001Okay. >> Good. >> Right. Welcome to the Fredonia Central School Board of Education meeting for uh Monday, April 20th, 2026. Uh would you please join me for a 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. >> Okay. So um some extra meeting a regular meeting. So approve the budget tonight. Um, we first need to approve the agenda for the regular meeting of Monday, April 20th, 2026 with consent, including consent all in personnel and new business. Do I have a motion? >> So, move through a second. >> Second. >> Thank you. Um, anything like to be pulled from it consent? Is it there? Uh, all in favor? >> Opposed?
002>> Great. Uh, next we uh need to hear from the public. I think we probably skip over that. Um, so we need to approve the minutes from the regular meeting of Tuesday, April 14th, 2026. Have a motion for that. So move Marshall. A second. >> Second. >> Thank you, Ma. Any questions on those minutes? >> All in favor? >> Opposed? Mr. Forbes, it's the last one. Hope we're hopeful. off. Before John gets going, I just wanted to intro again again this is our fourth um board presentation um final board presentation um before potential adoption here tonight. Um one of the things that we've come back to over time is just um you know what we started with about five years ago really re-examining um the mission vision of corporate east that was established at that
003time that was back from the early 90s. not bad statements, just didn't reflect the individuals that were part of the district at this time. So, we did a little work um and updated these statements. And again, just wanted to reiterate this idea of mission um or why we exist. Um there's a place of learning and exploring where individuals become greatest their greatest selves, whether uh a student or an adult. Again, our idea of vision or what we aspire to be. We want to pay creative pathways to dynamic and global educational experiences which I think we've made some progress in in the last five years. Also core beliefs starting with being student focused and then trickling down to those other ideas, respect, integrity, inclusivity, diversity, excellence, communication and resilience. So I just want to come back
004to this. These things continue to be at the cornerstone of our district. they continue to drive our decision- making and our behavior across the district and they mean a lot to the district internally. Um, also in that same mindset, uh, the board of education along with, um, some members of our admin team processed what are really our budget principles for this year and what are those things that are going to drive our decision- making around the budget and we landed on the things that you see behind me now. this idea of a strategic alignment, fiscal responsibility and sustainability, um efficiency and adjustment, tax cap review, transparent information sharing, and being flexible and adaptable in the process. So those are the things that we've come back to um as a governance team um as concepts that
005are really driving our thinking, driving our decision making within this process. Um we also do we not have that intro slide here. >> What's that? >> Which one? Shifting dynamics. >> Yeah. >> Oh okay. Sorry I must be looking at a different thing. So we also talked last time within this idea of really allowing people to become great their greater selves being innovative dynamic global in our approach that over time um there's been some shifts in our dynamics as a district and last meeting we spent some time talking about unlike most districts in western New York and in New York period um our population although still relative ly small at 2% is increasing. Many districts are not. However, within that population, we've got an increase of about 29% of students who are pursuing CTE and
006PEK as career pathways. And we have done our best and continue to do our best to support those efforts um to attend career and technical educa uh education do something slightly different with their education. Um programs like um welding um conservation um carpentry continue to be cornerstones cosmetology um of those programs. We also recognize that we've seen a shift in English language learners at a 26% increase since 2021 again driving a lot of the decisions around our staffing. Similarly with students with disabilities about a 58% increase again since 2021. Um also economically disadvantaged families and students across the districts about a 21% increase. And although we acknowledge homelessness has been tracked differently in recent years, we have an increase of students who are identified as homeless at some point during the school year. A few
007years ago, as few as five. Uh this year, we've had about 51 students in and out of the district who at one time or the other were deemed homeless. So because of these shifting dynamics, um this has impacted our thinking about how we allocate our budget, what our priorities in the budget, and really connect back to the type of individuals that we've added to our staff over time. um special education teachers, ENL teachers, um social workers, counselors, school psychologists, um an Hispanic outreach coordinator. Um and that has been part of the challenge um in our last several budget conversations. How do we continue to meet the needs of the students? How do we continue to assist everyone in becoming their greatest selves um and still do so in a fiscally responsible way? Um I appreciate
