001Okay, at this point I am going to call attendance. We have in attendance tonight we have Beth Dur, Kristen Smith, Scott Hock, Stacy Amodore Leaput is absent today. Um what I'm going to do for our first uh order of business is for ask everyone to stand for the pledge. 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. Please, I'm going to ask our new uh board member, Beth Dur, to have please stand, and I'm going to ask her to read her oath of office. Please raise your right hand. Can you Can you do me a favor and turn your mic on as well? Thank you. Oh my god. All right, I'll
002do it this way. I, Elizabeth Dearman, do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of New York, and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of the Elder Central School Board member according to the best of my ability. Thank you, Beth. I appreciate it. Welcome. Okay, at this time I am going to call for the nomination for president. Um, anyone that has a nomination, please let me know. I'll nominate Scott, president. Is your is your mic on? Hate being miked. I nominate Scott Hack for president. Okay. Am I going to get a second from Beth? Beth nominated Scott Hack. Is there a second? Kristen. At this time, the floor recognizes that Scott Hack has a nomination for president. Is there any
003other nominations for president at this time? Okay, at this point I'm going to take the vote. Uh, starting with our new elected board member, Beth Durman, can you give me Yes. Okay, thank you. Kristen, yes. Amodore is absent. Stacy, yes. Scott, yes. Okay, at this point, Scott, you won the seat for president. And I'm going to ask if you can stand for your oath. I have it with me. Turn on your mic. If you could read this, raise your right hand. Sorry. And read that, please. You have your your mic on. Okay, good. Thank you. I Scott how do solemnly swear that I will support the constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of New York and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office the office of president
004of the elder central school board member according to the best of my ability. Thank you and congratulations Scott. At this point I'm going to be turning the meeting over to President Mr. Howlet. Thank you. Okay. At this time, clerk, the minister's oath of allegiance to the new president. Y approval to appoint vice president. P to appoint appoint Stacy Cume former as vice president of the board of education for the 2025 2026 school year. I need a motion. You need a nomination. Nomination. I nominate Stacy. Okay. I've respectfully declined the nomination. Great. Anybody interested in VP? I nominate Amador Leaput. Can we do that with his actions? Yes. He had So all in favor for Amador to be I'll do a vote. Yes. That's Yes. Kristen. Yes. Yes. And I'm a yes. So Amador is the
005new vice president. Approval to appoint district clerk. Approval to appoint Lisa Subzer district clerk of the board of education for 2025 2026 school year. I'll make the nomination. Nomination Stacy second. Second. Kristen second. Beth vote. Yes. Kristen. Yes. Absolutely. Stacy. Yes. And yes. Approval of district treasur. Approval of Samantha be designated district treasurer in accordance with the law for the 2025 2026 school year and the nomination Kristen second Stacy Beth yes Kristen yes Stacy yes okay President administrates the oath to the vice president, all board members, superintendent, schools, district, treasur, and district clerk. So, we'll do Amadore when he comes back. He can do it in the office. Huh? He can do it in the office. In the office. Okay. Do I have to stand for this? Yeah. Yes. Assess if you up. Okay. Go
006ahead. I I scout out to you. do solely swear the constitution of the United States of the state [Music] of Illinois of my ability. All right. Congratulations everybody. Another year. What's the date? 78. All right. Approval for the NISBA, SC, SCBA, and the RSA. Approval that the board of education remains a member of the New York State School Board Associations, the Soliv County School Board Association, and the Rural School Association for the 2025 2026 school year. Make a motion. Motion by Stacy. I'll second. Second by Kristen Beth. Yes. Kristen, yes. Stacy, yes. Okay. Approval for Nisba SPF voting delegate. Approval to appoint Scott Hack and Stacy Q former as voting delegates for the board of education for the New York State School Board Association and Sullivan County School Boards Association for the 2025 2026 school
007year. I respectfully decline. Okay. I will uh I mean somebody wants to nominate. We need we need two people to do it. Nominate Scott Hallock and Amador Leut. I second that. Second Beth. Yes. Kristen. Stacy. Yes. Okay. Approval of the NISBA and SC SBA alternate delegate. approval to appoint Nancy Davis, former, as the ultimate delegate for the annual New York State School Board Association and the Sullivan County School Board Association for the 2025 2026 school year. I nominate Kristen Smith. I respectfully you I'll do nominate Beth. I nominate Beth. I'll second. Second Kristen. Beth. Yes, Christine. Yes, Stacey. Yes. Approval of board of representative to attend the annual NISBO convention. Approval for representative board to attend the annual New York State school board convention in New York City October 25th. Scott Hal is Stacy Stacy
008Q. And I am respectfully going to decline for that. I'm not going down there again this year. I nominate Amodore Leut and Beth Air the NISBA conference. Conference in Manhattan in the city. It's not mandatory, but it's good to go to. It's what? I said it's not mandatory, but it's good to go to. It is. It is good to go. It's something that we budget for. You learn a lot from it. You see a lot of different things. I second. Second. So, we have Ambulut and Beth German. You said so. Beth, yes. Kristen, yes. Stacy, yes. Okay. Approval of superintendent performance evaluation. We resolved that the board of education has completed the superintendent's performance evaluation process. Salary and benefits are determined by the board at the time of the appointment and are reviewed by the
