001ignore. Good evening everybody in person online. I pledge als you. All right. Good evening. I'd like to ask for a consent motion for item 1.03, approval of the regular board meeting agenda on the recommendation of the superintendent to approve the March 16, 2026 regular board meeting agenda. Any questions on tonight's agenda? All in favor? I posted >> I'd like to ask for a consent motion for item 1.04 approval of the regular board meeting minutes by the recommendation of the superintendent to approve the March 2nd 2026 regular board meeting minutes and seconded. Any questions on the minutes adjustments? None. All in favor? saying anybody for community relations? No. We go to the middle school, middle high school report. Hey, John. So, uh, bigger report tonight. Um, lots going on this time. Um, the Harvard Classic was
002a huge success with lots of money being raised and plenty of fun competition. And if you were there, our very own Devon Beex doing a nice little slam dog. Last week, the drama club had their production of The Curious Savage. Um, we held three shows on Friday and Saturday, all of which showed the club's hard work and passion. Uh today juniors took a trip to the college fair in Rochester where they were able to learn about and explore over 50 colleges. It was a great experience for learning about the many possible options and careers juniors can pursue in the future. Spring sports also started last week uh and all teams are working hard for the upcoming seasons. Looking forward, seniors will be taking a trip tomorrow to learn about heroin and the negative effects it
003can have on physical, mental, and social health. Also, tech wars will be held this Wednesday. This Friday, the high school will be having a career day for the first four periods of the day where students will be able to learn about different careers from people in our community. The second and half of the day will be a go blue day where students can participate in fun activities like gym day like gym games, cooking, a nature walk or arts and crafts. Uh obviously the mind state finals will be held on Syracuse this Saturday. Um and we have four teams competing there. middle school, the middle and high school are looking forward to the rest of the school year and are excited to continue working hard as we get closer to the end of the year. >>
004All right, well done, gentlemen. Thank you. >> Any questions or comments for John? >> All right, thank you. >> What did that Stephanie? >> Yes. 13. >> And uh before we get started, I want to give uh some kudos to Stephanie for pushing through. She is not feeling well, so I'll put that out there. Yeah. So, um thank you for coming and pushing through this. Um all right, so today we're going to be focusing on the instructional budget. Stephanie and I will be bouncing back and forth at different times. Um the idea tonight is to to really look at how our dollars that we spend here in this district equate to the instructional part, right? And that's broken up into a lot of different areas. Sometimes, as you know, with the three-part budget that we're
005going to look at at the end of the presentation. Doesn't always make sense as to why some things go in the program or the capital or the administrative, but we're we're going to break that down for you. So, um go ahead and get started. Okay, so the goals are the same. Uh, this is the same slide that we put up at the last presentation. Um, and I'm actually really excited to be here. It was a really awkward way to present virtually. So, I'm actually really excited to be in front of the screen in front of people presenting. U, but you see the six goals there. We want to maximize every dollar spent. We know how important that is. And you know, one of our goals is looking at ways that we can generate revenue. Thank
006you, Craig. Uh by getting more state aid for future years. One of the ways that we do that is by looking at how we can contract out to Boseies for different services and we've done a really nice job uh with that in the past and we're looking for more ways. We've actually built in more opportunities that we have been doing things over the past few years inhouse and we're we have shifted some of the opportunities that Boseies offers and again that helps us to generate that state aid the state aid uh the enhancement of the school culture and student achievement obviously has to be one of our main goals. We want to make sure that we create a continuum of special education services and you've heard that as a theme or a strand uh throughout
007the course of the last couple months and how we're trying to keep our students in our bu in the building as much as we possibly can. Of course, transportation efficiencies are also one. Um, I'd like to give a lot of credit to Stephanie and Bonnie and John for looking at ways that we can um, whether it be combine runs or bring runs back from CNF to make it in-house. Uh, that started uh, really well last year by the ability to have our C drivers um, so that we could do some of these runs that CNF was charging a very extraordinary amount of money for. So that's one of the other efficiencies that we're able to save some money in that area. And of course, one of our goals is always going to be financial transparency.
