ICSD Board of Education Voting Meeting - Tuesday, March 25, 2025

001thank you everybody we greatly appreciate you joining us for our March 25th voting meeting uh we will bring the meeting uh to uh open and we will entertain motions I have it somewhere okay uh I move to enter into executive session for the purpose of discussions regarding proposed pending or current litigation Collective negotiations and matters leading to the appointment employment promotion demotion discipline suspension dismissal or removal of a particular person or Corporation second mooved by Adam second by Emily any discussion debate dialogue conversation hearing none will'll call the question all in favor the motion passes unanimously and that includes Garrick block who right behind us well done grick very good timing uh we will do our absolute best good folks to be back here at 7 pm how are you Grace uh we are returning

002from public session uh we will continue on with our uh agenda um which begins are there any modifications or uh approval of the agenda okay hearing none uh we have a number of folks uh scheduled to speak this evening um a reminder uh we have scheduled three minutes for each person to speak uh the by board policy uh public comments last 30 minutes at any point in time after that 30 minutes the board can choose to extend that time period just want to let folks know we'll be paying attention to that time um and then we will proceed from there uh I'm G to ask my colleague Dr trip to uh read names uh Dr trip may know many of the people but if not if there's a Mis A mispronunciation of your name please

003forgive us um and would ask if at all possible if folks would be willing to come into the microphone it does better for the recording and for people listening at home to be able to hear what's taking place and so with that caveat uh Trisha if you're ready with our timer um I will do my best to politely nudge folks if they go over again please also give me Grace if I have to cut you off after a particular time but I'll try to give some leeway I hope we're all on the same page so Dr trip up Thomas Murphy online or here okay we'll come back to Thomas Murphy uh Elizabeth Crawford evening my name is Elizabeth Crawford I teach Advanced writing courses at Etha High School despite a master's degree AP certification and

004other professional qualifications and despite a decade of service in the district I still do not make a living wage in Tomkins County I'm here tonight to speak to you about teacher salaries I'm here because I stood in line this year at a local food pantry when I couldn't stretch my grocery budget far enough I am here because I cannot heat my home or pay for child care in Tomkins County without Public Assistance I'm here because it is unethical for the itha city school district to pay its teachers salaries that are insufficient that do not rise and step with the local cost of living and that do not honor and respect their years of experience professional growth and commitment let's begin with the premise that teachers deserve a living wage living wage calculators consider the Regal

005cost of basic needs including food clothing housing transportation and child care according to mit's calculator a family of four living in Ithaca New York with two working adults and two children can achieve adequate living standards if each parent earns $66,500 annually I do not make $66,000 and I am not alone 59% of teachers employed in this District are presently paid wages that are insufficient that is to say those wages fall short of the living wage needed to sustain a working family the cost of goods and services Nationwide has increased by roughly 23% since our last contract negotiation the district has proposed a 4% wage increase why should we accept 4% will you try to tell us that the living wage calculations are wrong that families should be able to get by with less in fact

006the calculations are conservative and do not account for student loan repayments or major life events ICD cannot ethically justify denying its teachers a living wage in addition to a blanket raise Ithaca should adopt a step- in Lane salary system that rewards experienced teachers for extensive training and professional development I've worked at IHS for 10 years but there are teachers with one or two years teaching experience who make more money than I do again I'm not alone 74% of Veteran teachers presently employed by the district have been leapfrogged to combat a national teacher shortage and to attract new teachers icsd did raise starting salaries but established teachers wages have not increased concurrently thus the current salary system neither reflects nor respects teachers years of classroom experience professional growth and mentorship insufficient and stagnant salaries are fueling

007High turnover rates failing to retain veteran teachers has undeniably negative effects on student learning outcomes and District can and should do more to retain its Educators itha teachers deserve better pay but more so we need better pay Healthcare housing and food are needs child care is a need considering maso's hierarchy these needs are among the most basic and the most essential teachers cannot be creative cannot unlock their potential cannot experience purpose and Find meaning in their work if they are living paycheck to paycheck laser focused on Survival the board of education is responsible for determining the district's vision and Mission you set an example for our young people and our community I'm asking you today to set the right example to hold the right of all persons to live with dignity please negotiate with the

008Etha teachers union in good faith and agree to a wage raise for teachers that accounts for local living standards that accounts for inflation and that accounts for their professional experience and their years of commitment to the school district thank you thank you bennifer goodmark good evening my name is Jennifer goodmark and I'm here tonight with my colleagues from the Ithaca Teachers Association to address a crisis that is steadily impacting every classroom in our district the erosion of teacher retention there are seven of us each of us will introduce ourselves as we speak and together we hope to provide a clear picture of what's happening and how we can fix it over the past two years we've worked to understand the scope of this problem gathered data and propos solutions tonight we're asking the board to

009authorize your bargaining team to go beyond the current 4.59% annual raise limit and allow a higher overall raise of 7.5% per year the data supports this ask more importantly our students need it thank you thank you Sam [Music] trctor good evening everybody thanks um my name is Sam treor I'm a Caroline teacher I'd like to continue our remarks uh 21y year teacher in the ICD uh member of the ITA um and a parent of two children in the district let's start with the facts 43% of the ICD teachers are currently untenured nearly half the workforce 18% of icsd teachers left last year higher than the New York State average 14% And the national average of 12% uh we've raised these concerns with the icsd administration since spring of 2023 we're not seeing normal turnover we're

010witnessing in Exodus uh ICD lost over 100 teachers last year that turnover cost the district and estimated 1.57 million more than the difference between your 4.5% proposal and our 7.5% ask uh and our veterans are leaving fastest in 2015 83 83% of our teachers were tenured in 2025 that number is just 57% our students now experience a revolving door of instructors speaking personally I'm a teacher at Caroline my understanding is that we have the largest percentage of teachers with tenure uh in years of teaching experience in the elementary schools in the district and we're not a school in need of improvement I don't think that's a coincidence um I love Caroline I like to think that I am an important part of its success but I'm not absolutely loyal to it as a teacher if

011I can make $110,000 more in another District I don't think I'm the exception all teachers like anyone else have to look after our bottom line my wife is a teacher in a nearby District she has three years less experience than me and already makes $10,000 more she has a step- in Lane system soon that number is going to be $20,000 more as we've seen at Kaa Heights it is House of Cards enough if enough teachers leave the rest are going to follow the results speak for themselves when teachers leave the bottom line you build a foundation and higher performance schools by paying for good teachers incentivizing them to stay Thank You me Burke hi I'm Meg Burke formerly hbert I'm the librarian at Northeast Elementary School um I'm continuing our remarks from the ITA the

012top reason that teachers leave it icsd is career wage loss consider a teacher who joined ICD in 2010 with three years of Prior experience compared to nearby districts that teacher has now lost between 55,000 and 107,000 and accumulative earnings hsee heads 54,9 And1 more south senica 72,8 42 more Trumansburg 82317 more Dryden 86,1 164 more Corning 107,000 and3 more that's the cost of choosing ICD the cost is a personal sacrifice it means teachers working multiple jobs are making the devastating decision to leave because the salary do not keep up with our neighboring districts or the cost of living I looked at my own salary structured increases over the last six-year contract and in comparison with inflation and over the past six years I have made an average of a 36% each year in comparison that

013is a total of 2.16% total raise in the last six years when compared with inflation and it's barely survivable I keep working more and more side hustles and I am here tonight coming from my third job of the day cleaning houses every year it is harder and harder to struggle to stay here with no indication it will ever get better and with neighboring districts offering compensation that lets their teachers go home to their families after school rather than a second or third job in a recent negotiation meeting I recounted that I clean for the home of a teacher in a neighboring district and thought it really made this predicament ICD teachers are in eminently clear that teacher that I clean for has very similar experience to me as an educator but our salaries are so

014vastly different that she can afford to pay me to clean her home and I can't afford not to do it it's even more striking given where we live icsd is located in an Ivy League Town Tomkins county has one of the highest median incomes in Upstate New York icsd administrators are paid above the New York State average this is a community that appears affluent by every measure except when it comes to retaining teachers against all fiscal re reason and to our own detriment we stay for the love of our school communities but that ability to sacrifice your own well-being for the love of a school is not enough to hold us anymore many of us myself included just can't keep making the sacrifice now when I walk AC now when I walk across this not