008all the work around this table over the last five years to keep our program strong to keep um the quality of what we're doing in our building at a high level um as we look to make good on that mission vision and core beliefs. So having said that um I want to turn over to Mr. Forbes for our final draft of um what we've put together for this year. >> Thank you. So, as Dr. Zach mentioned, today will be the draft number four of the 2627 proposed budget. There still remains several unknowns. We can take a couple off. Um, equalization rate assessments are typically set at the time of the tax levy in August. Our final Boseies cost, which does tend to fluctuate moment to moment, particularly in the special education area with students coming
009and going in the services they need. Our tax levy obviously was an unknown until we get to the point of adopting that tonight and your state legislator legislature has still not approved the final state budget. So we don't know where we landed with our state aid. Take a look at our proposed expenditure summary. We're currently at 3.61%. Just to run through quickly, draft one, we at 875. Draft 2741. Draft three, we're at 514. So there is that progression as we go through from kind of putting everything in to reducing it to the things that that remain. Breaking down the expenditures in the proposal by category. Salaries and benefits encompass 68.7% of the total budget. You can throw in debt services another 3.9 or 4%. So basically 70 almost 73% of your budget are areas that
010you really don't have a lot of flexibility in adjusting the remainder of course is equipment materials and supplies textbooks contractual expenses and both these services and some of those are also locked in like things like utilities. The next slide just kind of gives an idea of what we've reduced from the start. Some of them are things that we've reduced and cut. Some of the other things that you would normally shift such as salaries going over to our grants, title one, title two, title four, section 611 and 619 and also universal prek. Salary and benefits. We did have a few decreases here. Of course, salary affects social security, so that is reduced from the last time that you saw it. Uh, we also took out some funds that I was carrying extra under New York State
011teacher retirement system, group life insurance, and long-term disability. And then we did have a couple changes in our health group health insurance, which was also a reduction. So that took us from about 8% overall on benefits to 6.1. The next slide shows a list of equipments by request by area. That also has changed from the last time we met. Uh we're down in the area of custodial and maintenance, also elementary instruction, high school instruction, and computer technology. The next slide kind of outlines some of our major impacts. As Dr. Zach mentioned, we're up in the PEK occupational education area. That's 280,000. New York State employees retirement system, we're up 113,000 and that is based on a required contribution rate based on salaries of the members in that group. Our health insurance is 376,000 which is
012tied to contractual contribution levels and our debt service kept project is for our project 2025. So those four major areas of impact are all things you really have very little control on um as you go year to year. debt service just to give the board an idea of where we stand with that. The only change here is that we remove the 5,000 as a kind of a placeholder for any need for a tax anticipation or revenue anticipation. We haven't had the history of using those in recent years. So I removed that as part of the final reductions proposed budget revenue side. The two changes here would be tax levy based on the reduction of expenses and also under the aid amount we did increase that for the addition of the aid that we will get
013from the SCIT classroom that we're adding and proposing to add school. You can see down at the bottom of the page, looking at the bottom two rows that are changed, which I mentioned in the last few presentations, that as you went along and reduced expenses, you would see the district's tax levy percent go down and likely the state 8% go up. And you can follow that where we went from 49 and state 8 to 51 and from 47 on the levy to 45. Those do represent the lowest it's been in at least the last three years. I didn't go back. I'm looking further than that. So when we met last time we had a rather sizable amount left on the table and I don't want there to be a belief that that was something that
014was all removed in one week. These are things that we to get to the final number we've been talking about for some time and then looked at in various ways on options things like staffing where we had carried forward all of the replacements for any retirees and then made final decisions administratively. So um some of the things that that helped greatly was the proposal of the addition of revenue for the second class at CCIT class at relock. Uh on the revenue side on the expenditure side we did not replace two of the retiring elementary teachers plus factoring in the benefits for those two positions of health insurance and social security and teachers retirement. Also we have reductions in equipment request and maintenance custodial elementary and high school. We also reduced contractual expenses of materials and
015supplies in the maintenance operations line. And we also had an additional 38 individual budget lines that for a variety of reasons we were able to reduce or shift in some other fashion. Within this budget, we still have the remaining capital outlay of $100,000. 10,000 of that work needs to be done inside because our proposal is to do repairs on the tennis court and also the required New York State Architectural Field. staffing. As I mentioned a moment ago, left hand side you have the positions that were retirements. The right hand side is a replacement. So we did not replace two of the elementary positions in this proposal. So this brings us to our tax levy limit which is 2.44% which also corresponds to the amount of the tax levy that we're proposing in this draft. If