008Okay. Everything that we do, how we operate, how we spend money, the decisions we're made, um this leadership team has been comp incredibly and completely transparent to the board and we want to do that to the community as well. So the six areas of the instructional budget we're going to look at today are the instructional salaries, the non-instructional salaries, contractual, out of district placements of students, materials and supplies in employee benefits. So this next slide shows the summary. I'm going to give you some time. I'm not going to read down through those numbers, but I'll give you a little bit of time to look at those in detail. So those are the six sections that I just mentioned and you can see the difference between the 25 26 26 27 school year and the change
009amounts on the right are seeing an increase of about 899,551 for the course of this going into next budget cycle. And we're going to dive into what some of these changes actually represent here in just a bit. Um, so you can see I made a note at the bottom. Non-instructional salary increases related to the transportation direct hire versus contracted out. And so you'll see that on this slide right here. As I just mentioned, one of the transportation efficiencies has been bringing our routes back in. So when the transportation contract was negotiated at the end of last year, we're weren't sure exactly what that was going to look like, but it looks like in 2526 there were 16 transportation staffing that were budgeted for, but actually because we were able to bring runs back in house,
010it actually was 18 and that's what we have this year, but it was budgeted for 16. So we found the money, but we're actually budgeting for the two positions that we already have in there. But again, the net savings is greater because of bringing those those runs back in house. That makes sense. Um, and so we have the, you know, you can see the maintenance which is made up of um Mark and Jordan as the mechanics taking care of the building. We have Jamie and Steve as grounds as well as our cleaning staff. Uh, you can see really not much has changed. are not increasing or decreasing in these areas. Um but what this is shows the total FTE in each one of those for our non-instructional staff. >> So the next slide is all
011the benefits that are associated with everybody's salary. So the first one's going to be your health and dental insurance. While we're only showing a $119,000 increase, the actual increase for health insurance this year is actually $435,000. A pretty substantial amount of money. Um, we're showing a decrease in TRS. TRS rates for this year are actually going down. They were 9.59% for last year. This year they are 8.25%. So, a little bit of savings there. We'll take it. Um, and then the next one is just your other, which is going to be kind of a bunch of different things put into one category called other. Okay, we're going to take a closer look at our instructional program at this time. Um, we're going to break this down by elementary or look at the FTEES we have
012in order to support our students. Um, and then we're going to look at the middle school, high school. So you can see our enrollment at the elementary and of course this shifts not just with students moving in and out but it's based on uh the grade level cohorts as well. So you can see roughly give or take is changed throughout the course of the year but this year about 388 and uh next year projected with the incoming kindergarten class is 401. This does not count our prek program. This is for K to 5 only. Okay. Um you can see the gen ed teachers special ed teachers AIS and ESSEL um special areas kind of a weird number 6.75 that represents six special area teachers as well as um our instrumental music is a 0.5 and
013then our strings is broken up half in the um middle school high school and half in the elementary which would be the 0.25 25. Okay. Um, so we have teaching assistance and our aids broken down. The four that you see there represents our four for kindergarten and the 11 represents aids that are attached to students as a one to one for their IEP and the rest are pretty self-explanatory. These are all full-time employees at the middle school high school level. Um similar chart enrollment a little higher again larger cohorts. Okay. Uh 26 27 projected at about 480. You can see the staffing that makes up. I won't go through all of those, but you can see the different areas. Okay, moving on to some special education information. Um, out of district, this is what's budgeted.
014Now, this is one of the biggest variables, right, in a budget. We know that we saw Sarah present on this not too long ago about the increased special education numbers that we're seeing um and the the change in demographics that we're seeing. And so this is one of the most difficult things to budget for because if you get a family move in next year that have three kids and they all receive special education services or if they're higher need students, um you just You have to kind of plan for it but you can't over plan for it. So what we've done here is shown you the out of district placements. That's the total amount. Now that is a combination of Boseies which you see we have seven placements budgeted for this year. Okay. The difference
015of the other 16 are independent contractors like Mary Kariola, Hillside, Crestwood in those locations. Okay. Based on the needs of our students going into next year, we have budgeted for 29 total. Nine of those 29 would be Boseies. Okay. So, you can see a change and no surprise to exactly what Sarah has uh shown us in the past, we have an increased need, increased students needs. And um this is as we've talked about before and you'll hear it later on in the presentation. one of the areas that is uh become a budget constraint right we need to meet the needs of our students at the same time okay now the budget includes projected costs for students not yet in a placement so again we're projecting based on what we feel and it could be more
016it could be less uh you can see the number of students in the different placements across the district from 25 to 26 and 26 to 27. So just looking at those totals from 141 to 155. So we're not just talking about an increase in um higher needs placements, but we're talking about our in district program as well has grown significantly. Again, as I've said many times to Sarah's presentation not too long ago, we saw those numbers jumping up. Here are the different services that we provide to the amount of students across the district. Of course, there's speech OTPT, we have music therapy, um, oh, sorry for that typo there, teacher of the visually impaired, orientation and mobility, CPSE, counseling and adaptive PE. And one of the things I want to note here is that asterct
017of 21 is not accurate due to the classification timeline. Um Sarah, I hate to put you on the spot, but uh if you could speak to that a little bit more. >> Sure. So um as we work with Livingston County, we um start to begin to see who from early intervention is going to qualify for services through um our committee on preschool special education. and those meetings all haven't taken place yet. So that's why I don't we don't have an accurate number yet for that. But also um that 43 represents kiddos that are in prek who um may have just received speech OTP as well, not necessarily um a whole classroom environment. So that's all encompassing of all of those preschool students who are receiving some sort of special education service. Sarah. Okay, back to