009board each year pursuant to the superintendent's contract. A performance raised is suggested. The superintendent has met the effective status which entitles a 4% raise. Make the motion. Motion by Stacy. Second. Second. Beth. Yes. I'll do an all in favor. All in favor? Yes. Yes. All right. Okay, that's approved. All righty. Uh, we have the superintendent report and reports. Yes. At this time. So, first off, I want to say graduation was amazing. Um, first of many graduations to be held at the new field. The weather cooperated with us. It was actually a little bit chilly. I had my jacket with me. Um, you know, thank you for our maintenance cleaners and all of their work in preparing for the graduation. They got the field beautiful. They took it all down. Thank you for Lisa for her
010work with the graduation program. Beautiful. Um, and then also thank you to Mike, Heather, and Kim for all of their work in preparing the diplomas, making sure everything went off without a hiccup. You know, this was the first year we did not have to worry about a garbage truck. We didn't have to worry about trucks downshifting as they're coming down 55. So, it was a beautiful evening. Um, cell phone. So, I have been meeting with a cell phone committee. We had last night was our third meeting. Um, since the education law 2803, the distraction free um was passed. Um, we sent out two surveys, one to students, one to parents to get their feedback regarding storage option options and enforcement or consequences. I have two more meetings set up, one in July 17th and then
011July 24th. So, we are on target right now to be on time for the August 1st deadline set by the law. You know, right now there's 18 people on the committee. We've been averaging about 10 people per meeting because again, this is during the summer. It is held virtually. Um, I've been sending them every time we have a meeting, I send them the transcripts and the agenda. So, if you're on that committee, if you could not make it, you still get the transcript and then what was discussed. Um, and you know, right now we are leaning towards lockers for the storage um, options. And um, so now we're looking at because we also look at Yonder. Um, Yonder would run us and those are the pouches that get magnetized. The kids would put their um
012device into a yonder pouch. It gets closed and then they have it on their person. That would run the district about $12,000. Lockers are free. So, and Port Jervis is doing lockers. Liberty's doing lockers. A lot of districts are just doing lockers. So, we are looking at that. Um and we'll continue. But I'll have a draft for them of our policy um for the next meeting so we can get into the language of it. Um, just in case this is an FYI, um, I've seen it a lot on Tik Tok. Um, the new Earth Science Regents and the New Biology Regents, we did not offer our kits. We stayed with the, um, old version. So, apparently, NIST had to come out with a statement. Nice. The ed department had to come out with a statement.
013There were mistakes on those two new regences where questions were asked that were not aligned to the curriculum. So if you hear anything in the public, we didn't take it. Our kids were not impacted by it. We have nothing to do with it because again it doesn't say it just says living, you know, earth science regions. That wasn't us. So just in case you hear anything, um the I do have um Mallerie Conklin. She's right there. She's going to be one of our she gets approved. She's going to be one of the new aids at um McKenzie for next year. No relation to Mr. Conklin. Um, so but Maller's with us this evening, so welcome. And then, um, we do have July 22nd is our board of education retreat. That's 6:00 p. p.m. in the
014junior senior high school conference room. It is aironditioned, so we will be in there. Um, August 18th is our countywide administrative retreat hosted by Boseies. And then that week is also a big week because the very next day starting Tuesday, we are um being trained in threat evaluation and reporting with the other Sullivan County administrators. So we're doing that training and then August 27th and 28th kicks off our new school year. 27th is just for our faculty members to continue our training and leader and me and then 28th is for all staff members. So um we're finalizing all of those. So that concludes my report. Any questions from the board for Miss Ferrero? No. Business office quick. Uh the budget we're expecting to stay within our expenditure budget. That's almost a certainty. It does look
015like we're going to come slightly under our revenue due to shrinking state aid. We are above on our interest and earnings. Uh we are above on our we're right where we're supposed to be on real estate taxes. We're above on health and wellness billing and we're way further above on Medicaid billing than I thought. So Bethany and the team that are doing that have done a really good job of capturing the people who qualify for that. I was only expecting like 35,000. I think one of the first checks I got was for 35,000. We got like eight checks. So um but unfortunately state aid came significantly under and it has been I I know I'm beaten a dead horse, but that's been the issue. It's not going to come way under. Um so it's not
016going to be anything uh scary to look at, but it's not going to hit 19.8 million. um taxes based on the newly released equalization rates. If you remember, we did a 4 and a/4% tax increase. With the new properties, it's going to be 3 and a quarter, but as always, it hits people differently. And Tustin, and Deer Park are adversely affected. Deer Park and Tustin, it's 6% for Deer Park and 6 1/2% for Tustin, whereas it's 3.05% for Highland and it's 3.2% for Lumberland, respectively. And that is 100% because of the equalization rates. Um they're Isn't that because both those this Tustin and Deer sorry this Tustin and Deer Park are like a smaller part. Well that's that's why the big swings but the the change itself they would go up no matter what because
