Donovan Lavazetto, Esso Partilla, Nicholas Barletta, Anthony Nicolis, John Con- Conrad, Fred Madrapia, thank you. Um, who worked on Tuesday? Dylan Anderson, Alberto Solis Arrea, Janet Jacome Alfaro, Sean London, Christian Perez. We feel very thankful that when all hands are on deck, all hands are on deck. So thank you, Fred, to you and your team. I'd also like to congratulate the
003valedictorian and salutatorian. We have Miss- Lorelei. Lorelei? Lorelei. Lorelei, and we have Carolina, and Carolina is our MVP. And lastly, I'd like to wish luck to our basketball teams. Both boys and girls will be playing in the playoffs this week. Thursday is the girls, and Friday are the boys. Good luck, Park Place players. Now I'll hand it over to Vice President Rivera. Uh, good evening, everybody, and thank you for coming. Um, I'm sure, um, every- everyone enjoyed the break, hopefully, and also having two extra snow days, which most likely wasn't too relaxing as we all had to dig out. Um, and congratulations to Carolina. Um, that's great, Carolina. Thank you. Sorry about that. Um, congratulations to you. You're salutatorian, and Lorelei is our valedictorian. Um, you deserve everything that you will be getting. Good luck.
004Okay, um, I wanted to also extend my thanks for the tremendous effort of Fred and his staff in clearing the amount of snow from our campus. Because of you, our district continues to operate smoothly, even in the toughest winter conditions. We're truly grateful for your commit- commitment, teamwork, and pride in keeping our schools safe and welcoming. Um, our Park Place scholarship fund is in need of replenishment to con- continue supporting our deserving seniors. The scholarship committee has created a Go Funding page. Um, it's a contribution page to help ensure that the future graduates receive recognition for their hard work and dedication throughout their four years of high school. Please help us spread the word to our community and encourage participation in this important effort. Every contribution makes a meaningful difference in supporting our students' futures.
005I also want to wish our varsity girls and boys basketball team, teams good luck as they both battle tomorrow, February twenty-seventh, in the semifinals against the Oyster Bay Baymen. The girls are playing at Malverne High School at five, and the boys will be playing at Jericho at seven. We hope to see you there to cheer on our teams. I'm going to pass it on to Trustee Zano. Thank you. Uh, not to be repetitive, but I'd like to thank Fred Madrapia and his crew. They worked tirelessly to make sure that everybody had room to park, and residents were able to come in, and students were able to get out of their cars safely. So thank you very much. You guys did a tremendous job, as, as you usually do. Thank you. Carolina, congratulations again. Well deserved.
006Okay, so now to Trustee Dunphy. Yeah, just to echo the, uh, the sentiment. I, I live, um, just down the street from the, uh, main entrance here to the building, and, you know, at all hours of the night, evening, you know, whatever it was, you hear snowblowers going. Uh, you can see, uh, the work happening- ... uh, really, uh, really, and, and we appreciate it. So thank you very much, Fred and your team. Um, to our val and sal, Carolina should get used to that applause, of course, uh, earlier. It'll happen a lot. Uh, also applause, uh, to Samantha Schwartz, our, uh, who, who is sure to be a first ballot, uh, Fine Arts Hall of Famer. Uh, right? Uh, very exciting, um, for her and all of us, her family, of course, uh, and
007her Extended Park Place family. Um, so wish her the best, well, and, uh, the best of all of our athletes. Um, congrats to all of, uh, our students tonight who were part of awards ceremonies. I was able to get down. In fact, I went to the high school one first, by accident. Uh, it took me a few more minutes than it should have to realize I was in the wrong place. Um, but most of the people, um, who were there, uh, and, uh, so supportive of all our kids and leaders of our building happened to be sitting in the back of the room. Thank you, guys. Um, and it's a really nice showing for a lot of our families, and again, congrats to, to all of our middle schoolers and high schoolers who, um, you
008know, achieved, uh, you know, made those achievements and, uh, tonight and through the last marking period, but also to all the staff and, uh, all our teachers and, and school leaders who make that happen, so... And now I'm rambling, so ... Chelsea Vittori, go ahead. Um, so thank you, everybody, for coming out this evening. Like everybody else, I want to sound redundant, um, because thanking the custodians and the facilities crew, what they did this past, um, week was insane because everybody here, I'm sure, has a house that got up to two to three feet of snow. And, um, I mean, I watched my husband do it. I didn't do it. Um, I was in the-- it was in the window, but, you know, you guys worked tirelessly, and I'm, I'm super proud and, and grateful
009for you guys. Thank you for everything you do. Um, I'd also like to congrat- congratulate Samantha Schwartz. Um, she was a Rushmore student. She came here actually not too long ago, a couple weeks ago, and gave us a check for the arts program in Rushmore. She's just been cast, uh, cast in a Broa- uh, Broadway production, um, Beaches: The Musical, where she will play Beyonce. Um, her debut is April twenty-second. Um, that's a super, you know, a, a, a, accomplishment, and if you are around, please go and see her. The support from Park Place in the, in the... I can't even speak. See, I'm rambling now. Um, the support in the, in the crowd would be great for her. Um, and I wanted to congratulate Moses Morales on him making it to states for wrestling.
