001We are returning from public session and uh we will excuse me we're returning from executive session back into public session. Are there any modifications to the agenda? Hearing none, we will continue on with our agenda and that will bring us to agenda item 4.1 which is public comment and I believe my colleague Dr. Trip has the list. First up uh this evening we have Ann Johnson. I'm the parent of two elementary school age children in the district. Okay. Is that good? Um I am the parent of two elementary school age children in the district. My son is a third grader at Cuga Heights. Uh my daughter is in prek out at Enfield. Um, I'm just here this evening to show my support for the phone ban that seems likely to be coming down from the
002governor. Um, as a parent, I would like to see a strict and enforcable phone ban in place by the time my children go to middle school. And all the parents that I know and talk to in the district, I I'm certain would also support a ban. And from what I've read, the most enforcable type of ban would entail installing phone lockers at the front of the school. Kids come in, lock their phone in a little locker, take the key with them. At the end of the day, they retrieve their phone. Anyone caught with their phone out during the school day simply gets it taken up to the front office for the remainder of the day. There's no punishment. It's just a new norm. In March, I happened to visit a friend down in Virginia who
003has a son in high school and Virginia has just implemented the phone ban. Um, and his school used the Yonder pouch system. I don't know how much everybody knows about these things, but the kids come to school, put their phone in individual pouch that has a magnetic lock. Um, the problem with this system seems to be one, the phone's still with the kid all day. Um, two, uh, the kids just don't lock the pouch or they damage the locks and it doesn't work. But overall, talking to this friend's son, it seemed to be working and successful. Um, the locker system seems to be the most clear-cut and enforceable. Okay, on a different but closely related topic, as a parent, I've also been really surprised at the amount of screen use that's in the actual classroom
004in elementary school. When my son went to kindergarten, he came home one day and said, "Mom, I have my own iPad." I was actually pretty shocked by this. And again, I I don't know of any parents um in my friend group that think it's awesome that their kid has their own device in the classroom. Um, this may sound crazy. I would totally be in favor of getting rid of all the student iPads and laptops in the elementary school. May save the district a lot of money. I don't know. Um, and I think there might be a lot of parents besides me who would get behind that. Um, lastly, as we consider implementing a phone ban, um, and consider the efficacy of screens as educational tools, I'd really like to have more of a conversation about
005this. I don't hear much about it. Maybe it's because I don't have middle school or high school students yet. Um, but I'd like to hear more from the district about kids and healthy relationships to technology. I want us to teach them to say, 'Look, hey, the phone ban is here. Because since 2012, when smartphones became widespread, mental health has been going down. Anxiety and depression has been going up. I want to really intentionally teach them friendships and relationships that bring you depth and love and joy in this life can't be found on a phone. I'd like to teach them that unmodderated phone use it it separates us from our body and keeps us up here in the mind in the ego where we all become more defensive, more reactive, more anxious and more attached to
006our identities than ever before. And I think all we have to do is look around at our country right now and see this. It almost makes me cry. Um, we are over our three minutes. So I apologize for to wrap it up. Yes, please. Okay. So, just in conclusion, I'm just a parent here. I'm really in support of seeing the phone ban come down from the state. Um, I think a lot of parents will be behind it. I think it's going to be a really, really great thing. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Tristan Babcock. How about Tilda Holgrren? And while we're coming down, a reminder that each speaker gets three minutes. If the alarm goes off, I'll do my best to give some space for folks to complete as well. Hello. Hello. It's off.
007Okay. Sorry. Uh hello. I am speaking here today as one of a delegation of LACS students in support of our teachers in their upcoming contract negotiations. Our teachers work so hard to provide us a quality education. They go out of their way to help us staying after school working off the clock coaching mock trial debate science olympiad and various sports teams. They do this out of dedication to their students and to the spread of knowledge. My teachers have inspired me time and time again to reach for their for the stars. Their dedication matters. Their care their care matters and I have nothing but the utmost respect for them. ICSD should be holding them in the same regard. The ICSD teacher turnover rate far exceeds the state and national turnover rates. There has been a 26%
008drop in tenure teachers over the past 10 years, demonstrating the erosion of the of the veteran workforce in the past three years. years, there have been 175 nonretirement teacher departures, reinforcing this as a as a persistent pattern. Nearly half of current ICSD teachers are untenured and lacking job stability. One and one-third of teachers are stalled on salary trajectory and more than threequarters of teachers have been leaprogged by less experienced colleagues. ICSD consistently overestimates its budget, ending each year with nearly a million or more dollars in unspent funds. We have the resources to pay our teachers as much as they deserve. Yet, despite our financial abundance, we still pay our teachers less than surrounding districts with smaller communities. A strong community of veteran teachers is one of the most valuable things a student can have. Experienced
009teachers have strong bonds with their community and know their way around. When teachers are constantly replaced, leaving ICSD for districts with better contracts, education suffers. During my time in elementary school, due to bad contracts, we had a new art teacher each year who repeated the last year's curriculum, having no knowledge base for what the class did or didn't know. Starting over at the beginning every year had the impact that I am missing 5 to nine years of art education. I am now trying to figure out how to get my art credits without taking a class that requires years of a background in basics that I simply do not have. When teachers are not valued and are not treated well, students struggle. We need the school board to understand that we care what happens to our
010teachers. They are valued members of our community who consistently go above and beyond to ensure that we get a quality education. Yet, they are underpaid and undervalued. The more teachers are forced to leave in search of a better paying job, the more expensive it is for ICSD in the long run. The harder it is for ICSD to find new teachers, the more blows our community takes and the more students education suffers. We need the school board to understand that we care what happens to our teachers. We care about our education. We care about our teachers welfare and we are showing up today to let you know that we stand with them. Thank you. Thank you. Next. Next and last. David Eley. Certainly not this time. Hi everyone. I'm David Eley. Uh for a change of
011pace, I am here as community member David Eley, not school employee David Eley. Um because I wanted to bring up something that is like that it's a little bee in my bonnet and that is the uh frequency. Oh, now I got to look at my own notes. Yeah. frequency, length and timing of an executive sessions. Yeah, they happen often, they are long. It forces the community to wait when they are ready to engage in in in what they should be able to engage with. Um, I have a story about being here two weeks ago. Well, not being here, being at home, waiting, staring, looking at the lovely screen. I'm here tonight. I looked at the lovely screen. It was delightful. It wasn't delightful. Um, and I just want to come with like three asks, pushes.
012First, I want to recognize the right to hold executive session. It has a strong purpose and that purpose is to protect the confidentiality of individuals or the district in certain selected situations. So, first my my first thing here is just to consider how often those are genuinely needed, especially right at the start of a meeting before the content of a meeting is even known. Second, I would I I I found myself with extra time recently while looking at a little screen. So, uh, I had a friend send me some NISPA protocols. Um, and I know that NISPA allows for the board to collectively decide to to collectively decide to provide details about what happened in executive session. And it's a right that I would urge the board to exercise more frequently. Finally, I want to
013throw it out there. I I I think seeing a little more debate on the floor would be healthy. You know, be willing to express your views, your individual views. Get messy, disagree, debate, make it ugly, but be open. Right. this the Ithaca City School District is making these awesome moves towards more transparency with our community, being more open about what we do and I am urging the board of education to follow that model, to be more transparent, to be more open whenever it's possible. Um, it's time to pull back the curtains and open up the windows. Yeah, sure. Curtains pulled back, windows wide open. It could get ugly. We could see things that we don't want to see, but fresh air and sunshine are good for the soul. Thank you, David. Perfect timing. Uh, board
014responses. Um, the the the cell phone ban, I mean, I I I appreciate you coming and speaking about that. I mean, it's definitely something that um you know, I believe wholeheartedly in uh I'm eagerly awaiting know what's going to happen from the governor's office. Um so, uh but yeah, I I appreciate you bringing that to our attention um advocating for it. So, thank you. I appreciate the information you sent us well as well. That was helpful. And uh as we've come to this point several times over the past 6 months at least, we're we're very much in favor of some form of cell phone ban. We're we're really kind of waiting for the governor and to come up with the specifics, but I believe it's our joint uh expectation that there will be something in
015effect in September. Emily. Um, thank you all for coming and uh I I completely agree with you and from a personal perspective would love to see absolutely no screens in my kids elementary school. Um, so I understand where you're coming from. Um, the policy committee has been working um a lot on the cell phone bans. Even more importantly, the district has been working a lot on collecting information from the community, having community conversations with um educators, with students um and other community members. There's also um likely going to be an upcoming kind of bigger community forum um that the policy committee is um working with a couple of the exact team members on. Um so very much hope that you will plan to come to that because it's really really important to us that any
016um policy that's put into place is built with the community and based on um on feedback that we get from from caregivers from other from students from educators to make sure that it's actually successfully implemented because we are seeing lots of bans across the country as you said some of which are have been really successful so far and some of which have not been at all. And so we um want to take care and the reason that we didn't just jump into doing it um right away when we started having these conversations. While I admit part of me wanted to just do that and say let's get rid of all of them, we know that implementation can be really messy and and detrimental if we don't do it thoughtfully. Um, but I think that the
017discussions so far have indicated that our plan is to have something in place before um before the fall. And I will say that I I have no interest in waiting for the governor to to provide any more information. Um, I think that it is up to the district and our community to make those choices. We don't need the the uh governor did research that we already have access to and we we can make our own decisions about that. So, so I'm very excited to continue that conversation and definitely encourage you to uh tune in to uh policy committee meetings if you want to get kind of more involved in the discussion or kind of hear the timeline which we are checking in with the exact team about on a regular basis. Um Tela just want
018to say uh thank you for being here and for speaking on behalf of your teachers. Um, I'm I'm so glad to hear that they've had such an enormous impact on you. Um, and and you're feeling as grateful for them in this district as as I am. So, thank you for being here. Um, David, so appreciate your uh comments. I before being on the board was also like so annoyed by exec sessions and by having to wait. So, I totally understand that. Um, I also just admit that I'm new enough that I don't actually know all of the rules about timing and when and how much you can share and how much you can't. So, I appreciate you raising that. Um, and also look forward to engaging with my more experienced board colleagues. I just keep
019looking at Sean. Definitely not. Yeah. Um, just kidding. Just kidding. Um, yeah. to be able to learn more about that. I I can say that not only do I feel like they're really important, but every time that we leave an exact session, I'm like, man, I wish we could have like two to three to four more hours in here. Um because there's always so much to talk about. Um, so I I it makes me very nervous to think that we might not be having them, but I think that it is really important to know that, you know, these are or not I didn't I know you didn't suggest not having them, but like you know, cutting back on them, but I think like us being able to hear from you about um about the need
020to be as cognizant as we can about the community's needs and also about the need and desire to hear more from us during um general board sessions. Um, I think it's really good feedback. So, I appreciate you sharing it all. Um, this is I just Is this on? Yes. Okay. Thank you. I just want to add um to Emily's comments, David. You know, this board work been doing it six years now and I I felt similar to Emily coming on where it's this attitude like why are these meetings so long? What's going on in Exec? you know, you think there was something fishy going on in there. And and the thing is when you're on a board like this, you're working collaboratively and building relationships as a team. Um, and you know, saying get messy,
021you know, like this is not real housewives up here. This is us really trying to get work done and be respectful of one another and disagree respectfully and and do it for the students. Um, and honestly, last year's process was so brutal. Um, this time last year was really tough and you know, I feel like right now I'm really happy that we as a board are communicating and there's no weird stuff going on behind a curtain. the things that are listed in our agenda. That's what it is. like we can't speak publicly about private matters that involve and I don't have the list up because I'm an absolute chaos mess here but I mean what did it what did it say when we go into it exact lists exactly what we're saying and there's a
022lot of work that goes into that and and it it actually you know knowing how much time we put in behind the scenes to do these things and to do it right frankly it's a little bit of an insult to to hear to hear you know, this cosplay kind of attitude towards it. We take this work really seriously and um despite sometimes my demeanor behind closed doors with maybe my language, as Karen might like to point out, um you know, there might be a lot of fbombs or or whatnot that can't be put here. That that's not going to happen out here. But other than that, it's it's it's really kind of boring. Um, and it's necessary and and I just want folks to know that that we're not there's no smok and mirrors. There's
023really not. And I I know that I too might have felt that way six years ago, but man, it's not. So, any other board responses? Uh, at the sake of repeating things, I apologize, but I will. But, uh, cell phone ban, yes. Uh, as an educator, folks may know I was probably the most hesitant on the board to engage in it. Uh, first time in my teaching career this semester where I've banned cell phones in my classroom and completely understand the pedagogical and academic benefits that come from that. Um, I agree that we don't have to wait for the governor, but a bell-to-bell ban would be much different if it's dictated by the state than do what you want. So, part of it is this play. Uh, Mary Grover and Carrie Burke are working with
