Board of Education Meeting-April 21, 2026

001So, this is the Easter Aurora Union Free School District Board of Education meeting for April 21st, 2026. Uh, please stand and join me in the pledge to the flag. >> 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. >> Thank you all. Um, may I have a motion to enter executive session to discuss uh matters uh pertaining to the continued negotiations with the EAFA, matters related to the pro promotion or discipline of three employees and matters pertaining to a particular corporation moved by Mrs. Whitel. Second, >> second by discussion. >> All in favored abstensions. That's passed 50 and we are in executive session. Um thank you everyone for joining us. Uh we appreciate

002you being here tonight. Uh we are returning from executive session where we discussed uh continue negotiations with the EAFA, matters related to the promotion or discipline of three uh employees, matters pertaining to a particular corporation and matters protected by fura. Moving on, we are back in exe open session. Moving on to agenda changes. Um uh yes, we have one agenda change. It's 11D, uh community comments. So, we're going to have two community comments tonight. One we're going to have in the beginning for matters that are not related to the budget, and then we're going to have a second community comment after the budget presentation. So you're able to see what we've worked on over the last couple of weeks. Um before you uh comment to the board. Thank you very much. All right, we're going

003on to move on to agenda item five 5A. Uh the superintendent recommends the board of education grant tenure to Alice Bower 1.0 FTE teacher in the area of elementary education effective September 1, 2026. May I have a motion? >> Moved by Mr. B. >> Second by M. Whitel. Discussion. All in favor? >> I >> opposed. Abstensions. >> 6. >> Thank you. Um, moving on to uh item B. Uh, the superintendent recommends the board of education grant tenure to uh Heidi uh 1.0 FTE teacher in the area of education of children with handicapping conditioned September 1, 2026. May I have a motion? >> So moved. >> Moved by Males. Second by Mrs. Damian. Discussion. All in favor? >> I opposed. Abstensions. None. 6. Item C. The superintendent recommends the board of education grant tenure to Carly

004Graves 1.0 FDE teacher in the area of elementary education anticipated effective September 1, 2026. May I have a motion? >> So moved. >> Moved by Mr. Blau. Second. >> Second by Mrs. Malice. Discussion. All in favor? I >> opposed. extensions and that has passed 6. Next item D. The superintendent recommends the board of education grant tenure to Aaron Willard Salter with 1.0 FTE teacher in the area of education of children with handicapping conditions. anticipated uh effective October 20th, 2026. May I have a motion? >> So moved. >> Moved by Mrs. Second. >> Second by Mrs. Whitel. Discussion. All in favor? >> I opposed abstensions. And that is pass 6. Moving on to item E. Superintendent recommends the board of education grant tenure to Karen Smith 1.0 FTE in the area of education of children with

005handicapping conditions anticipated effective September 1, 2026. May I have a motion? Moved by Miss second. Second by Mrs. Damian. Discussion. All in favor? >> I >> opposed abstensions. And that is pass 6. The super uh item F the superintendent recommends that the board of education grant tenure to whether be the 1.0 No FTE teacher in the area of education of children with handicapping conditions anticipated effective September 25, 2026. May I have a motion? >> So moved. >> Moved by Mrs. Malice. Second. >> Second by Mr. Blowers. Discussion. All in favor? >> Opposed? Extensions. That's at 6. Item G, the superintendent recommends the board of education grant tenure to uh Jeff Wilmore, 1.0 FTE teacher in the area of music education anticipated effective September 1, 2026. May I have a motion? >> So moved. >> Moved

006by Mr. Brunson, second by Mrs. Mail is discussion. All in favor? >> I >> opposed abstensions. >> That's pass 6. And item H. The superintendent recommends the board of education grant tenure to Julie Wolfford 1.0 FE teacher in the area of elementary education. anticipated effective September 1, 2026. May I have a motion? >> Moved by Mrs. Daniel. Second. >> Second by Mrs. Whitel. Discussion. All in favor? >> I opposed abstensions. And that's pass six. So, so before we get to our re our reception, um I don't I can't remember the last time we've had eight people get tenure on the same day. So, uh it's it's um and these are really eight extraordinary people. Um it's not easy to get tenure, right? There's a lot of demands put on our teachers. They work incredibly hard

007and and this group is just really exceptional. And so we're so grateful the work you that you've done and we're so grateful for what's to come because we hope you have very long careers with us and we wish you the very best and continued success and we thank you again for all the great things that you're doing for our students and for being such great colleagues and um yeah we're just very fortunate to have you. So congratulations and thank you and we have Heat. HEAT. HEAT. HEAT. HEAT. HEAT. HEAT. HEAT. HEAT. HEAT. HEAT. HEAT. HEAT. HEAT. HEAT. HEAT. HEAT. HEAT. HEAT. HEY. HEY. HEY. HEAT. HEAT. SO, We are on uh agenda item six. Uh this is the member comments. As Mr. Russ indicated, we are going to be holding a second one. So the

008the cards for which people were speaking to the budget, uh I'll be calling those folks uh at that moment in time. Um just for the the sake of the board though before we go into any community comments uh we have as a board since our last meeting received the following uh emails. Uh Megan McKe on the 9th with regards to cutting teachers across the Eastboro High School Leman on the 13th with regards to the 26 27 budget budget. uh Roxanne Perry uh on the April 14th uh a um regarding to meet our new student brand ambassadors. Uh Caitlyn Hullery on uh April 16th uh with no subject line. uh Rachel Silva on April 17th uh regarding public comment uh on the 26 20 or the 2026 budget. Uh Cecilia Stephano on the 19th uh regarding

009budget concerns. Uh Melissa Leman on the 20th. Uh, additional concerns regarding school library media specialist uh Wer uh on the uh April 20th uh uh regarding teacher positions and student opportunities in the 2016 budget. uh on the 20th also with uh Sarah Mayor Round uh regarding the school nurse uh Amy Gerard on the 20th uh regarding budget cut concerns. Rachel Silva on the 21st um regarding public comment opportunities. Uh Jessica Tek Yeah. uh on the 20th uh regarding budget concerns. Uh Katie Ratchuk on the 21st regarding concerns regarding proposed budget cuts. Amber Malik on the first uh budget priorities and long-term funding considerations. Bridg Converse on the 21st, the BOE meeting uh on 421. Uh Sydney Gerard on the 21st from uh Erie uh regarding Erie 1. Uh Melania Oelsville on the 21st uh regarding

010budget/teer contract. Julie Davis on the 21st uh regarding concerns uh about the proposed changes to the budget. And that was what we received by the time we uh came down here for the meeting uh by 5 o' >> received while you were in >> apparently we uh I just want to check in with the other board members make sure that they received all those and had an opportunity to uh read read that um we're going to move on. Looking at the cards, it looks like they're uh the majority uh budget related. I did want to give uh Sarah Borat the change to talk uh about uh one item on here that was not budget related. If you can add it into your budget if you'd like. >> I I mean I think it makes sense.

011>> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. Then I will I will hold on to these uh and we will uh bring you all up in a little while. Thank you. Moving on to item seven, superintendent comments. >> Uh yes, I just wanted to um I think I mentioned it to the board. Um Linda Persons who is the president of NYSE came to visit Easter um Mrs. Converse who is our uh the president of the Easter education uh faculty association um was at a conference with her and and they were speaking about our prek program after she gave a presentation about what good prek programs look like. And so uh she was really impressed with what she was hearing. So she decided to pay us a visit. And so um we toured her through the district.

012We started with prek and and they were as cute as they always are. and they were very impressed with the structure of our of our day, the types of programming that we're offering to our littlest learners and most of our prek teachers were here tonight receiving tenure. So, we're really grateful for their their awesome work. And so, they were very impressed um just with the quality and the fact that we have a full day program. Our our student um specials throughout the day and so we have a lot of the elements that um NIST supports. So, she wanted to come out and see it, which I really appreciated. So we were able to tour her through um the elementary part middle school and high school and uh so we had kids talk to her about

013our web program at the middle school and again that was really successful. I think she was impressed with their leadership and what we're doing in terms of mentorship for our fifth graders as they enter the middle school. Moved on to the high school and we looked at Blue Devil Design and and the farm. Uh once again they talked to me about like smaller school districts like ours being able to pull off those types of programs and she said you know she was very impressed. So they were making furniture on the new CNC machine that we received from the educational foundation which was really impressive. Uh the furniture the kids were making was just incredible quite honestly. And so again it was just a really great day. We spent no maybe two or three hours with

014her and uh we had some really good conversations. She talked brought up a little bit about tier six and working together to kind of fix that. And um yeah, I just want to thank her again for coming because uh she's very busy and um and we were just fortunate enough for her to be here and then speak about us. I understand she spoke about our school district when she was presenting to uh the city of Buffalo later that night. So just wanted to share that with the board. >> Thank you, Mr. Ross. Uh moving on to item eight, administrator comments. Are there any administrators who have something to share, >> Mr. Brown? >> Right. We would just like to report on the student council trip that we just got from Saturday, actually Sunday morning at