016the budget were to be defeated west by the voters, the district still needs to comply with the administrative cap, but we remain 7,507 under this cap. And I was a little bit nervous about that with the changes we were making that we had a little bit of an issue on that side whether that worked out okay. Taking a look then at our tax levy limit on the screen is graphic um display of that. So essentially in the 15 years of the tax cap being in place, in six of the years we've been at that number. In nine of the years we've been below that number. And none of the years have we proposed going over that with a 60% majority. Uh in six of the years uh we were at a tax levy increase of
017less 1% or less over the life of the interestingly enough over the life of the tax levy limit you could have had 2.44% 44% average based on the tax levy which corresponds funding with the amount we have for the proposal this year and in that period where was 2.44 allowable we are at 1.41 41 average over the time period since 201213. Just a reminder that we do share a number of services both for the district's Boseies and the village of Fredonia and also we are a number of cooperatives either through BOSES or with the county. Next slide is our comparative budget data. Just showing where the 26 27 proposal lands in comparison to prior years going back to 20 17 1861 17. Uh 2.45% average if you take it through 2526. If you include the
018proposal before you tonight, we're at 2.57 over the time period. And the final slide is our path forward coming up here on first hearing on May 5th and then the vote on the third Tuesday of May, which is May 19th. I just wanted to touch on a couple things. Number one, I appreciate people who have just reached out with questions either in person, through the phone, through email. Um, much of this information is public knowledge, things that anyone has access to. Um, we have made a definite effort to be transparent in this process. So, thank you for reaching out, asking questions, requesting information. Um, one of the questions I received recently was about inflation and the individual was wondering where our budgettobudget increase would end up. And I thought it would be about three maybe
019a little over so 3.16. And they were wondering how that compares to inflation over the past um 12 months. And um we are definitely in the ballark ballpark a little bit under um inflation if you look at it across the US at 3.3%. Um if you're talking about county 3.6% and in New York state overall 4.0%. So we are under um that inflation rate u with our budget budget increase which again we see as a positive and demonstrating some fiscal responsibility. Um but also recognizing like many individuals, many households, our costs are increasing. Um as well, I also um wanted to give both Katherine and Hron, our student reps, a chance to speak tonight. It's been interesting over the course of the year to see them learn a little bit more about how we operate
020um as a school district, their perceptions maybe changing a little bit. Um, and then also just discovering new things like that. A lot of the things that happen on a day-to-day basis tie back into the budget and the budget process. So, want to give them a chance to uh share some of their perspectives as they watched and listened to um our fourth board presentation. >> Um, so good evening everybody. Um, Katherine and I say we just wanted to mention our own personal thoughts about the budget. So, um, before my time with the board, I didn't think about the logistics of where the money came for for many of our schools, um, opportunities, and I'm sure a lot of my classmates, uh, they feel the same way. As we are in the midst of budget season,
021I thought it would be important to share how the budget affects an individual student. Sometimes it is easy to overlook the opportunities that students are given. Um, so Katherine and I will about how the budget is intertwined in our day-to-day lives and in our personal experiences. Um, I will kind of more focus on the athletic side and Katherine will focus on the academic side. So, um, as many of you may know, I have not been at Ferrronia for that long and I moved here before the start of my junior year. In the short amount of time, I have noticed the opportunities here that I had not experienced at my previous school. At my old school, playing a sport came with fees. You had to pay to participate and even pay for things such as jerseys
022or transportation to tournaments. This created a barrier for some students and made athletics feel less accessible. Um, Fredonia offers many sports, some of which are section 6 approved and some of which that are not. As an athlete here, the sports that I have played, I have never had to pay for anything. Fredonia does a great job of offering athletic opportunities that students can pursue. Whether you are someone trying trying a sport for the first time or someone who's been playing for many years, you're able to participate without worrying about the cost based off your score and if it's section six approved or not. The impact of this is often overlooked. Students who may be in a less fortunate financial situation do not have to worry about how they may have to cover these fees if
023their sport that they play is section six approved. This opens the door for many different types of students to compete without restrictions. um it creates a more inclusive environment where teams are built on interest and dedication and not with financial abilities. Beyond that, the budget also supports things such as transportations to games and events. Being able to travel as a team ensures that every athlete can participate fully without needing to find their own way to away games. It also builds stronger connections between teammates as time spent together traveling and competing brings people closer. These opportunities lead to connections that might not otherwise exist. There are individuals I have personally met through my sports here at Fredonia that I rarely see throughout the school day. Not because they're absent or anything, but because their schedules are