018the summary slide again. Slide you saw before in the beginning. This is going to be our transition into bringing the budgets together in a three-part way. So, we're going to shift now into talking about where we stand with the budget. This was a quick snapshot of our instructional budget. As we make this transition, I want to bring in the total three-part budget. So, what this is is from last presentation at the beginning of March to this one, our combined numbers that you can see for the administrative capital and the program. You can see the difference between 25 26 in each one of those areas in terms of dollar changes and the percentage of change that represents. I also wanted to bring in the revenue side of things and I put those side by side to
019show how it's difficult to balance a budget when your revenues are not keeping up with the same pace as the expenditures. Right? And one of the things I'll say being new to the district this year is Stephanie's taught me so much about district level school financing and we have spent a lot of time going through line by line of how every dollar is spent. Okay. I've worked very closely with the principles. I've worked closely with the department heads and we have combed through every way we spend money and I will say from an objective standpoint the district does a great job and has done a great job in making sure our money is allocated in the right areas that benefit students. Okay. Now, are there more efficiencies that we want to continue to look for
020and develop opportunities to spend money better in the future? Absolutely. And we're going to continue to look at that. But our budget constraints, as you can see at the bottom, are making this very difficult. Just like everyone at home, as you're looking at your budget, you're looking at your expenditures, and you're paying your bills. You're paying more at the pump, you're paying more at the grocery store, you're paying for your utility bill, everyone's paying more for their health insurance. and you're seeing a significant increase and the rates of the increase of these expenditures is growing way faster than what we're seeing in terms of revenue. We're looking last year's final budget at 271 and now we're at 276. That's that's a difference of a half a million dollars. And we're not adding things, guys. These
021are things that are just going up in cost, right? These are the crunch numbers that every district is facing and the challenges that we're facing right now. So before we look at where we're at, um we've had conversations over the last couple months about what do we need in order to make sure that our program is strong, we're meeting the needs of all students and we're continuing to look for ways to build our continuum of special education services. Um, as you know, we've been open about the idea that there are what we feel across the district of a lot of different positions to make not just positions, but things that we need, right? Like we need a truck that's we have a truck that's 10 years old, right, John? 10 101 something like that, right?
022It's on its last leg. We don't know when it's going to go. So there are things that we need to replace but we went through a very comprehensive process of looking at in order to stay student centered provide the opportunities we do and the experiences we do for students. What is it that we need? We came up with a long list of things. All of the leadership team ranked them independently. We sorted them and from the direction from the board that we were told focus on special education right now. Um we narrowed it down and these are the things we narrowed it down to and you could see every single one of those positions directly impacts and benefits kids. Again, there are other things that we could use in this district, but that's where we're
023not saying we need to add these all these positions, but these are our strongest budget considerations that add up to about $200,000. By doing this, this is allows us to continue the to build the continuum of special education services through middle school. So, we would need a middle school 811 teacher. Of course, when you have that class, you also need a TA. And if we bring on I would argue that we need a social worker anyway, right? We've had those conversations about increased mental health and social emotional needs. But if we bring on another 811 classroom with the significant supports that are necessary, we would have to bring on a social worker. These costs are not salary costs. their salary benefits and everything it would take to employ that person. So those are the considerations.
024Now looking at where do we stand? This was the slide you saw at the le last presentation on March 2nd. We were looking at a budget deficit of 1.3 million that included the tax levy and did not include any additions into the budget. at the time. We're looking for further efficiencies. And I'll tell you, my team and I have been turning over every single stone we possibly could. All right. And we've caught further and we're looking for ways that number one, our goal is to not have to lay anyone off, caught anyone in that, right? Number two, we didn't want we were told don't impact the classroom. And that's our goal, too, as much as we possibly can. So we went through and looked for as much as many efficiencies as we possibly could. Okay.
025So here's where we stand today. Total revenue total expense the deficit is 1.1. This includes reductions from further transportation efficiencies, reducing some equipment and athletics, taking out some conference lines, minimizing some supplies in some areas that we feel like we could get by with. We had a rekeying project um due to and I can go into more depth another time about this um but looking at getting all of our locks set the way that they should be. We have that's a good chunk of money that we're taking out and uh hopefully going to run through the capital outlay project. Um we looked very closely at our Bosei services and our instructional software. Okay, there were some areas that we could pull back on and we did or we're going to pull back on. The tough
026thing with some of those is they're all eatable. So anytime you pull, yes, you're saving a little bit of money, but the net that you're saving, you have to look closely. Is it worth the expenditure? So one of those areas might are technology repair. We have we purchase in the coaster of a technology repair service. So if a laptop breaks or something breaks in a laptop, we have Boseis repair it. Um John's work closely with his team um of Andy and Casey in looking at what we can do to do those repairs in house to save a little bit of money. uh we were able to slice another $70,000 off not just from that but all software and the Bosei services that we were looking at. Okay. The tough part is like there are large
027chunks of the Bosei software like we pay over 300,000 or something like that for the instructional part um curriculum support things like that but we also are working our way into that coaster where we can run um different stipens through that coaster to generate revenue. So again cutting down and getting out of that coaster is actually cutting revenue in other areas. So, but we look closely at every single one of those lines. Um, you know, we had some conversations that due to some retirements, uh, the reduction of possibly looking at, uh, 0.5 at position in math at the high school level and still be able to run the program that we have right now with the poor years of math. Okay. So our deficit closing options obviously use of fund balance and use of reserves.