0151:30 a.m. It was a long day. Uh we left Wednesday morning around 6:30. We brought 45 students in grades 6, seven, and 8 to Montreal and Quebec. It's Quebec, not Quebec. I've been super long my whole life. Um, but we we had just an incredible time. Um, I want to start by thanking the chapro, Mrs. Cook, uh, who kind of facilitated the trip, um, and did a lot of the work for it, was incredible. Mrs. Douglas, who I know is here today, um, was like the trip mom, um, just awesome with our younger students. Mr. Dayton, uh, another one of our teachers and Mrs. Raby were both there, just incredible. and officer Longville um came with us and just the amount of time that they step away from their families uh to do this and

016to to dedicate themselves to these 45 students 24/7 from Wednesday at 6:30 till 1:30 in the morning something. Um but in Montreal we had an incredible tour guide. We checked out a lot of historic places, the underground city. Um just just it it was a beautiful city and we were there for one day then we went up to Quebec and um saw some incredible sites, walking tours, learned about the history. We did a a bunker escape room where the students were scientists and had to figure out how to get out of a bunker and uh took a ferry in the St. Lawrence, did all kinds of things. Best part probably was the sugar shack where we ate fresh maple syrup and had all kinds of wonderful food and the kids were for the first time

017ever louder in a restaurant than they are in a middle school cafeteria. They were playing music, they were dancing and just having the best time. Uh but before I stop, I know I could keep going here. One of the coolest things about the trip is when we crossed the border to come home, the the border patrol in the US up near St. Lawrence um you know up in that area Thousand Islands pulled Mrs. Cook aside and explained to her that he's been doing this for a number of years. He was an older gentleman and he said that our group was the best group of students that have ever crossed the border um in regard to their behavior. They were able to speak with the officers. They all had their passports or the birth certificates and

018they looked them in the eye and they were just incredible. So he he told us we were either really good at striking fear in kids or we have really good kids and I can tell you we did not strike fear. Um so it was just our really good kids. So thank you to to everyone in the community for raising such awesome young ones but and thank you for the board for allowing us to go uh cuz it is something that I know everyone who is there will never forget it. So thank you >> Mr. Roberts. >> Tough to top that one. Uh but upon return from uh vacation, things have uh uh picked up at the high school and I just want to invite the board to three different events that are taking place this

019week. Uh this Thursday at 11:15, it is our annual Arbor Day ceremony and that is sponsored by an our environmental science class and Mr. Sheling will be planting three trees uh at the corner of Sweden Center. Uh always a highlight of the year. So, you're welcome to join us uh this Thursday. On Friday, uh in partnership with the education foundation, we are inducting five new members into our uh hall of fame. So, we'll start with those uh introductions um at the Royoft on Friday morning and then the inductees plus their families will come up to the high school and present to our students uh and tour the building and then that's on Friday. And then Saturday uh evening and Sunday um midday the drama production is taking place and that's Clue this year. So if

020you're looking to solve a mystery this this weekend that's Saturday evening and Sunday midday. And then one last thing that I wanted to uh to announce and that's hot off the presses. Uh today we have two individuals associated with East Ror High School uh and the district um who were selected to have their artwork on display at the new Buffalo Bill Stadium and uh there were close to 500 artists who entered into the selection process. only 40 were selected and the first was a student of mine back in the day and probably some of the teachers as well here, Carl Cordez, uh probably early 2000s. Uh I just want to read that Carl specializes in Buffalo themed sports pop art, including comic style portraits and pop culture mashups and crossovers. So unique uh art form

021and we're proud of Carl. And the second individual is Tom Kendler. And I'm going to read his intro if you don't don't mind. Um Thomas Kendler is an internationally recognized artist, self-taught realist painter and accomplished educational film producer. is also a renowned New York-based art educator and champion for future artists, young and old. The Wilds of New York State and a close-knit family of designers and entrepreneurs shaped his early love of art and the outdoors. His work is showcased in galleries, collections, and publications worldwide. So, congratulations to Tom and Carl and uh look forward to seeing their work in the new city. Now, who wants to stop that? I see no one. Excellent. Thank you all for being here. We're going to move on to item nine, uh, board presidents and board members comments and

022committee reports. I just wanted to mention to the board that last week we, uh, uh, Erie 2, uh, Katarog's Boseies held their annual meeting, uh, in our district up at Ormsby. uh and I was uh able to get up there and um I got my so where I don't get to make motions or second year I made a motion or seconded every single thing there because there were only two uh board members represented there and it had to be a board member who did that. So Nina from Jamestown and I kept taking turns like a little game of pingpong and uh I've got them all motioned out. Um but uh but it was great. Uh the uh they had the uh the students were set up in classrooms and some of them out in the

023hallways uh in advance of it and uh it was really it was really fantastic. It just helped to remind me and and I don't need reminding but um how fortunate we are to have Ormsby uh right across the street from us. Um, I always, you know, describe it as it's just it's just an extension of our district and and we're really fortunate. Uh, so with that, uh, Mr. Brunson, I'm going to head down your way first. >> Nothing today. >> Thank you. Thank you very much. Uh, Miss Melis is good. Great. Uh, Mrs. Daniel. >> Um, last week Dr. Proa, thank you. >> Last week, Dr. Pro and I attended the athletic advisory committee um meeting for the winter sports. Everything went smoothly. Uh we had a overview of just uh the success that each

024of the different winter sports had. There was a discussion just about um track and that Holland did actually come to East Aurora for track because there is better space for the sprinters and jumpers. Um and though even though Holland is hosting, they were able to use the weight room at East Aurora. So they were up at at Eastern War more frequently. Um then we had some discussion where we started talking about what's happening in terms of the spring sports that seems to be going smoothly. Everyone has been using the turf. Um everyone is sort of staying um in their separate slots. There's from 4 to 6 the JV and varsity lacrosse and track are on the field. From 3:00 to 5:00 um modified boys lacrosse is on the new turf. And then from 6 to

0258, boys lacrosse and track, I believe, are on are um sharing the the turf and the track. So, it sounds like things have been going well. Um there will be track will be hosting ECIC's and I believe um ECIC tennis is also going to be hosted here. So, right, correct. Um and then there was just a discussion about um a new form that they're asking seniors to complete just sort of about their experience in terms of athletics um up at the high school and actually throughout their their um their time in East Aurora. And then um Dr. Proa actually asked the question um about how many students participate in athletics. And so for this year from 7 to 12 we had 76 to 77% um of our students played at least one sport. We had

02615% of the students played three sports and 47% played two sports. So that was sort of some general numbers that we got. >> Yeah. I'm not sure if there's anything else. I think the only thing I would add is at the 7 to 12 and then if I remember correctly I have a written but if I remember correctly in the high school it was 85% 85% >> um so it was even so that was it was just >> just wonderful that they have that opportunity but it is a massive majority of our students participate in at least one sport and that's only the sport there's this when you add in the statistic of the other extracurriculars it's a even higher That's it. Thank you. >> Thank you very much, Mrs. Wel. >> Uh, I didn't

027attend anything, but I do have the Erie County Association of School Boards Legislative Advocacy Committee on Thursday, so I'll bring back information from that. >> Um, Dr. >> Okay. nothing. And >> I I realize that I was remiss in not picking my uh typical plug. Uh if anyone out there is not currently subscribed to BDTV on YouTube, please subscribe to BDTV. It's a great avenue for us to get information out to the public. Uh not only can you watch uh some of our sporting events, uh you can watch these meetings, uh when they're posted, which is great uh if you have a hard time falling asleep. Um and also uh there are uh other things up there like some a really fantastic uh podcast uh that uh Mrs. Perry uh puts a lot of effort

028into and that I think she does a fantastic job with. So, hit the uh hit the like, hit the subscribe, and buy our merch. Uh, no, sorry. >> Merch is coming. Just kidding. >> Merch is coming soon. >> Who knew? Um, all right. Thank you very much. Uh, moving on to item 10. Do we have any legislation to discuss? No legislation. On item 11, A, the business office operations, Miss George? >> Um, I have nothing to report tonight. >> Okay, great. Thank you very much. Uh item B, uh capital uh facilities project update. >> Um yeah, so the capital facilities project is going along very nicely. Um uh we're making great progress around schedule for both the major parts of the project, which is the family and consumer science classroom as well as the library

029media center here in the middle school. Um been able to visit really looks beautiful. It's coming along nicely. We're restoring some of the old architecture and some of the um the pieces of the old theater are going to be part of the new library media center. So, um there's not much else happening other than making progress. So, it's it's really good. We're talking a little bit about what's next because we're in the middle of a a 5-year review. So, they're in the process of reviewing everything from pre um from preK all the way up to 12 in terms of our needs um not only for our students but for uh HBAC and all those types of things. So, that report will be to us over the next several months. So, we'll probably do that in