024different from mine as they participate in different programs such as boies or other academic pathways. There are teammates I have become close with that I truly believe I would not know if I didn't play the sports here. The budget at Fredonia has made athletics more accessible, inclusive, and meaningful for me. It has allowed several students to compete without the financial stress, build relationships, and fully experience being a part of a team. As my senior year comes to an end and my chapter in Western New York winds down, I will forever remember the way that Fredonia Central School District impacted my life experiences. And who knows, maybe one day I too will also serve on the board just like this one, where I advocate for the opportunities that my old high school had. Thank you. Um,
025a little bit different than Neshwan's experience. I have been in this district since preK and now through my senior year. I've had the chance to grow up with everything Fredonia has to offer. Looking back, what stands out to me isn't just how many opportunities there are, but how available they are to students and the quality behind them. Over the years, I've been involved in student council, Interact Club, Quest, Big Buddy, Model UN, our school newspaper, music, theater, and more. Each of these experiences shaped me in a different way. They gave me chances to lead, to collaborate, to step outside of my comfort zone, and in some cases, just helped me figure out where I felt like I belonged. More than anything, they showed me what it looks like to be a part of something and
026to contribute to a community. But the reason I was able to be involved in so much wasn't just because the programs exist. It's because they're accessible. At Fredonia, students are able to participate without constant concerns about cost or barriers. that matters more than it might seem. It allows students to try new things, stay involved, and find where they fit. It creates an environment where participation is possible for more than just a small group of students. At the same time, these aren't just activities. They're quality programs run by people who care about what they're doing. Whether it's preparing for audio conferences, putting together a musical, publishing a newspaper, or organizing a service project, there's a high level of effort and care behind everything. Students are expected to do their best and they are supported in getting
027there. That support is what makes the biggest difference. The teachers, adviserss, and even the administration here go far beyond what is required. They take time to get to know students, to encourage them, and to push them where they see potential. They create an environment where students feel comfortable getting involved, asking questions, and taking on new challenges. That kind of support system is not something every school has, and it's a big part of why so many students are able to succeed here. The same idea applies in the classroom. I've had the opportunity to take a range of advanced and college level courses, including classes through through the 313 program at Sunni Fredoni. Those experiences helped me challenge myself academically and start thinking more seriously about my future. As I prepare to graduate, I feel ready for
028what comes next. I plan to study human development at Cornell and eventually pursue a career as a physician's assistant. My goal is not only to build a career, but also one day to bring those skills back to our community. In a smaller rural area, that really matters. When students are given access to highquality opportunities early on, they're more prepared to succeed and more likely to come back, build careers, and contribute to the place they started. The experience I've had are not unique to me. They're available to students across this district because this school has made them a priority and because this community continues to support it. When you vote on the school budget, you're not just voting on numbers. You're deciding whether these programs stay accessible, whether the quality remains strong, and whether students continue
029to have the support system that makes all of this possible. Fredonia has given me more than just an education. It has given me the support, the opportunities, and the foundation to move forward with confidence. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Nicely done. I don't think I have anything to add. nicely summed up. Um questions from the board. >> Um I have one. Are you able to share any information on the budget with uh the school, you know, the voting seniors? >> Um yeah, we actually have discussed kind of the voting day and how maybe we can involve students. um a lot of our senior class is actually eligible to vote and I think a lot of them at least the previous um elections haven't really known exactly what was going on. So that's kind of
030in plan um as we get closer to that date kind of maybe that's through the announcements or a classwide email but just letting them know what's going on and making sure they have an opportunity to get down and vote as well. The next one is is there a spectator coming out prior to the uh the budget vote? Maybe >> you know that was so well versed. >> Something in the spectator would be really beneficial too. I mean that was well done. Yeah. Other other questions for Katherine Neon or just the uh the budget in general before we we uh decide on >> this is a little tangential but it goes to more the future in terms of shared services. How how does that come about? Like are we usually approached by another district or or