017what happened is when they go from so let's say the equalization rate is 28 and it goes down to 26 that's 2%. 2% of 28 however is a lot bigger than 2% of 57. So Highland's equalization rate went from 57 down to 55. Tustin went from 28 to 26. On the surface, it looks like it's the same, but it's almost double. And so, what the state is saying is that in Highland, property tax rates went up about 3 12%, whereas in Tustin, the value of property went up like 7%. And it's an estimate. It's not necessarily always fair cuz someone will look and say, well, my house didn't go up 7%. It's like the state makes that number up up there. And sometimes even disagree with the assessors. Um, they did that against Thailand last
018year. So, it's the state basically saying they think the market value of Tustin properties went up more than the market value of Highland. And they base the tax rates off the market value, not what you bought it for and not what it's assessed for. Um, and then with the capital project, we're almost complete with the capital project. Tracy and I are actually going to get together and kind of talk about, and we'll bring this up at the August board meeting, but how much we have left over and what's going to happen with that money. But they've obviously we've been up there for graduation. So the um track is laid. Most of the project is complete. Um there's a little over $200,000 left, but there are some projects that are going to gobble up some of
019that money. Um and then there'll be some choices with the little bit that's left. Um the last thing to do to give you a final number is to allocate interest. And the reason that's not as easy as it sounds is because we use a multifund. So our checks go out of all of them. So what I have to do is take an average balance that is capital fund money and an average balance that is a fund money for each month and allocate to each thing. And there are also creative accounting methods that I could use if I need more money in one area than I need that are perfectly legal and acceptable. Um just like a home appraisal has a range, we're allowed to have a range. So that's the final thing that I have
020to do to say this is how much we've got left in that project. Perfect. That's all I've got for this one. If anybody's got any questions, I'm happy to answer. Any question? I just have I thought graduation went great. I thought it was really nice up there in the new field. It really came out nice. I thought it was I thought that was I thought that was pretty special. I did. All right. At this time, I will take public public comment on the consent agenda only. Whoever wishes to speak can speak for 3 minutes. All good. At this time, I will take a motion to approve consent items 5.01 through 9.04. So move take motion to make a motion. Make the motion second. Second by Stacy. Any discussion? Anybody have any questions on anything that's
021there to discuss? All good. All in favor? I Any old business to come before the board? I have a question. Uh we did that active shooter bill last year, remember? And one of the big things was that the teachers were to keep their doors shut in the classrooms. Are we practicing this all the time? All the time. Not 100% all the time. I know that when Deputy Grady, our SRO, we'll walk through the halls, he will be closing doors. Um, we for I would say, and Mr. Conklin can also answer, I would say about 90%. Yes. But you enforce it, right? Yes. And we remind them to keep the doors closed. Oh, there we go. I didn't think it was that sensitive. Any other old business? Any new business? I do. I have a letter
022I'd like to share. Dear colleagues, after much soulsearching and careful consideration, I have made the decision to tender my resignation from the board of education of the Eldred Central School District. This is not a conclusion that I have come to lightly, and I want to thank you, my fellow board members, and the administration for the last seven years of cooperation, support, and camaraderie. It warms my heart to know that together we made a positive impact on the youth of our community, which is an accomplishment I will treasure indefinitely. I wish the district much success in the years to come. Stacey, thank you for serving. Yep. Thanks for everything you've done. You definitely you definitely did a lot for me sitting here as a as a president for sure. I'm not happy about this, but that's
023your wish. I'm sorry to hear it. Will you have to have a motion on that to vote on that? Um to accept it. Yes. [Music] date. So, we have to do a motion today. All right. So, that's what I meant to state. Okay. Just sign. So, yeah, you're going to have to to accept this today. Make the motion. Mhm. I need a motion to accept Stacy's resignation. To accept Stacy's resignation. Acceptance. Same. Good luck. Beth, yes. Kristen, this is your wish. Yes. Okay. Second public comment on anything anybody would like to talk about. Okay. I need a motion to exe to enter into executive session. What's What are we entering in for tonight? I didn't have anything. We don't have nothing. We can table it. I just wasn't sure. Yeah, cuz we didn't know. So,
024we can table it. All right. We'll table it. Okay. I need a motion to table executive session. There's nothing to win for. Not right now. I'll make that motion. Motion from Kristen. Second. Second from Beth. All in favor? I uh Where's the next? Oh, there we go. So, announcements. Next meeting will be held at 6 p.m. on Thursday, August 21st. Regular meeting here, Junior Senior High School. There will be a public hearing for code of conduct and the district-wide safety plan immediately followed by the regular meeting of the board of education. Okay. Uh I'm not sure I'll be here next meeting. It's up in the air right now. Just so everybody knows the August meeting. No, I'll be retreat. August meeting. August meeting is late. Remember August meeting is 20 to 21st Thursday because in
025case we have a new higher rate what happened last year we had that. So I need a motion to adjourn the meeting. Motion to adjurnn the meeting. Second. Second. Second. All in favor? I. I.