024Emily and I to create a screening of the documentary Screen Aers. There's one for middle school and high school level as well as elementary school level. We're hoping that will be in May to begin the process. And then we're going to be spending the next couple months developing a process hopefully collaboratively with students. When I was at LACS last week, a bunch of sixth graders gave me an earful about why it wouldn't work. Uh but it was a it was a beautiful conversation to figure out how to work through some of those ideas and I think most folks understand where the research is and again more will happen and um I think it's our hope as a board that this will not be a board policy but a community policy. Every piece of literature that
025I've read about this says it only works if there's community buyin and particularly from parents and caregivers uh students as well but so we have to work through that and that'll be the process. So, thank you and there'll be more to to follow. Um, the students name I apologize. Is it Tilda? Thank you very much. Uh, thank you again for coming to speak. Um, we always appreciate uh and I also understand uh what it takes to speak at a board meeting. Um, not everyone feels that. Some folks, uh, particular LACS students are much more eager to speak. Uh, maybe it's all the A or AC AM uh, ASM, excuse me. Um but thank you and yes we absolutely uh value and care for our teachers including those of us in the board who have been
026part of the ITA specifically or teachers in other areas. So greatly appreciate that. Um and then I'm going to take the opportunity because I can. Uh David, you know my great respect for you and uh it's uh respect that has grown over the years of uh having family in your classroom. So, not just the work that you do as a community member, but more importantly the way in which you approach your pedigogy and your teaching. And so, um I I have great admiration for uh the way in which you do your work. And I know you didn't come here in that role, but I want to begin by saying that. Um so, I wouldn't I wouldn't respond if I didn't have great respect. Uh I appreciate thinking about executive sessions and we discuss and debate
027every single time Adam and I have a conversation as board officers. Do we need an executive session? Uh we talk with Dr. Brown. We debate about whether or not it's something that could wait for something else. Over the years, executive session has changed to either be in the middle of a meeting at times or at the end of the meeting. U most recently, probably for the past five or six years, it's been at the beginning of the meeting at board members request. Oftentimes being asked to vote on something that's going to come up in the agenda quite soon. And so there's a conversation, an opportunity to have a conversation, a dialogue about that. So that may not be what you want to hear, but that's sometimes what takes place. And I really appreciate the idea
028that it can get ugly and it could also get illegal quick. And so part of the idea of executive sessions is to protect the privacy of folks, especially if you're having conversations about the employment history of particular individuals, which is often times the main basis. If we're having conversations about litigation, that's also a main basis. At times, it's about negotiations, right? That's also a main basis. And today was an executive session to have a conversation about the superintendent evaluation. For us, that is those are not public conversations uh and protected under open meetings law for that reason. So should we have some additional conversation about when we have executive sessions? Absolutely. Uh but I would dare say uh I am going to say this uh as someone who I know I've said before who is
029the former director of the MLK scholars program who takes students on trips throughout the civil rights belt to have conversations about the way in which democracy works. As someone who taught at LACS is committed to a democratic education. Uh I am completely completely committed to forms of transparency. I wouldn't be in this seat if I didn't believe in the role of transparency in particular in what we're seeing today in our political climate at the state and at the federal level. And so I'm saying this to the community. I'm not saying it to an individual. We are committed to helping to lead that very notion of transparency that was talked about during your comments. We have been committed to being transparent. We will continue to be transparent. And as folks who have lived other places know
030that New York State is one of the most transparent forms of open government that you're going to find in any state. It requires significant forms of transparency. When community members feel like we're not being transparent, come have a conversation. As I say all the time, but that is something that we are committed to and will remain committed to being open, available, and transparent. So I appreciate folks speaking and this is that was me speaking as a board member. Now, I'm going to slide back into the role of being board president. Up next, we have our student reps. And last time you did rock, paper, scissors. We can avoid that. It sounds like you already decided who's going to go first. So, why don't we start with LACS? All right. Um, so since we last met,
031uh, there was a mock trial competition. Um on March 29th, the LS mock trial team beat IHS in the accounting competition. Um this is the first time in many years that ACS has won the competition. Uh you know, all of us at ACS, staff, students, and everyone else are very happy for obvious reasons. Um next up, the next up for the team uh will be on Thursday, uh April 24th, um when the regional competition will happen at the county courthouse. Um yeah, and then in a continuation from the last meeting, I highlighted some fundraisers. I'm going to highlight those again. Um the hurricane Helen relief trip um is doing some yard work and is selling merch. I believe Miss Trip or Dr. Trip has signed up for some yard work. Two hours of yard work
032tomorrow. Um we encourage you all, whether you're on the board or not, to sign up for yard work. It's a it goes to a great cause. Um the senior somewhere trip is in full swing and has been selling merch um water bottles and tumblers. We've sold tumblers to Miss Yearwood and Miss Workman. Thank you both. Um and 30% of profits raised will be donated to Ukraine. Um and finally the Aquaansi Freedom School trip um launched a GoFundMe. Um at the last meeting their GoFundMe was standing at around 4950%. Uh today it's at 68%. So they've raised some some substantial money since then. Um all from the support of ICD and the ACS communities. Um I'll just follow that up. Cycle 4 um has begun and so um LACS's schedule shifts. So instead of projects on
033Tuesday afternoons and Thursday mornings, now Thursdays are dedicated um trips days. Um which is just an opportunity for trip groups to continue planning and honing their experience. Um as well as to just bond as a group, spend some time together, get to know each other better, um and to help organize all those fundraising efforts like we spoke about. Um and then I'll just add again, I'm a part of Hurricane Helen Relief. Um, so if you want me to come to your house and do work for you, email Connor, um, um, science pebbats, those are in full swing. Uh, presentations are April 25th. Uh, the deadline for the second reader was a couple of days ago. Uh so people are hard at work revising their papers at the moment. Um I'll take a moment to highlight
034a couple of the proposals that have come through or are going going to be discussed at some upcoming ASM's all school meetings. Um as most of you know we do at our school weekly all school meetings in the gym. Um and we vote on issues brought by anybody within the school community. Um, some of the big ones recently have been the flag system proposals. So, um, several years ago, I think probably like six years ago, it stopped, something like that. Um, we had a system where, um, it was a communication system with parents and the entire sort of support network of students. Um, a yellow flag would be sent home if, you know, there was cause for concern, a missing assignment or something like that. Um, a red flag if they were in danger of
035failing the class, and a green flag if they did something really great. Um, and there's been a lot of discussion, I know, in staff meetings over the past several years, um, to try and bring this back, but it hasn't really led anywhere. and just now a student brought it to ASM. So we had a conversation about that and voted to try to move it forward. Um another one has been um compulsory voting. Uh that one came out of public education and democracy class uh led by Brunin Xter and um it was a lot of it was very interesting to speak about um sort of talking about you know the nature of democracy and what's gained and lost by compulsory voting. Um and the last one that I'll bring up is curriculum requests. So that one's
036coming up. We're going to discuss that pretty soon. Uh, and it's a way for students to make what was before sort of informal. Hey, should we talk about this in this class formal? So, I know um today a teacher showed me a form that somebody filled out to request um an entomology unit in a science class, which would be pretty cool. Um, so, so all of this is really exciting stuff that hopefully we are going to have a lot of fun speaking about. I'm going to add one more proposal because it made me really happy. It recently passed I think last week, last couple weeks. Um, and that is a like buddy system proposal. Um, so obviously we're a 6th through 12th grade school and one of our philosophies is intergenerational connections. Um, and in
037the spirit of that, it was proposed that seniors are given sixth grade buddies for the first two weeks of school during our um, soft start to just kind of help them get the lay of the land. Um, as a senior, I think it's just like really sweet to um, get someone acclimated to the new new environment. Um, and then also to sit with them during ASM to kind of um, unveil and make the ASM process um, more clear because it can be really really complicated. Um, but yeah, that's been one of my favorite proposals recently and I'm really excited to see that implemented. That was also from public education democracy. So, um, they've been bringing us a lot of proposals which has been great. I wasn't going to bring that one up because it would
038seem too much like bragging, but I'm going to brag. I helped write it. It was so much fun. I'm really excited. Good evening everybody. Um, as you can see, I'm alone tonight for a variety of reasons, mostly related to sickness and family events. So, uh, well wishes for the numerous board reps who are at home coughing in their beds right now. So yeah, I mean one of the biggest things that's been coming down the pike recently is of course college decisions. So that's been a big deal for a lot of people. And I think today is the last day that almost every major college in America is releasing their decisions. I think it's cuz it's all supposed to trickle out by the end of the first week of April. So that there's that and that's
039been a reason for a lot of hectic chaos at our school. But in other news, math team recently just placed seventh in a regional competition. Quiz bowl club will be going to nationals in a couple of weeks. The New York City trip for band, orchestra, and choir students will be taking place on April 25th and 26. And this is a yearly trip that happens that's financed by the fine and performing arts departments. And you know, we go and see a Broadway production as well as in this case, jazz at Lincoln Center, which I personally am very much looking forward to. Uh we have senior casino night tomorrow, so we'll be competing for a lot of prizes ranging from iPads to guitars. And yes, that's a it's a strange ensemblage. Um but junior prom has already
040been announced, as has the senior trip, so the school year is really winding down, which is terrifying for me. And there is also a meeting scheduled for tomorrow to discuss the possibility of a panel of current seniors that would help provide insights on the college and career process during the college and career presentations by counselors which will be taking place over the coming months. Usually all the juniors are gathered at different times into large auditoriums and myself and a couple other students uh brought to the attention of counselors the possibility that since information is constantly changing on the way you apply on the job market on entering even on entering the military, right, the way the reasons to do it or not do it or the ways in which you go about it may change
041over time and so we wanted to provide some student insight from people who have just gone through the process. We thought that it would also frankly be easier for a lot of students to listen to just because I think students have a tendency to care more about what their peers say than what uh authority figures tell them. So that's something that we're hoping will be able to happen even if it is a little bit of a logistical nightmare. So there will be a meeting about that tomorrow and I'll update the board on how that goes. Uh the recycling video that I've been pariting since February, I've received word that it will finally be ready in the next couple days. So fingers crossed. I've maybe heard this before, but fingers crossed. Um, and as soon as
042it's released, we're we've already had discussions with Miss Hardesty, our principal, on broadcasting it to the whole school, and we're going to start the program pretty immediately following that. So hopefully we'll be able to get a good month or two in before the end of the school year and hit the ground running next year if there's somebody to pick up the torch. So, a couple other things, too. I'll try to be quick. Code Red, our robotics team, competed well at our Tech Valley regional, but we're sadly met with some technical failures on the second day of competition, which will be fixed next year with more planning and reflection happening post construction. Uh, the Tech Trailers recently hosted Cornell PhD student who gave a great workshop on her current satellite imagery research and her past work
043with hiveminded drones. essentially drones working together as bees in a hive is my understanding. Uh, two music related events, the IHS choir students recently had the 10th annual IHS Corral theme concert. Um, many who came also had their own written pieces that they performed. So, that was very impressive. The IHS string and chamber orchestras kicked off April with their performance in our cafeteria. and the IHS band will be doing a performance for second graders around the district on April 24th, I believe is the date. And this has been a couple years running. It's the idea to try to embolden students who in third and fourth grade will begin to choose whether or not they want to pursue instruments and music to see the end results at least within the high school context or the K
044to2 context of their hard work in that regard. especially since we know it can be rather demoralizing when you're having difficulty starting, especially if you don't have the guidance that you think that you might need. And then the last thing that I'd save till last cuz I don't really want to talk about it, but uh more about vapes. So, we had a monitoring process for the bathrooms, which students complained about a lot, staff complained about a lot, but at the very least there were fewer vapes in the bathrooms. Um, recently there was one found by administration shoved down a toilet. So, um, I don't know. For me, that brings up some interesting questions about discipline policies that I'm interested in having conversations about, but I think those are probably going to happen first on a
045much on a micro level for schools and individual students, many of much of which is probably private information I will not be privy to, but I thought I'd let the board know about that. And then, sorry that I'm going on and on, but I have to very quickly mention the uh the JV varsity and modified spring sports rundown. Uh lacrosse is 3-0. Uh varsity lacrosse for girls is 1-0. Boys varsity tennis is 3-0. Varsity baseball is 1-1. And this is the first season where all but one uh stack school has a full varsity and JV girls flag football schedule. So, we're very excited about how that support has proliferated through IHS. Thank you. And um sorry you had to hear my voice instead of my illustrious colleagues. Thank you, Katie. Board responses. Emily, go ahead.