015when I can walk across the street and be compensated my Worth and be truly Val Val to the point um to the point that an educator is all I need to be no side hustle necessary I'm served in ICD truly as a sentence and not a commodation that it should be anyone with my decade of experience and my graduate credits can walk through that door and is guaranteed to make significantly more and even further Beyond across the street how can a district known for wealth education and cultural capital consistently fall so short on teacher pay Nancy BR good evening thank you my name is Nancy Braun and I'd like to continue the remarks from the ITA these wage losses aren't accidental they're the result of structural flaws in our salary system or absence of a

016system um without a step in Lane we are subject to Lea frogging which is when a less experienced teacher makes more than a more experienced one it affects 428 teachers in our district 3ars of our Workforce it's my understanding that um with mind 19 years of experience and 67 graduate credits there are at least 15 of my colleagues who make more than I do with the same or less um and salary compression when two teachers with the same experience and education earn different salaries and that affects nearly 185 teachers at ICD or about one-third of our staff these inequities erode our morale our trust and our retention and our proposal is designed to fix them thank you KD Morgan thank you my name is Katie Morgan I'm a teacher here at Etha high school I

017just joined this District two years ago and I have already been leapfrogged I have 10 years of teaching experience under me though um I'd like to continue our remarks we're not here just to name a problem we're here to offer a solution we propose a step- in lanane salary system that is competitive with neighboring districts attractive to new and returning teachers predictable so Educators can plan for the future and incentivizing with long-term rewards for staying in ICD we call this cppy salary model of the 34 school districts within an hour of Ithaca 25 already use this structure the 7.5% raises we're asking for over four years are how we build it during this phase in teachers will be placed on the grid based on years of experience and graduate credits that means some members will

018receive larger wages than others larger raises than others this isn't arbitrary it's a correction it reflects the work required to fix compression and leap frogging we've prepared explanatory slides if needed after this brief transitional period the system becomes highly predictable teachers will know what they'll earn next year and 10 years from now that predictability is one of the most powerful retention tools a district can offer thank you thank you Molly for hi um my name is Molly ferer ases um I'm a teacher at Caroline and I'd like to continue our remarks from the ITA so we appreciate the board's authorization of up to 4.59% raises but here's the problem if icsd implements the step in Lane with just 4.59% average raises it will take 7 years to fix the salary system even then we'll still

019be making 11 we will still be 11% behind our neighbors speaking of neighbors many of us have needed to move to those neighboring districts me being one I've taught here for eight years um last year when my now husband and I were searching for a place to live we realized that we've been priced out of the itha city school district I love my Community where I teach and I cannot raise a family there so let me continue in contrast a 7.5% raise annually over four years repairs the salary structure and restores our competitiveness this year the difference between our proposal and the district's offer is just $1.1 million that is less than the cost of last year's teacher turnover ICD has ample reserves and they have not yet built a line by line budget there

020is time and room to plan for this the resources are there what's needed now is a shared will to invest in the Educators who make this District strong the good news ICD doesn't need to exceed the tax cap to make this investment date Foundation a is increasing by 2.5 million this year with additional growth projected in future years small increases in the tax levy each under 3% will generate another three million doar or more annually all while staying within the cap and the district are has both an operating Surplus and more than $6 million in unexpended reserves this is not about choosing between salaries and fisal responsibility it's about aligning predictable funding with a predictable Equitable salary structure and really it's about investing in your teachers thank you thank you Gina Mao I say Copo

021but when I went to Italy I found out I say it wrong so I'm here to continue the remarks from I and I think what I would like to start with though is that you see the it is bringing bringing not only a problem to you as Educators but also a solution um and I'm just going to start with a little personal story so this is my 11th year in the district when I came here I was pretty much a brand new teacher and I took a $40,000 pay cut on the advice of a new teacher they always they said to me don't go for the money even though you need it go for the credit and build up your salary I've maxed out my credits I'm at 90 I'm still making less than I

022did when I was a brand new teacher in a different District so my name is Gina Copo and I teach here at itha high school and I'm talking to you because I'm asking you and presenting to you with my team that we have the opport you have the opportunity to lead with Clarity and vision this isn't about raises for the sake of raises this is about preserving the quality of Education in our district we ask the board to authorize negotiations up to an average of 7.5% raise over the next four years that is the minimum necessary to stop the loss of experienced Educators we have the evidence we have the solution we now need your partnership thank you thank you is is Thomas Murphy here now all right uh this brings us to the next

023part of our agenda which is uh board responses uh I normally go last as board president but I'm going to go first in this situation uh and that is first to say thank you for everyone who came to speak this evening uh thank you for the Ithaca teacher Association for engaging in what many would call an Innovative negotiation process of having uh things live streamed and filmed and archived and so I'd encourage our community to go and watch all of the sessions that have happened so far my apologies that I've missed the last couple uh but I have watched all of them and so I think that this is a phenomenal way for us to engage in various ways um and while it may um how do I want to phrase this uh many of

024the issues that were raised this evening will be part of the discussion that takes place at Thursday's negotiation and so um as one board member I look forward to those conversations that take place on on Thursday and I may be speaking for other board members as well but other board responses uh just want to also reiterate a huge thank you for coming after very long days of work um and also thank you for uh for creating this very Innovative opportunity for so many of us to witness negotiations for the first time it's been um a huge learning experience for me and I've really um appreciated being able to kind of hear uh your like the perspective of the ITA and all of the um thoughtful data that you've brought forth um so really appreciate that

025um and you to to want to stay engaged and learn more I Katie specifically said that you have um explanatory slides that you can share I would very much love that and um I was I was saying to colleagues a little earlier it's there's so much data there's so much data that um that the district is sharing that you all are sharing and so appreciate all of that any any data that you shared today if there's any opportunity to email that and show us kind of sources and where you got it from just so that we can kind of wrap our heads around it I personally um just find that really helpful so um thank you in advance if you're willing and able to do that but otherwise just really appreciated you all being here

026and just to followup please send it to Trisha barisford we'll make sure all board members get it if that happens thank you I just want to re always got the word mumbles um but reiterate my colleagues what they're saying and thank you so much for coming I I can't express how much we do support teachers and you know last year's budget process was brutal and this year it's just here we are and it's just not as easy as we wanted it to be because of that and we really aren't at Liberty to discuss much else because it's to be discussed in negotiations and I just want to make sure that's understood right it's not that we're not engaged it's not that we don't care but the for the these conversations are not here but we

027hear you and we care deeply and we're listening and yes any information you want to send please do and we're listening and thank you it's it's always good to um receive comments from the public and not to reiterate and keep going over what my colleagues have said but I just wanted to give a shout out to my daughter's first grade teacher who was here to talk so it was good seeing you I don't have anything special to add but I also want to thank all the teachers for coming tonight and members of the ITA um you know and just Express General support for for all the teachers and um we look forward to the continued conversation thank you board colleagues appreciate it uh we will continue on with our agenda which brings us to uh

028our student reps and I am unsure who is to go first whether it's Lacs or itha high school I still think we should do rock paper scissors every single time that then all right oh we have a stand now that's fun um okay so English peats happened almost two weeks ago now uh for those who don't know for the English peat 11th graders write literary analysis essays and then give a 45 minute presentation defending their thesis students are asked questions by the Raiders which usually include one LSS teacher and one outside Raider I was luck lucky enough to get a surprise bonus Raider uh Miss Yearwood um so that's one PAB bat down three more to go uh the next one on the horizon is science which is really ramping up um fundraising is gathering

029momentum as we approach trip season after school and on weekends Crews of LSS students are doing yard work for $12 an hour per person to raise money for their Hurricane Relief trip to Asheville uh this is one of the many trips that is fundraising at the moment and tomorrow all of Enfield element El's fifth graders will visit alysus for the day we're very excited to host them uh for most of the schools students can sign up to Shadow individually but a couple years back we started inviting enfield's fifth grade class to try to boost interest from them it seems to be working all right I got a few things um The Lacs mock trial team has been very hard at work and are preparing for the county competition this Saturday March 29th um their devotion

030is quite clear many have stopped doing work for other classes because mock trial must take precedence um which is understandable um the ACs visit to to the school Without Walls of in Rochester went very well and multiple staff members and teachers and what have you have been talking about it with students and in their classes really just talking about that very unique experience um going off what Emily said fundraising has been really picking up at ACS it's a the sign of spring if you will um three trips that we wanted to highlight tonight are the hurricane Helen relief trip the senior someware trip and the aqua sanne Freedom school trip so Helen relief is doing yard work they're also they're also selling merch and among other things and at the end of the day their