010He's up there in, uh, Albany right now, so I hope he does well and bring home that, um, that title. And then to the girls and boys basketball teams, congratulations on making it to playoffs. Can't wait to hear that you won, and, um, let's bring home another award. Uh, and thank you for supporting everybody. Have a nice night. Oh, my most important thing is congratulations, Carolina. Thank you. I'm so honored to sit next to you. This is such a huge thing, and I'm so happy for you and your family, and I cannot wait to walk down this hall next year and see your picture on the wall. Thank you. Pleasure's all on this side. Yeah. And it's up to you. You can congratulate, you can do congratulations. Okay, welcome, everyone. On Friday, February thirteenth, PS
011I Love You Day was celebrated throughout the school district. This day promotes mental health awareness as well as kindness throughout communities. Students from Cherry Lane to the high school spread kind messages to their peers, while decorating the hallways in purple, the color that represents PS I Love You Day. As we move into March, the National Honor Society is continuing the tutoring services for middle school students in order to support them through the remainder of the third quarter. And as for sports, make sure you support the girls' varsity basketball team tomorrow at Melbourne High School and the boys' varsity basketball team at Jeremy High School, as they both first go to Brandon County semifinals. Thank you, and go Frogs. We will now hear comments from Dr. Kinome. Thank you, Madam President. Um, I will also say
012congratulations, and thank you very much to Fred and his crew. We were in contact with each other from six, six thirty in the morning up until ten o'clock at night. It was easy for me because I was just on the other side of the phone. I mean, these folks worked literally around the clock in cold, unpleasant conditions to get the school open and to keep it safe. That's a really big deal, and we, we, we thank you sincerely for that. Um, it goes without saying, but it's worth, it's worth saying congratulations again to Loralai and to Carolina. Um, Mr. Forer and I get the privilege of accompanying them to the Nassau County Valedictorian and Salutatorian Breakfast in June. And when you're in a room with that many smart people who have worked so hard and
013have, have striven to make their families proud of them, be proud of themselves, it, it gives us, I think, a really great hope for the future because we see what leaders look like and that we are producing leaders, and really credit goes to yourselves and your families. So, you know, well done. And it's a long ride from now to commencement, so enough about that for the time being, right? There'll be plenty of time for celebration. Um, looking forward to seeing our young women and young men in action on the court tomorrow. If you can get out there, get out there. They put on quite a show. They are fierce competitors. It'll be a really great thing to see. Um, as we heard about Samantha Schwartz making her Broadway debut, that is an amazing, fantastic thing.
014That starts in school, and our own, um, actors will be performing in Cinderella here at the high school on March twentieth and twenty-first. That's not that far away. Get your tickets, come out and see that. Are you in Cinderella? ... There you go. Um, it's pretty cool. We have a career day coming up for our high school students on the twenty-sixth. There are a lot of great things lined up for our kids there, so please come and see that. And, um, spring is not far away. It is definitely coming. We're glad to be in the home stretch. This is when it becomes the most important. This is to our kids at home and families watching, when it becomes the most important to study and stay on top of your game as we go into that
015last third of the year. So with that, I will turn it back over. Madam President, thank you. Thank you, Dr. Koni. We will now continue with the business of the meeting. The public dis- disclaimer will be read by Vice President Merriman. The Board of Education allows time at the conclusion of its regular meetings for comments from residents in attendance. Please note that any person wishing to speak during this time shall comply with all provisions of board policy. Although a total of thirty minutes is allowed for comments, the board president has the discretion to adjust the total time. I remind you to keep your comments to three minutes and to conduct yourself in a respectful manner. Please address school matters only and refrain from addressing topics related to personnel matters or individual students. Such concerns should
016be discussed privately with the superintendent or administrator at an appropriate time. The board is here to listen and cannot provide immediate feedback or engage in open dialogue. Any necessary follow-up will be noted and provided at a later date. Thank you. Are there any comments from the public on agenda items only? Please come to the podium and state your name and address. Okay, we will now continue with the business meeting. We'll have a presentation presented by Joanna DeMartino. This is the budget district-wide expense presentation. All right. Thank you, everybody, for being here tonight. Um, this is our second budget presentation, and we'll be discussing a very large portion of the overall budget. Um, thanks to our recent blizzard, there are some changes we plan to make, uh, to these numbers that we've been able to flow
017through all of the budget documents before this evening, so these numbers will change. Um, but as always, we'll provide the details of all the changes made throughout the budget process, uh, in a handout in future meetings, and also post it on our website. I decided to leave my quote as inspiration for the entire budget season, unless something else particularly inspires me. And while we're speaking of assumptions, we'll call it assumption adjacent, uh, is the miscommunication. So in my last presentation, um, I did say we made replacements to the carpet in the main office of the high school. We have not done that yet, uh, but now Mr. Mendrock and Mr. Borreker and I have selected the new carpet, and that will be completed this year. Another clarification I wanna make is regarding the budget increase
