001Go. Uh, thank you all very much for joining us on this May 13, 2025. We will call our meeting to order. Uh, this time is scheduled for the budget hearing, which is a time dedicated to hear from the community about the proposed budgets. Um, a reminder that the vote will be on May 20th, a week from today. Polls are open from noon to 900 p.m. Uh, the board after a year-long process has proposed a budget of 169 million Z or 31,619 which represents a 3.69% budget increase. The proposed tax levy for the district is $115,31,984. Uh we have spent time again uh in various committees, in various meetings, in various spaces um engaging in conversations about uh the budget and particularly in response to last year's uh budget to make sure that we are being
002um not just fiscally responsible but considering the long-term financial health of the district. And so at this point in time, uh it is our intention as a board to hear from our community and make sure that we can enter uh any comments um or uh statements into the public record. And so with that being said, as a budget hearing, it is time for us to hear from our community. And I'm looking to Trisha, am I looking to person? We have one person signed up, but we'll provide an opportunity for anybody else who would like to speak. And we have Julia Gorman, if I pronounced that correctly. I hope I did. Yes, it's possible that uh the speaker may be coming for the 7 o'clock meeting as well. Uh so with that being said for anybody
003who is in the room would anyone like to speak or make a statement about the budget? Please you tell us your name if you wouldn't mind come down and speaking to the microphone. Is that okay? It doesn't matter either. Mike take your pick please. Yes. Uh yes question and I can ask a couple little questions just here lively. Uh you can we may not be able to answer all the questions so feel free and then whichever questions we can answer and we'll do our best to do. Last year it was a very compressed mic. This is this is a lot nicer. All right, cool. Is that is that got a signal up there? Um my name is Joe Lansky. I live in Danby. We've lived there for 5 years. Um beautiful community. Um there's a
004lot of good things happen here at the school. Um I think I think u you spend too much money. Uh but um uh so one of one of the one of my uh gripes is that this uh meeting was not in it was not listed anywhere. It was not listed in in the mailing that I just got today about the budget. So uh I think it was last year. Is isn't the budget uh hearing supposed to be advertised somehow? The budget hearing is required by New York State Education Law to be published in the newspaper of record. Our newspaper of record is the Ethica Journal. With that being said, it also has been sent out through our various social media networks and our email updates. Yeah. I know. Listen, I I uh I do I
005do have I I should be on your on your server here, but um but uh it would be good to put it in this and get this out just a little earlier because everybody gets this, right? Yeah. I'm not sure. Just so you know, I respect that the recommendation I'm going to write down. Yeah. Um I'm not sure that we can get it out earlier u because the uh board candidates um it was actually sent I want to say within 12 hours before uh the board candidates were finalized and then that next morning it went to the printer and as soon as given to the printer you know it went out there's a there's a lot of stuff flying around and there's a lot the the state budget was really late and it's crazy. Yeah
006I listen I I just wanted to acknowledge that I think it was in last this publication last year. I'll check. Um uh so um what was I going to start with? Oh, so you use fund balance to grow the budget every year and and and fund fund balance, correct me if I'm wrong, is just money left over from from what we've given you, right? I wouldn't classify it that way. And I'm going to ask Dr. Dom Lisa to come down as well to make sure that I'm providing and I'll look to board members to provide because because a a reserve fund has to have voter approval. So if you're if you're going to rely on a on a on a pot of money every year that has to have voter approval and and you are
007relying on on seven it seems like a lot of money uh that you're relying on every year to grow the budget and and it's it's it's every year I can see it happening once in a while to close a gap. Oh, we have some extra extra money. Uh, but it really it really it it's not good optics to to to use our leftover money to to grow the budget. It just to me it doesn't it doesn't it doesn't paint a good picture. Sure. Why don't we hear all the questions and then we can proceed from there. And so so that that's that's one of my big gripes. Um and and is it even legal to do it every year? But it probably is because um so uh that's really about it. I mean I mean
008you know we all know we you're spending a lot of money. The question is um some of you think it's appropriate in a in a town with threequarters of the residents who rent who don't get to write off their their school taxes because it's in their rent. Um 15% poverty. I does the board know what the median wage in the in in the in in the city of Ithka is you're you're all you probably all all live well above it. It's it's it's between 50 and $60,000 probably. Then I live below it. What's that? So then I live below it. But keep going. Do you really? No. Keep going. Okay. Anyway, um and and so a a median a median household wage is is about is between 70 and 80. Um and a median house
009um um would have a a school tax bill of $5,000. That's quite a chunk just for school tax out of a take-home of maybe 50 to 55,000 for a household. So that that's a lot of to me you're or you're overspending for this community. If you were in Westchester or something, you know, you you might be spot on. Yeah. And you might be you might be under spending in some communities, but I think for Ithaca given given the uh um uh you know the diversity of of how people try to survive here, uh um I think you're overspending and and that's yeah, that's that's my that's my comment. So great. Um and I would like to know about that reserve and you can even email me that. We we'll answer that question right here. I