046Thank you all for sharing. Um I have a number of things written down actually. Uh maybe I'll just go through all of them and then if there are any responses, go for it. Um the first one, no respon. Oh, they're not allowed to respond, are they? You can't respond. Oh, okay. Thank you. No, sorry. Just trying to get process down. No, no, no, no, not at all. Okay, you don't have to respond. I um I thought that the red, yellow, green uh flag idea is an interesting one and made me ponder, but I'm not going to ask you about it right now that I know that Canvas like that families use Canvas to check in on those the kinds of things that you just mentioned. Um I actually don't do that yet because my kids
047are still in elementary school, but that's what I hear. Um, and so I'm curious like if like if that tool is not used at LACS or if students feel like this is like a better system or feels better to them than people logging into Canvas, maybe we can talk about that offline since you're not allowed to answer the question. Um, uh, wanted to say just about the college admissions period. One is that it's been very fun to watch on social media the announcements. So, thank you to um district communications team for um posting announcements of where people are going to college with little pictures of them when they were little kids. I think that's adorable. Um, I also know that I that we've received questions before about collegegoing rates and what schools kids are going
048to and there seems to be some um different ideas about how many kids are like going to college from the district and other things. I'm wondering if the district shares that information any other way than social media. Is that a social media account that I'm referring to? I mean, sorry, a district account. I'm unsure which one. You don't know what I'm talking about. Is that That's not a Okay, forget it. Forget everything I just said other than that. I really like that account. That's very cool. And congratulations to everyone who's going. Um it wasn't mentioned, but the um I went to the Etha High School prom musical. Um that was awesome. Uh so congratulations to everyone who was in that. Also went to Alice in Wonderland where a number of students um were in that
049as well. Um uh so congratulations to all of you on that. Uh the college and career new process that you're talking about Kmon I think sounds really cool and I think that's great for students to hear from other students. I am curious what kind of um efforts are being made to diversify the the group of students who are going to be um talking and sharing their pathways to um to college admissions. And then finally, um, correct me if I'm wrong, Jill, but I think at the next facilities meeting, we're going to have a special presentation um on vaping uh from a group of Cornell students uh who have been doing a lot of advocacy work in New York State and are um advocating for a um bill at the legislature. And so we're going to
050be talking about that and offering uh a solution that the high school uh may be interested Yeah. a monitoring solution. So, um I encourage you to check out the next facilities meeting for that. That's it. I'm done. Other board responses wondering who Emily went to. I know. I don't want to tell them. It was great though. Had a good time. We'll set up a lottery. So, congratulations Emily on um you said you wrote the the buddy system for LACS and and Stella had um shared about it. So, thank you all LACS for doing that. And it's similar to Kateman you mentioned about the band um high school band working with the second graders and that is such a beautiful program when the second graders all second graders come to culp auditorium to look at the
051big students and see them perform because it really does engage our students our elementary students that they're eager to go into playing an instrument for the next year. So, thanks that that's continuing and congratulations to the Code Red Robotics team for going to Albany. And I do have my merch. I had to show it off because um LACS is running a fundraiser. And all of these programs are fundraisers for the schools and the programs. When you go to any of the um if you purchase an item or you go to and have the um what is it? Lawn cleanup and everything. as well as if you go to any of the performances, especially the plays where there's a payment there, that's towards our students and just for our community to continually engage with our students
052and see what their good work that they're doing. Usually I let this slide, but I want on record that I did purchase a blue ox t-shirt that cost me more than the $15 that was asked for. So, uh, looking forward to supporting, uh, supporting that event as well. Um, and Cademan, I hope that we will have your permission when it's done to play the video during, uh, a board meeting, uh, so it can be seen by everyone else. So, if you do not, maybe I should ask you that offline. So, we'll we'll follow up and go from there. And if no other board responses, we'll continue on with our agenda. Thank you, student reps. Fantastic. Uh the next agenda item is agenda item 5.1 the consent agenda and we will entertain motions. Uh I move
053to approve all consent agenda items listed in consent agenda consideration of accounts personnel reports students and minutes of previous meeting is presented. Uh moved by Adam, second by Emily by half a second. Uh any questions, debate, conversation? Well, just um conversation that there was a correction on the minutes from last month that's noted in here that was already brought forth. Thank you, Karen. Any additional conversations? Uh two items of note for me would be again uh additional contribution from Ithaca public education initiative. Thank you IPI. Uh and uh some donations to help our Boon Middle School students attend the New York State School Music Association music festivals. Uh thank you for that as well for those contributions. Hearing no discussion, we'll call the question. All in favor? Passes unanimously. Thank you very much. Um, continuing
054on with our agenda, Dr. Brown, the superintendent report. Yes, thank you for the opportunity to share at your meeting, professor and board. Just one item, um, an announcement, um, some local news that's positive that I wish to share. I mean, we need some positive news locally, um, as I'm sitting here and seeing some negative news coming out locally, which I'm sure we'll talk about shortly, but this is a positive one. And, uh, I'm going to read this name here because it's a long one. is the International Technology and Engineering Educators Association which is a national international organization and for the second consecutive year they have named Ithaca High School as a STEM school of excellence. Congratulations ETHA High School and they're receiving that recognition because of the school's continued commitment and achievement with innovation, hands-on
055learning, excellence in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education. Again, uh I continue to share receipts of the excellence that takes place in our schools and our community every single day. And a shout out to all the educators and the young people who are associated with our wonderful program as we're building and adding on new physical physical space for that program. Scott Kean, all the great educators there and all the great students. Thank you. And that's a special award and I'm sure we'll have more conversation about that in the near future. But just wanted to make sure we made that announcement. as we now transition to a very robust conversation about finances and fiscal stability for our community and organization. Thank you, Professor. Absolutely. Thank you. Uh that will continue on with our agenda which brings
056us to the one of the one of the main topics this evening. We have a couple of topics. One is the board discussion uh excuse me, the budget discussion. Uh so this would be the board's discussion around budget. Um we are hoping this is going to be much more of a work session for board members to ask questions to a little get to get a little bit of idea. U I know board members have been asking Dr. Brown and his team some questions and I know you fielded some questions from the community as well. So why don't we begin with some of those questions that you have and then we'll open it up to other board members to ask some things. And again I will remind folks that you can use the left talk portal.
057Uh you can send us an email. There are many ways to get in touch with us. Public comment. If there are questions that folks have about our budget process and the proposed budget request, please send them to us. Um, I've invited members of the executive team to the table to answer questions the board may have tonight and to answer some questions that have come in to us via the let's talk portal. Um, questions around the use of fund balances and reserves, the overall budget increase. So, things we've already received. So, we want to we prepared some answers to some of the frequently asked questions. And Karen, this is for you. Uh each year I go to the communication team and I'm frantic about why isn't the FAQ up yet? And each year they remind me
058that it doesn't go up until the board adopts a budget. All right? So please make sure next year I don't ask until the board adopts a budget about the frequently asked question. But there will be a frequently asked question section on our website and there's already information about the devel budget development process online now if folks prefer that medium. But again, we'll um again as you start to talk, maybe introduce yourselves to the community and to the board for the folks who are watching. But I've asked Dr. Lesie to begin with the answering of some of the questions we've been getting so far. My apologies for interrupting Dr. Brown. I wanted to confirm before I did that. The FAQs from prior budget years do remain. So you may not have an FAQ page or frequently
059asked questions page for this year's budget, but there is one for the 24 25 last year that is still up on the website. And I would encourage folks to take a look. Am I right about that? No. I I cannot believe I'm about to correct professor in open live session. All right. You I wish this was an executive session where I could say that's not true, but I I don't think that's accurate. That may be the first time in 15 years I'm having to correct you publicly, but let me confirm. Is it? I apologize. There you go. So, I guess we're both right somehow. Or both wrong? No, I'm gonna I'm gonna take two two rights. make an even better correct. Cool. Go ahead, All right. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Brown. So, one of
060the areas that we continue to get a lot of questions in u in is in regards to our fund balance and reserves. And I think we need further clarification. I wanted to share a little bit more information with you in those areas, particularly how they would impact our budget, not just this year, next year, but for the next five years. Uh especially considering some of the uh issues that we're dealing with both economically, nationally, and so on. So if I could so some of the questions that have come up first question sort of common sense how much do we have in fund balance right now so I want to share that figure it's a little over 35 $31.5 million in fund balance the real question is what is our fund balance so we we use
061those terms a lot and I I'm not sure that everyone totally understands the difference between fund balance and reserve and how those are split up how they're used how they can be used so I want to try to clear that up as best I can um so some of the questions what's the difference between them. I just shared that. Why do we have them? And can we use these funds to support things like salary increases or other operational expenses? So, I'll start with sort of the least complicated, and that's going to sound funny when you hear that it's reserves because for a lot of folks that is a complicated area, but our reserves for all pretents and purposes are restricted in their use by either law or the board of education. And the amount within
062that fund balance that $31.5 million that I just mentioned within that amount 16.3 million of it is reserves. So what are reserves? Reserves are set aside for very specific uses and the board decides what those reserves are and the limit by which they are funded. Okay? So they're legally restricted either by law or by the board of education. And I'll give you one of the examples and this one recently came up in a conversation, the capital reserve. You know, one of the questions was, can the capital reserve be used to fund the New York State building aid reduction that we saw? And it just going to take you a little bit back to the state uh revenues. We talked about the state aid revenues where I mentioned that it was great that we saw an
063increase in foundation aid. It was almost 12% which was fantastic. Really helped us out, but we saw a significant reduction in our building aid. Now, I did mention that that there may be a change there when the uh assembly approves the the the uh final uh state aid runs, but for right now, we have to go by that reduction. And the answer is absolutely not. The capital reserve cannot be used to refund the whatever reductions we see in in building aid. Capital reserves are are uh approved by the voters. Uh the board approves them as well. It goes out to the voters and those funds must be used for what they're voted for. very specifically. So I just want to make sure that that's that's clear. So I'll move on a little bit to our
064the next area is our fund balance. And we often talk about those in in two different uh two different types. Our unassigned and our assigned fund balance. So if you remember just go back our reserves were 16.1 million. Those are very restricted and used for certain purposes. Our fund balance total is the remaining amount 15.2 million. So, I'll start with our unassigned fund balance. Kind of going from the the least complicated to the most that we're allowed to keep those that unassigned fund balance up to 4% of our budget. That's what New York State law allows us to to set aside. And very specifically, that is our rainy day savings account for for emergencies, for unanticipated expenses. And I just heard uh for example, Cornell $1 billion was just frozen by the federal government. So
065unfortunate. Um we've been talking about our federal aid that we receive is between5 and $6 million. Uh if that's frozen, we still have those costs. So that's the rainy day fund. So the unassigned fund balance at 4% could help us in that emergency. So again, this allows us for cash flow stability, uh risk management, and most importantly, and I'm going to talk about this in a little bit, our creditworthiness is exceptionally important as well. and and just allow me a moment. I'll walk through the fund balances and then we'll talk more about that. The next one, perhaps the most complicated to to conceptualize is our assigned fund balance. So almost on a yearly basis, we either have expenses that that don't come through to fruition or we have vacancies that we don't fill, we have
066breakage and so on. So sometimes there's there's funds that are left over. Those funds are explicitly used to help fund the following year. So they roll over to ease the burden on the voters. They become part of the budget. Um always with the anticipation that they will be expended that we will fill those vacancies or uh you know we will have those expenses. So they're generally not put into a budget with the idea that we're never going to spend them. I think what you're seeing uh in this particular fund is during co we received a lot of funds to help with our stability and so this is sort of the the outcome of that the the past few years. So that's why we've had this very healthy assigned fund balance. Uh what I'm about to
067show you is a five-year projection even with these funds currently in our assigned fund balance and what that would look like because we're not going to we're not anticipating another co experience with those funds those extra funds that we might receive. So let me show you what that looks like here. So I want to share a couple of assumptions before I get into this. When we uh can sort of put together the five-year projection couple things to keep in mind. Uh the first assumption was that we would continue to see a 3% increase in state aid. We tried to be somewhat conservative, but that may not be conservative. It may be flat considering the current situation, but in this projection, 3%. Uh we also considered increases in costs between 2 and 7% and we looked
068at it line by line and had in mind, you know, what things like the tariffs, things like uh inflation rate and so on and so forth. We thought that was reasonable in terms of increases and we also looked historically to see what our increased costs would be. The other assumptions in here are we assumed breakage that we might have that left over on a yearly basis. So we took all those things into into account to create this five-year projection. One of the most important assumptions that we included was the proposed 2526 ICSD budget included contractual negotiation ranges between four and 5%. This actual projection assumes a 5%. Just to cover all associated costs with those. Okay. So here's the outcomes to keep in mind for 2526. You can see very clearly on here that our
069revenues and expenses. That's where the line crosses. We're fine there. No issues. By 2627, the assigned fund balance would be reduced by $2 million to balance the budget. Step one. By 2728, the assigned fund balance would be reduced to $800,000, not by $800,000. By 28-29, both the unassigned and the assigned fund balance will be completely depleted and there's a potential of having to have to use reserves to balance the budget. Now, caveat with this, uh, we're supposed to be conservative in our projections, uh, but we took into account that over the next two years, we would be able to shift and potentially plan for that cliff. So, it's it's not that the sky is falling. It's just a case of look, this is what we're looking at more realistically for a projection. So, I'm going
070to stop here and pause and see if there's any questions. And if I can add one more caveat, the last time we used that notion of the lines crossing within a board meeting, and we talked about the lines crossing as we were negotiating the last six-year contracts and we mentioned at the time, I got to keep reminding folks, I mentioned that it to live in this world of four and 5% increases when we our revenue is increasing only by 2%. At some point, we're going to have to entertain going over the tax cap or make significant reductions to staff. I will say that again. Um if we're looking at four and five% increases to compensation and other inflationary costs and we're funded very conser very aggressively I may add now at 3%. And we've been