030the spring. So, that's about it. >> Thank you, Mr. Russ. Does anyone have any questions for Mr. Russ? Hearing none. Thank you. Uh, moving on to item C, uh, the 2026 2027 proposed general fund budget presentation. Mr. Ross, again, myself. Heat. Yeah. Heat. us. >> Oh, just Um so um today is the um proposed budget for the board of education. We've been working on this for about the last uh uh 5 months since December, but the administrative team has been working on it probably since the summer. So, it's been about an eight or nine month process because we we knew we were going to be um dealing with some some difficult issues. So, we started the discussions uh earlier than than we typically do. Here's the agenda. I won't go through it, but we'll hit

031on each one of these bullets as we go through through the um presentation. Again, here's our our values rows. These are our values and visions for the district. And we refer back to this uh frequently as we go through the process, especially um in years like this where we're needing to make cuts. Uh we keep going back to how does this impact our values and what we believe in and what's most important for our students and our staff. So uh Miss George received some community comments and again uh there's kind of a lot of words on this on this slide, so I'll just kind of summarize it for you. So there was some some ideas like questioning between the general fund and our capital projects and how that funding works and how that's um kind

032of separated. And so on the third Tuesday, this is every school district in New York State and this year it's May 19th. On the third Tuesday of May, we vote and you can see the budget supports the operations of the district the the district for the fiscal year. So this year we're voting on will be for the 26th 27th school year and it includes all our operational expenses that includes salaries and benefits, utilities, tuitions, contracts, materials and supplies and so on. Um and then it's we our funding sources come from state aid, property taxes and miscellaneous items like um sales tax revenue and interest earnings that that we get throughout the year. Now a capital project on the other hand is completely separate. So, it's an authorization uh that the the voters give to us.

033So, voters have to uh we vote on this separate from the general fund. Uh and so the authorization is to um to do things that improve our capital facilities and this includes work to the classrooms, roofs, windows, HBAC, plumbing, electrical, site work, parking lots, athletic fields, all those types of things. And that's funded um by the state building aid which is completely separate from the general fund. So we get 66 cents on every dollar that we spend back from the state. So if we spend um $1,000, we get $666 back. And so that money um so here it is how it's different. Uh the general fund, excuse me, the general fund can support future capital projects by setting aside surplus. So when we have monies left over, excuse me, at the end of the year,

034we can put that into a capital reserve that allows us then to do capital facilities projects. But the capital fund cannot fund any of the general fund where we have all our salaries and all the other things that I mentioned before. We cannot use the capital fund for any type of support for classrooms or programs or teachers or administrators or any of those things. it can only be used to improve our capital facilities. So there's a very distinct very distinct uh line. It's based in law. So we don't have any choice. So those two things are about the district but they really run parallel and they cannot be combined. So I think there's some confusion about that like why not use some of the capital money that we have left to support positions. By law

035we're not allowed to do that. So what is a tax levy limit though? We've been we've had this up for the last few months and you can see for this year was about 3.39% and next year it's going to be 3.36% and it's based on this formula that Miss George calculates through the business office. Um so we're proposing to go to the limit which would be $942,625. So here's the full value uh value rate and Miss George just recently calculated that and Miss George if you want to comment. Um this is based on on full value. So not the assessed value of your home when your home is equalized. So across the district with our three three different townships, we equalize everybody's home. And as you can see in yellow, um, our tax rate per

036thousand has been decreasing because of the wealth our district has been experiencing on our home values. We'll see that in just a second. So, our school uh state aid runs like so we've been waiting um so it starts off in November. we start getting some information from uh the state about where it's going. Usually in January, the governor puts out mid January what her proposed budget is for school districts. Um then they continue to work on it from there till April 1st is is the goal. Unfortunately, the legislature and the governor have not come to an agreement. So there is no budget. So we're kind of um flying blind a little bit because we don't know what the state is going to provide. We have to make some assumptions and that's what we've done in

037this budget. So, here's the um here's the governor's proposed database, and this is from from February. And you can see at the very bottom, it says there's $651,528 collectively that we're going to get under those aid categories. So, one of the big ones is foundation aid. That is our per pupil aid that we receive every year. That's only going up by $79,000. And that's part of the problem is that the funding formula is not running right now. So, we're in the hold harmless and therefore we only get 1% on foundation aid which makes it really difficult to to um support our budgets quite honestly. And so you can see sorry you can see in transportation building Bosey's aid excess cost aid hardware the additions or the deletions that we're going to receive and that total

038um with um that total is 651,000. One bright spot in this aid formula is the UPK grant. Um, so we've had our UBK program in uh in place for for five for five years. We started off with one classroom and now we've built up to five, which is really wonderful, great program. Um, but for the first four years or 5 years, excuse me, we were not fully funded. So finally now the program is going to be fully funded. So we've been pulling money out of the general fund to support the UBK grant. And so now we're really grateful that that additional monies will be coming in because that has helped our budget has helped our budget uh significantly. So again the foundation and here's the problem. We have 673 school districts in New York State.

03942 492 were on hold harmless. That means 73% of the districts are just getting 1%. >> I'm just confused what that means and why we're in that category if you don't mind. >> Yeah. So, um I I'll be honest, I can't explain why exactly we're in the category, but what it what they do is it's kind of like a safety net they put in place for the majority now it's the majority of school districts like 73%. So, they said that hold harmless is 1%. That's from the governor. Now, what when speaking to Senator Gallivan, the the the assembly and the Senate are really pushing towards 2%. So, that's what we're really hopeful and it looks like it will be moving in that direction, but until they pass the budget, we don't know. And that's some

040of the questions that are still out there that we have to deal with. We don't know if we're getting that money or not. We make some assumptions. We try to be conservative because we don't want to have a gap or another hole. So that's kind of where it's at. But this is this is the essence of the problem that the foundation formula and the formula in general is not is not properly flowing. And so that that causes significant issues not only for us but for districts across the state. And may I say to further explain a while ago it was recommended that that because this the formula of who gets money and who doesn't they the the go there was a proposal of okay just nobody gets money except for these couple districts for example

041and then obviously all the districts were like oh so you're pulling every bit of money out from underneath without a new formula. So the hold harmless was okay, we'll hold it here until we kind of figure out the formula. And that's where the name came from if I'm saying that correctly. Yeah. Thank you. >> So So here's another important um important slide. It's it's our aid ratios over time. And so, as Miss George just mentioned, um, like our gross income, I'm just going to look. Um, our gross income, you can see went up here from 559 million to 816 million. And our our property values went from 1 bill488 million to 2 bill236 million. So, you can see there's a great growth over these years in terms of the gross income for the district as

042well as our property values. So, what does that do? Unfortunately, it raises our wealth ratio. So, we went from 0.96 to 1.217. Now, that doesn't sound like a lot, but it's very significant. And so, and then look at these. Here's our A ratios. And look, now they've all gone down. So, in all of these categories, we're receiving less aid because the district is getting wealthier and our property values are increasing. The only thing that has stayed in line is the building rate. So that you can see the belly pay a ratio hasn't changed. So again we're here we're required to do projects. We don't have a choice. We're held to a certain standard by the state. We have to do evaluations of our district all the properties. And so fortunately for that the state ratio

043has stayed solid over the last uh six years. So here's another way of looking at it. Couple charts. Um but again so you can see uh the combined wealth ratio um the actual property values you can see significant increase here and the same thing with the um adjusted gross income. So those are the two things in a bar chart and yeah and then here it is all combined and it shows the only thing that's really solid is the orange bar. You can see it's solid across the place where these are all on the decline. So you can see there's a lot of factors that go into creating a deficit and and so those are just some of the things that we've been dealing with not only now but for the past several years. So revenues.