031do we go out and seek that and how do we find more opportunities? Honestly, that a lot of them have been in place for a while. And in some cases, like the transportation, we might be seeking assistance. And I I use Jamestown schools as an example. They're stopping every morning to pick up our PEK kids to go and they happen to be going by. We needed a bus because our busing situation at the time was not good with the drivers. So, that was a call the district initiated. Um, you know, things like the consortium for health insurance, we've been in that for a long time. The energy consortium, that's been a long time. So, everything that comes along you have a chance to go forward or if there's something that we can consider. We do
032have the arrangement right now with forest school for special education students going both ways. One was a situation the student was there and they moved in the program benefits them saying coming our way. So that would possibly be something that we can explore a little more with other districts to see what's they may need versus whaties may offer. you have to walk a little bit of a line there with those too because there's regulations if you pull students out on hiring teachers and so forth which is a lot more complicated than what I'm talking about now but uh things like that do happen along the way is also doing a real nice job right now um each across the state has been having these regionalization meetings um and gathering where they are right now there
033were some general meetings about just like how do we work together um how do we maximize our resources. How do we provide as much opportunity for students um as we can as a county or as Western New York? Um and where they are in that process now is that there are sub committees around different areas that are exploring that further and are getting down into more of the logistics of like you know for example what AP's classes are offered at which schools and what does that look like? Um geographically. Um there was another conversation about agriculture programs. Who has agriculture programs? What does that look geographically and how would be we'd be able to connect with each other? Um there's other categories too from mental health um to looking at athletics, transportation. So, um I
034believe the plan is that into the summer as we approach next school year for there to be some information sharing about what that looks like on paper. And it's also really broadened some discussions amongst our superintendent group and perhaps amongst the group that Margie's attached to in terms of regional curriculum council and stuff like that. I don't know if you have any comments, but >> very similar that a lot of times um at regional curriculum council they talk about different opportunities and ways that um districts can if they are interested in something make sure that they join together because as long as you have two districts then you can work with Boseies to get that equable situation um as well as um expanding beyond our Boseies. Sometimes if there's something that a district feels is
035really necessary if and nobody else in the area wants to they can what's called cross contract as long as they have a partner district someplace else. So there are a lot of those conversations based on the different initiatives um that we're doing. We've talked um and we've done this actually pursued this where we've shared professional development costs. So we did that with the envision math when we were first um adopting implementing that. uh Gwanda and um Pine Valley also were on the same timeline and so we've worked with the company and um they had it where our some of our teachers went to Pine Valley and that was the Pine Valley charge days and then some Pine Valley teachers came with us as that was a Fredonia charge day. So we were able to actually
036expand. So we work a lot like that to creatively um share costs. Other questions? >> John, um, do you have I can't remember if I asked this last week, but do you have a forecast for what the fund balance would be at the end of this fiscal year? >> Uh, you'll actually be getting update with the financials for next week, but it's right now it's been tracking in that 650ish range, >> but we'll use 650. We'll recoup 650 of it. >> So50. >> So we'll get 650. >> So what that means is we're currently under spent in a few lines and we also have additional revenue that we hadn't anticipated which seems like the treasury notes. So combination of those looks like right now we'd be around 600 650 replenishing the 750 we applied. So
037still down overall a little bit >> 150. But I'll have a better handle on that tomorrow or Wednesday when I do the the dashboard for next meeting. >> So what would the actual fund balance be? >> Well, you're at 2 point roughly 2.3 right now. So you'd be in that 22 two3 range still. >> Okay. >> Balance question this morning. Other questions? >> I just wanted to just to reiterate. So the the board has done in in the past I think the board has done a great job of trying to keep tax increases to a minimum. In 2019 we were at 0% so no additional ask. In 20 it was 1%. In 21 zero in 22 it was at 1%. And in that same time frame, we're looking at inflationary rates of 4.7% 8%. Um,