028Now this doesn't look great on financial reports but this is what districts are forced to do in times of strain when you're facing that much of a budget deficit. So this is a suggestion of course the board's decision but we're looking at the possible use of 700,000 of our fund balance to infuse into next year's budget. And you said 200,000 in reserves. That takes 900,000 of the deficit out leaving us with 266 934. So our remaining deficit we need to look at further ways of closing that. Um, right now we have the MTSS instructional coach at the elementary level that's in the general fund. We are told and everything on paper shows that that is going to be funded by the grant. However, we have not received direct word saying Jio, you will receive X
029amount of funds. The state is what I believe two months behind at this point in their timeline. Um it's really difficult because they we were told that they're not going to come out with their final budget allocations for the grant end of April when people have already adopted their budget. So, this is an area that we could take a risk on and fund that instructional coach because on paper it says not only is an instructional coach recommended this year for if you're an identified school, which we are. Um, as you know, we've been keeping you update on the DIP and the SEAP plans. So, they say that an instructional coach is required and they will pay up to $125,000 toward the salary and benefits of that instructional coach. So, that's an area that we could
030pull out. The early college access coaster, we've talked a lot about this. Early College Access Coaster is a coaster in which when ACE courses are being taught, which we teach a decent amount of them here, um the state is allowing up to 40,000, then 50,000, then 60,000 and three consecutive years of the portion of the salary and instructional materials of the teacher that teaches the ACE course to be aidable, the portion that they teach ACE courses. So if they teach X amount of ACE courses, how much of that day is spent teaching ACE courses? You can take and you can um claim that and get aid back on that portion of the salary and instructional materials. It actually has a gen is a revenue generator. Okay, it's a $96,000 cost, but it actually has been
031shown in the formula. We don't know exactly what our number would be, but it will generate revenue in the following year. In some districts, it even in this region, it's 150,000 in revenue, possibly more. Okay. So, that's something that we're looking closely at. It's a consideration. We'd love to hear your thoughts on that. Um, it's one I'm hesitant to pull out, but it's it's an idea. We have the capital outlay project. As you know, the state allocates $100,000 a year toward facilities upgrades. We've been spending that money on door upgrades and some other things. That's $100,000 in the budget. Um, at this point, we get 71% of that back because that is our state aid amount. And so, we get the $71,000 back. Again, it's money going into the budget. It's a revenue generator and
032really good for the district, but it's a consideration. Um, one of the other things we have discussed within our leadership team is we do have a retirement in the reading department. We have 1.5 right now. We have one full-time and a half-time teacher would we could take that down.5. It's not ideal, but we could at least continue running our program um with a 1.0. So, it' be a half five of a staff person reduction and no one would lose their position. um the elementary steam position, right? That's a standalone special uh to build steam skills in the elementary school. Again, we see a lot of value in that position, but it's something that we felt we at least need to put up there to get some direction from you guys. And then any other reduction
033ideas we're looking for and of course the use of reserves is always an option. Uh just to be again in the spirit of transparency, here's where our district reserves are at this time. So you look at 2.8 million and you're like, "Oh, that's a good chunk of money. You could just use that and close the budget." That's our savings account, right? At any time if something happens, I won't go through every single one of them, but you can see some of them up there and what that contributes. If we have a huge increase for instance in a contribution to a retirement system, that's a way to backfill that, right? Um, so some use of reserves does make sense given our situation. Uh, but as you can see, our goal was to get up to five,
034right? and you know based on fiscal advisors recommendations as well as auditors um and what it looks like financially to the comproller that's our goal. It's they're not healthy. 2.8 looks like a lot of money but it's not when you're talking about reserves. So I'll be honest it's this is a difficult decision and I feel like we've done a really nice thorough and comprehensive job canvasing as many areas as we possibly could. Of course, there are other reduction areas that we could find, but it it would likely have an impact obviously that could have a ripple effect. We're up for more discussion on that. And at that time, I will turn it over to the board for comments or questions. I think it was a fantastic presentation. Do you want me to get ahead of
035the audit finance report? Talk about some of the things that we thought about that. >> Yeah, sure. Go ahead. >> So, we we went over this presentation at length. We talked about the high cost of health placement and long-term thinking regarding future development of in-house programs and collaborations with neighboring districts. That is not something that is obviously going to impact next year's budget, but it's something that we're we're beginning thinking about. The district does receive around 60 a little over 60% aid return on the auto on the high cost placement. So we do get some revenue back. Um there's you know significant large increases to health insurance costs which is a large driver of the deficits in our op this is a very lean budget you know it's it's maximizing student programming of keeping costs
036as low as possible but as a district we are facing significant efforts when you can only increase revenue by 1.9% and your then your costs are increasing above 6% that's never going to equal uh special education is projected to be about 18% of the population of trending public that is area of concern. Um I just want to commend the admin team for for the work that they did going line by line through the budget. We did talk about the the reserve fund and that you can you know our reserve plan and fund balance. The district is doing a very good job of how they are spending money this year very much compared to how it was last year where we did have you know very good fiscal management. you are in a position where you