071here where we've been funded at flat rates or there's been a gap elimination adjustment where we've seen received less funding from year and year. At some point we got to have a conversation about what we do. um a reduction in force consolidations, other cost savings. The last time we had this conversation, we moved to our healthc care approach uh providing benefits and healthcare in-house which gave us significant savings. We changed our investment strategy and that worked out well. I can't speak to our investment strategy continuing to work out well based on what's happened the last month. So, there's a lot we need to talk about, but four years gives us some time to plan. Um, so again, the sky's is not falling, but I'm saying I want to go on record by saying the lines
072are crossing, y'all, and we need to have some tough conversations about what to do next. One additional point to an assumption I didn't mention is that's this also assumes a 3% tax cap over that every single year for the next five years. Now, that's an assumption, not a prediction. So, um, just I feel like this is a really good time to pause and I I mean, Tilda, I think you're still here. You you asked earlier and I think this is saying, you know, we have millions in reserves and we have these conversations as board members, but I I just want to kind of ask you knowing the answer. I mean, when we say we have all this money in reserves, we truly don't. I mean, preparing for the worst, seeing the news that just broke
073about, you know, funding cut and and the federal climate we're looking at with funds being cut. I mean, dipping into our fund balance at all for anything right now as a board feels fiscally responsible, irresponsible. And and I just want to be clear like when we're talking about climate and sky is falling. I mean this is one of those occasions where we really want to make sure our reserves are robust because we really it's it's more unpredictable than ever. Am I Yeah. I I don't want my responses to be anecdotal or emotive. I I want to just make sure that I'm sharing the facts with you. And I think that's correct. It's correct to say that first of all those reserves are there for a reason and they were created for a reason and they're
074funded appropriately. and and quite frankly, I think I just ar ar ar ar ar ar ar ar ar ar ar ar ar ar ar ar ar ar ar ar argued in the finance committee that they may be underfunded looking ahead. So your comments well taken. Thanks. I guess I have I have a question. Um so we're sort of talking about uh budgeting four to 5% um salary increases in terms of of ITA. Um and then ITA is proposing a plan that they say would cost us another 1.1 million. Um which they had sort of talked about and suggested maybe we draw from reserves or fund balance. And I'm just wondering um you know what would that look like if we if we granted that and and were talking about uh those kinds of numbers. I
075I don't know that I can intelligently speak to the $1.1 million. I don't know I I don't know where that's derived from quite frankly. Our costs are real salary costs based on what we've we can predict and using the five% as as our number. The 1.1 is I have some thoughts. Um for every 1% on the payroll for IT teacher association for example is around $415,000. Um the proposals that are very public um when comparing the two most recent ones although there are no proposals from us on the table at the time at the moment because they've been rejected. But the last one that was on the table was around 4 and a.5% increases and the counter proposal was 7.5%. So if you think about that 3% at $400,000 times three maybe that is where
076the $1.1 million but I got to remind that would be if we're talking about a two three or four year deal that 1.1 million would need to be compounded and that 1.1 grows to 1.6 six in year two and then closer to $2 million in year well maybe that's a little aggressive but it it grows pretty quickly but it's not a again I don't I'm not attempting to speak about where a number is coming from from somebody else but when I'm thinking about a difference between the proposals that have been submitted I see about a $1 million difference immediately and I'm thinking about the compounding approaches to that as well and you're seeing that all of those will go into our fund balances and we probably could show projections where we get into our reserves
077in year two or three with that kind of a um a settlement to compensation. This actually shows 5% settlement over four years and we're already getting there. So there's there's other impacts as well and I want to share that with you in terms of our bond rating what that would look like if we start to chip away at our fund balance our fund balances and our reserves that has a direct impact on our credit rating. And we have some real numbers I like to share with you in there. So here's an example. We're currently rated at double A minus. That's an excellent rating. We receive great rates on our bonds. So a little bit of um history of that. So when we go out for let's say our capital projects, we bond for that. We
078it's kind of like analogous to a mortgage, right? And we try to get the best interest rate we can. And that rating plays it plays the most important part obviously in doing that. So what happens then if we start to spend our fund balance and reserves? One of the first impacts is it has it it can degrade our rating. And I just want to show you what the financial impact of that is if that should occur. So we'll base this on the current uh bond we have. It's $120 million and I think that's it is advertised over 20 years. So we can all relate to that with mortgages and so on. Here's some real numbers. So if we use our fund balance, just the fund balance alone, it could have an impact of dropping our
079rate to A+. So double A minus to A+ is one drop. Okay, that would have a real cost of $1.9 million. Granted, advertised over 20 years, but that's real cost for us. So that would change our debt limit expense that we pay every year and might actually drive us over the 7% limit that we're we have imposed internally. One more drop to an A would cost 1.9 million over 20 I'm sorry 3.2 million over those 20 years and so on the the next drop 4.5 mill million and in real speak if we start to really chip into our reserves and fund balance and reserves and we deplete those it isn't going to be just a one one grade drop we're going to significantly drop. So, the all of these decisions have a long-term legacy financial
080cost. We should pause here, y'all. Um because this is a slide and a talking point that superintendents and business officials all over our state are grappling with and we've been fortunate to be able to build our reserves over the last decade to improve our credit rating, to be able to achieve savings. Um I know of colleagues who are on whose credit rating has dropped in the last year or two and they're really struggling. I just want to make sure everybody understands because we don't talk about and when I say that our numbers and our finances are being scrutinized by external partners including fiscal adviserss who looks at hundreds of school districts all over the state. It's just not lubel and this board which has a lot of experience here talking about this. We have a
081lot of folks looking at our finances and giving us recommendations and they've told us be careful about using your fund balances because your rating is going to be impacted significantly. And I'm sitting on another board where that's happened. When you say use our fund balance, how much of the fund balance would we have to use for it to impact our rating? That's a great question. It really depends on our overall financial picture, but the moment you start dipping into that, it can have an impact. So it's a complex rating system that is a important part of it. So what I can tell you is a significant impact if you're using both fund balances. If they're dipped into and you you no longer have them, that's going to have a significant impact. The moment you start
082dipping into reserves, that will have a much greater impact. It's a proprietary algorithm. I wish I had it because it's worth billions, but they do make that decision. Sometimes I feel like it's arbitrary, but sometimes it's very real. Oh, um, per New York state law, we have to have 4% of the fund balance of the following year, but that's the unassigned. No more than 4%. More than 4%. No more than 4%. No more than 4%. We have to keep it at and I will tell you a lot of small school like we're referred to a small city school districts around the state argue that that's nowhere near enough as a reserve for emergencies. But by law, we can only go up to 4%. This is a note of uh point of information for the community.
083Uh at the November 19th joint facilities and finance committee, uh members of fiscal adviserss came and spoke both about our capital projects as well as our financial and fiscal rating. And so I'd encourage the community to go back to the November 19th meeting to watch that or participate in that conversation about some of the dialogues we're having particular about long-term financial planning, including investment strategies. what buildings may we do work in that would actually be the most costefficient while still maintaining the building condition survey uh you name it. It was a for me a very informative meeting and I'd been on the board for a long time but that meeting was was was quite good. So again, November 19th, 2024. I recommend folks go take a look. Any more slides? That mean those are all
084the slides we have. We're open. Again, those are the questions we've been getting most frequently and I thanks for the opportunity to clarify and answer some of those. Um, but we look forward to any other questions you have as we anticipate in needing the board to adopt a budget in the coming weeks as we still continue to develop it. Um, Dr. ground and team. One of the things that we've been talking about all year and I feel like this question has been answered by the news, but you know hoping that we could get more from Krenell contributing. Um I mean given any conversations you've had I mean is it null based on what we've just read or like where where are we at with that? Yeah. Um Professor Bradwell, Dr. Bllelock, we have received confirmation
085from the president and his team. They do wish to meet with us in June. uh I think it's late June June 16th if I'm not mist I hate to put out a date um publicly but it is a June meeting was the first available time and have having some conversation with them they are grappling with a lot of fiscal uncertainties right now um just want everybody to know that particularly news now us going up and asking for a significant amount of an increase to a voluntary contribution the timing may not be good but we're going to ask anyway and by that again it was referenced some folks may know but announcement came out today that uh about a billion dollars worth of grant funding will be withheld from Cornell at this point in time. Uh
086so that's news that broke earlier today and I'm going to break precedent and not speak as a board member but speak as not speak as board president but speak as a board member particularly because for me the conversation about Cornell contributions are complex. Uh let me be exceptionally clear that I support uh additional funds from Cornell uh and recognize the the need for additional funds from Cornell. And I also want to put on the record to make sure we're having um an intelligent informed conversation. For me, the conversations around Cornell, given the fact that they are a significant property owner and don't pay their fair share of taxes, makes me uncomfortable for a couple of reasons. one as a historian going back we've had no conversation about the DAW act the doctrine of discovery or
087the moral act which allows Cornell to be New York State's land grant institution and not even giving any recognition to the folks who are on this land originally people don't want to even entertain that conversation that part I understand but for me I feel at least have to give some voice to it second as a educational institution to anticipate andor expect folks to pay taxes really goes against the very idea of being an educational institution and I'm wondering where we draw the line in that regard because there are other not forprofits which also have significant holdings that are not taxable and are we going to be then looking for churches to pay additional funds for other educational institutions to be paying additional funds you name it and so for me that is not the approach
088that I want to take and so I want to put this publicly and have it on the record my understanding of the sizable increase that Cornell has given to the city was in large part given for use of services. It was not about being taxexempt. It was Cornell's recognition. Oh, we use your roads, we use your fire department, we use your sewer, we use all these things and therefore the the additional fund should be for use of services. To my board colleagues, I would humbly recommend that that be the approach that we take is not about property tax because I do believe as a educational institution they have the legal right to be taxexempt as one board member. I do believe that Cornell uses ICSD services and therefore we should be thinking about what is
089the appropriate compensation based upon those services andor mutually beneficial partnerships and collaborations. Dr. Bllelock and I have had this conversation. I've had it with other board members as well as someone who also recruits faculty and highlevel folks to both college and Cornell. The number one question that I am asked is about the school district and what school should I go to? So, it is in everyone's best interest to have a thriving, wellfunded public school system. And so, that's the approach that I would recommend that we take. Again, as one board member, I've been waiting to say that for some time and figured I would take tonight to make that argument because I think it's going to have a lot of bearing on what happens not just in this budget season, but budget seasons moving forward.
090My apologies. I'm back into the presidential role. other conversations, comments, discussions. I concur. When's the third largest taxpayer? No, not Cornell is the third largest taxpayer in Tomkins County according to the Tomkins County Assessment Office. So Cornell does pay taxes. And for me, it's not about Cornell. I'm not trying to protect Cornell. For me, it's the idea like who's next? Are we going after INHS next given their property holdings? you know, I I I want to focus on something that for me has merit to it, but I already said too much and I'm quite certain I'm going to see my name somewhere someplace. Um, and can we go back the the slide with the graphs about, you know, funds and, you know, the Yes, thank you. Um, thanks for laughing. Maybe we can go real
091housewives tonight. Um um no, but in all seriousness, you know, we don't want to go over the tax cap, right? But and I I feel like we've had this conversation so many times over my tenure here, but you know, how can we how can we as a school district have enough money to give our students, our employees, everybody what they need um and deserve? I mean, do we I mean, we I know as a board we're working, we have RFPs out. We're we're exploring every avenue possible, but but what what what can we do? And I would I would offer that we continue the work of governance and efficiency seeking that we've always done. Um there was a time when there were many more schools in this community than we have now. At some point,
092a board of education and community decided to consolidate. There were um smaller class sizes at some point. We and others have decided to raise them. Um at times we've decided to make them smaller. Course offerings. This is we're going to continue to try to find levers and innovative approaches to increasing revenue and decreasing expenditures even though we know expenditures are typically going to increase. And we are we have a bud we're proposing a budget of $168 million at around $24,000 per student. I must say this on behalf of all my colleagues and my family that this is a privileged conversation to be having in a high tax state with that much money and that much money per student per pupil. We're coming from a state where the pupil expenditure is around 9,000. We're coming from
093a state where the average class size is 2829 and they're meeting the needs of their learners. Our taxes are unsustainable. As you said to me, my first day on the job and our community is expecting more and we have been delivering on it. So, this is just an ongoing conversation irrespective of who's going to be at this table. This is what's going to happen in this community for the next couple of generations and um I see it as healthy. Um, and it's a challenge and if we can't figure out who we can't figure out who's going to figure it out, that's the challenge before us and that's what excites us and we're meeting the needs of our learners. We have one of the best school districts in our nation period by any academic indicator you
094want to put in front of me. I brought my data portfolio. So, we're doing it. It's just challenging. We've survived a pandemic. We've survived an economic recession. We've survived a gap elimination adjustment. We've survived flat aid, state aid increase all during the time I've been sitting in the seat. So, we would do it. Who would have ever thought we would have been self-insured with the health insurance when we were in a consortium and the rates were going up 10, 15, 16% a year. Remember that? We went self-insured and we didn't add a whole bunch of people to this table. And now we're managing a $29 million, I could argue a $40 million health entity. It's possible. Um just to circle back to the fund balance. Um so what I'm hearing from you is that there
095are real implications um financially to you know a downgrading for our credit rating. Correct. And um that's obviously going to impact the budget year-over-year if we get downgraded. Yep. Um, the other thing that I'm seeing here too is that we're based on a 5% annual increase, we're going to start to deplete those funds anyway. Correct. Right. So, I mean, yeah, because I I I am hearing from a lot of community members that, you know, currently we have these fund balances. Why can't we use them? Right. What I'm hearing is it it's not as rosy as everyone thinks and we are heading towards uh a potential crisis. the sky is not falling today because we have that money but the trajectory that we're on I mean 5% annual increase and I mean electricity is going up