018drivers. At the last meeting, I presented, uh, the budget increase drivers in dollar value format, and because I always review and re-review, uh, the data throughout the budget cycle, I noticed that while our mandatory cost number, which is the number we highlighted based on our facilities, uh, efficiency, was correct, the breakdown of the other categories needs to be updated. So this slide shows the breakdown of each driver category as a percentage of the total budget change, and we'll present the updated dollar values after the next round of budget changes, because that will also change these numbers. This does not have any impact on the total budget. The budget's a budget increase, the tax cap, um, it's just about the distribution of that change amongst the categories shown. So if you're eating six hundred calories and
019half of it's fat and half of it's carbs, uh, or it's, you know, a third fat and two-thirds carbs, it's still six hundred calories. That's the same situation we, we have here. So tonight, we're gonna be talking about our district-wide expenditures, uh, no, uh, per-pupil spending, uh, facilities, expenditures, BOCES, through a couple of different lenses, our debt service projections, and, uh, transportation expenditures. So overall, those categories represent forty-one percent of the budget. The other fifty-nine percent will be covered in remaining future presentations. Um, the forty-one percent is consistent with prior years' expenses, so it means that although expenses are growing, they are growing in proportion to the budget as a whole. So it's not as if the expenses in these categories are growing at a faster rate than the rest of the budget. So here's
020a breakdown of the dollar values and the change from our current to proposed budget for each category. Uh, overall, it's a one point nine four percent increase, which is about four hundred and seventy-eight thousand dollars, and again, it's proportionate to the growth of the overall budget. Um, it is important to keep in mind the board is still reviewing the budget, and these numbers will likely change, um, but as it stands now, you can see it's fairly spread out between BOCES, um, benefit and facilities, and we're gonna look at those areas in greater detail as we move forward. So starting with district-wide expenses, uh, what we mean by that is supplies and materials for our budget, both for our board, our administrative offices, uh, legal fees, audit fees, public information, that's our newsletter, um, insurance premiums
021for the district.... uh, our share of federally funded programs. Um, and these expenses can't be isolated to a particular building or a group of students, so instead, they are applicable to everyone in the district, and due to our size, it's these numbers that drive up our per-student spending. Just a quick note, because it does come up every year, there has been research done that per-student spending increases exponentially when your enrollment falls below fifteen hundred. Um, that's where we are, and it's important to remember that general per-pupil spending doesn't take into account individual student needs that may influence the overall calculation. So again, the point of mentioning this is just to remember that it does nothing to help the bottom line, but it is a product of our size. It's not a Carl case problem, it's
022a small district problem, and that's one of the things that offsets all the positive qualities we have as a small community. In our district-wide expense category, the projected increase is twelve thousand and seven hundred and twenty dollars. Um, that's primarily due to the items noted on this slide. Our district insurance premiums are increasing. That's mainly our general liability and property insurance. We saw an eleven percent increase going into this school year for twenty-five, twenty-six, and we were told to expect an increase between eight and ten percent for twenty-six, twenty-seven. Charter school tuition is also increasing based on projected enrollment, um, and those increases are being offset by decreases in administrative curriculum expenses and the required transfer to our special aid or federal fund, and that's again, because of the increase in UPKE, so we don't
023need that transfer for this school year. This is a slide we saw last year. It's here again because we're now able to see the impact of these efficiencies in this budget cycle. Uh, one new item to this slide is the conversion to LED lighting, and I wanted to mention this because it's another way that we look for funding. So it's not a grant, but it did provide us, uh, prevent us rather, from having additional expenditures. So our conversion to LED lighting, uh, capitalized on rebate opportunities. It's going to generate future savings in electricity, and we also participated in the STOP program, which is Stop Throwing Out Pollutants, uh, which allows for the free and safe disposal of fluorescent light bulbs, saving us an estimated ten thousand dollars in disposal costs. These are all of our
024facilities expenditure codes. You'll notice they're color-coded, I'm hoping that makes it a little more meaningful and easier to understand. So the green is equipment, the orange is supplies, the blue is contracted, um, expenses, that's vendor contracts, and the purple is special projects. We'll take a closer look at equipment and special projects on the next slides. But as far as supplies, you can see those efficiencies we spoke about are being reflected in the budget as an overall decrease. The number will change slightly. There's a reallocation that needs to be made between, uh, the ground supply code and the contracted grounds code, uh, related to fuel for district vehicles, but that will just be a straight offset between the orange and the blue categories. For our contracted vendor expenses, our vehicle maintenance is increasing because our fleet