037are going to have fund balance, that's a good thing. >> To Mike's point, you know, I I know it doesn't look good from auditor's standpoint, but their formula is also putting us in the position and every other district agree putting us in the position of having to use that revenue when we would very much like to put the fund balance towards reserves. But there's also we also talked about the the considerations and there's there's a case to be made that that those are essential. We even talked about the merits of uh they have a line item here asking for an elementary special TA. We talked about the merits of of instead of a TA having a teacher. >> Yeah. Could I mention something on that, Matt? I forgot to mention it when I was on
038the slide. Um, so our first consideration was to add a consultant feature, right? We know based on case loads, um, feedback from staff, we know that's an important thing. So, that actually rose to the top. We have different tiers of what we found as actual needs. Given the fact that we are in the situation that we're in with our budget, we are trying to get creative that even though adding a TA wouldn't necessarily decrease the case loads, it could at least add some supports to um the students and the consultant teachers that we have in place right now. We had a lengthy discussion about this in finance, you know, in looking at if it's a consideration, is it worth it just to add the consultant teacher? I don't know, Gretchen, you want to speak to
039that at all, but uh to our conversation, but you know, versus not that a TA doesn't provide an immense amount of support, but they obviously you can't take the IEP minutes and and count doors toward the support with the TA like you can the teacher. Yeah, I just had commented that, you know, um would we be better off to take our money that we are putting into that position? you know, a a TA is is an asset by all means, but it doesn't change the the case load of the IEP needs and all of those things and who that person answers to and how they get best used and just some of what I've seen if we could find, you know, you know, like if you look at the cost of a a teacher at
040the top, right? I mean, we're we're a third of the way there. like could we find you know that money and is it money better spent to find the money for a teacher than trying to find you don't necessarily I mean you don't know what you're getting with it but um a full-time teacher I think is is more appealing um in the hiring process and I certainly as an educator think a teacher working with your kids is just a stronger statement that was what I said. >> I mean, one of the things that that was very prevalent to us during during our tour and our retreat is the overwhelming burden that is on our our special education teachers regarding caseless. It it's going to lead to burnout. It's going to lead to bad outcomes. >>
041Thank you. >> So, just one more further thing on budget considerations. As I mentioned, our list was long and um you know, there were other things that were on there that I think are really needed. Um but I want to commend the leadership team for the people that needs the support right now. Um, just to name a few, you know, Bonnie with what Bonnie's doing in the transportation department, she's driving three days a week, right? Like we could use some extra support in that area. Stephanie is treasurer and business official. She's taking on two full-time roles, right? Megan is doing director of curriculum and assistant principal. Sarah is leading over 200 cse and 504 meetings and could use additional supports in that area. So I want to thank you guys for bearing it and selflessly
042putting students versus the mark of this district and it speaks a lot to the culture and this team that's in place right now that the decisions we made were impactful students and um it's I'm not going to lie, it's been a tough year, right? It's like It's a lot of work day in and day out when you're doing two positions and um you know we do need some extra support and we do need to think about in a three to five year plan how to bring that on. It's going to be challenging but that's going to be you know something we need to look at in the future because uh this team not to mention John obviously as we know I've said it many times he's wearing many many hats. Um he say don't talk
043about it. Um, but you know, it's talk about burnout. That's what struck that that thought, man. You know, like this team can't keep working at the pace they're working. >> Agreed. >> Thank you for all everybody for all you're doing. I don't know that we have a lot of advice just at the moment. We saw some of this. So, more to follow. I think we'll have more conversations on this in the next few weeks. >> Thank you. >> So, April 6 is our hopeful to bring a final not adopted budget to you guys. That'll be April 20th, but I hope you hope to bring um you know some further reductions and hopefully a final balance budget. So any feedback that we can get from the board >> in the direction they would like to go
044would be greatly appreciated. So thank you very much. I have a question. So, one of the one of the proposals was to use the grant grant for funding the instructional coach. What happens if we don't get the grant and we budget for the grant funds to cover that? And >> yes, >> well, we're going to have to find other areas that we have already allocated funds to to pull out to that. I'm confident um we are confident that it's going to happen, but we're just not 100% there at that at this point. Right? Everything on paper is saying that and we're not going to get that before we have to >> right >> adopt the question. >> So, it's a decision we'll have to make in terms of >> calculated risk. Should we take calculated
045risk for that? I'll go right to your superintendent. Um, so Jonah shared a lot of great things that I was going to put on my list, too. Um, I just I'm going to add a couple to it. Uh, congratulations to Matthew Noose, who finished fourth in the state in bowling. Uh, represented section five very well, but, uh, he was bowling extremely well throughout the competition this past weekend and want to congratulate him for an outstanding season. The entire bowling team as well. Our mathletes team has been performing exceptionally well since the regular season in first place beating opponents by nearly 200 points overall. Um in addition, several of our students have qualified to participate in the all-star meet. Uh coming up this Thursday, sorry, I have that list right here. So it' be Jamie Ferraro,