096we're projecting 10% a year for you know electricity cost healthcare what did we say 8% um so you know even if we're doing a 5% raise to teachers I mean we have other uh variables that are going up at a much higher rate so I think even 5% is is aggressive so um I think it's important to note that and I appreciate you you know quantifying and showing us what it actually looks like on a dollar basis on what it's going to cost us um on the on the budget going forward. Um but I I think that's a really important thing to consider. Um you know I I on the record I have a lot of concern too about you know what's what's happening um in the current political climate. I'm concerned what's happening in
097um you know the economic climate. Um you know people are already struggling to afford houses in this community. You know raising taxes is just going to make it harder. Um, and you know, potentially losing federal funds. I mean, you know, that's that's our rainy day fund right there. So, I to me I I I kind of agree with you that um we don't have a lot of money set aside. It is kind of scary. So, that's that's just my personal opinion. I don't know what the answer is, but um I do appreciate you uh you know articulating in a way that I I felt was very clear and concise. So, thank you. Thank you. Speaking of reserves, professor, you you can spend it fast or spend it slow, but once it's gone, it ain't no
098more. The number of people who've approached me the last week thinking that we can fund recurring operational costs with one-time funds is alarming to me. Um, and I've been here when we've been under we've been labeled as a fiscally stressed school district when we dipped into our reserves to survive a global recession. I don't want us to be there no more. All right. So, that's why I'm so adamant about being careful about dipping into those because it's been hard to get them back to a healthy place. And uh I don't think we I was as adamant before about once we spend it, you can't replenish it. I mean, and again, I know there's no crystal ball, but it's becoming more and more clear that the price of everything is going to start to rise fairly
099dramatically. And so I mean we are going to likely have to dip into reserves just to function as a district daily between like every single cost that we have. Am I like I mean the unfortunate reality is that's exactly why we have these you know and I and uh and I'll say this again the budgeting that's taken place for the past decade has been fantastic and prepared us for what's coming. And so yes, that's probably accurate. I guess is the question to Dr. Brown, his team and fellow board members. Um given some of the economic realities that we know and we've been talking about at finance for a number of uh meetings and while I'm not able to attend, I do watch every uh meeting. Um why at some point in time are we not
100considering going over the tax cap? And I'm I'm asking everybody that's a fascinating question for the person who proposed to going over it last year and whose picture was on the front page of the local paper um for that reason and at the time saying we need to do this if we wish to pay our employees at a rate that everyone at the table at this table partic because we're all pro- educator pro employee. We need to pay our people more. In order to do that, we needed to exceed the cap to reset our tax base to be able to do this in a sustainable way for years. I said that and I will continue to say it. The community didn't think that was a good idea. And so we had to rethink our approach
101here. So I if we're going to continue to provide compensation increases at four and five or higher percent that that range we can't do it without raising our levy more than three if that may I'm trying to be as simple as I can now and not to be vilified I'm just it's a it's math so we should be considering and I've said that for 15 years um when to do it how much to do is the conversation and direction the board must and the community must give. Yeah. And I would say, you know, to answer that question, I think we're not we're not talking about raising the tax cap because we're responding to what we heard last year from the community. Um not a lot of time has passed. It doesn't seem like appetites have
102changed, you know, in one year. Um so that I think that answers that question for me. Um the only other thing um you know not not to be hawkish or anything but it's like the we're talking about the only option um you know if if funding gets tight is to dip into the funds balance I guess. I mean there are other options which is that we can make cuts. Obviously that's more painful and we don't want to make cuts. Um but it but it's not like the the only thing we could do is dip into the funds balance. We can talk about other things and like that's why we have the RFPs out. Um, and we are looking into other ways to see if we can save some money, too. So, I think I'm just
103putting out there that that there's that side as well. Thank you, Adam. I appreciate that. And that's partly my question is sort of twofold. One is sort of the thought, not the thought exercise, the reality of thinking about what does it mean to exceed the tax cap. Uh last year again as the wannabe historian that I am was a uh I don't think that I've seen a vote like that uh across the state in quite some time with that level of numbers in terms of rejection of a budget. Um and then what it also means that we have not had a conversation about is that we did make cuts this year. We did cut programs. Uh we did make changes to the ways in which uh our schools operate and the number of personnel that
104are there. And so we're already operating from making some significant reductions from last year to this year and then trying to and I heard you on the radio this morning, Dr. Brown, saying that while you don't like the term, um, still using it because it helps people understand that we're talking about in essence a rollover budget, uh, keeping all the programs that we have this year in place for next year rolling over and even that in itself will have a increase in costs, right? And so I'm also trying to reconcile all these ideas. We made sizable cuts. We continue to make more cuts in administration and this budget is being propo in administrative costs and this budget's being proposed. Um and we still are finding ourselves in some difficult situations. And so I'm I'm honestly
105I'm not I'm taking David's advice of talking out loud and putting some things out there like what does this then what does this then look like for us? Right? That's that's sort of how I'm thinking about it. Yeah. I mean, I I I'm apprehensive about proposing something to go over the tax cap. I I don't think anything has changed. I mean, to Adam's point, I think if anything, people are probably a lot more concerned about their their personal finances and being able to actually pay their taxes. I mean, where all the economic indicators are heading, you know, that we're heading into a recession. You have tariffs that are going to drive up, you know, household costs for every single American. People are going to have less discretionary income. I don't I don't know how you
106can go to them and say, "Oh, we we need you to pay more taxes right now." Like that to me, I I I'm I'm concerned that it's just it's, you know, there's a lot of concern around that. Um so that that's my personal opinion. That's you know, again, speaking out loud and and um you know, open for debate and discussion and that's I just I I don't see it happening. But I don't know. I I want to use this opportunity to also just underscore the fact that we are just eight people up here plus, you know, district officials who are guessing about just that. Like I so desperately wish that we were able to just go talk to every community member across the district and ask them that because I have no idea. I have
107been at a few PTA meetings recently where uh families have said I would totally go over to pay more to go over the tax cap if it was going to go to this or to this or if if you guaranteed that we were going to be paying teachers more. People have said that, but pe few enough people have said that that it sure didn't make me feel like, well, I'm just gonna like advocate for a higher budget and risk exactly happening what happened last year. But that's partially because we hear so I hear so infrequently from the community. And if we were being inundated with messages and emails right now saying, "Listen, like we're ready. We're ready to go back over the tax cap. We want to reinvest in our schools. We want our programs
108back. But the we're not I'm not receiving those messages. And you will now. I'm sorry. I said you will now. I would love to. I mean, I would love like it's really hard to be making a decision based on what we think people might be afraid to do or want to do or not want to do. So yeah, we we're having to take direction from a vote that happened a year ago under unique circumstances and um with a lot of people feeling like they didn't have the information that they felt like they needed um about what would what might be cut and what might not be cut. There's lots of feelings about, you know, I wish I had known. And so now here we are again. And like a part of me wants to say
109like, well now that I I I just have no idea. And I guess I just want to like take the opportunity to voice how helpless that feels when we need to be making this decision on behalf of an entire community and we don't have a really good means with which to really take a strong pulse of exactly where the community is. May I clarify some things too, Professor? I want to make Go ahead. I just want to put a quick a slight I I agree with almost all that was said. Uh for me the unique situation was much less about what would be cut and what would not be cut because anytime you don't pass a budget that's going to take place. I think we have to acknowledge the unique position that we our community
110found ourselves in where the average housing price going up 20 25 30% in assessments is a significant shock to the system. Uh and so for me it's much more about it's much less about the program. Many people are concerned about the programmatics. I get that. And that that significant change in assessment I think was was jarring for uh a lot of folks. And then lastly, what I will say is you are correct. We are up here making I would dare say an educated guess, not not an assumption. Uh but our job as elected board members is to inform ourselves with the data that's available and then make informed decisions. It may not be the easiest. It may not be the best. neighbors may not like what we do, but that's the reason why folks run
111for a school board to be in a position to make these decisions. And so it may not feel good all the time. And again, trust me, after 16 years of serving, plenty of people have expressed to me their displeasure, but the reality is that's why we spend time going to meetings, having discussions, uh you name it. And so it is our job to come up with an informed decision to help the community steward. I think as Jill said recently, which I really appreciated to remind ourselves that it's not our money, right? It's the I hope I could share that Joe that you said that right that you know we're talking about the community's money and our job is to be stewards of that community money. And so here we find ourselves in a tough position
112to be stewards of a community of the community's money making educated informed decisions based upon data and and fact. B, I think I was answering the qu the question I was answering from you was if I thought at some point we needed to go over the cap. Not this year. I just want to underscore we are not proposing a budget this year that's going over the cap. We are proposing a budget that goes to the cap at 3.7 9%. And we are thinking that the next couple of years via the RFP through an analysis that we take some time to figure out a longer term strategy to be sustainable and offer significant pay increases. You can't fix an issue that's been brewing for decades over the course of one or two years. And but I
113think we need one or two years to start to plan for how we will fix this and getting a sense and hopefully things will stabilize um social politically. I just felt like the that conversation was as if I had we proposing a cap overriding of the cap this year. We're not doing that this year and I don't anticipate doing it next year either. Just for the record and I would agree with that. Yeah. Because we we don't want to go over the cap. Um but knowing that if we continue with the rollover budget as recommended that and as we get to the RFP by the end of this year and look at future other items on our list that these lines the projected revenue and expenditures may come closer. We would only hope, but we're
114in a national climate that tells me that what we need to do at this rollover budget. We know that um Medicaid might be affected, social security, and within a school district, we do deal with some um students that have and families that have Medicaid. um with um with the tariffs and even from our recent activities across the nation this past weekend with the different protests that we have to proceed with caution and we have to con continue to do our fiduciary responsibilities. Um there was mention of like um that we did survive the pandemic and we had COVID funds that was limited funds for that time and we no longer have COVID funds yet there were certain things that continued on that we may have tapped into some funds to fulfill that obligation. And I
115heard a term this evening, financial abundance. And I really hope with our explanation of the reserves funds and the fund balance that we show that there is no financial abundance, but there are a lot of restricted areas that we cannot tap into because they're restricted like capital expenditures or for health insurance. So um we we have to have some rainy day funds as Dr. Lesie had explained to us and but yet we have to proceed with caution when we're looking to the future of what we need to do as a school district and making sure that we follow all obliga obligations that we're obligated to fulfill like all of our collective bargainings. So, I am definitely in favor of our us proceeding with a rollover budget. I'm being mindful of time, but also want to
116make sure I do not stop the conversation. Dr. Bllelock. Well, I've I've I've been quiet only because I agree. Um I think I think we have a consensus. Um I would say Dr. Bradwell, I mean, economists talk about exogenous shocks. That's the term we use. The assessments last year is a classic definition of an exogenous shock. something coming from outside that people just didn't see. And you're right, that put us on this course. Uh borrow to borrow Dr. Brown's language. It was clear after last year that the lines were going to cross soon. We saw that coming already. And then on top of that, there's potentially this second exogenous shock of what's occurring at the national level. Uh we don't know, none none of us in the room know how real that is. We can
117only guess. Um but it's certainly a concern. And so what I would say my view is just a little bit more optimistic and being relatively new to the board in my second year. I sit here in reflection and look to my colleagues who've been on the board longer and thank them for having put us in a position to be well prepared to handle this. The fact that we can take 2 years, run a study, look at our operations, and try to figure out a way to reduce costs and increase service quality and do that in a careful calculated manner while we're under two shocks potentially, I think, is a credit to the financial stewardship of board members who've been on here longer. So, I I thank them for that. Um because it could be a
118lot worse. I think we're in a good position. Um, sorry, a little bit of cough. Um, sorry, Zach, could you um maybe just quickly update we on the RFP, we've made a little bit of progress on that. Uh, to the extent you want to share. Oh, uh, sure. Yeah. Um, so the RFP without um in uh in March we received responses. We've been betting those responses and we are in beginning contact with um the group that uh scored the highest on our our rubric that we had on the RFP. So, um we're we're going to have meetings with them. We'll have follow-ups. Um our hope would be that we can come back to the board um later in the spring with um a a contract agreement for you all to approve for us to engage
119in um you know, their services. Yeah. I mean, I I will share that I've I've read the proposals and I feel very good about, you know, the potential to do what we need to do, but I'm going to borrow one more expression from Dr. Brown. He says, "That's the work. I mean, that's the work. That's going to be the work for the next year or two. It's we see it. It's in front of us. Any other board member comments, questions, responses? This is sort of our last work session. Next week, the district will be on break. We come back on April 22nd and we'll be holding a special board meeting for the budget adoption. So, want to make sure as well as the Bosey's budget adoption on that evening as well. uh want to make
120sure that all board members, you know, between finance committees, between this committee, our meeting year, feel like they have their questions answered or posed or if there's additional information that is needed, we can still have additional debate and dialogue on the 22nd. But again, just want to set the stage for where we're headed. Well, a question um for to continue the discussion on the 22nd. What was brought up at our finance committee fine arts presented their budget and a question was asked is where would the total be for the budget that we're um presenting to the community to vote on? What's the total of the fine arts and where is it embedded? Is it the function code budget that were voted on and yes essentially? Thank you for that question. So the function code budget
121that's our line by line budget effectively that is online and can be reviewed. So that has all of the that detailed information. Anything else board colleagues? All right. Thank you team members. Thank you board colleagues for engaging the conversation. Again, in the meantime, do send questions. Uh we will bring it back uh on uh April 22nd. If that's the case, we'll continue on with our agenda, which brings us to agenda item 11.2, the appointment of uh election inspectors. and we will entertain motions. I move to appoint election inspectors inspectors for the 2025 annual budget vote and election. Moved by Adam, second by Jill. Any discussion, debate, dialogue? Is that what I said? Moved by Adam, second by Jill. That's what I should have said. All right, hearing none. All in favor? The motion passes unanimously.