025is aging and there's greater need for repairs. Our contracted grounds maintenance increase is based on our prior year actual expenses, plus some post sprinkler repairs and new system installations. The contracted HVAC expense increase is driven by the proposed installation of mini-split units in the Cherry Lane Library. Because we can't separate the controls from-- for the rooms within the library, the temperature here is based on the library, the main library, so those rooms often run too hot or too cold. Um, tomorrow, I will link and post all the details related to these account codes and all other account codes that we discussed tonight. Again, just a little catching up to do, um, because of the storm. So some of the noteworthy, uh, increases in the equipment code for facilities, um, we'd like to replace our twenty
026ten Chevy Malibu, which is currently being used by our messenger. The new vehicle will go to, uh, the driver's ed program, and the current driver's ed vehicle will become the messenger car. We would like to replace our John Deere Gator, which is currently unusable and beyond repair, uh, with a Kubota for scanning and salting. We need to repair the tow hitch on our district truck. Uh, we have classroom clocks to replace in Rushmore and the middle school/high school, and then, uh, tornado bathroom starters and some wet/dry vacs. So these are some of the things that I just mentioned. That's the Gator, uh, on the left there, again, not being used, currently beyond repair. That's how the gate there, it is tied on. That's why the picture is there, and I get literally tied on. Um,
027and again, the driver's ed car, which will go to, um, the messenger, will replace the messenger car. It's currently a twenty ten Chevy Malibu with ninety-nine thousand six hundred and twenty-eight miles. Uh, so again, the board's still reviewing the budgets for these projects are subject to change. Um, at Cherry Lane, you may remember the playground was in the budget last year, um, but because the clock system went down, we chose to purchase the replacements this year for Cherry Lane and do the installation in-house as a sort of trial so that the budget amounts for the middle school and Rushmore, Middle School, High School and Rushmore, uh, could be less than if we needed a vendor to do the installation. So happy to report that that did work out. Um, so the playground is going to
028be done-... 'twenty-six, 'twenty-seven. Uh, we have our annual gym floor maintenance, bathroom flooring replacement at Rushmore, some parking lot lighting. Um, again, bathroom flooring, the annual stage floor maintenance, um, middle school, high school, repaving of the front driveway. Again, the gym floors, uh, and district-wide, um, paintings, plantings, sidewalk repair, window covering, and the big one here is the field house repairs, which we'll take a look at. So these are some of the bathroom floors in Rushmore that are in need of repair. The Cherry Lane play- playground, which is the same pictures you saw last year, because we still haven't done it. Uh, we started replacing the vanity covers, uh, at Cherry Lane, so now we're gonna move on to Rushmore. If you look on the right, that's, that's what an old one looks like. And
029on the close-up, you can see it's not tight, it's not sealed well, so water gets in there, and then you have to pay to pump the water out. So the new ones prevent that from happening, so savings in that expense. And then lastly, our field house. If you've walked by it, and you've seen it, uh, it, it is in need of some TLC. Moving on to BOCES. Uh, BOCES is the Board of Cooperative Educational Services. BOCES does a lot of different things for our district. Um, BOCES expenses include special ed, uh, program tuition, summer school, our arts and ed money, uh, Long Island High School for the Arts, health and safety services, cybersecurity, instructional software, staff development, lots of different, uh, categories that provide, uh, that we get from BOCES. So why do we use
030BOCES? Um, it simplifies the procurement process, it minimizes the costs associated with bidding for our district, and it helps smaller districts like ours take advantage of economies of scale, which can generate lower prices. So goods and services purchased through BOCES, uh, generate revenue in the form of state aid for our district. Uh, BOCES aid that we get for twenty-six, twenty-seven is based on expenditures made during twenty-five, twenty-six, and our aid is shown approximately thirty-eight percent. So based on the governor's proposed budget, our estimated BOCES aid based on the twenty-five, twenty-six expenses to be received in the twenty-six, twenty-seven school year is seven hundred and sixty-nine thousand and two hundred and twenty-three dollars. If BOCES doesn't spend all the money it gets from the districts, it is returned, uh, at the end of the year to
031each district in a proportionate share. Probably the most important part here is, will you see BOCES expenses in other presentations throughout the budget process? And the answer is yes. Um, there's budget, BOCES expenses in transportation, technology. Uh, just to note, these are not additional expenses, so we're showing all of the BOCES expenses here tonight. Um, you will see some of them again in their respective areas. Why? Because it's kind of disingenuous to present the BOCES budget without the BOCES expenses. Similarly, it would be disingenuous to present the technology budget without the BOCES technology expenses. But they are the same expenses, so we're not, we're not doing those things twice. So what are we spending our money on with BOCES? Uh, overwhelmingly, instruction and student services, that's eighty-six percent of our expenses. General administrative and operations