046Noah French, Elena Colberg, Eddie Laflur, Joan Levy, Ben Malibur, and Zack Strubal. So congratulations to those students and good luck on Thursday. Um, our high school peach turners team continues to impress as well. After another strong performance, they are advancing to the finals on Monday, March 30th. We wish them the best of luck as they compete at the next level. Um, I also I know Jonah mentioned this, but I have to I have to personally say this, the the Curious Savage that production. Wow. And I've said it so many times. Every time I experience something new here, I'm just blown away. Like I have these now I'm going to expect these really set that bar really high, but they always meet it. And I was like, you know, coming off that fall production thinking, how
047can anything come close to that? And this it was just fantastic. So, um, I want to give a special thanks and congratulations to all of our performers, our backstage, uh, Tina Debell, Allison Shield for the tremendous work in producing and directing the show. Uh, incredible dedication and leadership to help bring this together. What an exceptional experience for the entire community. So, great job. A little update on the capital improvement project. Uh, we're set and ready to go. It's going to get underway soon, beginning in April. We know the first phase will work uh with asbestous removal that we're trying to complete over spring break while no one's in the building. It's all outdoor asbestous abatement. So, we're not they're not concerned. We're not concerned about that any just get that done and then it's going
048to move into the complete demo renovation. Phase one is that main gym as you know and um we'll be communicating the updates as the work progresses. We have a website up that as we start that work, we'll be updating with pictures and timelines and keeping the community and staff up to date on some things. We also have our final bid opening tomorrow for the gym floor. We know that park was pulled out and it was postponed. So once that bid is secure, we'll have our finalized numbers overall. Um but I think that the team has budgeted very conservatively for that. So we're in really good shape. Um, last week I had the opportunity to meet with President Melinda Treadwell and Dr. Monroe Belarin, Dean of Education at Sunni Jio. Uh, with the help of Craig,
049Megan, and Christie, we provided them with a tour of our instructional spaces while discussing many aspects of our educational programming. We really enjoyed that. those two h are just as eager as we are to build new partnerships and to really align um our P12 P20 program P16 to P20 right so the idea of like how do we build a comprehensive program that starts here funnels students through Jio even if not going to the college and getting experiences there I have a lot of ideas they have a lot of ideas so our next step is to sit down with the dean Dr. Monroe Belarin and really start to roadmap what a structure could look like to really bring this to light. Not just a oneoff here and there, but how are we going to build a
050system that unites different departments in Sim Genio with some opportunities we have here on campus. Um really excited about that. My hope is that it really evolves more than just a two-way relationship that with the work that Dr. Treadwell is doing with all community partnerships together in in the comm in Genio that we could build on kind of the you know not to be cliche but the synergy of bringing in more community partnerships not just a one way or a two-way back and forth between these two organizations. So as the next steps we're going to meet with them and and like I said create that roadmap going forward. So excited about that. Thank you team for being a part. That's it for me. >> All right. Good report. Thank you. >> You're all set. >>
051Okay. Kevin, anything about tonight? Um voted on at the next board meeting put into place. We also have the next batch of additional policies to go through the magnel. All right. Under personnel, I'd like to ask for a consent motion for item 6.02 through 8.09. Any questions on personnel fast and safe? All >> in favor? >> I approached it. Section nine under new business. I'd like to ask for a consent motion for item 9.02 through 9.06. 9.07. 07 is left out because it's just a discussion. So no action is required there regarding the resolution. So 9.02 9.06. All >> in favor I had a question about 9.06. >> Absolutely. John, if we could just get um the age like the dates of of how old that equipment is. >> Sure. >> It's not essential. I
052just >> It's all over the board. So, let me update the spreadsheet and I'll resend it out to the board. >> Sure thing. Any other questions? All >> favor. Any opposed? This time I'd like to move to 9.07 discussion resolution IMA for the post CIP. >> Yep. I just want to Yes. Thank you. I just want to give a little update. Um, as you know, we've had some discussions and had Kevin McDonald here presenting about the boat cip. Um, and they're locking in dates now. Looks like the the vote for the project's going to be in June. Okay. What I'm bringing to you right now is a couple of different things for discussion. One, we talked about the idea that this can be funded in two different ways, right? The most beneficial way to school
053districts that gives the most amount of leeway and flexibility and how we fund this going forward in the future is called an IMA, the intermunicipal agreement. Um if we don't go that route, it's Dazzy and Dass is structured as a funding method strategy uh through New York State that not just for public schools for any public entities that need to do work. With that comes more fees. So to fund it through DASE is actually more expensive. It structures the payments and everybody across the district would have to take on that same structure. IMA intermunicipal agreement allows each district to choose if you want to pull money from a capital reserve, if you want to use fund balance, if you want to finance it for five years, for 10 years, for 15, for 20, whatever is
054in the best interest of that individual district. So, what I'm bringing to you today is just a discussion for you guys to think about it. I wanted to bring the actual IMA. I know you guys have seen a a version of it. It's been updated. When Kevin was here, he passed that out to um I'm bringing the discussion because not all the numbers are solidified due to the fact that there's that are we leasing the Leroy building or are we buying the Leroy building? Right? They believe they're really close to being able to continue to lease it. If we buy it, that's where that fourth payment comes in, right? So that takes the um capital project from 42 million plus down to 39 million plus. But if we continue to lease it, then we continue