044So where do where do we get our money? And for us most of it comes from our tax level. And so what we're proposing, like I said, we're going to go to the tax cap limit, which will bring in another $942,625. You can see the projections around sales tax. We're really hopeful that we'll receive some additional revenue from sales tax because again, Morrison in the business office does her best to estimate what that will look like. We don't exactly know. That's based on past quarters and past performance. Um some areas around basic aid and foundation, transportation, and building aid. there's a nice increase of about 516,000 and um same thing for Bosey's aid. Bosey's aid is directly related to the programs that we use through Boseis. So we use BOSI services for a variety of

045things around uh student services and contracts and so our aid is directly related to our usage. Um you can see that there's some drop offs in excess cost aid and state special tuitions and things like that. Um, let's see what else is in use of reserves. You know, we're going to increase our use of reserves. Last year, we were projecting to use 329,000. And again, to balance the budget, we're going to use an additional $200,368. Um, again, that was to kind of break the budget into balance at the very end. Appropriate fund balance. That was on the last slide, too. You can see over time we've had to appropriate more and more money uh each year over the last several years. um uh to again this is how we um bring the budget into balance

046at at quite at the end of the process. And so we we were up to appropriated fund balance of about $77,000. We said okay appropriated fund balance at that. We're not exactly comfortable. We move forward last year because we had to make some cuts last year. We didn't want to make any so we appropriated additional funds to kind of to stop that process. So now we said we got to kind of So when we we do this planning it's actually multiple years in in the future. So we're saying, okay, we got to slow that down. So we brought the appropriate fund balance back down to the 2425 standard of 664,000. It's a small adjustment, but those those adjustments are important long term to try to settle the budget as we as we move forward. So

047appropriations where we spend our money. And so most of it, you can see um a little over $30,000 30,000 30 $30 million is for salaries and bridge benefits. And that covers everyone uh who works for the school district. That's teachers, administrators, all the support staff building these grounds, the material staff. Um you can see we're going to cut back on some of our equipment purchases. Again, um we we look at where we can cut and so we need certain equipment to be purchased every year. So we said, well, we're going to pull back on certain items. That's about $100,000. Same thing for supplies. It's about $28,000 less than it was uh this year. Uh contractuals going up slightly. A lot of that is related to certain programs and um obligations that the district has to

048buy into. Um state aided tuition again uh there's going to be some additional increases there. Um one big increase is in BOSEIS and primarily that's related to to student support services. Uh so it's about $664,000 which is a significant increase but again it's based on our students needs and also in areas of technology and things like that. uh transportation again increasingly uh steadily increasing over the last several years and we're we're projecting about another $150,000 uh increase there. Um so you can see uh the total on this slide is 48,768,722 and that ties out to the revenue slide that is also $48,768 $722. So how do we close the gap? When we went through this, this is basically the same as it was the last time you presented this. So, we had to make adjustments.

049Yeah. >> This is right. Okay. Um, yes. So, we're we're um, so these reductions, like I said, gosh, we've been working on this since the summer and not knowing really what we're expecting, but we anticipate again because the process we're looking 3 to 5 years down the road. We don't know what that that is because we don't know what we're going to get from the state or federal government. you know, no we get from our local taxpayers, but we make estimates and we build around that. So after we made reductions for this past school year, we knew that we're going to continue to make reductions just based on the on the basic financial information that we had at that time. So we started talking about it in through the fall and then we started presenting

050it in December. And so we we probably just um gosh, we probably had about eight I would imagine eight nine budget presentations since that time. And it's developed into this place right here. on this really difficult and um kind of awful process to go through quite honestly like uh there's no one on the team that wants to do any of these things but we realize that we have to move forward we're on schedule we have deadlines and we have to meet and so we have to make decisions and this was presented to the board and the board at last meeting was was satisfied with this not happy but satisfied to move forward and so what that is is there's a reduction of two elementary teachers at Parkdale one reading specialists at the middle school. Um

051reduction in in four languages and sometimes like for our part-time positions, um those kind of move up and down based on enrollment. And so some of these cuts are related to enrollment because there's some uh just some fluctuations at enrollment that allow us to pull back on certain classes. Uh reductions of electives um 6 FTE in uh in ELA and 6 FTE in math. Both are at the high school. I think that was mistakenly put up as point4 math last time, so we corrected it for this presentation. And you can see the savings are along the the right hand side. Uh we're going to do six assignments at the middle school and that's something that we continue to talk about. What does that look like? How it's going to impact class size. So that's still

052on the table. We're still kind of discussing what the final schedule looks like because again from the principal's perspective, uh some of this is speculation because they don't exactly know how the schedules are going to lay out. So, they're working on the schedules right now, but those won't won't be finished until the summer. And so, they just have to make some estimations about what they think those class sizes are going to be and what kind of supports we need to make sure that they're as reasonable as they possibly can be. Um, we reduced one senior clerk typus from the district office. Uh, we eliminated the family support center. We had a family support center in place and again uh just the cost was unsustainable. We move some of that to um our counselors um in

053the uh part of Parkdale Middle School and high school. We're going to have to pull back on that. Um although they do part of that at their daily practice um this was an additional support for that program. Uh we eliminate the two slots at Harkness um which is about 21,000 and also reduce one alternative med slot. And again those things have been flow with our our kids needs and the estimates but we're pretty confident this is what we can say in those two areas. We're going to reduce materials and supplies at Parkdale in the middle school. Um reduce field trips at Parkdale. I did um have a chance to speak with PTO and they're they're willing to reach out and help us uh to restore some of those. So we're really grateful for that. We're

054going to be reducing inter murals at middle school and high school as well. We're going to reduce the late bus. Um so we're going to go um just to two times per week at both the middle school and high school. And you can see like transportation costs are really high. So that saves us $159,000. Um, and it also that eases up the transportation that we need for other things that kids are taking after school like athletics and clubs and those types of things. Um, we're going to reduce software by about $61,000. Uh, we're reducing buildings and grounds contracts and materials and supplies and that's about 45,000. Um, we're just going to eliminate the opening assembly. Um, we're going to uh restructure the cafeteria a fund. So, um, our cafeteria fund is has, um, been doing

055very well and it has an excess of money. So, we can ship that money, the $112,000 from the general fund and pay it out of the cafeteria fund. Uh, and additional funding for prek, which is really great, and that's a transfer because we're using it out of the general fund. Now, it'll come out of the federal grant, right? So, that's really great, of $151,000, and that was very helpful. So the total adjustments are just a hair over a million or $1,51,100. And that also includes at the bottom you can see right now we're sharing a library media specialist between the high school and that school and that will continue for one more year. So here's the budget right now. Our current budget is 46,881,860 um dollar. We're increasing it by 1,886,912 uh for a total

056of 48,768772 and that brings the gap to zero. So we also have a capital outlay that's part of our part of our process. Every year we're allowed to do a $100,000 uh facility project uh in any one of the buildings across the district. Normally like our large projects always have to go to a boat, but this is one and it's a small project for $100,000, but honestly doesn't go very far, but it will allow us to upgrade our camera systems at the middle school and that will include upgrading licenses and devices which is which is sorely needed. So the expenditure like we were talking about um pulling from the reserves and this is one of the reserves that we have to get permission from the public to spend. So, we put this on the ballot

057along with the vote with the board election. We put uh the use of technology reserve. So, we're anticipating using 150,000. We started off the budget process and this was at $75,000. In order to again balance the bud, we decided to pull another $75,000 on reserve. So, reserves have to be used um um judiciously because um there's only so much money. So, as we pull from the reserves, it's kind of like your savings account. you have so much money in your savings account, you need to put a new roof on your house. So, you put the new roof on your house and you pull the 25 or $30,000 out, right? That's the same thing what we're doing here in our reserve. We're pulling from the technology reserve to support technology um throughout the district that won't

058be drawn from the general fund. So, here I've had some questions. What a few questions that we received were around administrative and teacher staffing. And so, uh, we went back to 2018, um, when we were coming out of the gap elimination adjustment. Um, this is going back, gosh, probably, uh, 2012, 2013, 2014 when it all started, major major reductions in aid, millions of dollars in reductions in aid over a period of years from the state led to significant layoffs across the board, teacher, administrator, support staff, programs, the whole thing. So we started off with about 142 uh and a half teachers and 12 administrators uh in 2018 2018 I'm sorry to 20189 and then today uh we have 181.6 teachers. So the variance there's 39.1 and the variance for administrators is three. So we have

05915 administrators today. Um so I just wanted to share that because we had a lot of questions about what those two staffs look like. So you know we continue to support programs. There's been a lot of growth in terms of new opportunities that we're giving to our students. Um, you know, we we brought back like um the farm at the high school, you know, design um you know, our 811 classrooms and integrated program. All of those in need additional staff including um we need some mental health. We brought in social workers, psychologists um and so all of that has been done over the last six or seven or eight years. So um we we did a survey of of local school districts that are about our size. Um so it starts with Cleville and it's

060it's it's based by enrollment. Clem small is at 1338. And this is several slides cuz I don't if you just want to click through it just for a few seconds. You can see Springville, Tanawanda, um Albian, East Aurora in the middle, Pew O and Dunkerk. I'll report Dunkerk and and you you can see um what this shows is what the administrative staff looks like with all those school districts. You can see a lot of similarities in in what we have and what other school districts have. Um if you look when you look at the like I so what I did is I calculated the number of students per administrator. We come in at 111. uh right up with Springville and that puts us right dead center. There's four that have that have a a lower

061uh ratio and four that have a higher ratio. So uh you can see that it uses again a lot of questions about the administrative staff. What does it look like? Is it too many? And so I would say this what this shows is we're in pretty much direct alignment with the other school districts around us. Uh and you can see the similarities in the types of administrators that we all have. So again another question is what happens if the budget doesn't doesn't pass and so we would have a revote goes you talk about going to contingency and so we would have a revote on the 16th between the 19th when we vote if it would go down we would have time to replan and present something um the same or different on June 16th and