032is twelve percent and two percent on transportation. The breakdown is slightly different this year than last year. Transportation is making up a little bit more than the prior year. Um, but within instruction and student services, the breakdown is exactly the same as last year's budget. So that shows within BOCES, our budget is also growing proportionately. This is an overview of our BOCES expenses, how they're projected to change, broken down by function. Um, every year we get an estimate from BOCES, uh, and we try to choose the mid to low point of that range when we budget. This year, the range was two and a half to five. Uh, we budgeted three. So as you can see, most of our BOCES expenses are just changing, uh, by about that three percent increase, with the exception of
033the highlighted char-- categories, which we'll see those details in a future slide. From a dollar value perspective, both technology and special education costs contributed significantly to our overall increase, despite being close to that three percent mark. Um, so while we aren't projecting any major changes in services from this year to next year, because they make up a large percentage of our total BOCES expenses, the dollar value increase is quite larger than the other categories. Within our personnel function, the main driving increase here is the use of Frontline Central, which is a school-specific employee record management system that automates tasks like employee onboarding. It's something Coldplace has used in the past, but we weren't really able to realize its full potential, so we took it out, and now that we have a dedicated HR administrator, um,
034we are able to maximize that functionality for our district, so it is better. In the general education function, uh, there's our model schools line. So Nassau BOCES Model Schools Program provides tailored, uh, instructional technology, professional development with customized training, unique, uh, training days to integrate technology tools into the curriculum.... Um, they align with New York State Computer Science and Digital Literacy Standards. And again, this is something we've been doing, so based on the value that we have received over the years, we are proposing an increase in the number of training days from six to twelve, which is the equivalent of one day per building And just also to note, as you can see in the RSNA details here, I'm working with Mr. Lamone to present these details in a different way, so it's easier to
035see the programming by building. Uh, Dr. Benoit and I also, also going to the March PTA council meeting, so we can start to address some of the concerns regarding how the funds are allocated among the star buildings. Questions? So for both these, um, transportation, which you'll also see later in the presentation, transportation budget. Uh, transportation for special ed students is based on student placement. Um, the budgeted amounts were calculated based on our current year actual costs, increased by, uh, CPI for December of twenty twenty-five, which is three point four percent. Our debt service. So just a little history, last year, we fully repaid our outstanding debt related to our bonds, originally issued in two thousand and four, refunded in two thousand and fifteen. Uh, we had our bond vote in October of twenty twenty-four, so
036we will be issuing new debt. Uh, the total amount of ten million dollars to finance the HVC project here in this building. Uh, our goal then and now is to keep our debt service payment, uh, as close as possible to the debt service payment that we made for the twenty-four, twenty-five year, and that's to minimize the impact on community taxpayers. So during this school year, we did issue a bond anticipation note in the amount of seven hundred and fifty thousand, which matures in June of twenty twenty-six. And then we anticipate issuing, uh, the bond during the twenty-six, twenty-seven school year. And you'll see on the next slide, rates have fallen since our last projection, so the projected debt service payments are a little bit less than originally anticipated. Uh, so these are the projected future
037debt service payments. These figures were prepared by Capital Markets, our fiscal advisors, um, and you can see over the years, they are relatively consistent. Again, which is what we're looking for over time. Our transportation increases are based on, uh, we assume the December twenty twenty-five CPI for New York, New York, Jersey City, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, because that's what SED uses when they, um-- for their allowable contract increases. They use the May number, which obviously we don't have yet, so we based the budget on December and, um, we make our increases from there. Uh, our transportation, other expenses are increasing because we have a need for a matron, as required by student IDs, uh, that we cannot staff internally. We actually went so far as to train someone, um, and then they
038took a job with the bus. So still working on that. Um, our summer transportation costs are based on our actual expenses for twenty-five, twenty-six, with our projected CPI increase, and then both agency, again, there we discussed. Uh, also, just to point out on there, um, based on our current student counts and placements, uh, with the CPI, we are able to maintain our private, um, our private school transportation line, uh, last for this year. So that then includes, um, an es-- some estimates for additional placements. So that was a nice, um, I wouldn't say savings, 'cause we're not decreasing it, but a nice non-increase. So the last category, the ninth, benefits. Um, if you notice, the title on the leftmost column here is function and not account. So unlike the other areas we reviewed, benefits are