031goal is to help in their recovery effort in Nashville North Carolina um the senior someware trip a group of seniors including myself have launched a fundraiser selling Lacs Ox um tum tumblers and coffee mugs and 30% of overall profits will be donated to war victims in Ukraine for food medicine and other essential supplies um and the last trip that I'm going to highlight today is the Lacs aquasan Freedom school trip uh they have launched to GoFundMe um to fund their trip up to the Aquas sasi Freedom School in past years the trip has built like guard Gardens green houses and other other type things um it's worth mentioning that the trip is r nearly 50% of its $3,500 goal due to the incredible generosity and support of staff students families and alumni many of whom

032who have been on the trip before and finally um last week a small group of students and staff meant to finalize the proposed mission statement this is a process that goes all the way back to before Thanksgiving in November with any luck we hope to share the finalized and adopted mission statement soon and it will go out for a final digital vote this week my first update I'm very excited to share that the bath mirrors are now voted back up after a year so thank you um to everyone who got them back up and last week's we had social justice week I talked a little bit about this um during the last meeting as a success um we were actually in this room we had 25 class um period long presentations on a wide range

033of of topics related to social justice and so I want to give a shout out to the social justice week student committee who made the whole week possible and then um the past few school days breakfast has been uh served in front of our school and so as a result we've seen more students get breakfast as they come into the school and so there's been a lot of positive feedback about that and then seal of by literacy presentations for the seniors are coming up next week so we'll be presenting in our languages to a panel throughout the school day and then the iess orchestra is holding their annual Cabaret next Tuesday April 1st so that includes performances by both the chamber and string orchestras of iess and then smaller ensembles and guest musical acts as

034well and they have like an international theme so they'll include music from Sri Lanka turkey Ireland and many others and one question I had was I've been hearing a lot about like ITA teachers union negotiations and I think Dr Brown mentioned last time in his report that the principal and director's contract was also being worked on um I learned that the ESP the education support professionals contract was uh finished last June but haven't heard negotiations on that so I was wondering if there was like progress or plans on this yeah thank you so Cod red robotics successfully completed our six we build season and performed exceptionally well at the Finger Lakes Regional two weeks ago ultimately falling to the winning Alliance um which was the best our team has seen in 3 years and we

035will compete again in two days at the tech Valley Regional our robot was featured on numerous YouTube v um recap videos and even on thumbnails where we saved our alliance Partners robot from completely falling over and collapsing and the elevator completely breaking so we just came up and we supported it before It ultimately um fell to its Doom since then we met to fix our robots Vision system which enables both relative and absolute localization on the field and with these updates our robot can now automatically align to score game pieces with Precision tripling our um scoring cycle time and we're incredibly grateful for the board's support and are optimistic about um delivering our best performance since 2017 in two days and we invite the board to watch the stream on Twitch on a separate note

036we've heard growing concerns about certain food items running running out early during lunch and we're currently exploring solutions to um improve the availability hey everybody so couple things here first of all the climate charet took place on March 22nd last Saturday and hopefully this will inform our climate AC action plan which we hope to bring before the board later this year in the coming months as a part of the climate Justice Alliance focusing on areas ranging from operations to climate education Etc that will hopefully build upon the resolution that was passed last year the International Fair is being hosted this Thursday and the itha High School drama department is opening tickets for the musical the prom so shows are going to be on Friday April 4th Saturday April 5th and Sunday April 6th I believe

037an email should have been sent to you all about this but if not you can talk to me and I'll send all the pertinent information and then the IHS Science Olympiad attended the New York state tournament this past weekend and placed 24th overall there are 635 registered teams across the state competing in 23 different events and most importantly a pair of two students one of which is our very own CLA Park from our school were the state champions of the event in Material Science so number one in the state nobody else uh and then I also did also have a question um do we know the approximate time frame for when this problem of leak frogging salaries originated because I've been hearing about it for several years now and I wondered when practice was started

038and was it an attempt to incentivize new teachers to come if so out of curiosity has it been successful and what exactly determines the percent raise that teachers get each year I know that that's a number of questions and I only promised one so ah sorry lovingly we respect we expect nothing less board responses sure I will go um uh Emily and Brandon the fundraising is that it's not something I've seen I've know like tied specifically to Lacs but are there ways that like the community can access these cool sounding tumblers and other things that we should know about and is work like yard work being offered like across the district or just like in your area yeah um so yeah these are great questions um an email is going to go out to all

039the board members with links to the GoFundMe to order forms and to order forms for for Le relief merch um I also am going to talk to our school secretary this to see if we can get like an email with all the stuff sent out through icsd Communications as far as I know uh yard work services are available throughout the entire District you don't have to go to ACS they are grateful to get the money um yeah and that email from from me um with some of those links will be forthcoming within the next day or so that sounds great and just very exciting sounding opportunities and really exciting to see the kind of work and Investments that you all are committed to so thank you for that um K man just wanted to did

040I say that right um I just wanted to comment on the climate action work and make sure that you if you did not hear that we um uh Sean and I have been reviewing some of the old policies and one of them is related to um to climate action and work and so we're really looking forward to engaging you all in thinking about how to update it so so thank you for the work that you're doing and look forward to collaborating on that oh sorry I'll just I'll just dovetail on that um just uh I was able to attend the climate shet also learn the definition of the word shet which was kind of fun um and yeah so and basically just coming from that the climate um a climate action plan is being developed

041um and that's going to be presented um by the sustainability Advocates of the ICD to upcoming board meeting so taking into account the community feedback and participation which was what went went on at the charet um and so look forward to hearing that uh that presentation as well so we should be talking about that in a couple months I think any other board responses well this was my first time attending lspb the performance-based assessment task and it it was very good I um it what was a surprise it was a surprise for Emily as for me because I was free for that period first of the sessions and it was good to be able to see our student rep present Emily was very engaging and the empowerment that came as she was talking about the

042academic sigh by Russell Edson so a poem so it was really a beautiful process for me to experience firsthand so I thank you Emily that I saw your welcome in presentation at the beginning and um and and the social justice week was amazing as usual at itha high school I had attended voed matters and the climate action Alliance Group and to just see with the climate action Alliance gr cavan I missed you but you were out um getting awarded or at a presentation elsewhere so um but you were you were um they referenced you during that time because you're part of that group but to see the presentation by students especially two of them were freshmen and one of them just two weeks prior who started with the group and was able to give such

043a riveting presentation for the students who were present yeah I mean briefly K this is our this is our board responses and and I I have to say this pretty regular I apologize to folks that the structure of board meetings does not really allow for discussion it's something we've complained about for years but it's uh it is what it is technicalities are correct procedures Robert's Rules of orders not mine um I I think I only want to add of course thank you as always I always love everything yall have to say um C and and any references to LEAP frogging or negotiations y'all like that's not our place to answer it is for our exec team to answer so just you know like in our board responses that's really not our spot so I think

044that your question was heard and it will be addressed questions am I Am I Wrong Sean no no I I in particular if we go back to C's question I believe that's something that will be directly addressed uh on Thursday at least a conversation will take place uh something that uh the board is aware of other folks are aware of uh you know I say this pretty regularly um I probably say ad nauseum as a former teacher of Lacs also great to hear I also taught at school that walls uh you know I I I also bring a sort of insight to sort of the long-term longevity of some of these ideas so I'm looking forward to those conversations on on Thursday Emily if I'm not mistaken I saw you last evening so uh Emily

045attended a film at Etha college campus called fancy dance it's a film by a guo cono filmmaker uh it's always great to see members of Lacs in particular uh coming to see that film and join us so thank you to you and your fellow students uh it's a powerful film if folks have not seen it again I highly recommend seeing this film called fancy dance uh congratulations to Claire I feel like have to say that again we had to double down on that that is great also great news to hear about bathrooms uh that is also good um and I will be happy to support uh Lacs fundraising and should that include yard work you know that would just be an extra so we'll follow up when we get that that email so thank you

046for sending that information our way and thank you for our student Reps for always keeping us informed it's greatly appreciated continue on with our agenda next on the agenda is the consent agenda and we will entertain motions I move to approve all consent agenda items listed in consent agenda consideration of accounts Personnel reports students and minutes of previous meetings as presented move by Adam second by Emily any discussion or questions that folks may have uh a couple of items that are noteworthy um one the district uh working with some of our local school districts to provide health and wellness Services uh an additional Grant from the ethical public education initiative always extremely grateful for all the work that they do uh a program working with uh Senator Webb around early childhood education as well uh