038so at some point, and we've talked about this, I know I ask about this all the time, there's a cumulative effect, John, when we don't increase taxes, in some ways we end up shooting ourselves in the foot because we're leaving money on the table because of state formulas. And I know it's a complicated thing, but so when you've put this budget together, and I know everyone here on the board, we've looked at ways to to keep the tax rate as low as possible. Um, but again, at some point, we need more money because we are spending more money because things cost us more money. And just looking at the and I know this was all in the thing. I'm just reiterating. Um but our we're spending nearly what $400,000 more just in health insurance and
039and retirement. And so we need to be able to cover those costs. We need to cover costs of fuel. Um we're doing things like combining efforts. We just talked about shared services. um we're sharing uh our purchase of fuel with the town and the village. Correct. So, you know, for the people at home or the people who are paying attention, you see this, you might be thinking, you know, our taxes are going up again. And it's an odd place, the only place that I'm aware of that we vote on our taxes. Everywhere else we vote for a person. the person goes in and can raise your taxes or not. And this we ask the people to come together and vote to raise their own taxes. So, it's an odd thing, but as Katherine and Neshwan
040very eloquently put, it's more than just, you know, you're just wasting money. I don't think we do that at all. Um, in fact, quite the opposite. So, I just, you know, I just wanted to reiterate again that and I'm raising my own taxes with this proposal, right? I'm not really fond of that. However, when we look at where we or how we spend money and all the great things that they talked about, um, when you get down to it, correct me if I'm wrong, John, the average household will pay an increase of roughly $6 a month with this 2.44% 44% increase. That's what we're That's what we're talking about. That's what we're um that's what we're debating. That's what we're talking about. Just to kind of put some perspective on it. >> Our average >>
041roughly. That's the average. And if people don't know, they can look their taxes up. If you have no idea what your tax rates are, it's all online. You can go look it up. >> I think something also mentioned increased health insurance expenditures going up but our you know we saw the slide 20 you know we we have our changing demographics we we have a changing demographics that they have greater needs and uh that has increased our expenditures and I I pick one out off the slide that Dr. put up and that's the CTE tech up 29% in the last five years and that's essentially the trades, right? And but that costs money. One of your big ticket items is we're up this year $280,000 to for those increased needs to support the trades. So, I
042feel like, you know, we not only support um, you know, our students that want to go on to college, but have high aspirations, but we're we're supporting the trades also. We're supporting all of our students, but it does cost us some money. So, it is correct, right? 280,000. That number's up. And also addressing health insurance individually. We are in a consortium which has kept our rates low and historically they've been below market over a number of years. This year there were a number of factors that changed in the insurance industry that trust has to change with it and that drove our cost up this year. So it was just kind of a little bit of anomaly on that but nonetheless here we are. >> Mr. Martin >> um I I think I would just add
043I guess my perspective to what Erin's saying. I think the school's done, the administration and the school board's done a really good job since 2014 really of trying to minimize tax increase to the public. Um, the only thing I would add from my perspective is that I have some real concerns about the sustainability of this level of funding. Um, I think by offering a budget of 2.44% 44% with the types of cuts we're talking about and some of the things we've done in the past would um are I think we could do a little bit better of a job in terms of articulating to the public what it costs to educate students at the level I would like to see um in this district continue as it has been since Katherine was in prek and
044I think we're doing it but we're doing it in part on the backs on the back of the fund balance. Um, so, you know, full disclosure, I have young kids in this district and we're not going to be using that fund balance for the next 12 or 13 years. Uh, something will have to change between now and then. And I feel the longer that we wait for a larger tax increase to take place, the larger that percentage is going to be uh because these tax increases do accumulate year in year-over-year. So the longer we wait, it won't necessarily be more money out of somebody's pocket, but that percentage increase in two, three, four, six years will have to be larger than it would otherwise or because we're asking the public to vote for tax increases,
045we'll have to substantially reduce what we're doing as a district. Um, I don't necessarily think we're there yet. I think we're not there because of the fund balance. So that's that's my concern. >> Any other contributions before we talk about the tax increase? >> John, as far as state money, they may have missed it in the beginning, have the final numbers coming from the state yet? >> No. >> If if the numbers are larger than you anticipate, then would we still be stuck at that 2.44 44 or would that potentially go down? >> That would really be a decision you can make at the time of the tax levy. You could simply absorb it with no changes to your information at that time and it becomes in essence part of fund balance. You could also