039all the same object with just the part account code after the dot. In other words, there's no benefits equipment or benefits supplies. Um, each benefit category has account codes for the applicable related salaries, administrative, program, or capital. So a very modest increase this year, almost one percent, just under one percent. Again, these are payments made by the district on behalf of employees, as required under law or employment contracts. Employees also make contributions towards, um, these benefits, and it's through contract negotiation that the district has to navigate those challenges of responsibly sharing those costs, um, between ourselves and our employees. Health insurance, that is still making up the largest part of all of our benefits. Uh, active employee health insurance rates for calendar year twenty-six, uh, increase an average of eight point eight five percent. The
040estimated rate increase used for twenty twenty-seven in the budget is ten percent. Federal Medicare reimbursement rates have increased significantly. Um, where we're seeing that savings or that lack of an increase is because of our teachers' retirement system, so that's applicable to our instructional staff and administrators. The employee contribution rate there is decreasing. Employer contribution rate is decreasing from nine point five nine to eight point two four. Um, DRS, that is our non-instructional staff, and that employer, employer contribution rate is increasing slightly. So TRS, that's the second consecutive year of decreases.... Uh, ERS is the second consecutive year of increases. Both rates are influenced by the overall performance of those planned investments, and they use a five-year average to determine the employer contribution rate. Uh, these were the additional board meeting dates. We're having budget-related presentations.
041Um, obviously, be on the lookout for opportunities to learn more at other community meetings. If you haven't already, please participate in our budget survey. We have thirty-one participants as of earlier today, and we certainly want that number to increase. Um, you can also provide us feedback by emailing budgettwoseventyseven@ncps. Uh, you can call the business office or, of course, come to a board meeting, but we do want to hear your feedback. If you want to know more, especially after tonight, uh, visit our website, or you can email us. Uh, I know that was a lot of information, so thank you for sticking with me, and please join us at our next meeting on March twelfth. Thank you. ... Joanna, plug the capital reserve on- Yes. - March nineteenth, right? So March nineteenth is our vote day.
042We'll continue to promote that out to the public, but please come out and vote. Thank you, Joanna. Could you repeat that? March nineteenth, we're voting on what? We're- we had said in our last meeting that we were having a capital reserve vote. Remember we had that presentation where we talked about the cost of our materials, the cost of materials had gone up, so we need to have a vote to authorize some additional expenditure. We have the money for that. It's not gonna be at a cost to the taxpayer, but we have to have a vote to allow us to use the money we do have. And the date of that is? March nineteenth. Thank you, Joanna. We're gonna save the questions towards the end, okay? Thank you. We will now continue with the, the rest
043of the meeting. May I have a motion to approve the Board of Education business meeting of February twelfth, twenty twenty-six? So moved. Yes. All in favor? Aye. The minutes of the February twelfth, twenty twenty-six meeting minutes are approved. Now, for the approval of the consent agenda. May I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? I make a motion to approve. All in favor? Aye. All are approved of the consent agenda. If there are any questions or comments from the public not regarding the agenda, would please come to the podium, state your name and address. My name is Maya, fifty-eight Woodcock Road, Westbury, New York. I guess I'll try to run through fast. I get, what, three minutes? Mm-hmm. Okay. Um, seventeen thousand textbooks, private parochial schools. Do we get these books returned? Um, facilities
044expenditures, all the sort of beige-y lines, um, other expenses, supplies, supplies, supplies, supplies, supplies. These lines are about somewhere around three hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars, but we also have many, many contractual maintenance items. Now, I would like to know how many people we have on the maintenance staff. What are they supposed to be responsible for in doing small stuff, and why would they need three hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars worth of supplies when most of this stuff is being contracted? I can understand you need, you know, toilet paper and so on, but that's not what all of this seems to be. Um, facilities, um, I would like to know what those manway covers are covering. Uh, somewhere here we were doing... Uh, oh, yes, the new wet/dry vacuums. We did this recently another year,
045wherein the cost of these wet/dry vacuums was vastly beyond what a normal wet fi- wet/dry vacuum was. In the last couple of years, we had that same item. And, uh, what line is the Chevy Malibu, the new car? I'm not quite sure which line that's on. Um, I don't know what... Uh, BOCES expenditures. BOCES, HR, compliance. So apparently, we have a new full-time person that does this stuff, and we're adding in... I'm not quite sure what any of that is. It's not... It's, it's like it's-- I think it's a seven hundred and eleven percent increase, it says, um, for this BOCES compliance thing. Um, the other BOCES expenditures, the BOCES Model Schools program, tailored instruction technology. Who are we training? Is this students? Is this teachers? Who is it?... I'm not sure. Okay, Louise. Um,