047and uh Personnel items but I wanted to make sure we highlighted a couple of those and if there are no additional questions or debate we'll call the question all in favor and I vote Yes but abstain from the minutes thank you all very much fantastic uh that brings us to our next agenda item which is the superintendent report Dr Brown thank you for the opportunity Professor Bradwell uh just one item before we get to budget conversations um and this one Mak me much joy to talk about uh as I'm thinking here I'm reflecting back to 2010 and 2010 uh I met with every board member about uh their wishes for our school district and multiple members at the time in 2010 said uh Dr Brown we need you to do just one thing for us

048do us a solid stabilize the leadership at ethical high school and at the time if my recollection is correct uh there had been 10 leaders at ethical High School in 11 years and it had had significant impact negative impacts on the community that kind of leadership turnover so I understood very quickly that that was something we needed to focus on and uh yeah the job is a complex job and that kind of turned over was the result of uh while it's a very rewarding job it can be complex in the number of hours one has to work each day um the political social political challenges that one faces the tolls that takes on one's physical mental and family health so we learn I learned quickly as I was talking to Folks at the high school

049um the wonderful Educators who made ethical High School one of the best high schools in the nation which it is recognized we've talked about often um that it required uh an administrator who had a family that would commit to being principal at it wasn't just one person it was a family approach and it needed to be somebody who was very talented Savvy an instructional leader and committed and it's it brings me much joy to be in a space tonight where we've had uh we have two people who've been doing that for the last I think it's about 11 years which to say that at this point in my career and in my life that is uh that brings me much joy and much pride and as I think about uh the two Educators who have

050been serving as principal of I high school um two of the finest Educators you'll ever see one who went to ith High School um and while decided to come back and be an administrator said high school was another conversation but chose to be here when when working in another community and chose to be here because they it was time for them to serve at ethical high school and he chose to leave a community and the job behind to come serve here and served as an associate principal and has and when needed to step up stepped up to be the high school principal at a time where we needed that person that's Mar the Hardesty and if folks remember who've been around long enough remember uh at this table doing budget discussions back in 2012 2013

051I believe maybe 2014 we had uh Mr Trumble because he was working in serving on the executive team after we had asked him I remember the board at the time we really needed him to be an execu team member and during that time as a exec team member when it was time uh we had a Fai search at the time and we would it took us about a year and a half to find a principal because folks had watched the track record at at high school and had also recognized how difficult so we had no one we the pool wasn't very deep and I never forget uh Mr trumo came into my office um and he said send me I never forget that and that brother been serving and when you talk about a family

052committing his children and his wife and that dude and he took this Challenge on and he served and it has had an impact but it has been rewarded he has a high school he can say he served as principal of for a decade that has been recognized as one of the best high schools in the nation top 2% of stem high schools 10 years in a row of the College Board award for increasing the diversity in the highest level course offerings while at the same time increasing the achievement working with Educators who he started with teaching in the high school in certain departments and serving as their leader um navigating the challenges in our community the social political context we and I and we have been navigating see the hardest job in this community I'll

053say this is being principal in his high school and if anybody wants to share data or stories to refute that please bring them to me because I know what the toughest job is and I know how long it works and he did it well and I love him and tonight though as he told me about via text this morning first of all my bedtime is at 8 and uh this night is not about me I don't want you to mention my name he knew I was going to do it anyway because that's who he is but tonight is about celebrating somebody who came to this organization almost on the same day as Mr Trumble back one year apart I said when I was in high school and uh one of the longest serving employees in

054the school district and has worked if I'm not mistaken in almost every building in our school district and it only takes someone to be at ethical festival or at Wegman's and she's in that space with you to realize how many young people and how many lives she's touched in a positive way including my own one I have said this publicly the best teacher I've ever seen the most loving person I've ever seen so to follow a Jason Trum and am Martha Hardesty you had to be a superstar in many ways and we're very fortunate to have someone who served almost 30 plus years in our organization be the next person to stand up and say send me because uh they are in a great position Carolina elementary is thriving because of her leadership and she

055knew that we needed somebody at high school and she stood up and said send me so thank you for approving the consent agenda which included the appointment of the next principal at ethical high school and as I sit in this room I see a family and I see a team of very talented Educators who have committed careers over 30 years to making sure this community is great and I love them all so congratulations Karen Arnold the next principal ethical High School just have a chance so many of my people that I every that help make me to something about Facebook that here is really exciting thank you for your support I have really big shoes to F and I don't know if you know but learned my ad these two people who literally really Elementary

056chm to us and I came in B and I show that we can all work together and that Continuum is from prep to 12 grade and that's what I'm really really excited about and um we have an opportunity to really bring our community together thank you thank you congratulations thank you for the opportunity Hayman I want to go on record that was during Dr Brown's session that someone was all to speak from the floor just wanted to make wanted to make sure um I would be remiss if I didn't say two things um Martha thank you for all the work that you've done uh it is greatly appreciative uh Jason Trumble this is going to be an emotional time for me as well it's been emotional um some folks in the community may know that

057Jason and my father-in-law have a very special relationship as well uh they uh they love each other um and so I've been able to get to know you and your family and different ways but also in particular through that relationship and your work with my brothers-in-law as well so um it's a blessing it brought me joy to see you here this evening so thank you as well uh and Karen we're we're here supporting the success so congratulations uh I was not going to miss that opportunity to to share that uh and then my apologies also on the agenda I feel warrants some recognition uh was um a resignation of a leader at the Layman alternative Community School uh and so I want to acknowledge the work that Deb Pak has done the commitment over the

058past number of years uh we thank Deb tremendously for the service and for the willingness to engage and know as part of the leadership of the uh principles and directors Union I um want to make sure that we uh give some recognition or at least recognize uh Deb's long service for our district as well oh good don't mess with my silence as a form of transition School District business that will bring us on to a budget discussion and we will yield to Dr Brown and team yeah Will to invite the team down uh which may take a second okay Stephan leks are talking thank for those three minutes to the transition repo we wish to uh share a few thoughts and some slides to frame the budget discussion and development that's on the horizon for

059this evening and as I'm fairly certain folks know the members of the executive team were in the space to help lead this conversation and as they introduce themselves they will as they begin to talk they will introduce themselves here shortly that's all right so a couple of slides to frame the conversation uh for this evening um in board docs uh we have information about our budget proposal uh the three-part budget some other technical information and these slabs are intended to simplify it a little bit and knowing that we're going to get to those very detailed uh line items and questions here in short order tonight and in the F at Future meetings and because of the conversation we've been have I would say now for the last two years uh the budget proposal that and

060recommendations we have for you as a team from our perspective will one meet the needs of our Learners um and if I can step back a bit uh we had many budget conversations for the folks who are tuning in for the first time and who want to wear last spring and even after the initial budget proposal did not pass we had more conversations about budget and all along those conversations we were saying that the budget proposals and the budget that we initially adopted was one that will meet the needs of our Learners and I've said it often with the in a high tax state and a person who is uniquely and keenly aware of the uh the tax impact on a community and individual taxpayers and what we desire and need to do for our

061young people this is a delicate balance and it's always been a delicate balance here and the board has tasked us and the board has done an outstanding job from my perspective of putting together funding proposals that balances that and meets the needs of our Learners and if ever putting a budget in front of you that that thought would hurt or negatively impact what we're able to offer as one of the best school distes in the country I would say that and from my perspective and 30 years of experience the budget we're putting forward is one that is strong period and this budget will and we've heard a lot about contracts and compensation and I've said it publicly and it's now on the record in our public negotiations for what we just talked about as far

062as our teachers and our administr it's hard to pay Educators enough let's be clear and that's something that has always existed I got into this industry because I felt like we could do more to support teachers and as a teacher one of my biggest challenges was the ways in which we were compensated so it's been a journey to figure out how communities can pay Educators and more importantly teachers more and as we've negotiated contracts in this school district they from my perspective have been aggressive including the most recent one which was a six-year proposal which was at the time seen as very aggressive and at the same time it was a contract that we set at the time would take a lot for this board to figure out how to meet those needs um we