062so if we if it doesn't pass we go to contingency and so the biggest part of all of it is that one to third bullet. We would have to reduce uh the budget by $942,625 because we couldn't raise any taxes. And that money is directly related to the tax levy increase. So that 942 basically equates to 11.5 full-time equivalents. That's how we refer to them. So fulltime equivalent is administrators, teachers, support staff, secretaries, council people. like you said administrators, teachers, other support staff. So that would be at least 11.5 depending on how that's um decided on. Uh there would be no equipment purchases. There's reduction in athletics and co-curriculars. The capital outlay project would not take place. Uh there's other very various uh contractual obligations and there would be additional like reductions to materials and

063supplies. So those are the types of things that we would have to deal with. Um, but the big number there is is the reduction of $942,000. Um, so that that would be that quite honestly would be significantly impactful to what we're doing. Um, to lose 11 additional employees, it would change pretty much how we deliver instruction K2. It it would be very very devastating. And so here we are uh in the development calendar. Uh it's been a long five to six months. Um so here we are January 21st. So we have to submit the property tax report card. These are all the the legal requirements that we have uh that Miss George primarily in the business office takes care of. Uh so we'll make the budget documents are available on April 29th. We hold a

064hearing on at our next meeting on May 6th public hearing. Uh and then we mail out the motion notices and then we vote. I said earlier I may and now it's just time for questions from board and then comments from the public just for student seniors who are here for obligations. you've met your obligation. You don't have to go. Nobody's telling you you have to go, but you are are welcome to go obligation. Um, so feel free to stay around. >> They're saying I got MY Thank you Paul for sitting around as you can tell and we appreciate that. >> Uh go around the uh the table see who has questions or comments for Mr. Ross or Mr. the uh >> the question I brought up last time regarding the um the late bus. How

065will that work? Two days a week and then that'll days will be the same each week. Do principles work on that or what's the plan for that? >> Mr. Brown, can you can you share what the plan is for the late bus? Currently we have a late bus every day uh that takes students at the middle school the day after goes up to the middle school take high school students the day after and gives them the opportunity to come home. Vast majority of the students do walk or get picked up or go to the boys and girls club but we do have a number of students. So the reduction here would cut that down to two days a week. Um so limit the number of days that we could have clubs. We could still offer

066clubs. we just wouldn't be able on those days to provide the transportation. Um we could still have teachers have ELT for students who stay after. However, it would be um more difficult for some students who would do need that busing to get home to stay. >> So a lot of communication back and forth then of working together the two principles or >> right and we haven't you know figured out the details but for example it might be where we have the labor bus every Tuesday and Thursday and we don't have that. So, it was uh on a schedule that everyone knew and understood. >> Thank you. >> And the additional funding for the prek that's going to be handled out of the federal fund. That's that's not a onetime thing. That'll be continuation. >> Um

067yes. And I was just at a meeting where um Ryan from New York State Asbo came in and we asked him, barrageed him with tons of questions regarding state aid and what is tying up the state budget and he felt 99.9% confident $10,000 per U prek student going forward. >> Everything handled through the special aid fund. >> Correct. the um the restructure of the c cafeteria aids that being a a permanent as long as free lunches are free. >> Yeah. Well, yeah. So, the cafeteria fund has been doing very well because of free uh free lunches and breakfast for all our students. So we have a have a significant amount which we hope to continue. >> Uh yes. So um the cafeteria fund has been doing very well and we anticipate it continue to do

068well moving forward just because of the new situation with the uh free breakfast and free lunch for all our our students. And then finally the uh the state aid estimate then it's uh we have 2% increase built into to the state aid revenues. We know we really we know we're going to get 1%. >> Yes. So we made the assumption based on my conversation with uh Senator Gallow uh and the position of both the Senate and the Assembly that they're going to push 2%. So we use that uh additional $79,000 um uh to balance the budget. Um if it doesn't come through, we'll have to go back and find $79,000 um somewhere. >> Worth well. >> Yeah. Yeah. I'm very confident as M. George was saying about the prek money. I'm I'm very confident that

069that >> uh one of the questions that I know that has been discussed as the community is um two things. So I know that class sizes of like each each indiv each individual class like classes in the entire first grade, entire second grade, entire those vary by can they can vary by quite a bit just depending on how many were born that year. Um, so I was wondering with the reduction in the Parkdale staff, um, have we looked at the class size like the overall class size numbers and then would it affect the individual class size numbers and um, do we have any sort of estimate by how much? >> Yes. So our our intention is to uh look at the reductions at third and fourth grade. And so um right now the the third

070grade going to fourth is around 19 or 20 students and it looks like that'll be 24. And then the um class size at 23 was sorry 26. And then at fourth 22 to 23 fourth grade, excuse me, it was 22 to 23 and in third grade uh 25 or 26. >> Um and then that was my one question. My other question was um I am curious because I think it I think it's super important. it affects all of us. The just that we pay attention to or have some sort of data on um the the utilities in general. Um I know that that's something that the school does pay attention to, but I also know that like New York State the I want to say it's the gas they anticipated a 26% or 23.6% 6%

071increase over the next year having nothing to do with us except that we have to pay that out of our general fund. So whatever that number is we have to pay. So I think that that's an area that the community may not be aware of that is that is like for my own household maybe it's $300 more but it for a school district that equals a massive amount more. Um, so just wanted to pay attention to the utilities and at some point see what those look like and what the forecast of those is. >> And if there's like for example our electricity, we're anticipating >> $17,000 increase just in um electricity, >> right? And the transportation as well. Obviously we know electric buses the whole issue but we know with the increase in gas they

072are just more >> well as we negotiate our contract that way. Exactly. So right now our contract is set and so um we're pretty much locked in but as we see future contracts those types of things. >> Right. Okay. And then my my final question um was sorry um no we'll come back if it doesn't get answered. I think about >> I do want to mention just around class size because I did get some questions about the middle school the um the the movement of the sixth assignment. So we're taking the sixth assignments away and so we use six assignments again to um try and maintain class size and so teachers take on an additional assignment to do that and so this year we're pulling back on those and so Mr. Ron and I are

073still talking about it because um because of the schedule and how it works and trying to um fit all the kids and how many kids take Spanish, how many kids take Latin, how many kids take advanced math and science, all those types of things will be calculated over the next several months. So what we're looking at is class sizes between 25 and 30 um at sixth and seventh grade and then some portion of that at maybe at six and seven. >> Yeah, sixth and seventh and then and then again looking at what the schedule will look like and it so those six assignments may be something that we'll consider. You know, we're just going to look at what it looks like and and try to keep that as reasonable and manageable as possible. Oh, I

074know what my final one was. There there does seem to be some confusion. I' I've received some questions about the uh and I I would love to make it very very clear that if at any time the one of the the questions was well okay if we don't like this budget as a community and we vote no that means the board goes back to the drawing board and they come up with a new one new way to close the gap but I think the confusion lies in that that I think some people are assuming which is totally understandable that we go back with the same amount of money in mind and I think your slide here that shows you know we don't go back with the same amount of money we go back losing we

075go back without this amount of money >> right that's that's what I'm saying so two times okay that was that was the clarification that I think is needed so >> you do go back to the draw can you explain Yeah. So, we would we would go back and over the like, you know, the next like 3 weeks, we would we would try to pull something together. We would have a presentation at our our meeting in June. Um what the new budget looks like. Uh then it would be put up for a vote on I think it's June 15th. Never gone through the process myself, but what we would do is we would have time to work on the budget. We represent the budget. It could be the exact same budget we have right now. We

076could make adjustments. We could lower it. um you know, we could ask for less. So, we that would all have to be considered. Um and then they would put it up for a vote. If it passed, that would be the vote moving that would be the budget moving forward. If not, we go to contingency, which pulls us back to this year's number. So, we lose the $942,000. >> Okay. Yes, I think that's an important Yeah, that's that's an important thing to understand that we're new money doesn't appear. >> Yeah. Uh my questions are mostly on class sizes. So that that's helped here. Um I also wondered if you could talk about I know people are concerned uh in the support center. Can you talk a little bit about what um social workers, psychologists, what kind

077of student supports we will still have within this budget? they're not let them comment on what we'll still have in regards to services for >> um we'll still have all of our staff. So, we'll still have all of our counselors, all of our social workers, and all of our um psychologist. >> I'm trying to hear you loud. >> Oh, okay. Um so, we'll still have all of the staff. We're not eliminating any of the staff, but some of the things that the family support center that the social workers do through the family support center and don't forget the family support center is not just to support our students, but to support the community. So, some of the things that they work on are um providing so families can be referred to the family support center