046we're going to start answering your questions now, because, um, the time is up. So let's answer the questions, and then we'll see if any other people have questions. Thank you. I just want to point out that in past years, when we had the whole budget in front of us all, people on the, members of the board actually had questions about things. Now, I have to assume that the board has gone through all of this, and there's nothing there that the board would question. To your point, Louise, I'll just make a quick comment, because I do take the budget seriously. We receive binders, and it's every single possible line item on the budget. And this year, the format was a little bit more user-friendly for us, where there's boxes next to each line item. And you're
047talking about hundreds, thousands of line items with details. And the information you see is the information we give. We take it seriously, and, and there have been some boxes that are unchecked in the budget, and that's why we drilled down to have the presentation that we had. So I just wanted to convey to you that we all take the budget seriously to make sure that our budget is healthy, and it provides everything that our students need to have a good education. So thank you for listening. What I meant was whether or not you questioned- We did now. We did that now. I used to see those, get those binders. Thank you. I'm glad for your answers. Um, just on the topic of the budget binders, just as a quick announcement, all of the information included
048in these binders is included on the district website, so everybody has access to the same information, um, that our board of education has access to. Um, our facilities, uh, our maintenance, our maintenance staff, that's maintenance-specific, is two employees currently. Um, but you have to realize in this contracted, um, cost, yes, a lot of it is maintenance, but it also includes our utilities, um, our BOCES health and safety. And those are, um, obviously things that can't be performed by our district employees. Um, much of the, the maintenance work in these posts is beyond the scope of our in-house maintainers, and certainly they can't keep up with all of the things that need, um, maintenance. Supplies are completely different, unrelated to the maintenance. These are cleaning supplies, our paper products, our, um, ground supplies for the fields.
049It's play, it's, you know, um, all of the things that go into keeping the facilities running. Um, most of it here is our building supply, um, and that was a purposeful reallocation of, uh, some funds from another account. And you see in our cleaning supply, from our custodial district-wide, that's where we're seeing those efficiencies. It's a hundred thousand dollars decrease from the prior year. Our Chevy, uh, is in the capitalized equipment code, that very first one on that slide, uh, sixty-eight thousand. It's, it's comprised of all of the items that are noteworthy equipment on the next slide, so it's included in that account code. Um, you are correct, the wet dry vacs, we did purchase those previously. These are, um, backups, and this is something that we were just discussing with the board. That is
050something that may or may not stay in the budget, um, but it's in there as of right now, so I'm presenting it to you. Uh, it's not the same as a wet dry vac you would use in your house. This is an industrial, um, wet dry vac, so it is far more costly than the one you might use at home. Uh, our HR compliance, so that's Frontline Central. That is an automated system, um, used to maintain employee records, to digitalize the appro-approval process when new employees are hired. It is something we've used in the past. Uh, and like I said, but we weren't using it the way we should have been, so we did get rid of it. Um, but there is value to it, and now because we have our, uh, dedicated administrator, we
051are bringing it back. We can utilize it the way it's meant to be used and the way that's going to help us the most. Um, so we do review things for the budget and take out things that aren't working for us. Sometimes they come back, that's one of those cases. Um, model schools, we are training teachers. That's training for, uh, professional development for our teachers related to, um, new instructional technology. The other piece that I would add in is about the textbooks. Mm-hmm. Textbooks are loaned out and then returned. We don't give them away forever. Just like a student in school, we give the textbook back at the end of the year. We're obliged to do that. And I'll add on to what DeMartino was saying, the Frontline Central, part of the value of that
052is there is a lot of required paperwork and compliance items that happen when you hire a new person, when you're maintaining an employee's records across the years. And the reason that that has proven beneficial to us is, A, we have a person who knows how to use it effectively, and B, when we maintain those records correctly, we're maintaining our salary records correctly and our benefits records. And should a problem ever arise with an employee-... asking for something or deserving something, we will have a very clear, concise record of that, and are able to give people what they, what they deserve, and it's less ambiguity, and it protects the district as well from making a mistake. It's not-- It's, it's d- district-wide, not just the BOCES. It's for all the- Frontline Central is, is, is something
053we use district-wide when we're hiring or processing people's information. Thank you. Are there any questions or comments from the public not regarding the agenda? Please come to the podium and state your name and address. Thank you. Mrs. Brenner. Hello, good evening. Um, some questions I had were, um, regarding the third snow day, the first one we had, and then the two others. I understand it was a state waiver, uh, for the Monday, you know, uh, citywide, statewide, I guess, from Governor Hochul. My question is regarding the Tuesday that our children were off, um, is it a give back? So meaning sc- no sc- uh, for the Memorial Day emergency... 'Cause the way the text came through, it said, "Emergency snow." So I wasn't sure, like, is that we-- are, are the students and staff going