122We'll go on to agenda item 11.3 and this is the uh 2025 2026 academic calendar. Uh we can entertain motions and then have discussion and debate about it. I move to adopt the 2025 2026 academic calendar as presented. Moved by Adam, seconded by Joe. Discussion, conversation, questions. Dr. Trip set out condensed version of comments that had been received. I used artificial intelligence to do that labor for me. I want it on record. I did I used uh I'm not supporting but I used co-pilot to give me a summary of the key suggestions, recommendations, feedback that we received. It did look accurate when I went through and read all the individual comments. other schedules in the area, but does our schedule in any sense coincide with neighboring school districts and or Cornell? That seems to be
123one of those that's always a major issue. Absolutely. Thank you for asking. Yes, this year for or I should say for the academic 2526 year, the winter break in February as well as the spring break do align with Cornell's calendar. That happens every so often. Um, and that is the case. If I want to back up on the timeline, so we have roughly 275 students who attend Boseies. So the all of the component districts defer to the Bosey's calendar so that our students are not missing that programming and there is a collective conversation on components of the calendar for it to be in line with educational minutes as required by New York state law that starts the conversation. So your question about component districts, our calendar is in line with other component districts as far
124as the breaks with some exceptions that some component districts may give longer. For example, the week of uh Thanksgiving break because their their educational day allows them to have more days off. We have uh holidays, shared holidays that are honored um with both the Boseies calendar and other component districts. Our flexibility is solely caregiver conference days. Other questions folks may have. So, I have to thank all of those who took advantage of the let's talk and um I didn't look at the AI generated one. right off of the let's talk and and the um two areas that really came up that people are asking for. Is it possible to extend the winter break to start that early two days prior um starting December 20 second and 23rd? And and then another um popular one was
125instead of us having the spring break the last week in March to have it the first week in April. The reason being quite a few people stated how it's currently how the calendar is situated that it would be too long a period between April 6 to June 26 I think or June 25th. So they were asking for some breaks in between there. Although we do have two holidays in between there. We have Memorial and Junth. But they wanted instead of the February break, someone had requested that the we eliminate or reduce the February break, which no, but um but there's too many breaks between like the February break and the spring break. So to have the spring break start April 6. Or before I said that, I should have asked if you saw all of
126the let's talk in the design of the calendar. Any comments? Yes, I did. And I also appreciate the summary that I was CCD on. Thank you. So, I'll start first. If we were to move our spring break to the week of April 6th, we would be out of sync with our Boseies calendar, thereby denying denying I want to be very clear, denying 275 students their educational programming for that week. So I am not recommending that shift. I hear it. I hear school seven seven weeks consecutive weeks of schooling is a shift when up until that point we have if we were to look on the calendar two consecutive week chunks that to go from two weeks as the longest stretch to then seven is is a shift in cadence. Well said. You know, the irony
127for me always, and I I get it, uh, because we were just talking about Cornell, uh, and it is the largest employer, um, but it's fascinating to me that there's always a request to make sure our spring break lines up with Cornell spring break. There is never the ask that it lines up with Ithaca College spring break. Um, but that's that's my own personal preference. Um, it does not it does not ever. Um, but I also want to remind folks is that oftentimes spring breaks uh do not include staff and so the request is usually coming from faculty who had that time off, most staff continue working during those spring breaks as well. And so it's always an interesting ask and so this one even though Karen I I read the same thing you read
128like people are asking for a change and at the same point in time you can't have it both line up with Cornell spring break what it does this year and then also ask for us to move it like you know we're not going to appease everyone and I do remember Dr. Brown saying repeatedly uh that you have yet to see a perfect calendar where everyone is happy. And I also want to recognize the amount of time, labor, energy, thought, ingenuity, innovation that has gone into our calendar to be responsive to what students have been coming to us for years of asking us to have a calendar that is reflective of the variety of students in our school district. And we've worked hard to to do that. in various places. So where some folks see it
129as random days off at various times, that was much more intentional of a response to student requests. It may not work for everybody. That part I understand, but I'm glad that we made the attempt to be responsive in that way. And there are times where it's disruptive to my household. Like what do you mean there's no school tomorrow? Right? And then I have to recognize what we're doing and why we're having that recess day. So I am thankful. I realize that whatever we do, not everyone is going to be happy, but it does seem like we've tried to be responsive to some of the feedback. The only thing that I do have questions about is that December 22nd and 23rd dates, but I also realize that that's disruptive on either other end, either the beginning
130of the year, the end of the year, and that'd be very difficult to do contractually speaking and with New York State requirements. So, I I thank you for the work, Mary. Um, I see where we're at. Yes, thank you. I I do want to be on record and be very clear with the community that if we were to not have school in session for students on the 22nd and 23rd, we would need to make up those instructional minutes. To date, uh we have our calendar going through through June with the last day of school for students being the 25th. that would extend the school year a couple of days. Um, Mary, I have one question that I'm just going to read the query because I know that we can't address it, nor would I ever
131propose us excluding students who use both these programs, but it's a good point that I think you can address as your role. Um, elementary teachers have begun a new system of M-class academic supports for students struggling with reading. These intervention groups require a six-w week cycle that includes assessments. The proposed calendar only provides five weeks between February break and spring break. If spring break were one week later, that would allow for full intervention cycle. I just wonder how, you know, as in instructionally speaking, that can be addressed. It's a valid concern and I would say we're going to be leaning on and problem solving. When you miss a week of instruction, the consecutive six week cycle, you have to pick up where you stopped. So that's going to be interrupted throughout the calendar year when
132we have any day day off. Um so a 6 week cycle would no longer it would not be that the six weeks uninterrupted. would h moving springrig break would would um wouldn't change by by moving spring break at 6 weeks interrupted. I I can appreciate that and understand that but it would deny programming for for students. So So will teachers then get support in having to do that with five weeks? Is there going to be professional development or is there a way to adapt that six week cycle to accommodate for that fiveweek section? Yes, we can talk. Okay, we can talk more about that in curriculum because there are a couple of way forward. I apologize. I didn't understand your question at the beginning. I'm pretty good at doing that. So, but now I now
133I'm hearing you. Um, I do want to point out we did get feedback that was incorporated in this via Let's Talk and during our public meeting about having a full day of caregiver conferences having for secondary and that is incorporated in this calendar in the fall. We couldn't make both days full days. Um so in getting feedback and collaboration from other unions uh we chose the fall to have the full day early on. I also want to make take the opportunity um is anybody else speaking my apologies. I want to take the opportunity to mention one of our Ethica High School students, uh, Verun, who has been asking us multiple times about the holiday of Dvali and working with New York State senators, uh, to try to have that day be recognized as a uh,
134statewide holiday as well. um we are not in a position at this point in time to do that but I want to recognize the work the uh the persistence with which um this young person is bringing the concern to us and so I want to thank them and acknowledge that um even while we at this point in time are not moving forward and I have also offered to help support their legislative advocacy at the state level and I'm sure other folks uh may want to to join that as well but it felt important to acknowledge in this space Um and Mary uh on this this draft that we currently have March 13th caregiver conference days are listed as full days. So that that's going to be a half day for Boon Dit and IHS then.
135Is that right? That's correct. Yep. Thank you for working on the caregiver conference piece. I I feel like that's one of those things that we brought up with you and quite quickly you turned around and found a resolution. So, I I there were a lot of people that that were asking about that and I really appreciate the swiftness and responsiveness to that concern. Um, I feel like we're just like throwing random ideas at you to some extent here. So tell me, but if we shortened is there if we shortened the February break by two days and didn't do a full week, I guess. Is that possible if people were more eager to have a longer December break. Karen says no. It's possible. We've been trying to shorten that break for a while at times and
136never been successful. But maybe if we were like you could have two more days in December, then we'd have people complain about Well, I want to bear in mind that uh the calendar can always be reviewed. Uh it should not be and we got great feedback last year about giving people time to plan once the calendar's been adopted. Uh but it is possible for us to adopt and continue to look at it and do something else. But I just want to make sure that we know that when we did it when we made changes in the middle of the year, folks were not happy with that either. Oh, we can definitely do that and experience uh the feedback loop. We can do that. Um I would also say I would just recommend if doing that
137that we move the second half because the lunar year new year falls on the first half this year of February break. I would recommend keeping the calendar as is. Me too because I do rec Sorry, President. Did I interrupt? No. No. No, you did not. I I do recall we had a Hold on. Is is is Todd already starting to to to lobby for the position? Go ahead. You're I think we're good. No, I do recall we had a threeday February break a few years ago and we had complaints over that and and and one of the reasons why um like groups in New York State were stressing that students need that break because that's when your high season of colds and flu and everything like that and it's a good opportunity for the district
138to just thoroughly clean the buildings too plant shutdown. Yeah. Well, I was going to suggest that we just give people new things to complain about every year and maybe try it next year, but I saw our ITA representatives being like, "Yes, we definitely need that." So, I'm just gonna let it die right there. I want to jump in if I may and just say I do really appreciate the amount of feedback and engagement we got on the calendar process and especially Erin your comment and mention of instructional needs of students and the comments that reflected that such as MClass is definitely something I greatly appreciated in centering of students in this conversation. So thank you Are we all set board colleagues for a vote? Fantastic. I hope folks recognize that we do read the feedback.
139We do discuss the feedback as evidenced by hopefully this conversation. And with all that being said, we'll call the question. All in favor of adopting the calendar as presented. That is unanimous. Thank you very much. Thank you again, Mary, for all your work. Greatly appreciate it. Uh we have one last agenda item. uh for this evening uh and that is to have a conversation about uh heating and cooling at Ithaca High School. I did see that uh a special guest has uh arrived. We thank them for their travel to be here. Um Jill, I'll try to set the stage and let me know if I'm misspeaking at any point in time. Uh this is a conversation that is arising both out of the facilities committee as well as a meeting that we refer to as
140OACM which is owners architects construction and management firm. This conversation is in preparation, possible preparation for a December capital project that the district is considering. Um, and that includes particular thinking about some of the HVAC systems here at Ethica High School and the options and probably much more importantly the costs of what may be possible. So, uh, board members were sent the slide deck from the last facilities committee meeting. you sent minutes to that conversation at discussion as well. I would love to invite Chris to come down and join us and answer um any questions that folks may have and or if folks need a refresher about what should happen. We realize that there's a lot of information and go from there and Joe please add that you are at a time here decisions need
141to be made because instructions underway that that will lead to one path or another. So we really need to give Tetrate and other people who are involved some specifics as to which way that the board would like them to proceed. So, our goal this evening is not necessarily a vote, but uh see if the board can come to some form of consensus about how to head in a direction given that one project impacts another project which impacts another project um and where we find ourselves. Thank you for having me. I'll start with a question about where you'd like me to start in the explanation of this. And I guess the first question is, would you like a background of why we're having this conversation in this moment or cut to the chase and start talking
142about dollars and discuss climate change next? No, I'm just messing with you. Any questions off the bat? No. Okay. Okay. As a basis, we um have been talking about cooling Ithaca High School. This is a little background about the areas that have been cooled. So, the orange areas prior to 2019 were receiving cooling. As a result of the capital project vote in 2019, y'all have probably noticed, you've been doing some work around the district. uh in what we've called phase one, there were significant renovations to areas A and J to relocate the welcome center uh to the sort of natural entrance of where those uh visitors come from. And those two areas were um were furnished with cooling at that time. The blue area is what we're talking about now that we intend to cool
143and what we're calling phase three, which for which construction is underway. We are having a conversation about cooling because we had planned for the Lakes Source cooling system which Cornell University has constructed and has been operating since about the year 2000. Um, and from which Ithaca High School has been receiving cooling from that same time. So for about 25 years, you've been receiving the cooling for Ithaca High School that you have been receiving through this lakes source cooling system. It's um I did a fairly quick Google search and I'm not aware of a system like this anywhere else. It's a pretty unique system. Cornell University um made a uh an agreement with Ithaca City School District at the time uh because between the lake and Cornell University's campus uh is about I don't know half
144a mile or so of u Ithaca City School District owned property. Um and so there was an agreement made to confer an easement to Cornell University so they could put two 42-in diameter pipes um across you know your property and in return you received have been receiving certain amount of cooling from that system at a very efficient and a I would say also pretty economical rate that uh per the agreement that Ithaca City School District has with Cornell university um you will be allowed to draw uh a certain amount of cooling that is described as 400 tons. A ton in this case is a unit of HVAC measurement in BTUs and stuff. Um I'm using that number because later on that will become an important number for reference. Um and you'll be able to use
145that for for so long as the lake source cooling system is in use. Cornell has invested quite a bit of money 25 years ago. So, um, we're not aware of them at this point, you know, ceasing their usage of that system. But what has changed is the Department of Environmental Conservation has scrutinized uh the permits that Cornell University has to operate this system um and have notified, it's my understanding, they've notified Cornell that they um may not expand the cooling of that system. And so, uh, the district received notification from Cornell that conversely, the expansion that we were planning to help cool the rest of Ithaca High School could not move forward with the Lakes Source cooling system. So, that's why we're now looking for other solutions to cool the building. Okay, questions so far?