078and they can um contact them for food needs. If there's food scarcity in the home, they can contact them for mental health needs or um their children, which we have counselors that come in from outside agencies and providers and provide counseling services to our students during the school day. It just makes access much easier for families. Um, we're not quite sure how some of these things that are provided through the family support center would be restructured and how we would continue to provide them, but we're not losing any staff. It's just some of the services that the family support center provides. Does that answer what you're asking or? >> Yes. >> Okay. Um just I think it bears uh noting once again that we do not have a state budget that we are going forward

079we don't have the information we have the 1% so we're assuming or that we're getting the 79,000 we're then going on on um that we will get 2% based on the information but we are required to provide this information yet we still don't have something from the state so I just that's that's one thing I want to note The other thing is just that what we've talked about for months now and this has been a very long process. It's you know this is not an easy process. The administrators, staff, everyone talking about and trying to make these decisions in terms of how can these um these reductions be made so that they are spread across the entire district and we still have an excellent school district and still are providing for the needs of our

080students. And I think it's it's just been a really long process and I think that's really important that people recognize this is not something that's just been decided. If we get to the point that it's a contingency budget, I just I I'm glad that was going to be my question. I really want people to understand what happens in that situation and that that money if it's voted down two times. You know, I was here with the DEA when we were going through all of that and um it's incredibly challenging. That didn't happen to us. we had uh the community support and come out um above the tax the tax levy so that we could continue with our programming. But um these are things that we can say, "Oh, we're not happy with this. No one's

081happy that these things are happening." But yet to then say we're going to, you know, not go forward with this budget, you know, we have to have an alternative. And I guess I just, you know, want everyone to be aware of what that is and how that looks if we have the contingency. So I think we've talked about a lot of this for months now. So I'm I'm pretty comfortable in terms of, you know, the questions that have been asked, but that was my So it >> um I'm going to echo thoughts of other people. Um, having taught in middle school, I'm not fond of the idea of 30 middle school students in a class. If there's any possibility of getting six uh class period, that would be wonderful. UM, I also feel bad. Um,

082but I understand the need uh for losing our family support center. I worked with Peg Fletcher years ago to put that together for our families and the community and it's been nothing but wonderful and um I know that Mrs. Mayorio will do her best to put it together and keep the staff that she needs to keep. But that is a real benefit. It's too bad we have to lose that. There's always pain when we have to balance a budget and it's not a pleasant thought. I was here during gap elimination and we lost 30 teachers and I'll never forget that as long as I live that was one of the most painful periods we ever went through and if the community had not supported us I don't know what we would have done. Um, we

083have we are blessed. We are truly blessed with a community that does support us and I know I speak for everyone else on the board honestly on this. We are ever grateful for that very um important support. If we went to a contingency budget, you cannot imagine what that would mean to the community. We need to keep that in mind. First of all, I see a board here as being first here for our students, making sure we're our our academics are accountable, and then we're here for the value of of being able to finance this in a way that's good for the students. It's not always best practice. I'm the first person to say that. And that doesn't mean we don't want it to be best practice or we don't want to work toward best

084practice. It's just a fact. We have to balance a budget. This is one of those budgets that has to be done unlike New York State apparently. Um that elimination um was a time when when we lost so many people that were valuable and it took us a long time to build back up. Even as we've heard about the administrators um today being explained a little bit more clearly, I think it's good to realize that we lost them too at that time and we had to build back up. So, it's taken a long time to do that. My other thought was going back to these two houses. Um I guess that bothers me from the alternate learning center kind of point of view. Um, not only if you start putting everybody on two buses in a

085week that are in in interaralss and every other thing and that's also after the kids can come after school for extra help. I'm wondering if that's going to end up being more than one bus. It's important that the kids have that opportunity. I'd hate to see that ever taken away. So, I guess I echo other people's thoughts. If we can get back to not 30 kids in a class in middle school, that's impossible. You haven't lived until you've taught a room full of 30 middle school boys and girls. Um, it's pleasure, an absolute pleasure, but at the same time, so you want to keep that down. Um, I'm just grateful for all the work that I know that our administration has put in for months on this. I mean, I'm late to the party, so

086to speak, here. And thinking about that, um, I've been in five or six of these meetings since I was on boarded and and I know I'm not coming back. And, um, I was just grateful for the support I've had from the board, support from our our administration. Now, we really need the support from the community uh, for your students sake to manage a good budget. Let me say this. Manage a fair budget. It's not the budget I would have liked to have seen, but it's a fair budget. And so that's that was just my >> Thank you, Sh. >> Thank you, Mr. Um, I have to say none of us are real happy with that big list of reductions. uh and we do appreciate how difficult it is to to spread the the pain in

087such a way that it doesn't fall only in one subject area or one grade level or one group of professionals. Uh and uh so but to close over a million dollars in budget gap something has to happen. And so there's belt tightening going on throughout the district. And I appreciate the fact that that you spend so much time and thought in in developing that list. Uh it's bound to get some people upset. Every item on the list is in some way affects individuals and it's regretful. Uh the I echo Mr. Malice's point about the class sizes. I we've always built into the staffing lines of the budget a certain amount of flexibility because you never know when you're going to get a an influx of all kids who happen to be fifth graders, you know,

088and four or five new fifth graders show up in August and you've already got 25 in the class and 26. Well, you can't do it. You you're going to have to add a a classroom at that point and and it happens, you know. So I I'm just asking is there enough flexibility in the budget if the class sizes get outrageous that you can indeed add an additional staff member to moderate that? >> Yeah, contingency is always built in. Um so if for instance there's a large kindergarten classroom where you know that we don't know about but we have an idea of what the kindergarters are going to look like as we do um the estimates every year and you see that the projections for for enrollment. Um so we base our building the the teams

089or the budget around that. Um but there's always even in this circumstance we always leave in money for things that pop up and if we look and that's why like so what makes it so difficult is that the schedules are being built in the spring and into the summer, right? And so we we don't know what that's going to look like and and especially in the middle and high school kids have especially high school lots of choices. So depending on how those choices go, this the schedule follows and that may indicate that we need additional person here. So we might need to assign a six assignment for this particular class for this particular class. Or if we see that we have enormous crew and we need to reduce those class sizes, then we may say,

090okay, we're going to place our sixth assignment here or here to bring those class sizes down. Like so in the past during the GE, we had 30 kids in our fourth year classrooms. I mean, we would we would never under any circumstance choose to run an elementary school away. But the reductions are so significant. We had no choice. And so, you know, this is not GA. It's not even close. Um but what it is is again it's the funding from the state that's putting and the just increasing costs cost for services, cost for supplies, cost for our contracts, all of those things are escalating at a rate that are far beyond what we're being reimbursed at. So we're constantly juggling and moving money to try to make that all balance. And so there's always money

091that's built in because it's a $48 million budget. We need to be able to move. Are we less flexible now than we were two or three years ago? Absolutely. We are able to Bob and weave a lot easier in the past than we are right now. We have fewer options. There's less money. All those things impacted. So like why we go here is because we can't spend every dollar. So could we put in another teacher that's going to make it this much better and then before you know we're here and then we're in trouble. >> Well, you can't overexpend. you're only authorized to expend that particular dollar figure. Uh but but it uh uh there is almost always a balance left at the end of the year and nobody expends the budget down to the

092last dollar. So, I'm just advocating for a little bit of flexibility as time goes on. And if a neat field trip pops up that people want to take or a particular uh after-school activity or something or a classroom that just got too too many students in it that we have enough flexibility to be able to keep our schools as as viable as they are and as accomplished as they are uh and not allow the tail to wag the dog here, you know, and uh uh for the lack of a few dollars, I don't want to see our programs go deal. That's my point. >> I can if I can just comment on that. Um, you know, this process has been one of the worst that we've gone through in many years. And I just want

093to thank my team, uh, the administrators have put in an incredible amount of time. Um, unless you go through it, quite honestly, you just don't know. I mean, it just is. And so, um, why it takes so much time is because they're so reluctant to move in this direction, right? And so, like, we would never propose this. And quite honestly, I've been here for 22 years. I've been superintendent for 15. Many of our administrative staff have been here for 10, 15 or 25. Bill, Cindy, there's a bunch of people on this Stacy that have been here for for decades who have committed themselves to this district and our community and our children. And um going through this is a ridiculously painful process. None of this comes easy. We wouldn't make one of these choices if

094we didn't have to. And so if you look from when we looked at 1819 to the present day where we were at 141 teachers and now we're at 185. We did that right along with the teachers in the community. We rebuilt that to create what we have today. And while right now we're and that's the way this goes. It goes like this. There's good times and there's bad times. And right now we're experiencing the bad times. And hopefully the state will come back around, which it typically does because they'll hear the the roar from school districts across the state that this is inequitable, that you're not properly funding our students, right? We're not we don't have the money to continue to provide what our students need, what our what our what our teachers and our