063said at the time when we passed when we settled on the last contract for six years it may require us to go over the tax cap and we did we said at the time it may require us to go over the tax cap twice in order to meet those kind of contractual obligations and we attempted to do it a second time and we still met those obligations the budget proposal that we're putting in front of you this evening you'll see in there it it includes a compensation proposal and compensation increases that are aggressive from our perspective um at this point I heard someone asked earli about the other bargaining units we we have subtle contracts with all of our bargaining units except for at the association and uh you'll see the range of salary and

064compensation increases that we have settled on the education support professionals is a tentative agreement that we're waiting on a final s signature for and you'll see that the range in which we've settled has been consistent across those bargaining units so we'll come back to that but again I think it's important for us to recognize that our budget increases have been connected to which is people will see is about 80% of our overall budget people and benefits and I'm going you'll see here shortly we have a slide that speaks to our fund balances there's been a lot of conversation about reserve and fund balances we have needed to use our reserves and fund balances to plug budget gaps and budget holds and that number as you will see tonight has gone from a low point of

065$2 million to upwards of we've had years when used eight and we're going to be proposing something tonight in in the six range that is too much and last year's initial budget proposal and the one tonight is an effort to bring down that Reliance on fund balances and our fund balance we get those fund balances because of vacancies we get those fund balances by uh position control there ways in which we manage a budget to build a fund balance but at the end of the day we're still using fund balances and reserves and we're using it from my perspective and according to our third parted independent auditor too much so when you hear when we hear words like Surplus that's just not a word to use we are using our our savings account to fund

066operational things in a way we should not be doing again we need this budget that we're proposing tonight is to mitigate what has been an alarming trend from my perspective and not using as much fund balance and that'll make much more sense than the second when we go the total dollar amount we're proposing this evening is uh 169 169 million and you'll see the annual percentage increase from year to year an overall increase of 3.69% from last year that's the overall budget that we're proposing now we break this down in the details and we'll talk about it over the next couple of meetings what does what makes up this 169 million how much of it is our tax levy some other things to note the tax levy and the tax rate I won't go until

067we did we do this every year I still don't think people really get it but there's a difference between the tax levy and the tax rate the tax levy is the total amount of money that our community submits to support our schools the tax rate is that total dollar amount is that number that one is using to back into their tax bill yes and we'll break that down a little bit further here in a second tax levy that we're proposing with this budget is around $115 million now let me while we're here let me pull up some other data because and I I'm taking a note from your book professor as a bit of a historian I I was asked today earlier that someone who looked at someone was looking at the board docs and

068was trying to do some comparisons between the budget we're proposing tonight and what was originally proposed last year at this time so I want to offer some numbers because the decisions that we made as a board and decisions that our community made did change the trajectory as far as our budget total dollar amount and I Aon you referred to this earlier in your your response the budget tonight uh the tax levy uh this is the total Levy we're looking at about million now that Levy last year when we proposed it initially was going to be around $120 million now the tax overall budget is a 163 you saw there the overall original budget from last year was $170 million so we we're talking five six7 million Deltas between what was a proposed last year at

069this time because I said publicly it was one of the first time I'd ever talked about compensation increases at this table this budget proposal that ultimately did not pass this budget proposal will allow for us to give 20% compensation increases to all of our bargaining units over the next three years and that's not me talking out of school that's what I said last year and I if if not able to get to this type of a budget with the ways we're using fund balances the ways in which we're trying to support our programs it was going to be difficult to meet that kind of a compensation promise and Frank I'm I I hope folks see it's going to be harder for us to meet that kind of a compensation promise when our Delta has changed

070the trajectory has changed we're talking about compounds Etc we we can go deeper let me go to the next slide here tax levy tax rate you see um we've also asked to stabilize or lower the tax rate that number means a lot to folks I learned that last year even more so than ever before that number is a real number that number means something for folks and you'll see we were at $18 above $18 at one point we brought it down last year was 1480 with the budget proposal we have on the table tonight we anticipate even though that's not a solid number most years when we propose that initial number initially it goes down a little bit but right now with our initial projections we think it's going to be around $15.20 as a

071tax rate one more slide here fund balance utilization this is a big one and this is the one our Auditors pay attention to not only do they want to make sure our fund balances and reserves are healthy they also use this when it comes to our our credit ratings and our bond ratings and they want to see that you're not using your fund balances to the extent we are right now for many many years to plug budget gaps you see what we used last year and you're seeing while it's not a significant difference it is us trying to stabilize or minimize what we're using in fund balances to plug those holes in those gaps again just framing put some numbers out there we can have much more discussion in a second once we put it

072all out there the proposal we have in front of you this evening is a proposal and a recommendation we know the board's going to deliberate we will come up with a final budget proposal and that budget vote will be on May 13 I mean I'm sorry May 20th with the budget hearing in this room right Trisha on May 13th and we look forward to the feedback from folks anyway toight be wanted to frame the conversation around numbers and a bit of history of how we got here and look forward to the questions about what we propose any adjustments the board wishes for us to make or anything else folks wish to share as far as reactions to where we find ourselves and I said it at our last at one of our committee meetings and

073I'll say it again what we're proposing is a bit of a rollover budget as much as I hate that term we are maintaining our program programmatic offerings we don't include any significant cuts when we were doing as part of the budget development process I think the last time we presented where we are with projected revenue and projected expenditures we were projecting about a $900,000 gap between revenue and expenditures we were able to as a team we went to our administrative costs and you'll see now you'll see in the trend data our administrative costs are down significantly significantly and mean we needed to make up that $900,000 Gap over the last couple of weeks we didn't go to fund balances because we wanted to stabilize there we want at more administrative cost in the in the

074form of contracts Bose's contracts coers FTE you name it so administrative costs we've heard our community we are down significantly just wanted to underscore that point as folks may be asking from the last two weeks how do we get to balancing the budget without going into fund balances more that's how we did it am I leaving anything out right now team or shall I turn it over to the board for questions of the folks at the table suggestions and actions so if we were to bring the um slide back up with the fund balance and we're down to just using 6.79 million how did we get to that point um it's a reduction from the last two years sure uh part of that was supporting our reserves a little bit so we pushed some of

075the fund balance to some of the reserves that were underfunded and is really how we reduced that the use of our our fund balance at this point and for the folks who are watching going deep uh the last finance committee meeting was all about fund balances in reserves so we spent a significant amount of time identifying and talking about them how we've been utilizing them where we are currently where we want to be in the future always do so I can see you back let me underscore again for the folks who are hearing the fund balances and reserves are lack of savings account we have been operating under the assumption throughout my career that you don't use those savings account to fund operational increases in costs that is a dangerous place to be because once

076you as my predecessor here said once you take it out you have to put it back in or it just won't it's not going to magically appear each year so using it to fund operational increases like compens will create a structural Gap in your budget particularly in a state that is bound by a tax cap and particularly in a state that is bound by a funding formula so let's say we were to use $4 million from our fund balances to fund a 4% increase in compensation next year and let's say we had promised an additional four and four over the next three or four years those increases are going to keep coming where whereas the fund balances will keep dwindling we if we keep going in there we'll just keep taking it out until it's

077all gone and our bond rating is infected and everything else somehow we need to replenish those funds or at some point we will be like other organizations and school districts who have not been able to replenish their fund balances but have you said fund balances to fund compensation increases and they're hemorrhaging staff or they're having to borrow money to meet payroll so that's one of the reasons why we haven't suggested or have gotten direction from the board to use our fund balances to fund what we know is going to be an annual increase every year that compound and taking money out of your piggy bank does not appreciate yeah clear quick question so are you saying that the six to seven million that we have up there can't be used for teacher salary increases or

078anything else oper ational because it relates to our credit score somehow maybe sure so no it actually is being used to help support the budget currently globally so it's part of our revenues essentially so technically it is so uh sort of explanation of this might help uh folks understand how we use this and how it might be utilized fully and not available again so uh year to year this might that that fund balance might roll over last was we have positions that weren't filled we have other unexpended um costs that may not have occurred uh and that's why that rolls over that may not happen from year to year so it is part of our budget we expect to spend it um that may not have happened last year but it might this year once

079it's gone we can't roll it over again so I hope that answers your question exct that that is the fund balance we're using towards the budget the total 169 right it's part of that 169 that we're using so how much is remaining in our fund balance how safe do we feel about that and what are our current ratings sure we're rated I'm gonna defer to Mrs I believe it's a AA minus right now right that's our current rating dou minus which is it's pretty solid yeah I actually want to pull that up would you mind I we have a slide give us a second we have a slide that shows it that be used in the past it was I sent you at the end there thank you and if you could speak to like