054to be making up that day, or was that day a waiver as well? Um, uh, regarding the budget, um, could you-- I'm not, I'm, um, I, I go through things very care- carefully. I'm not sure e- exactly what the charter school funding is. I don't recall that from other things, so if you could possibly elaborate on that, you know, almost two hundred thousand or the, uh, you know, the... Uh, it's on that page. Sorry. Uh, teacher training, I see there's, there's, you know, an increase in the teacher training, went from a thousand to six hundred-- six thousand on this color, on this colored side. So how is that money different than the staff development programs and the bu- BOCES over here with the staff development? So is that kind of like a double-dipping? Is it
055staff development for some people? When you increase the six days to twelve days for the staff development, when does that occur? Does it occur during the school day, or are substitutes being hired? This, this question, this page. Um, so is it double-dipping, the teacher training there, this, or is it the same money? Um, maybe possibly less planting at Rushmore and, uh, paint some games, additional games on the recess, uh, blacktop, because I know foursquare and, uh, you know, tic-tac-toe and hopscotch are a hot, a hot commodity, and they have large, uh, thing, large playing fields. Um- ... Uh, health benefits, I know, of course, it increases annually, of course, but is our number increasing so high because maybe Carver Place offers something that surrounding districts don't offer, and we are attracting people? Um, employment, I
056know the hiring season is coming. I know that, uh, OLAS is the way to go, that many school districts do. So, um, school aides, uh, cafeteria assistants, uh, are those jobs that may not be for real educate, educator-heavy background. Do people know to go to OLAS to apply for those jobs? Uh, the employment website, it just lists substitute nurses, and then it tells them to go to OLAS. It really should... Those rolling applications should really be, you know, in Newsday, church bulletins. You advertise Parent University so often, so, uh- Okay, Ms. Brenner- Yeah, thank you. Your questions. We'll answer your questions. Okay, excellent. Thank you. If you have more, yes. The snow days? Yes. As I understand it, the snow days will not cause a give back. The state of emergency was extended, and I
057also filed a waiver request. I am pretty confident at this point that there will be no give back. Okay. So that's nice. Okay, good. Thank you. Um, also, do people know to apply to OLAS? Yes, people know to apply to OLAS. It is the industry standard. That's the way you get jobs in schools. Yeah. Um, thank you for your comment about games on the blacktop. The teacher training piece, I think we're referring to Model Schools. Model Schools is specific technology staff development. So it is staff development that is available to our teachers to enhance and increase their use of instructional technology for students. So it's got a direct effect on the classroom. Okay. Um- That's already, um, like PBL technology? It would be more specific to software programs that we make investments in, and then
058the consultant comes in- Okay ... and trains the teachers specifically on the tools that we, we purchase. Okay, thank you. Mm-hmm. Thank you. Um, I guess the, the charter school piece, I'll, I'll get back to Ms. Demartino in a moment. You asked as well, do we offer some sort of special or enhanced- Yes ... benefits that other school districts don't get? No, we don't. I would even go so far as to say that Carver Place has one of the highest employee contributions of any district out there, so we actually are more conservative than other places. Okay, thank you. Right. Uh, so our charter school tuition- ... the rate set by the state, uh, we're required to pay for students that attend charter schools. Uh, it's a, it's an increase of one student, that's what's driving
059that, that increase. Uh, the training we were talking about, that's our facilities training, so training for our facilities staff. So we are increasing that because we need, uh, to, to get, to get some more out of our staff. They need to be trained on how to do things, um, properly and safely as Fred introduces new, um, tasks for them. So it's an important investment to make, um, because it will help us cut down on those vendor costs, the more things we can do in-house with our own staff. But, um, and I think that's it. Pretty sure. Okay, thank you. Are there any questions or comments from the public not regarding the agenda items? Important. Okay, just... Um- Thank you. I can't find it right now. I, I see the fifty thousand dollars for the cafeteria
060in here again, and I understood, I think the last time, that they're making money, and we shouldn't be giving them more money. Just one question. Uh, yeah, I'm sure you're more than. Yeah, so right now, that, that line is still in, uh, the budget. We are required to make that transfer if the school lunch fund is not profitable. So there does have to be some funding available in case that should happen, because it's a law. Um, we may adjust that number as the budget process goes on, uh, especially based on the results of this year with the universally free meals. Thank you. Are there any questions or comments from the public, not regarding the agenda items? I am now going to close the public session. Can I have a motion to close the public session?
061So moved. Second? Aye. All in favor? Aye. Aye. We are adjourned. Thank you for coming.