095staff members need to get this job done. And eventually, it will come back around, but we have to go through these hard times to get back to the time. I wish you could say good times all the time. That's not how it goes. It just it just isn't. It's just economics. There's all kinds of influences, different governors. They have different um ideas and agendas. And so that impacts us. And so this is an incredibly difficult process to go through. And so what I am hopeful for is that you know as as the leader you know I've supported all these programs you bringing back our 8 month classrooms bringing in the car you know I I supported it and I represented the board and our community for support and you know we're going to that's what

096our intention is is to to restore these positions. We've had six assignments at Parkdale from K to K to 4 for I don't know many years now because we made a commitment to do that. Now the funding is just not there through attrition and those people that are pulling back didn't lose their job. They retired and so that makes it much easier. You we have one of our teachers who is being reduced and we have two of our part-time teachers who are being reduced as well and that's really difficult. Um but I'll be honest when I started this process 8 months ago I thought there were going to be significantly more layoffs. what we were we were facing and what Miss George was able to do in the business office to find additional revenues and

097those types of things to help hold the budget together quite honestly comes in the last four or five weeks because a lot of that information isn't available. We're estimating estimating estimating for months until we get here today. And so I want the community to know that our intention is to reverse this and continue to support our students in every way, shape, or form. Some of it, especially like I would agree, class size is one of our our top priorities. Um I think the librarian in the middle school is another top priority. Um you know, programming, you know, just across the board. I think that's really what we're going to continue to to focus on as things begin to improve, which which I can't guarantee. I cannot guarantee that, but typically we go through this for

098a few years and then we see some relief. And so I I just want people to understand it because it it's hard to understand it because it's incredibly complicated. It's it's it's a very overregulated business that we're in. Uh the the the grants and regulations and reports and submitts and everything else that we have to do is incredibly complicated quite honestly. And so understanding all of it, it's it's really difficult. But I just I guess what you I would want to say is just this is that please know that the board and the administrative team completely supports the programming and opportunities for our kids and our staff. It's just we're at a point right now where we have to pull back and hopefully we will then move forward um in the very near future. >>

099Thank you. Um, yeah, I can go over your point, but I just want to thank you and uh, Miss George and all the administrators for the uh, uh, countless hours that you all put in to uh, to get us here. Um, again, I acknowledge it and I'm sure it's not easy to be in your shoes, but thank you very much. >> All right, that work on our newly added um agenda. Item 11D, which is our second community comments. I'm going to go to our community cards. And the first one up is Terra Water who has come up to Hello Special Education. >> Okay. Hi, my name is Tara Waterman. I got two girls in the district. I am on the special ed of PTO. Um, and just kind of leading off from um, we just

100talked about the possibility of having sixth and seventh grade class sizes at 25 and 30 kids. And we had a board member say 30 kids to a class. That's impossible out loud here. And that is what you're asking the teachers to do. you know that I I understand that the administrator's jobs to try to make these cuts feels impossible. Um but my concern is class size. Uh because it is impossible for these teachers to appropriately do their jobs with 30 kids in a classroom. My particular concern is the impact that that is going to have on special education services because teachers are tasked with the job to recognize and individualize student education with 25 30 kids in a class. You're asking them to identify cse referrals. You're asking them to meaningfully meaningfully implement IEPs and

101504s for how many knows how many kids in the class. And you're asking them to address all sorts of behavior issues in the class. Um, and the other thing is they all have to do this while being mindful of the mandate for least restrictive environment for these special ed kids. And here's the thing, if the kid can't survive in a class of 30 people, they're going to get kicked to a more restrictive environment. The other thing that I would submit that, you know, discussion needs to be had at a class size that large, kids who need special ed services aren't going to be identified as needing them because they're going to get lost in the mix and then they're going to be identified as behavioral problems and they're going to be mismanaged. and the impact

102on the larger class sizes of the larger class sizes on the special ed kids and I know I only have three minutes but also the lower socioeconomic classes. It's it's profound and I would invite you to address the class size before the proposed proposed budget gets passed. And if if that doesn't happen, I would also invite you to appoint a separate task force to address these issues. and h and study how is this impacting special education on process engagement and transparency regarding budget. Hi. Um, so when I first planned to attend tonight's meeting, it was in the hope of sharing specific concerns about the proposed budget and the possibility for further adjustments. Since then, I've had the opportunity to connect with Mr. Russ and have shared many of those concerns. So, I have faith that

103those concerns will be shared with the rest of the board. Um, so instead, I'd just like to use this time to speak about the process. And I want to begin with some accountability for myself. I am familiar with the board's um schedule and the timeline for budget development. And I recognize this feedback is coming not in time to make changes for tonight. But I don't think that I am alone in that. And I think part of the problem is that attending board meetings regularly can be very logistically difficult for families. It's and even when they do attend, the current structure can make engagement feel limited. And there's no opportunity for actual dialogue, back and forth conversation, public questions, addressing concerns. Even in the back of the room right now, people are like, "Wait, what does

104that actually mean?" But there's no opportunity to get that answer right now. And so even if through email, we don't get that feedback if the parents or community response other than that you got the respon other than that you got the email. So I don't say that lightly. I understand how challenging it is to engage parents in the community and that's part of my job in the roles that I play as well. However, it's important especially in budget development to make sure that there's accessible and meaningful way for all stakeholders to know what's going on. Why is the why is the group making the decisions that you're making? And so much of the frustration that I'm hearing is that there's a disconnect. Thank you. Yeah, sure. Um, there was a community survey, but I'm hearing

105that people feel the resulting budget does not clearly reflect that feedback. um within reason creating space for dialogue with a variety of community stakeholders, teachers, parents, taxpayers earlier in the process so they can ask questions and get answers before we get to this point where we're at all like well we got a vote. um that I think would build trust with the community so the community can be more supportive so that there is a more implicit trust from the community to the board members to the decision making. Um so lastly while I disagree with a lot of the those cuts I do want to acknowledge and appreciate that there was an effort to preserve as many support personnel and teaching personnel as possible. They are the heart of our schools. They're the success of our

106district. And so my final request is this. Even if the budget passes a communitywide vote, as you continue to think about ways to reduce student impact and cut waste and redundancy elsewhere, if the state and the federal funding comes back more favorably than anticipated, I hope that you'll rep prioritize restoring the areas that are directly impacting students with this budget. That's all. Thanks, GUYS. OKAY, I don't think I need a mic. I feel like I'm good. Um, so I wanted to take a quick moment to thank Mr. Wmore who left but um did receive tenure today for bringing in composer Brian Bal Mages. Um this was a truly once in a lifetime experience for our kids and is so meaningful for our school musicians. Um so I really appreciate him taking the initiative to do

107those things and keeping music at the forefront in schools. Um next I do want to mention that the PTO is selling heart and music festival tickets. So if anyone wants to come we get $2 from every ticket. And if you're wondering what does the PTO do? Well, I can tell you we are going to try to help fund field trips again at Parkdale. Um, which I know you saw as part of this budget. So, um, come to our fund run that we're having, which is our biggest fundraiser, and buy Heart of Music tickets through us, and hopefully we will be able to keep those, um, field trips at Parkdale for our youngest kiddos. Um, the Parkdale fun run is Friday, May 8th at 9:15 and families are invited to come cheer on students and donations

108are now open. Um lastly, um I do want to encourage the board to put any additional funding provided by the state towards trying to keep class sizes down spec. >> All right. Um okay, hold up. Let me uh specifically in the area of six assignments, which I know you guys already touched on a bit, and the position cuts at Parkdale. I understand the cuts need to occur and I appreciate the difficulty of these decisions. And again, I also met with Dr. rest today and I appreciate you taking the time to meet with me and discuss these things. Um, however, I would encourage the board to continue prioritizing the things that have made this so school district so sought after by parents, specifically small class sizes. Um, I also encourage concerned parents to reach out to

109your local representatives to lobby for us to receive more funding. Um, it is important for us to do our part as well. Also, I have to say, Mr. BDD TV is great, but you should also check out the Parkdale Podcast Club podcast that Mr. Duff puts on with our wonderful Parkdale students that they have worked so hard on. Thank you, MR. Thank you guys for all you do. We do appreciate it. Um, and I love seeing all the teachers here and my children have been very blessed to attend this district. So, thank you for what you do and hopefully we can all work together to have a a better future budget. But thank YOU We're going to try. There's a weird feedback loop. So, we'll do the best we can that I know you have

110a lot of voice, but anyways. Um, thank you for giving me the opportunity to um to speak tonight. I am the president of the East As. >> Okay. I'm I'm still good. >> Okay. All right. So, obviously for the Easter um faculty association, our number one priority is class sizes, which you've heard a lot about tonight. Um just to kind of review some numbers, our current second graders are going into third grade, which will be cut by a section. Um they will have about 25 to 26 students in their classes. We'll have one kota class which will be a little bit smaller which causes the other classes to go up in sizes. One thing I want to point out is there are 25 cubbies in our classrooms. There's a chance of having 26 27 kids