046look at anything that's come up between now and August of specific need and apply any increase against that so that you don't absorb the expense. Or you could say, hey, you know what? this is an opportunity to kind of absorb it and make it a a change in our fund balance which would probably be the the way to go with it but it depends what it is too. We don't have any numbers then from the state yet. Then um as far as the $150,000 as far as maintenance and so forth or those the vehicles and so forth that we discussed. >> Yes. The original request from the maintenance department was u essentially two trucks and then there's a trade in process which we've done in the past with tractors and so forth. So this should
047they propose to trade in our gator and get some equipment with that and a new gator. We're adding a snow blade and a different infield drag as part of the trade in. So that's item one we kept that in. The second is a dump truck with a plow. Uh the third that I removed was a pickup truck with a plow because it felt it was too much to carry. And also on the other side we do need to have a replacement schedule. We have a salt truck right now which was one of our old dump trucks that probably is going to have a hard time passing inspection next time it's up. So, we really got to try to do something. And given the choice in the maintenance department, I said, "What what do we need
048more? Do we need the dump or do we need the pickup?" And the answer was we we need the dump because we got to replace the truck. Say we didn't replace the dump truck and it went down next December. Could money be taken out of the um appropriation fund to buy that truck? Well, that gets a little bit dicey because in the world of New York State, you're allowed in a budget to transfer funds between any category you want. Contractual, materials, supplies, salaries, benefits, all that. However, you can't touch equipment once your equipment is established unless it's deemed health and safety. So, the question would be at that time, if that was the scenario we followed, would that allow us to buy a vehicle under health and safety if we already have other vehicles in
049the fleet? And I don't know the moment that I would be 100% comfortable that that would be a yes. So, that's problem. But if that vehicle if we didn't have a vehicle that could do what that one was doing at the time and it is a potential safety inspection type of thing. It would be a safety obviously from the use of the vehicle. Correct. In terms of operation of the district, would there be other options for us to accomplish what that truck does either by contracting it out or some other means? And that would be a a question we'd have to specifically ask the state at the time, but I wouldn't say in my mind today that we'd be 100%. Yeah, we could do it. No problem at all. I think it' be half. >>
050Thank you. Any others, other contributions, questions before we discuss tax? >> I mean, the only thing that I know it's a lot of work, a lot of iterations. I know the administrators who aren tonight. I mean, the the creativity in looking at, you know, the staffing reductions, how we can still meet, you know, meet the needs of the district um by finding some opportunities for savings as well as increased revenue. I just I want to appreciate that work um that went into that and getting us to this point. >> And I must say in reply to that that I did kind of gloss over that a little bit, but we had a discussion administrative council last week and then I went back to each of the principles and readily they were looking at their budgets
051trying to find something they could either shift or do a fossil. Very appreciative of that. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> Great. Stock resume or so. Last meeting we we threw on the table uh potential uh tax increase. Um um we had four at the cap 2.44. Um others under that. Um, so we want to discuss that at all at this point uh before we vote or good to vote. Any discussion before we vote? I >> think we just did that. >> Okay. Okay. This last chance. >> All right. So, uh, we'll go on to approving the budget. So, we need to approve uh the proposed budget for 202627 school year in the amount of 39 million 574,249 which will be voted upon at the annual meeting of the voters scheduled on May 19th, 2026 from
052uh 2 to 9:00 p.m. in the high school cafeteria. Um, could I have a motion to bring that to the table? >> Some second. >> A second. Okay. All right. So I assume um we're going to go to a roll call on this. >> Yes, we do. >> I'll start. >> In fact, we had a majority and nobody's changed their position on that. So >> Mr. Johnston, >> yes. >> Miss For >> Mr. Kenny, >> no. >> Mr. Marshall, >> yes. >> And Mr. Martin, >> yes. The eyes have it. >> Great. Uh so next uh we need to uh approve the FOD Central School District property tax report card for the 2026 27 uh proposed budget. Um I have a motion. >> So moved. >> Thank you. A second. >> Second. >> Any questions
053on items one to five? Should it? Um all in favor? I >> opposed. Uh, next we need to approve a resolution regarding the capital outlay project for the 202627 budget year. Um, so I have a motion to bring the capital outlay project to the table. >> So moved. >> Thank you. A second. >> Second. >> Thank you. Any questions on the capital outlay project? >> All in favor? >> I opposed. All right. No personnel won't do business under consent. So, we need to hear for the public, which we can move through. And, uh, wow, we're going to get through this. The next regular board of education meeting will be Tuesday, uh, April 28, 2026 at 6 p.m. in the high school library. Um, no further business means we can adjourn for the night. So, can
054I have a motion to adjurnn? >> So, move. Thank you. A second. A second. We need a second. >> Second. >> Everyone. >> All in favor? >> Opposed. >> Okay. Thank you. Thank you everyone for coming. Thank you, >> Mr. Oh, we did. Okay.