080a health care some of the uh fund balances or Reserve counts that we probably underfunded with absolutely thank you appreciate it let me bring what's up can D I don't know if the plan is go through those slides if it's already been gone through before but it may be helpful to go through them again so I don't know I just want to make sure we're going to get to some of these data points absolutely they're all revised too so happy to do that so this document here shows all of our reserves it shows our fund balances of of note here is on the far right it it talks about our recommended funding levels for our reserves and that comes from different parties depending on what the reserve actually is so on the left where it

081says balance shows our current balance on the right it shows what the recommended balances should be so where we have the opportunity to fill our reserves we we want to do that we want our reserves to be fully funded um and I'll just draw your attention for example for to health insurance health insurance Reserve that's one I think we can all relate to health insurance costs have been significantly rising in any industry or any organization that we're all familiar with that and so you can see what the recommended reserves should be although ours is fairly healthy it's not where it the recommendation suggests and and you can sort of see that across the board for the reserves um our nonspendable fund balance um that's really incumbrances that are currently in place from the previous year

082and those we expect will be expended uh our appropriated fund balance that figure has to be adjusted yet that's currently the 6.9 million that's showing there now that should be adjusted to that figure from 8.7 that's the one that we uh reduced and and triy to fill some of our other reserves with at this point or intend to do that um those that's the fund that rolls over we hope from year to year that we help help support the budget and take some of the burden off the taxpayer um but again if that's expended and we fully anticipate that it could be um it's then gone uh the final the unassigned fund balance that's what the state allows us to keep as that final savings that 4% limit that we're allowed to keep as as

083reserves uh and that really truly is essentially a rainy day fund and I'll note uh Sean you were here uh the Gap elimination adjustment the fiscal crisis uh a global pandemic uh other state aid adjustments we've used appropriated fund balance to plug some gaps when we needed it [Music] and the social political context that we're in right now with the threats to significant federal state and local dollars is something we need to be paying attention to and if that were to come I would be probably recommended to you that we look to our fund balance to fill some gaps while in l of layoffs or in Virginia when it happened in 2008 and 10 um Furlow when he sent my mother who was making $155,000 a year home for five days without pay like we

084gotta be we got to be thoughtful about social political context and where would we go if the bottom fell out from our traditional funding sources and unfortunately I hear a lot of that rhetoric as we speak today well I think it's important for context because you know it's I've been doing this six years and it still takes a while to sink in so I think about people who are here who might not hear about a lot of this budget things and a lot of new board members so you know you're talking about ratings we're talking about having the recommended funding level I mean what does that mean for our savings for our Revenue can you just explain the importance of having those you know Stellar ratings and and how important that is to our fiscal

085Health as a dist District yeah on a very simple level we we go out for uh cap or capital projects for example we go out for bonds that rating is essential because it dictates the crit the the percentage that we pay on those Bonds in real simple terms that's what it comes down to and and when we're talking about projects that are 30 40 million or more up to 125 million historically those percentage points can cost so our bond rating is essential in in determining those and it wasn't long ago I keep going back to the history here um we were on the list of what's the name of that list is the state uh watch list for fiscal there's a list that the state has that put school districts um on notice for fiscal

086instability we were on that list not long ago and I wish I knew the name right I'll look it up in a second but we've worked hard to get back into solid footing and standing and it's taken us about eight years to do so and we're there now so Dr R I think many of us understand what the number that's being presented or proposed um and at the same point time that tells us little about what is actually being proposed and so I don't know if there is going to be um a little bit more depth in terms of uh either line by line section by section uh I think that probably many of our questions we would hold on to until we saw that kind of data to be able to engage a little

087bit more in depth and well let's do that um there's far program and other things when I say Rollo I really do mean that like it's much of what we're doing today as we sit here and we're using State codes here to see for each of these sections so this is actually our three-part budget broken down you've seen this and this is the revised version to meet the the uh proposed budget of 169 uh that that Bridges the Gap we talked about at 900,000 with the tax cap that we proposed the next slide is actually our hold on if we can go back to that for so on the left hand side that's 2425 that's the revote that was approved for by the voters to the right of that is 2526 that's the 169 that's

088being proposed at this point in time that's correct with possible changes from each program is that admin costs Capital costs okay correct but can we leave this up for just a quick second sure and so to be clear when you're saying this Dr Brown you're saying that this budget you feel good about can't remember the direct quote but I mean we're not looking at any Cuts but we're also not looking at adding anything back that we had remov at this point we're keeping the same ratios and formulas or approaches to Staffing that we've had this current years and that's minimum class sizes at the elementary level and secondary level not at the secondary level not running a class with less than 15 students um so that was a tough move and a difficult and challenging

089move for us last spring and we are making it work right now um and it's again it's challenging but that's where we're we're getting used to that new approach to Staffing um but not a restoration our recommendation is not for a recommendation but open to any questions conversations or recommendations or suggestions from y'all guess a big question I have is you know just being a Community member which three students in in our districts you know I hear concerns about the programs we have being cut things that are seemingly extra so for example at Northeast there's a wonderful program called peacekeepers that I know folks here are aware of like people are really concerned that they're going to have to be fighting to keep some of those things that feel like extras but really aren't our

090students need them like are are are people right be concerned that that could be on the chopping block or these are things that like what we have should stay based on our current budget if it were to pass what we have right now will stay there are no recommended reductions to programs period unless there are some shifts with enrollment patterns and class sizes May adjust or if a secondary course does not get a 15 student minimum that course won't run for the next year but it's not to say it won't come back at some point so so no Cuts like we all went through and lived through last spring are on the table if this budget is the one that we adopt but let's bring that back for a second let's acknowledge yeah that there

091were significant Cuts last year to programs uh to Administration uh to a host of things right that folks may or may not have understood or anticipated at the time of the vote and so that's the starting place for us this year is that we made significant Cuts last year and we're trying to maintain programming and even if we were not to add anything and I'm understand that we are in the middle of contractual negotiations with our biggest Union our largest Union but even if we did nothing more the budget in theory would increase with a rollover B budget given what our teachers have already indicated cost of living changing CPI index inflation our goods and services cost more to feed the same amount of students the same amount of meals right so there there are

092some for lack of better word natural increases and that's probably not the the best choice but if even if we added nothing there would be an increase in the budget from year to year unless we had a reduction in programs or reduction in staff and faculty is that am I correct cont our contractual obligations are in the 4% range and have been and with a significant portion of our budget around 80% of our budget being in salaries and benefits folks can anticipate that the budget's going to go up consistently with the the contractual obligation and you're just speaking about salary increases at 4% says nothing about benefits benefit and it's not saying nothing about our electric bill or a gas bill all things that are far outpacing inflation so I I need to underscore that

093for when you see your budget going up 3.69% or close to 4% um if offering eight and n% increases to our bargaining units or we settled on contracts in that range folks it's a simple problem we're all pro teachers we all want to do right by Educators and I live through flat increases or 2% I lived through the 2% World here and that was a tough day too but at the time we were looking at a one or 2% increase to our overall budget or because of the gap of limitation adjustment a budget that was less than the year before that's why we were living in those worlds so if folks are anticipating much more than the three or 4% increases when we look at our state aid we look at our tax cap then

094that's the conversation that but nothing we have shows that we're going to be getting much more than a three or 4% increase from year to year and then lastly for me just with those same cost of living adjustments the same increase in CPI increase in inflation also explains why folks are looking for an additional increase in salary and it's why I was at this table last year saying we need this budget to outpace inflation we need this budget to get the kind of compensation increases to our Educators that they deserve and needed to live in this community I said that and it would be fiscally irresponsible intellectually dishonest for me to say hey we can still do the same thing with a budget that as you I shared earlier is about eight n million less

095than what we were operating under when I was making that bold statement and I mean to be clear as a board that we have done a lot of work this year surrounding ways to generate Revenue outside of adding to taxpayer burden and there have been a lot of conversations to that and I think and maybe my board colleagues want to speak to this as well but the things that we are working on are not things that can clearly cannot happen overnight but they can even they cannot and have not even happened within the year so you know talking about having representation on the Ida talking about looking at how our schools are functioning and potential consolidation of certain things to save money I mean these are things that are all part of the process in