111in our classrooms. Um, in addition, some of those classrooms may have a teacher aid other services being pushed in. At times you can have two, three teachers, two two teacher aids. So, it gets quite crowded with all of those students. Um the third grade being cut going into fourth grade they have 113 students. Um those numbers are a little bit more manageable. They're 23 to 24 students but there are two co-op classes and so those classes will be smaller. So those numbers in those four general ed classes probably will go up to 25 26. Okay. So that's it's the whole um student numbers in in these classes. Um, moving on to the reading specialist at at the middle school. That one cut I understand is being moved down to Parkdale because one of our teachers

112is retiring. What that leaves for the middle school is one as reading teacher. This year they're servicing between the two of them 90 students. 90 direct services indirect monitor services K through or 5 through eight. So transferring that as teacher. Okay, that helps Parkdale, but what does this do to the middle school? Um, moving on to the continuing with the middle school, our current fourth grade classes are 143. There are six sections. Hopefully, they'll stay six sections. Um, that will put around 24 to 26 students in fifth grade classes next year with the whole new middle school and the classes and everything, the huge building and everything. Um, our current fifth graders, 139 of them, they're in six sections. They will be going down to five. Those class sizes will be between 28 and 29

113students. Okay? They're they're 11 years old. Also, teacher aids, co-taught, some services, speech being pushed in. So, you have a lot of adult bodies in those classes. Um current sixth grade 141 students approximately 28 to 30 students in these classes. 7th grade they're picking up a language. They could be an advanced math class. Those math classes can be the advanced classes can be smaller in numbers which increases those three other classes to be larger. So just another thing to to to think about. Um and then the seventh grade classes um the numbers are low 106 they offer earth science and then advanced math. So those classes will be s small smaller. So the math and science departments there those other gened classes will probably be larger in numbers because of the number of kids that

114qualify to be in the um advanced classes. Um, I just want to give you one scenario of a current class, 28 students, several IEPs, a several students who are reading at a primary reading level like what I teach in first grade, 504s, some severe behavior where Mary Chambers, our behavior specialist, has put together a behavior chart or a behavior plan. Three aids and two teachers. This is this teacher's most challenging part of her day. That's one class. Unusual, but it does happen. And it I think it happens more than we all realize cuz I did not know this until about 2:00 this afternoon. They reached out to me and I honestly was fighting back tears that we have a class. I we there's no way we can reach all of their needs. Even the gened

115kids, maybe they're having a bad day. There's just it's just way too much. So, class sizes, class sizes, class sizes. Um I can say one thing. Um and I don't know I don't know anything really about busing, but the one thing I think that maybe the district could at least investigate is is there a chance to cut it one bus run? I know at Parkdale we have buses pulling in really early. You their their route is done. They leave at the afternoon. Half the bus is full. I don't know if we can get condense it down to like one less run to help out with this budget problem because obviously busing is expensive seeing how those after that afternoon run is saving a lot of money. Um and this one last thing because I have

116my co my my uh Michelle Moss is going to speak after me about a few other things. But one thing as you were all talking is I every year I go to the um NIST conference in Erie Pennsylvania. There's hundreds of people there. Melinda Person, lots of people from NICE that come and speak. And the last two years I have had people come up for me from Lancaster, Orchard Park, some other local districts wanting to know more about our family support center. and the fact that it's gone from Jamie Coleman full-time and then we we saved it and we have our three social workers handling it now and they're doing an awesome job to know that it's going to be gone. It's eliminated according to the to the uh budget list is just heart heartbreaking

117and that's what Michelle's going to talk to you about. So, I appreciate your time. I know it's it's not easy. Um voting down the budget is not an option. um that would not be good. But I'm just hoping we can maybe look at some different numbers. I don't know, find a magic wand. I don't know. But um yes. So, thank you for everything that you do. I totally appreciate it. And um we are a team. Okay. I want you to I want you to know that. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, I'm Michelle Ma. Um, I'm a second grade teacher. Um, I've been a faculty associate member for about 12 years. And I'm just going to continue on with some um more information about some of the effects on our students. And one of

118the biggest issues is the um elimination of the family support center. Um eliminating this uh family support center is isn't just a budget line item. It's the removal of primary safety net for our Eastern for our people. This year alone, the center served 98 families, nearly 40% of them who are economically disadvantaged and another 40% who navigate the complexities of IEPs or fiber phone plans. By dismantling this program, we are directly severing the vital link between family stability and student achievement. The Family Support Center does the heavy lifting that keeps our students ready to learn. We break down barriers to mental health care, provide essential food security through the FEMA and ROC programs. Our neighbors and surrounding districts are expanding these services because they recognize the simple truth that when families lose support, academic performance

119suffers. The EFA urges the board to maintain the essential investment. Please do not leave our most vulnerable families to fall through the cracks. along with this um some additional um cuts that will affect um our Easter students and a lot of them have been mentioned um but with the reduction of world languages um maybe due to numbers could be any reason um how are those large classes going to be handled at the high school um sharing our library media specialists I know we've done this before um leaves very little time to teach research skills to our high school students reduction in Parkdale field trips. We did mention PTO was going to try and help us with that, which is an awesome um resource. Um cuts in Easter middle school and high school uh inter murals.

120Um I think the most telling one is the reduction of the lake bus. um for high school and middle school students. Um this is going to eliminate what these students can be involved in with no transportation for after school either sports or even for the academic help that those students um so desperately need. So I thank you very much for listening. Um thank you for your support and again I hope um together we can come to as Bridget says a magic wand that can hopefully give us everything we need. So thank you FOR YOUR TIME. I JUST WANT TO TAKE A UH A SECOND to thank uh everybody who spoke tonight and everybody who is engaged with the uh district uh over this uh especially this past week and for those of you who have

121come uh in support of one another. Um the uh school administrator this cause and uh Mer it's not easy and and you've heard enough here that it is not anything that any of us are are in favor of and it's an unfortunate position we're in and uh uh the school board is constantly uh asking the questions. Uh we are here to represent our constituents and I you may not always be here to hear them or you might not be in the room to hear the conversations but we do have the conversations and I can tell you that there is no one on this on this board who is who is taking this lightly uh and to to the uh fact of um looking for new ways to meet people uh where they are as far

122as communication goes. That's a conversation all five years that I've been on here. We're constantly looking for new ways to try to deliver information in a way that's going to be more easy for people to consume it. Um, and we will continue to make those efforts. Uh, but again, I just want to thank you all for being here and and how about the uh the seniors who stuck around? >> I know. >> They're still here. >> So, Can I just respond to we did um sorry maybe maybe a magic wand will come up in the way of cuz all schools in New York State are now required with the electric bus mandate to actually look at all of their their bus runs and I don't know if I mentioned it when I talked about the

123conference that I went to about that but one but every school's required and we are actually doing that right now. don't remember the exact word that it's called, but somebody is coming in and we'll analyze each one of our bus rides to see if to see if they're as efficient >> efficient as they should be. So, you know, maybe that's a magic wand that will come out and that'll that's being done now or, you know, in the coming months. So, that they might find something, you know, so it's there. >> Thank you. Uh we are moving now to uh item 12, our consensus items. Uh is there a board member who would like to remove anything from the consensus agenda items? Hearing none. Uh is is there any board member who wish to add anything

124to the consensus agenda items? Also hearing none, may I have a motion to approve the consensus agenda as presented? Moved by Mrs. Whitel, second by Mr. Blauers. Discussion. All in favor? >> I opposed abstensions. That's pass 70. We are fast forwarding to page 9 of 10, item 17. The superintendent recommends the board of education accept a donation valued over $75 from the East Aurora Kanas Foundation Action Club used towards the Parkdale Playground Fond by Mrs. Daniel. Second >> second by Mrs. Whitel discussion. All in favor? >> Opposed? Extensions. That's pass 70. Superintendent recommends the board of education uh adopt the 2026 27 proposed general fund budget in the amount of Thanks. uh in the amount of uh 48,768,722 and the property fixart as detailed in the attachment. I have a motion >> moved by Dr.

125>> Second by Mrs. Danu. Discussion. All in favor? >> I opposed. Extensions. That's pass 70. We are on to 18. Does any board member have any new business? Very 19 items of information. Uh we have a special uh board meeting today, April 28th at 7:00 a.m. for the purposes what I say. The purposes of voting on Erie's uh budget and there's no items on there. Um B uh a list of upcoming meetings for conferences on to item 20A. May I have a motion to adjurnn? So >> move a second. >> Second by discussion. I just want to take a uh a moment to once again thank everyone for being here uh uh tonight both in our audience and our administrators and our our board members. I do really truly do appreciate uh everyone being here

126for this and uh I appreciate the work that has been done here. It's important to me. All in favor? I >> opposed meions. That's pass 70.