010just want to make sure we give you the appropriate time. So right so thank you very much. Um do you want to speak to Sure. fund balance to some extent. So, uh it I want to make sure I characterize it accurately. So, it isn't necessarily used to increase the budget. It's really used to offset and to decrease the burden on the local tax share. So, uh it's not, you know, I think our this year was approximately between seven and 8 million using fund balance. It is legal to do that as a common practice to to roll over that that particular fund balance yearly. So instead of increasing the budget by that much, that's used to decrease our burden on the local tax share. So it's um that's probably the best way to explain that. But
011at the end of the year, you you plan on having that money left over because you've overt taxed us again that amount. But I mean, yes, you are planning on this. It it's probably skating on thin ice that is probably should be voted on. And so I I want to interrupt for a second. So thank you for sharing. I will respond. So, I want to the purpose is not to sort of get into a back and forth during a budget hearing, but I think it's a legitimate question. Um, the idea is we have, and I can be wrong, and again, any board members, please correct me if I'm wrong, including our business official. Um, New York State allows school districts to have up to 4% of their total budget and a reserve, a fund balance,
012right? And so, the idea being it's there for a, you know, so-called rainy day fund. At this point in time there have been times where it has been for lack of a better word reigning where our revenue coming in be it state taxes local property taxes federal taxes grants uh payment in lie of taxes you name it does not meet what the expenditures are and so we then have to dip into that fund which which you know and so on one hand when you say it's not authorized I would humbly and respectfully say it actually is authorized when folks vote on the budget um that is part of the authorization that takes place and in the projections and in the document it makes mention of where those monies will go and so I will continue
013to ask folks. I know most folks may have gotten their budget mailer today and if they haven't gotten it today they'll get it tomorrow or within the next day or so. All that information is outlined and for additional questions. Please do reach out to board members to our business office. Check the FAQ page to see what's taking place. Um this is me speaking as one board member. I'm getting out of the position of speaking as board president. Speaking as one board member, there is no doubt that living in Ithaca is extremely expensive. And you know, as someone who recruits students to come to as Ithaca College where I'm at, we have conversations with parents and caregivers on a regular basis. And one of the data points that we use pretty regularly is right that our
014hotel costs are the some of the most expensive in the state. So for people who want to come visit Ethica College, they're regularly paying $4 and $500 a night for a hotel. that is expensive, right? If you want to go out for a meal, even while we have more restaurants than New York City per square capita, as people like to quote that as well, but we know that's not an inexpensive meal, right? That it also costs. And so your point about whether ICSD expends is a great point. one that I would dare say, not I would dare say, I will say that all of my board colleagues understand significantly the cost and the burden that is placed upon our local community. We have regular conversations about why Ithaca gets identified as a quote unquote affluent
015district or what is our proportion of right total assessed value versus non-t taxable assessed value. all those conversations and so all that goes into the work that we do even while people may not like the end result of where we end up but humbly don't presume that we don't understand that or that there aren't people on the board who are making less than $60,000 a year. Okay. All right. Wow. Well, that's uh that humbles me a little bit. Thank you for that. Uh just one last thing and then I I will I will leave you alone. Um I I I tried to get an operational budget this year. Um um there there there's no way to actually view the budget to view the 20 or 30 page document of actually how uh take a packet
016right there right next to you. Yeah. Nope. The next one. Take that. Oh wow. It's all here. Huh. Um so so in other words, it it would tell, you know, high school teacher B uh teaches this class and this class and this class because that that's what I'd like to know. I'd like to know how how the money is being spent in in the high school. I'm not sure how it's spent at grade school. they they have they have kids that they're trying to get up up to up to the the you know sound and basic. Yeah. But in the high school there's a lot of options that can that can be costly and and I'm just curious uh how how you guys are spending that money. Appreciate that feedback and and and there there's
017no way to access that. I mean I can't look on a on a site to see if I had a kid for example who who to see what electives are available because I'm really poor with in terms of course offerings. Yes. That's a different conversation than the compensation that an individual teacher receives and what they're teaching. You know, if if you're offering, you know, well, you were offering five languages, which to me is like, whoa, hold on a minute. You know, we're not in Westchester, and then you you downsized it to four or three even, which makes three makes, you know, two or three makes a lot of sense in in a city like this. Uh, five was insanity. Um but but there's no way for me to view what is going on in the
018high school because that because that's where you could spend a lot of of of of discretionary money, you know, K through five that that's not discretionary mostly. It's it's it's those are the studies the kids do. I hear you. I would say it's a matter of perspective. We should have coffee. Okay. Call me, email me. Let's sit down and have a conversation. I I I'm going to do that. I expect it. All right. I appreciate I I have our our our sound man is Mike and I'll buy with my you know low salary. You know I I thought our our our sound guy is is is a sound tech at at uh uh recording professor at IC. Okay. Mike Caprizzo and uh I thought he made more money than that, but I'm gonna have to