096order to create Revenue save money but we're still working on it like that's that's something we're hopeful toward so this budget isn't reflective of anything other than what we can do now while we're busting our butts trying to figure out other ways to remove a tax burden but create more money for the district these things take a long time y'all the strategy and the plan the Strategic plan we had in place going into last year's budget proposal was a 10-year plan let me remind folks we had talked about for 10 years increasing compensation stabilizing it's fiscal stress I looked it up getting out of fiscal stress uh minimizing our need to use fund balances in reserve those were three big buckets and we said those are things it took us decades to get there and

097a pandemic and a recession speeded things spit SP things up but we knew it would take us a while to get out of that and we put a plan in place to do so we have big dreams now still to stay stable minimize our Reliance on fund balances and to significantly increase compensation I will say it's going to take some time whether it's this board me whoever it is going to take some time to do that in a way that will be sustainable that can and be sustainable in a way that we can avoid the shift based on the social political contextes that we know are coming so it's just going to take some time and our approach is aggressive right now when it comes to compensation do board memb still have any more questions

098about this slide or we want to keep sorry go ahead I don't know what what else are we gonna say well I don't that's what well that's what I was gonna ask if we wanted to go on to some other data points as well before we ask more questions or want to sit here and ask some addition more questions I I actually have one question I want to make sure we get to because we we already went past that slide but you spoke of tax rate tax levy we said tax rate 15 uh 1520 right what does that mean for taxpayers are we going to offer something on the website for a calculator like what do what is that going to mean for our community yeah we can do that in real simple terms it's

099$15.20 per th000 of assess value real simple calculation but we can put that online so a small change I don't remember the slide but last year it was 14 something 1480 okay so it's a very slight change 40 cents per correct got a question oh wait much of what we're sharing is going to be on our budget website and I sometimes I'm I'm fearful of saying go to our website but let's be clear um this is complex stuff that takes years of folks to understand and digest and that is just a fact so anyone thinking they're going to listen to the presentation tonight and all of a sudden going to understand our budget that's just not going to happen it will require you to dig deep into some information that is available ask us questions

100send us emails use the let talk portal like this is it will require some engagement with some very complex I wouldn't begin to try to understand the city of io's budget and if I were to go to their meetings and speak about their budget I would have to do a lot of work to try to have a sense of what even questions to ask that's the same here too y'all um because last year I remember folks were thinking they were going to watch one of our budget presentations and then it was going to all make sense it's just so yes some information is on the website but whatever way you wish to engage with us we're asking for your engagement well I want us to continue because I need some additional more information but it's

101also a reminder to folks that if there are questions folks have done an I think an amazing job over the past couple years with the FAQ page so send those questions in because if you have that question most likely somebody else does as well and we've been trying to catalog these for and there's also previous years FAQs as well uh so it is a robust website maybe not the easiest to navigate I I understand that but there are significant amounts of information and as a public entity all information has to be made publicly available so it's there and if you don't find it let us know uh we'll make sure that does get out there as well so let's see what else you have for us what else you want to do so I I

102Dr Brown mentioned that you know it's a rollover budget really lack of a better term but it is essentially a rollover budget what that allows a district to do is take the time to reevaluate it's a breather essentially so it's actually good to be able to do that uh this is the line by line budget uh it's seven pages long so it's impossible to show on this slide but I would encourage you to to kind of briefly look at it now in a rollover budget most of these items are going to increase based on what you what you've seen the the minimal increases there are some areas that are larger um for example one of the areas is our our maintenance of facilities uh we know that we need to maintain those at a higher

103level so the cost you're going to see there is an increase there that's somewhat significant uh just looking at the building conditions and so on so there there was a request for that there there's increase and there's some other areas in there as well that are that you'll see some slight increases but again I'd encourage you to to look through that I can pull the link up but it won't show here so I can ask you to take a moment to look at that and it's in board dos too it is all we don't see it in board dos it will be in board dos quickly yeah um question while we're looking for links you know we're talking about Maintenance and Facilities here and you know some folks understand the importance of utilizing capital budget

104or sorry the capital projects because we do get money back from the state so how much of our maintenance falls under capital projects and how much of it is just coming out of our pocket and can you explain to folks listening you know the importance of utilizing a capital budget sure to some degree I kind of that's a much broader conversation I know we've had the there's been a presentation in the past by U the folks who handle that for us but very basically so our Capital funds we receive Aid on that and it's I forget our actual Aid amount I might look to Emily for that but it's about 52% that we receive back over time depending on the work that's completed that's a totally separate budget than what you see here this is

105really our operational costs um and some of this is aided as well it's an expense based Aid so it's along the same calculation as well but some of these costs are the costs we have every day on a daily basis the the just the standard repairs and maintenance that we have to do and we have to support that fall outside the capital projects I hope that helps it's a very simplified version of that what you will see in in this budget Aon if I'm not mistaken is a expense for the debt payments that we have for those capital projects so while that Capital project is a separate budget uh the debt that we pay every year is part of the operational budget that we should see um maybe this is also a good time to

106remind folks a little bit of of process about where we find ourselves uh we'll be talking about some things later on this evening I'll be asking the board if your willingness to have a special voting meeting next Tuesday in between policy and HR we have a board meeting on April 8th um we are scheduled to do final budget adoption on April 22nd so tonight is one of the times that we get to ask questions and explore and we have other times to do that as well so they're we're not asking anybody to be like okay I'm good with this budget it's more like okay I'm learning what's in this budget and let's keep asking questions over the next couple of meetings I think that process is extremely important for folks to realize that it will

107be again a protracted conversation not uh thank you for showing us were good um if it were only that simple uh and we know that it's not and we'll continue to break this down too in the next meeting so we'll we'll share more more detail as we move along um I believe we well I have a question um during the public comment there was a comment that um 2.1% of state aid where there's an increase of 2.1% and are we getting that amount or is that New York state that's the executive budget from the governor that's to be finalized by April 1 and is it across the board 2.1% or for this District because the way I interpreted that statement like it's for this District highly unlikely it's not across the board I I wouldn't

108assume so it never has been it probably just a be a generic increase for all school districts but but not spread equally I think it probably would follow a similar formula they're that they're using now that complex formula we did see an increase in Aid as we've mentioned before in Foundation but I don't think we'll see that as an even distribution right thank you I hope I stand corrected there but we'll see how that goes yeah this is backing things up quite a bit now that we're into this discussion um but I am quickly learning that there is a there is some misunderstanding about what a but what we're talking about when you're saying you're proposing a budget and what a budget is meant to be um and and the difference of a budget kind

109of being a a plan for people to kind of understand kind of the general plan of where Investments are going versus a line by line um you know showing people exactly where every single tax dollar is going to and what it's being paid for can you guys like step back and kind of help people understand like why what we're being given and what and what the public gets in general is not is a is a budget proposal and not like a line by line list of every single thing that's going to be spent and where please sure sounds good so essentially what's the level of discretion that we have in the budget correct so one of the the methods in in in sharing the bud budget process since I've been here is to kind of

110break it down at a high level and continue to break it down uh and to get to those very specific lines where we are tonight so we started very early with hey the state's giving us x amount of dollars as Revenue right and that sort of the same idea when it comes to discretion and and how it's me so the board has discretion you you approve budgets for us on a global level and you see it to this degree and at this point now we're at the what we refer as line by line it can be broken down even further I mean much much further obviously right down to an individual salary so at some point there's discretion for administration that we have because we have to make those decisions on a daily basis so

111there is a line there at some point um I my Jack Brown car that both then and um that's why I always say a proposed and a recommended budget from us to you because from my perspective the board vote this is your budget and and our budget but the board is the one who tells us which budget what dollar amount we have to expend and you didn't UST us to navigate between lines move things along and most of the things we move between lines are ultimately approved by the board in some ways um or looked at by our Auditors so there's some discretion but not very much in this state so if we can this is partly what I was asking for can we in this slide right here if I'm not mistaken can we

112go back to it says proposed budget factors to the very first the very first slide is this the same presentation uh no this one no says this right here oh no that's that's the state revenue slide yep can we can we go back to that just I think I have a different presentation uh it should be there go yep so can we just start here for a sec and not start here but spend some time so part of the question we're being asked about an increase in state aid right so if this is the document that in essence shows that could you walk us through this so the first part is foundation Aid right that's that's really General Revenue to help support the budget for the district so that's where we saw a significant inre