146Okay, so we embarked on a comparison. Okay, how else are we going to provide cooling? Um, and we're going to talk about two options. The first option, I'll call it the boxes, right? You've got your traditional and what we anticipate to be the lowest first cost solution, which is a cooling tower and natural gas boilers. They're boxes. The cooling tower cools, the boilers heat. Um, that is the baseline that we're using for a life cycle cost comparison that I'll that I'll explain in in the upcoming slides. And the cooling tower runs off of electricity. We've got Thank you. electricity for the cooling tower, natural gas obviously for the the boilers. One of the things that we will see in the analysis that we didn't uh quite anticipate the impact of was uh the relative cost
147of those two fuel sources. electricity is about to achieve the same sort of BTUs the same heating um is about seven times as expensive as natural gas. Okay. So when we're doing the comparison that was one of the the cost of the energy is one of the factors that's very significant in this analysis. Um the option that we're comparing it to is a ground source heat pump. uh that system can heat and cool with one system. Okay. We anticipate that we will be able to take advantage of an aquifer that has been found at the science center. If if you're familiar with that, they've been using that as a um as part of their system since I think the late 1990s. Uh there's also a recent pilot study over by Aldi and the the DMV
148in that area to do a district geothermal system. And so there's uh some data from that as well that leads us to believe um this aquifer is relatively reliable. All right. So I'm going to start going through numbers to compare the different options that we analyzed uh to compare to one another. Okay. So remember that 400 tons you've been getting. Ithaca High School needs about 1,000 tons to cool the whole place. All right. So the first option is add the 600 tons so you can cool the whole building. Um that is called Ithaca High School with lake source cooling. So lakes source cooling remains in place. You continue to use it and you augment it with with your own system. The next one is a thousand tons. That is as you might guess. Let's just
149cool all of Etha High School. not rely on the system that we don't have control over. Okay. So, we looked at that as an option. In discussions, we realized that there is uh or there may be some advantage because you have a campus with two relatively large buildings on it, not very far away from one another, Boon Middle School, Ethica High School. Um if you invested in a geothermal system the wells for which might likely be sort of between those two buildings um let's consider providing cooling to Boon Middle School as well for a nominal um up size of that system. Okay. So we looked at that. So that represents the 950 tons which is Boon's about 350 tons plus the 600 for Ithaca High School. keep the lakes source cooling in effect that gets
150you all the cooling. The fourth and final option is again let's forget about the lakes source cooling and just provide a system that Ithaca City School District can independently cool and heat both of those buildings. Does that make sense so far? Small, medium, large, extra large. Okay. So when we entered this analysis, we knew that the traditional boxes um was going to be the lowest first cost. Um it's it's a traditional system. Um geothermal would be more expensive. So we did some analyses with our friends at campus construction management uh who assisted us with some cost estimating on this. So this represents the first cost. So you'll see in the parenthesis first cost. So that's when you're con doing construction. We're not thinking about energy usage over time yet. Just first cost up front. So
151um starting at around 3.4 million for the the least expensive smallest system. That's your cooling tower plus gas boiler. So the boxes um at the smallest size 600 tons. And you can you know as the systems get larger they get more expensive. seems um relatively intuitive. We know also that the ground source heat pumps we thought were going to be more expensive and the estimates bear that out. Uh that that delta varies from about $400,000 um up to a little bit over a million dollar you know depending on the size. Okay. So that's um the final line there is a comparison. So this is the net savings over a 30-year period. Okay. So up at the top it says 30-year life cycle analysis. This is where we get into uh analyzing these two systems over
152time. So the net savings over 30 years. Our data shows that the 600 ton system using the ground source heat pump that GSHP is ground source heat pump. So using that ground source heat pump system, we anticipate that over the 30 years, you'd save $160,000 relative to the more traditional boxes. Okay. When we go to the thousand ton, we see a negative in front of that number. A couple the dynamics that explain that. There's a higher first cost. Of course, it's a bigger system. The more heating we do with the ground source heat pump system, we're using that expensive electricity to do our heating as compared to a relatively inexpensive natural gas to do that heating. So we're seeing a really interesting sort of dynamic happening when we analyze it over 30 years. Okay. Mhm.
153Conversely, then when we go to the third column, which is adding in Boon, um the ground source heat pump system, we estimate will save you money over that 30-year period. And similarly, when we go to the the largest system, uh you know, it's about $100,000. I want to say at this time that these estimates are are very high level. We have not designed the systems in any amount of detail. We're making a lot of assumptions. We're trying to be conservative. What I would like to say about these numbers is that we try to understand them relative to one another. Is are you going to be in the whole,000 or $100,000 or $50,000 or $75,000? The accuracy is like dependent on a lot of big assumptions, but we've made those assumptions across the board. So, we
154think that comparing these these scenarios to one another is still very useful in terms of making a comparative analysis, which is what we're what we're talking about this evening. That make sense so far? Are these costs including usage as well? Right? So, uh just take the third column for example, right? A $435,000 possible net savings. If does it include the electricity usage as well as paying for gas sort of making some presumptions about what those costs would be as well? Correct. Correct. So we've used a industry standard tool. It's created by the um department of energy. Um and there are a lot of assump like industry standard assumptions built into the analysis. Um I believe we also used um as specific as New York state data for some of the energy usage. Um uh but
155so yes, what are you using for the annual increase for electricity costs? I don't know that number offhand. That's the the um the creators of that program got out their crystal ball and they, you know, made some assumptions about what they thought energy was going to be and so we just used those assumptions. Uh but again, they're across the board they're the same assumption. That answer your question? It it doesn't. because you didn't heard but but you don't have the answers. We don't know what energy is going to cost because I think like as a district we're projecting 10% next year like in our budget. I I believe that was the number. Um so I'm just curious of like what this model is because you know as you know if if the model's 5% and
156we're projecting 10% or 10% is the actual number it impacts the potential savings um because of having these different systems. So absolutely I I think you know knowing that um that key factor is important to these calculations. I'm sure we could get back to you with that number. Thank you. Um but yeah good good question. Um all right other questions before we I mean just to be clear this is part of a capital project meaning this is where we were just talking about fund balance and all these things earlier. This would come out of the capital project which is uh reimbursed 58 cents per dollar. Correct. For Yes. Okay. And that um not to get too off topic, but that capital project bond vote is a separate item from your annual budget both in vote
157and in terms of like the pots of money. So, All right, more numbers. More numbers. So, I'm not going to go through all these numbers, but uh this So, I'll go back for a second. Mhm. This slide considers only dollars. The other factor that this life cycle cost analysis program allows us to look at is environmental impact. So that's a combination of energy usage but also where you're getting that energy from. Okay. So um your electrical grid in New York State is actually relatively clean compared to a national average. There's a lot of hydro a lot of other things in the in the mix. Um versus natural gas which is fossil fuels which is you know has a different profile of emissions right. Um so when we look at the emissions um we understand that
158the ground source heat pump system as we expected has a lower environmental footprint and this quantifies that. Okay. So like I said before the cost of energy sorry start again the ground source heat pump system will use less energy the cost of that energy because it's all electricity is much higher in some cases. So, we're what this analysis does is is crunch all those numbers because it's not immediately apparent to us like you know is the is the higher cost of the higher relative cost of electricity going to be more than the energy savings we get in electricity by going to a more efficient system. it's hard to tell and that's why we did this, right? And so the numbers show that um when you go to the ground source heat pump, uh you know,
159at the the bottom couple rows, I was trying to find some metric that um folks can understand, it's like 49 or 55 or 67 or 78 cars being taken off the road over a 30-year period each year. Uh for 30 years, over 30 years. So divide that by 30 if you want to if you want. All right. So it's cumulative. So the it's cumulative. Yes. That's why it says 30 years in the parenthesis. So there there is an environmental benefit. You can look you can think about you know millions of kilograms of you know CO2 or you know we equate it to cars and things. So um can I ask one quick? I just don't understand that one. Go. Yeah. So 78 cars, do you mean like 2 something cars a year or 78 cars
160every year times 30 years? Former. Okay. Yeah. So two couple cars a year. Correct. Every year for 30 years. But when we talk about electricity, Chris, I mean in the past we've also talked about utilizing more solar energy. So if in the future we look to as a school district, you know, more solar farms, you know, and we're talking about electricity that there's more like the electricity we would use for the ground source heat pump. Could that be offset by potentially investing in solar energy as time goes on? Yes. Okay. So there's there's more factors that are on the sheet as time goes on than than we can really predict as well. Is that that's fair? So my first question hopefully clarifying question is or yeah question is is the decision moving forward to be
161based solely on cost or is it to consider also environmental impact? If it is based solely on cost, you would say, "All right, well, we're going to go with the very lowest first cost, 3.4 million for the traditional boxes." That's that's one way of looking at, right? If you want to look at the option that provides the biggest relative savings over the life cycle, um I would suggest you look at the thousand ton with the traditional boxes. When we see the negative 525 for the geothermal system means you're spending more on geothermal. It means you're spending less in the traditional system. So you can think of the opposite as well. So you say okay if we do this thousand ton system we will be over the 30 years you know to the good by about
162a half a million. Right? So that's that's another way to think about it. If you are to decide to use this traditional system, you get none of the environmental benefits that we're talking about on the bottom half of this slide. Uh because those are relative to the base case. Okay? If you were using a combination of life cycle cost and emissions, um you would look at these two um the 600 ton and the 950 ton systems as your best options. So question is about the basis of of your decision making, what factors you want to consider. You want to go ahead Todd? Yeah, I'm I'm curious um because one thing that that came up for me that's not in this model is what would be the benefit to Cornell to be able to have this
163additional capacity? Like could we go to them and say hey you know you're able to cool at whatever cost like is there a monetary value we go to them and say hey if you give us dollars we'll get off your system and then we could factor that into you know being completely independent from that system. Yes you could. Yeah. 400 tons could be another building for Cornell, right? So I mean I I think if we are going to consider it, I think we try we should try to quantify like what that value is. Go to Cornell and be like, "Hey, do you guys want to buy this capacity off us?" So just something to think about. They might do a similar analysis as this. Yeah, they have a system in place. They could cool it
164if they have to go to an alternative system. What's the relative upcharge? And that could be a basis for decision. And what's the turnaround time on having that conversation to keep our processes moving forward? I'm I'm It's a brilliant idea. I'm trying to figure I'm trying to Yeah. So that Yeah. That I have follow-up questions with that is like how quickly do we need to make this decision? Yesterday. No, no, soon. Right. Very soon because decisions are being made, as I understand it, daily about plumbing um at the high school. how how what kinds of fittings should go in? Well, it's different depending on the kind of system you're planning for. So, if we want to avoid, you know, redoing a lot of work. Well, yeah. How much life do we have left on the
165current system? Like what what to me Yeah. I do we need to make this like I'm hearing you say it needs to be ASAP but if you know why just because we're investing like some small amount of inveillialize it but we're investing money in fittings or or pipes the the urgency is so we've bid work that was based on being able to use the lakes source cooling system and so we've designed the mechanical piping system to assume that there was going to be a large heat pump chiller in your boiler room. If we go with a different system, we need to tell the contractors who have bid that work, we're going to ask you to make these changes. We've put them on hold for some time while we've been trying to make this decision and,
166you know, do some math and quantify um the differences between different options. Um and so that's the the urgency is to inform contractors who are being uh relatively patient with us all um as we as we seek to make another decision that regardless of the decision we make, we will need to make some changes. The other factor and again correct me if I'm wrong. The other factor is that if we choose to go with the current system for heating the gas boilers, they're some of them are approaching the end of their natural life. Yeah. And they will be extremely expensive to replace and at some point probably difficult to maintain. That's that was going to be my question. What do we think about maintenance costs? Yeah, that was so we have the life cycle cost
167analysis does include maintenance costs on an annual basis and it includes the replacement of boilers that we know are going to be aging out within this 30-year period. So that was included in this analysis. Okay. Um does it include inflation and and market really even with the current like trends of their assumptions are made. Okay. Yeah. When were the when when did they bid it or when did they make those assumptions? Uh well, the contractors bid the work um about a year and a couple months ago. So, is it safe to assume that those numbers are going to go up significantly? These numbers the the contractors bid I mean Oh, no. They bid it and we've accepted it and they've been doing work for a year uh you know throughout this this building. Um, so
168what we're talking about is a credit change order to do less piping and change it over here and do things like that. The quantity of that change is I think much much less significant than the than the quantity of the new systems that we're talking about. So that's not that's not of primary concern. It's mostly we'd like to get them a you know direction so that they can move on with with the project. Yeah. I I think my question was more along the lines of, you know, we're getting we have pricing here, you know, with with bid estimates or, you know, assumptions for what like a geothermal system would cost, but, you know, when was the last time those numbers are updated? Like, do you think that what we're seeing here, because this presentation, I
169think I saw this like a month ago or two months ago or whatever, um, has the market changed and by the time we actually go to contract, which would be a year or two from now, like where do we forecast those numbers to actually be? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So, so I and and the reason I'm saying this because my concern is I mean if we have another 10 years of life left, right? Like based on like the uncertainty in the markets, I think it might be prudent just to not do this system allow things to kind of like shake out and figure out where where pricing is actually going to be. I think right now is not well I guess when when would we go going to bid getting ahead myself? When would we go
170to bid with this capital project? Yeah. Um, so if you have a successful vote come December that this scope of work would be part of, um, and you you chose that this scope of work was the first one that we do, um, we could probably be bidding, you know, late 2028, say. And the numbers that you have on here are based on previous assumptions for 2028. This has not been escalated out I believe multiple years. This is like present dollars at the moment. So this is not escalated. Yeah. I mean if to move this forward in some sort of way. I mean, I know we're talking about money and it's tight and we've just said that, but this capital project funds are are are kind of separate and different. And we also, you know, are
171trying to think of our students and our scholars and their wants and needs and their wants and needs are like environmental, like climate change is an issue. And so, you know, there's there's a responsibility on us to do right by our students in this one. And and and that's kind of where I'm struggling like, okay, bottom dollar there, but also this is investing in their future. And I like getting something that is gas boilers. I mean, those are hopefully going to be obsolete, right? When we're speaking about environmental changes. I I just I I guess I look to my colleagues who are who've been in these facilities meetings like how like what what is your feelings in all the discussions that you've had? We've heard a bit of Todd's thinking. [Music] Um I'm sure Karen