019pay him more. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you for your comments and we I look forward to following up. I appreciate that. I don't know if there's any other board. I don't want to dominate that conversation. I apologize. I just it's it's funny. I I want to try to look up the Westchester bit because the one thing that I want to make sure I can explain and I'm glad Dom's here. You know, like our ratio of what we get in state aid is 25 to 30%. And most the average of New York State is 40%. And most of the neighboring districts um around here it's it's far more. So the taxpayer burden here is real. We pay about 70%. Whereas the average I was just looking up the average in the state is around 56%. So
020it's true we take on a burden and that's part of just unfortunate way that foundation aid is the equation is built for Ithaca. And so as a board we are really taking steps. We are looking to have um representation on Tomkins County IDA which is the Industrial Development Agency. That these things all take some time. We recognize the taxpayer burden. We also experience that burden and it's it's it's heavy and it's not sustainable as a community and and last year's budget cycle certainly really brought that to light. So, we don't take this budget lightly, but we've, as we said in so many meetings, you know, the costs of running a school, we experience inflation, tariffs, just like everybody else. So, we're we're not trying to pull a fast one on anybody. You know, the fund
021balance we've talked about in some meetings that that having that money and having an ample reserve allows us to have a better rating in the state and lets us borrow money, which we have to do, at a much better rate. So everything we're doing is in the taxpayers's best interest and we as a board take that very seriously, very seriously. So please come and ask questions and please know like we're suffering with you with the tax burden and we're doing everything we can to really push the needle and change things in this community because it is too much. We we recognize that. But we also have to run our schools and pay people what they're worth and it's a really difficult balance. So I would just add two things. Thank you for that Aaron. I
022would add two things. One, uh Jill uh facilitated a revenue exploration committee, right? So the idea for us was also not just ways in which to find efficiencies operational and otherwise within the budget, but also to explore revenue generation, which is something that the board will continue to explore. Um and then uh in addition to that, and that second part just left me, so I'll I'll leave it I'll leave it there. Could it be the RFP? Oh, thank you very much. It's exactly what it was done. Wow, that was great. Um the the district through the finance committee, um the board will be sending out an RFP to do both a demography study as well as a population projection study as well as evaluation of all district properties. And so the board understands that in
023order to make which at some point in time there may be um much more difficult conversations and decisions that are ahead and the board understands the best way to do that is to have the best information possible. So we'll be looking for that additional information next year. It'll be happening over the summer and early fall and so we're looking for that information to better understand where we are. Um I know the New York Times has just run an article some folks they ran two really good articles. uh one talking about the declining population in upstate New York and then another one is has have we as a nation given up on the project of learning and so if you have not seen that second article I would recommend taking a look at it but also
024take a look at you know the projections for upstate New York and we're we're attuned to that and trying to get out ahead of it and putting in an RFP to make sure that we have professionals come help us look at that information that data to make the best decisions. So, these are phenomenal questions that a board needs to be asked and we're trying to our our best to be out ahead of it before thinking and um I would dare say after last budget this year could have been this year was not great and it could have been a crisis if it were not for long-term fiscal planning that happened before. And so we continue with long-term fiscal planning, bringing in our fiscal adviserss, having conversations about our facilities and our deferred maintenance and trying
025to make sure that we are giving the best education and the best education spaces possible for the young people in our community. Normally during budget hearings, I don't say a word. Is there anybody else that would like to speak? Please, please, can you tell us your names? The QR code on your website like it said the free trial. We will probably remedy that within the next five minutes. Thank you for letting us know. No, I did not know that, but we will Someone will get on that immediately. We must not have put it in the budget. We have to we have to do that. Well, not to be antilimatic, but I'm going to give it like another 30 seconds. Folks who have been around me or my role as board know that I have no
026problem with silence, but I don't want to just cut off a budget hearing to make sure that we provide space and time for anyone who may want to ask additional questions. Or if you want to make a day and time that you're going to buy me coffee, we can have that question as okay. Good folks. Well, hearing none, please do look at the website. We will get the QR code fixed um ASAP. There is a budget web page. Uh the board uh actively encourages people to exercise their democratic right and participate in the budget vote and the election. And uh we will bring this part of the meeting until a close until 7 p.m. when we'll come back and open up our regular voting meeting. We'll bring it to a close. Thank you all very
027much.