055to get aid on our lease payments. So we want to do all the improvements. I say we both um wants to do all of the improvements that are necessary for that while we lease it so we can continue to get aid on it on the purchase. None of that is able, right? So that's just money out of every district's pocket. Okay? So because that is not solidified, I didn't bring the actual IMA to you to vote on. We could vote on it at any point and it doesn't need to get voted on one way or the other until May 1st. So, my hope is by the first April meeting, we have more definitive numbers on what that's going to look like. But again, when I bring the IMA, what I'm asking is for you guys
056to vote on, do you approve that as a method of finance or payment for our portion of the Bosey's capital improvement project? If you vote yes, every other district also has to vote yes. You need to have unanimous 22 yes votes across the district not on the capital project but on how it's going to be every board votes yes on it then we can enter into the IMA and then we have that flexibility. My recommendation would be to do that. Um but today this is just an FYI with the hopes of bringing the actual IMA to you at the next board meeting. The other thing that each district is being asked to do is do we want to be a polling site for the actual budget or excuse me for the actual vote for the
057capital project from Boseies that will be in June. Okay. Being a polling site, I'm going to open it up for your discussion, but being a polling site means that we go through the entire process just like we would for our budget vote. Going to put a couple things out there for consideration. It's going to be in middle of June. If by chance, uh, we need a revote on our own budget, we're also going to be voting on, I believe it's June 18th. Um, so there's that plus the marketing, getting information out and running the actual polling here at the district. So, just want to put that out there. There will be several polling sites around the region. They're looking to strategically do it. This is just does any other district want to jump on top
058and also be a polling site. I can't tell you exactly how many they have right now. Um but there will be when I'm told a handful of four or five at least and then any district that want to jump on will be an additional boarding site and that would be for the approval of the Boseies capital improvement project not the financing part of it. >> Does that make sense? Any questions about any of that? >> What pays for that? So if we if there's 22 separate polling sites each site pays zero we get a point Boseis does >> we have to run it but Boseies will the cost >> yes >> so the alternative is either 22 sites or five whatever it is I think it's confusing have two separate votes here. One in May
059and one in June. That's That's my >> Do you agree? >> I would agree. >> That would be pretty. >> Okay. >> So, unanimous that we will not be a full how are they choosing? What is their criteria for choosing? I think the geographical location, right? Spreading them out across the region and you know presume they're going to be on all the both these campuses but then looking at other locations that they could have them so makes it accessible for everybody around. Mike, do we have any um insight or anything on what the other districts might do in terms of the IMA over the other funding method that's more do we have any idea what other districts might be >> in terms of how they're funding us or >> well yeah like how which way
060are they leaning because if it's an all or nothing >> let me offer a thought >> we the IMA the inter intermunicipal agreement is lower costs, less fees >> and more flexibility. >> Why anybody would choose the dormatory authority state of New York >> is beyond me, but I won't try to predict 22 2021 other districts. Would it be that they just wouldn't have the money >> regard regard I mean regardless of it if it if >> more >> it's absurd to not >> that's not take advantage of the flexibility of the IMA program. >> So from us tonight regardless of other districts is there a sense of the board even though we're not voting tonight's a sense of the board >> I'll just >> I amen. >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> Yes. >> I
061>> All right. So >> I would have been one feel the same way. >> I would have been shocked if there was anything else but don't have to ask the question >> not go right. That's what I was wondering like >> seems like a norainer. >> If they didn't have the money >> either way >> but then we get either way that must be paid for. >> Yeah. >> The IMA offers you maximum flexibility >> on how to fund it. Maybe just a point of clarification for us for the for the genio community the the Boseis project is 40 I'm going to call it 43 million 42.9 but 43 million our portion is just over two million and that would be done in four installments one and 27 yeah that's right if based for 2027
06228 29 roughly 640 650,000ish for each of those three years and then the fourth payment relatively small relatively 161,000 that's what we'll have to think about last you were mentioning is it potentially June 9th or 11th is it 11th Yeah. >> Yeah. Exactly. >> Yeah. And just for clarity, that 640 $650,000 payment is the growth payment minus our aid ratio, >> our a rate and the payment. And we unlike almost all other aids, I think all other aids where you get that back in the following year, this one you get back in the same year. So when we're budgeting, you will have to we'll make the payment, but we'll also get the aid back in the same year. So we're only actually budgeting the net of that. That's pretty great. >> Yeah. It's the only
063saving grace we have. So, um, Stephanie and I, we have, you know, we'll talk more about this as we get a little closer, but we've met with our fiscal advisors, um, and just looking at different options. They presented us with some different options that we'll share with you at some point, but at this, you know, we don't know what the exact numbers are going to be. they could shift based on again if we take the purchase of that building out which looks like that's the direction they're going. Then it makes more of the entire projectable because none of that isable which skews the percentage that'sable which skews the dollars of what we owe and they how it's going to be spread out. Yeah. So, I know it's a confusing formula. Um, but so we'll come
064back to you guys with some different options, but at this point, one step at a time, we're just looking for if you're going to support the IMA. We're not taking board action tonight, but it looks like we're heading in that direction. >> You have a sense of the board and yeah, voting location and IMA. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Yes. All right. business office section 10 like to ask for a consent motion for item 10.02 through 10.05 05. Any questions on cash donation? Check transportation tax. Did I hear a second? >> Yes. >> All in favor? >> Any oppos? Item 11, old business. Clean it up. All right. Item 12 get a chance to read through the notes. I guess that's I don't think Bill I have given each of you a copy of