172will share hers. I guess like you, Erin, I I would like to see us make some investment in environmental sustainability with this big project. Um, and I thought the costs were reasonably close across the options. I like the idea of continuing our involvement with lakes source cooling. That is an environmentally friendly um option and it's in place. Um I have expressed before my dismay that the CO2 reduction isn't um massive. You know, we were Yeah, we were all kind of shocked that it wasn't a more significant difference. Now, others, Armen for example, might say, "Are you kidding? This is a lot." Yeah, that's that's why we're here. It's it's tricky stuff. And and I believe Chris um would tell you your choice depends on what you're valuing at any given point in time. So, it's
173not like he or I or anyone can give you a clear this is the option to choose. You have to weigh everything. Chris, maybe you can weigh in. I I I always understood, and I could be completely wrong because this is not my area of expertise, that natural gas does not produce a lot of CO2, which is why originally, you know, everyone was moving towards natural gas because the cost and it didn't create a lot of CO2, but it creates a lot of methane gas, um, which impacts the ozone layer like at a faster rate than CO2, but it then doesn't stay around as long as CO2. So that's kind like the am I wrong with that? Because you're right that the impact of CO2 is not that significant, but it's because natural gas doesn't
174actually produce a lot of CO2. I don't have figures in my head about the relative impact from CO2 um on methane emissions versus CO2. I assuming you're comparing to like coal or other other fossil fuels that we're burning. So I'm I'm sorry I don't have those numbers. Yeah. Um fair in my hand in terms of like the greenhouse gas. Yeah. You know uh potential for that. Can and I I wonder what you're experiencing as well. Can we make in looking at these numbers, I'm wondering if we can presume that the environmental impact, those numbers may not change over a 30-year span, but the costs have the opportunity to change significantly in one direction or another. Does that is that a fair question? Right. like we've run the numbers of what the emissions may be and
175the CO2 no matter what the market is doing and what tariffs are doing, whatever else that that that those numbers may be for the most part relatively consistent no matter what takes place, but the cost could change radically for whatever system even we decide at this point in time, right? Like maybe heat pumps now have a thousand or thousand% tariff on them because they come from someplace else. That's true. The energy, if I understood your statement, the energy use we anticipate will be we feel more confident about the amount of energy that will be used than we feel confident about how much that energy will cost 5, 10 or 30 years from now. Yep. Karen, would you want to share given as a member of the facility? Just a reminder as Chris had asked um
176or someone had mentioned something about the values that we have and back in 2019 we made a commitment to cool IHS and we want to continue with that. Um last year the climate action justice group came with um their resolution that we want to continue to fulfill as a district as we proceed and look at the future. So therefore, if we're limited with the lake source cooling, we have to we should it would behoove us to go with the other options that we have outlined here. And um and where I see it as a benefit to connect Boon Middle School in the process. Other comments, board members, questions? Well, I would also want to make a decision based on the environment, you know, keeping that in mind. Um, I agree with I guess what other
177board members have said also though, just that the surprisingly low environmental imp impact. I mean, I'm not sure how to how to um, you know, measure it or relativize it. It just seems like two cars a year for 30 years. I mean, I don't I don't know what that doesn't that just doesn't feel like a lot. Um I mean, I'm just thinking it's like if one person just changed their car from, you know, gas if we used took $200,000 and paid two people. I mean, I'm being funny, but um so it just doesn't seem like it doesn't seem like that much. It is also though I guess um there's some symbolism in it if we choose not to um you know pick the option that's environmentally friendly. It's sort of like what the district would
178then be affirming would be not to do that. So I think that that that's just in my mind like it's hard for me to say like I'm going to pick the less environmental friendly option. Um so just to put that out. Um I think the other thing I just wanted to say was when we think about the cost um you know I think the when these projects get passed my understanding is that um the community is approving us to to borrow this money when we borrow the money if we borrow at a certain rate we keep a certain percentage of our budget for debt which usually in the past has been about 7%. Um, so whether you know we would have to spend I guess I guess we could we could spend we have to
179we'd have to not spend a lot of money to make the 7% go down a significant amount that it would that we would feel it in the district. So like when we decide to do a $4 million project, it's not like taking $4 million out of the general budget. We're spreading it over time. It's coming out of debt service so we can afford to borrow some money to do the projects. Um, so I just wanted to say that because that's that's how we have to think about it. It's not like when we're planning budget and saying we need to come up with $3 million to pay, you know, somebody or something like that. Um, so I don't know if any of that helps, but the I guess I'm just articulating what I'm thinking about. So
180by way of process and next steps I mean one next step would obviously be I think I don't know what the timing would be or how it would even happen but to have a conversation as I understood it to ask Cornell what would it be like if I mean I I also heard Jill saying liking to hold on to lake source cooling though we do know there are environmental folks in Ithaca who don't believe in lakes source cooling as well um but to ask Cornell like okay if we were to give this back to you is there some sort of financial arrangement that's one possible next step. Another possible next step is again my apologies about fall and Todd is to say let's just wait let for things to whatever settle or another is to
181we know that this is going to have to happen soon and my worry is that the longer and I don't know what I believe which one of these but my worry is that the longer we wait the only thing that think that's going to happen is costs are going to continue to increase like I don't foresee a future where costs will decrease and I could be wrong about that and I hope I am But like if we wait four years then it may be double the money as opposed if we waited two years to get it bid or do whatever require air conditioning as much as it looks like it's going to require or a situation where it actually requires more air conditioning on more days especially given statewide mandates that are requiring heat control
182right and cooling of spaces but but yeah I'm with you on all that or you find out natural gas is going away three years and we didn't know what we were lying to people. I mean, I I'll say my my first impulse was to say, well, let's put this whole thing on hold. That was my first impulse, but I but I think you're correct, Sean. I think things are just going to get more and more expensive and we've already got a couple of years at least lead time before we're this comes to fruition. It's not like pooling's going to start in these areas six months from now, no matter what we do. And I can offer a third option as well. On the 22nd or fifth option or sixth option on April 22nd, there is
183a facilities committee meeting that this could be brought up and ask board members to give their thoughts. Did I am I using the right date right? April 22nd is facilities first and then a special board meeting. So saying to board members that maybe we don't have to make a decision this evening or some direction but maybe by the 22nd to have some idea which direction you want to head if we're trying to get these things especially in place for a December capital project vote except that our big questions won't be answered on the 22nd. But it may give board members a minute to sit with it before okay trying to digest all this information if this is the first time they're they're seeing it. That's I I'm with you about trying to move things along.
184I I hear that, but I also want folks to feel like they have time to be informed and ask some questions. I would appreciate that. And also, while we're talking, I'm just kind of looking and trying to figure out, you know, I think that taking 78 car, like looking at the options, taking 78 cars off the road over 30 years might have a bigger impact than we realize. I think that number feels small to us, but in just some basic research, I I I hope that maybe, you know, I might try to do a deep dig into that because I think that means a lot more than what we're seeing because when you look at the bigger numbers of the the and I'm trying to find the slide. I think the environmental impact is much
185bigger than 78 cars, I think we don't really perceive that well. But when you look at the actual emissions, that number is more significant. I think that we just don't quite get 78 cars and how much pollution cars really do give when you think about average. So Chris, if you can I would like to know before we make this decision when we talk about 78 cars average, right? What does that mean? That means emissions driving every single day. I'm not asking you for this now, but whatever numbers, whatever algorithms, you know, I think I think that number probably is much more substantial than we realize. The method that I used is in the footnote of this slide. There's an EPA tool that we used that assumes that uh converts kilograms of emissions of CO2 into
186many different other metrics. So, that's where I got those numbers. Could I also add another factor that is not at all included in this analysis, but if the converse I think I heard some comments to the effect of cooling Ithaca High School or not cooling Ithaca High School at this time. There's a growing body of research. I'll let you do the research about the impact of heat on student performance especially test taking. So, I believe that to be part of the basis of the governor's concern about temperature as it relates to education, but that's a whole another factor that that is outside of this. Um, just to a fact that clarifications and sorry if you said it's not and I missed it, but I mean I'm I think Todd's idea is a really good one,
187but what what what are the um costs or technical problems associated with having one building heated by two different systems or or or are there none? Building heated by cool by two different systems cooled. So, and was if you had half of Ethical High School using lake source and half of it using the heat pump, is that a problem or not? No, we can work that out. I mean, but but is are there any efficiencies or savings to having be all one system? I I know you can work it out, but is there like long-term maintenance or operating savings of having not having two two systems, one building to maintain? That's a good question. I would say that if you maintain the lake source cooling as your option, generally that's going to cause you the
188least amount of maintenance, the least amount of um attention to be paid to that capacity for cooling because it's largely Cornell doing it. Oh, okay. Like they're operating their system. Even here, uh there's that brick building. I'm turned around out by Lake Street that includes a piece of equipment that takes that water and then brings it into Ithaca High School for your and so you control up to, you know, a certain point there. Um, but it's it's pipes and it's a relatively easy piece of equipment to maintain. It's called a heat exchanger. Um, so that's relatively simple. Okay. Um, if we were to use two systems, we would combine those in the boiler room and then send it to the building just as cold water. the building doesn't really see where the cold water is
189coming from. Okay. And we can we can combine that. That's a good question. So, not really an issue with it's not Yeah, we don't we don't think it's a significant issue. How do we want to proceed, Board? Can I just make one quick comment about the methane? Ju just to clarif I mean, just a quick Google search over a 20-year period, methane is roughly 80 times more potent than C CO2. So the the lifespan it lasts in the atmosphere to 10 or 12 years. Methane does where CO2 lasts you know maybe like a hundred or more but the methane it traps heat a lot more. So it heats methane heats the earth at a lot at a much much higher rate than CO2 does. So I don't think saving two cars makes any difference but
190it's really I think it's the methane impact of getting off natural gas. But so this this would be an argument of not using natural gas boilers. Correct. Correct. And people always think of CO2 and they think of like, you know, uh, global warming and stuff, but methane has like a a it's much much much more harmful. I mean, this says it's, you know, 80 times more potent, but it's a shorter lifespan. So, just Yeah, I just wanted to in our electrical system, I I said earlier we have a lot of hydro, but a lot of electrical power plants are powered by natural gas. And so it gets very complicated, but I think you're on to another very interesting uh factor, you know. Yeah. Sorry to get in the weeds, but yeah, no campus project. Yeah,
191same. Yeah, I'm open. I just had one last thing just just since we're thinking about all this and we're putting it out there, just the the factor of it, you know, having a cool school is very nice obviously for students and teachers and all the staff that are working there. I know it's a luxury, but you know, since we're looking at it at all the different angles, you know, that is something to consider if we have an opportunity to do that. Obviously, not if it's cost prohibitive, but still something to think about. No, I don't and I don't I I I have to one I don't really think it's a luxury anymore with climate change and we go to school through June. It's a necessity and that's why, you know, we have summer schools. Yeah.
192It's it's a pro. It's it's it's got to be addressed. for me, and I'm not trying to minimize the numbers, right? We're talking about a half a million dollar difference, but to Abn's point, a half a million dollars spread out over 30 years with building aid also coming back makes it much more palatable to me. And especially if depending on what the interest is of going out in the bond to do this, seems like it would it could be a solid investment. And I don't know who said it, but in the values that we're trying to support as well. So for 30 years, a half million dollars to support values and also let students know that we're hearing them. Listening to our what's it called? The goat club. Is that what I remember it being?
193Right. Like I I could I could be convinced that that would be a a good way to go. I do have the question about whether or not we want to run our own system or continue with Lake Source cooling. I tend to probably lean towards what Jill was saying like it's already there. Let's take advantage of what we currently have. especially if Cornell is going to be responsible for its maintenance and upkeep. Um, and then to sort of do a smaller geothermal pump, but I still have questions about geothermal as well. I mean, we're having issues with that currently. So, I think that's right. Sean, say I I think it's right. So, what do we want to do? Let's Let's ready to say something. That That's why I'm like this, Karen. Yes, Chris, please. If
194we want to have a discussion about geothermal systems relative assuming you're talking about Enfield, Todd, when when you bring this up. Yes. And I want to be clear that the the issues with the heating system at Enfield are not related to the geothermal wellfield that has been performing relatively well since it was installed. Uh the issues have to do with stuff inside the building that frankly are the same unit ventilators and piping and valves and similar dynamics as in this building and basically all of your buildings. So um we think of the Enfield geothermal heating system as such but it's really a heating system and it has a geothermal feature which is not the the s the part of that system that's been causing the difficulties. Thank you for clarifying. uh Jill as the chair
195of facilities and Chris as the architect who's helping us think about these things would uh give board members giving you input by April 22nd um be problematic no says no I I'll I'll just go on record and saying um I think the choice is is do you want to do this or Uh, and if you want to do this, it seems to me that the clearest choice is the third one here, lakes source cooling and and buo relatively and it makes the most sense to me intuitively, but um, yeah, we can and will wait as long before we decide to just wait. It seems like a lot of people have shook their head at that. I want to make sure that like that that would uh make it so that we nobody has to look
196up about the we we would definitely be going the more like economical no not economical uh environmental route. So I just want to make sure like people have questions that and research that they actually want to do before that next meeting or do we do do let's just make sure that enough people don't feel ready now. Well, let me say it differently then that listening to the folks here, if there is a there seems to be some folks aligning around option number three doesn't mean that everyone is there. If there are strong resistance to that, let it be known by the 22nd. Maybe that's the better way of operating as opposed to give your feedback, right? Like we'll plan on going down this path unless something else comes up and then we'll we'll challenge that.
197But we but the question is we need to move in a direction. So if we want to restart the entire conversation, let's do that as well. And but maybe not at 10:00 at I guess I'm asking alternatively like could we just vote on it right now and not wait till anything for the 22nd? What are we voting on? Does anyone need additional time to decide? John says yes. Yeah, you do. Okay. April 22nd is Earth Day, isn't it? So, don't pick number one. Is that okay? By folks, are we in general? I mean, may not work for everybody, but that's the path we'll go to give people time to do their own research and do some things. Chris, we can write to you and the facilities committee with any questions we may have. Um, and
198I know there is an OACM on Thursday. Did that work? If that works for everybody, thank you for working through that conversation. Greatly appreciate it. Thank you for working through all of our conversations today. Uh we will bring the meeting to a close and we will see everyone on the 22nd. Have a good break, good folks.