065this but I just wanted to read this tonight to kind of look at even though in parallel we have a budget process going on I don't want us to lose sight of looking down the road a little further. So that's my focus for tonight's president's report. U this is a directional statement. There is nothing cast in concrete and I'll say it it's one that both superintendent Boser and I have talked about from the context of what we want to keep uh our vision on. So, while much work is being done in our district with the superintendent, administrative team, faculty, and others, they're working very hard, as you saw tonight, on the 2026 2027 budget. Um, I certainly have both the highest respect and the highest level of confidence in the work being done. I'm confident
066from what I've seen both in public sessions and behind the scenes that it's transparent, inclusive, comprehensive, and maintains a key goal to focus on the classroom. In parallel to the budget preparation, our district is formalizing an operational foundation that's grounded in policies, procedures, ethics, and trust. Over the years, you've all heard me say, "My long-term visionary statement has always been, what will the world look like in 12 years when the first graders graduate?" And that's something I'd like us to stay focused on. But for tonight, I'd like us to narrow that timeline down to the next three to five years. And I would at this point if we can start taking with the board, the district, the administration, the faculty, start taking a three to five year view. I'd ask that we collectively define what
067that is. I would call it for the sake of anything else right now. Genio Central School vision 2030. 2030 sounds like a long time away, but it's not. If we can begin to architect what the new level roadmap of education is going to look like in this time frame, that would be my request. Superintendent Bastra and the administrative team are working on a roadmap for future work that will guide our staff and students toward future readiness. To date, there's been good progress in the safety enhancements, energy management, community relationships, as he outlined tonight, and in instructional areas of rural. I know there's a lot to be considered and many new ideas for me. But just to start by putting a few out there, we need to really consider what portrait of a graduate graduate is
068and the associated future ready skills and project-based learning. We need to embrace artificial intelligence in the K12 arena and consider how we might personalize educational content, individual education plans, digital lessons, application based study projects, integrative learning that includes steam, fine arts, athletics, and other general education areas. We need to continue our enhanced and personalized and inclusive special education across our facilities. I'm going to pick on only one tonight, but as I look at the budget, I can pick on measures. Across our facilities, how do we manage our energy management here to minimize and reduce the $310,000 that we spend every year on electric and gas? I know there are answers in the next few years. We need to answer this. We need to look at corporate support and reaching outside the normal channels to gain
069corporate support for education program funding and I'm willing to devote some time of my corp former corporate life to do that. I think we need to formalize the goblue district brand and have it be reflective of the Blue Devil grit and visually evident and recognizable to anyone entering or on this property and where necessary provide professional development as needed to align to this transformation. I think this is a transformative approach. They're both opportunities and challenges in any transformative approach. And we've talked about a multi-year plan consistent. I know Stephanie has left, but she has given us some questionnaires. And I wanted to say this in context of that questionnaire that she's asked us to start looking at. When we talk about multi-year planning, it starts with the programs and then we can resource it and
070build the budgets, multi-year budgets for different. Tonight I'm going to ask the the board, the administration, the faculty, others begin to think in this context of what Jio Central School District vision 2030 might look like. I'd like to keep this on the agenda for the upcoming months, weeks, and months. And we will have some topics in the in the old business section going forward as it pertains to this. So I look for your feedback. wanted to read that. Anything you want to add to that? >> And full of support. You guys have all heard that, you know, the the staff here knows the vision. Um, you know, the state's kind of taken us down that that pathway of the vision through portrait of a graduate. Um, but you can't argue this what our kids need,
071right? Like they need programs that are focused on future ready skills. We need to make them competitive when they leave here. Regardless of where they're going, what they're going into, whether that is college, the workforce, military, uh, trade schools, whatever that might be. We need to we need to make shifts in education around the idea of learning content to skill acquisition, right? We AI is going to be a big part of that. >> It already is. And you know, quite often education seems to be years behind the rest of the curve in society. And I want to be a part of an innovative district that gets ahead of that, creates a vision that every single student can look back at their education here at Jio and say they prepared me not just with AP courses,
072not just with ACE courses and you know the learning the lessons in the classroom, but with skills that are going to make them competitive no matter what they're going into. and we have to decide what are those future ready skills that we want to align to and when we develop that portrait of a graduate what is that portrait what do we value here at GCS so I'm excited to be part of that work going forward and uh it's great to have a great board to support that work behind us >> thank you and and I do want to say we're going to open this conversation up beyond just this table to everybody more any other comments members I would say >> me too. I know it's a lot of hard work that everybody is putting
073into this year this coming year but keeping some view vision of two three four five years we need to do that this one all right with that any other comments from anybody I'll leave it open okay are you done section We need to go to executive session um to discuss contract negotiation. So >> contract negotiation. Okay. >> All right. >> Thank you. Thank you everybody. Good night. >> Good night, guys. Yeah.