113from last year and I partially due to the conversations about the formula changing at the state level um we don't know what that formula necessarily is but there was a sign significant CH significant change that benefited us uh we saw about a 12 to 133% increase in Foundation 8 that's the line we really want to see the increase increase in okay um the rest the next section is expense based a they're really those figures come from what we've spent in the previous year it's kind of a projection of where we would be this year and we receive that Aid in the following year so um and we talked about building Aid that one's a bit of a moving Target we never really know it's a decent estimate but it again it's based on the projects

114that we complete and the reimbursements that we apply for uh we expect that as I've mentioned before to increase because we know that we have projects coming off and we know that we'll be putting in for reimbursements that's likely to increase a little bit um and again Transportation Aid we receive that back based on our use and and expenses in that area boses Aid and excess cost Aid follows the same calculation the next part I'm sorry please Contin the real simple the instructional materials Aid Works along the same lines if those are per pupil allocations that we receive for those specific uh costs and that's what gets us to the final state aid figure so in terms of our state aid while there's been a 12% 12.78% increase in the foundation Aid that were projecting

115the district receipts waiting for confirmation as well right the overall total state aid is about a 3.1 3.31% increase that's correct given some of our building Aid that we did not spend as much the prior year as we did the year before corre right that's right and it all goes into our general fund that's something we got to clear up too some folks are saying we couldn't use certain a doll but all of this goes in general f and this is both related to what we're talking about and not at the same time so please for folks to bear with me right when I my apology something that I teach with students we're having this conversation now Statewide or Across the Nation the average is about 45% State funding 45% local funding and 10% Federal

116funding that is not the formula you see here we don't we don't abide by that sort of General average it's 70% locally funded 25% state aid and about 5% additional funds which would include some federal funds as well as grants as well so even that total 5% is not all federal money I just think that given everything that's taking place and people having conversations about Department of Education that are what how we fund education in Ithaca um May replicate some other communities um but it's important for us to know about how much of our money comes from the federal government as well I felt like we needed to understand that part of it so and our to be very specific our federal funds are about 5.2 million that we receive an eight can I just

117jump back back in from what I was asking before um can I think the discretion your discretion as District district leadership of how to spend the budget that is approved that is what I think would be really helpful for people to understand kind of where I I think that there is like a a significant misunderstanding about um how much is included in the proposed budget and how much is up to your discretion and if you can share like you base it off of like the three Central goals that we have that you're focused on and then where like how can people get a little bit of a better understanding about well where does my where do my tax dollars go I want to you know I want more details and how can we answer that

118in even a more kind of like strategic focused way um and I was hope this sound b gets printed um I don't have all the power people think I do let's be clear um we put out a formula um minimum class sizes for example or acceptable class ranges or no class running below 15 that is a Formula that we're abiding by Across The District now the discretion may come with uh how long does it take to fill a position or as we have some open positions right now which have been open for a while we're I'm deciding to keep them open because I'm one we got to make sure we build some fund violence or we got make sure we're going to have the funds or a budget that will support us next year in

119a way where we won't have to make Cuts so discretion typically is around how we manage the lines that folks have access to right now not creating a new line not moving monies around not because I've heard those same things too um that you have $169 million you can figure out where it goes that's just not true now just like any manager um we decide when we're going to post and post for an elementary principal um hopefully we find one and if we don't then what would happen in that scenario will we not fill the position will we keep it open um will we use that as an opportunity like we did with some executive team executive team members and other administrators who've left this year and last do we keep those open to achieve

120some savings so that's some of the discretion um and we do it as transparently as we can but uh hey we're not making decisions every day about how to place $169 million into different line items that's something that's publicly available if you want to spend the time to look at the lines do we have access to the proposed budget by function code yeah yeah that's the the one that I just shared the seven page document we can't the link isn't working so we can't open can you click oh it's not working on here it's we don't have access to it for some reason that's not a you thing but we'll get that to you thank you in those seconds I think another question um like Mary in our curriculum meeting mentions uh you know grant-funded

121things such as projects Innovation but that's only so many years so you know our programs that are funded by grants when those grants go away what are we left with you know what what are we at risk of losing if we don't if these grants don't become renewed uh Etc yeah I was atuc table we had the we had no summer program and other districts in our region have had to stop summer programming and it took us a few years to build that line item back up in our budget and then thanks to Mary Grover and some other folks who worked hard to secure grant funding we were able to build a rather robust program so like everything else um we are planning for these things to be sustainable but when unforeseen circumstances take place

122then all those things are at Jeopardy so I hope I'm ask you a question is uh the question I think you're asking how do we support the programs that we know are working when some of them are funded by federal programs or monies that are not promised to us we have to build it or not and those are tough sumers when we had no summer programming here I'm G to keep coming back every time I get an opportunity to talk so and yeah please so once you you delegate responsibility for thinking about like for for a school yeah uh um you delegate responsibility to the school leader to manage a budget that is kind of that is earmarked for like both yeah they supply lines at a school for example to purchase uh instructional materials

123or textbooks or supplies with the Supply Closet I'm not managing that um I have been in districts where the central office reached out mid year and say don't spend any more money because we're facing a budget crisis we haven't had to do that here but also and that's not a line item when it comes to certain FTE for example though like last year last spring we decided no class is going to run at our secondary schools that's less than 15 that was a tough one for us and so we're managing and monitoring how that's being implemented in schools and what or or class sizes at the elementary level if a class got gets to 26 or 27 principales are reaching out to us and they're asking if they have authorization to advertise for a new

124teacher and we're either granting it or not so I hope this is giving you a better sense of how man there some things we don't but there are some things that we all want yeah no I I I really appreciate you I I know that it's a they may seem simplistic but it's really it's like difficult for people I think to understand these things so if we were talking about uh esps in in a school and the number of that that are not related like to a IEP plan that are not like required um through that like is that a school building decision like the Mary deals with this every day so uh maybe it's a great question on ES so educational support professionals are assigned um per a student individual education plan that's one

125position they can either be AIDS or Tas what we did last year and the year before is started to Norm across all of the buildings what there were some building based positions for example family liaison ta math ta those we no longer have this year that was part of the budget efficiency last year um there are some grants that allow us to keep them so for example prek has has a few family Leons for all of the classrooms um the only non one to one Aid or adult support situation that we maintained last year across all eight Elementary buildings are building AIDS which are in the prek classroom so they work in the prek classroom but they also support lunch and recess okay thank you I'm searching in through my brain to make sure I'm

126representing everything accurately um at the secondary level there are um some enlas through title funds so as we were talking about what is funded federally those title funds help us sustain some of those positions thank you I think um I would need a couple not I would need I need a couple of things moving forward um I need to see budget budget expenditures um I understand we have some assumptions about budget revenue and um I I know that the finance committee had part of this conversation so we can anticipate some Revenue assuming that there would be approval of a budget that's put forward with a particular tax levy right that part I understand um in addition to that so that's part of the sort of by seeing the budget by function code and what has

127changed from year to year would help explain the the $6 million increase from last year's budget to the proposed budget um I would also need to see what a contingency budget would look like um should uh the budget be voted down once or twice to see to get an idea of what that would look like for lack of a better word if we were operating under austerity um that would be helpful for me understand what those expenditures were as well um but without seeing like I get an idea of the number I understand where the money comes from I understand what the ask is of the community and maybe this is getting to what Emily's asking for without having a better sense of where the money will be spent or where more importantly the increases

128are from a rollover budget um and where the some of the reductions are then it's hard to ask um more specific questions that would make me feel uh better about um supporting the budget if that makes sense and I don't want to say like I'm not supporting the budget um I know given a number of factors uh that even what we even what's being proposed may not get us to where everyone in our organization would like us to be that part I understand um but without seeing those sort of maybe even a side by-side comparison of those expenditures um that's the part that I think I'm missing as one board weren't we showing the expenditures before when we had 2425 and like the six column document yeah I I need that either printed out for

129me or I need better glasses is or I need and I also know that that same function code actually goes a slight step deeper than that as well so as Dom said it's a seven-page document um seeing the one page doesn't help me engage in the seven page analysis so I need that that's why I was asking for access to that full document as well just invite folks uh April 8th Finance meeting we'll be looking more at the budget overall and also going through Transportation arts and Athletics so come there yeah additional questions please yeah um last year the original budget was voted down and we had to make you had to make significant Cuts we had to we we we had to make significant Cuts what is your like a year is later like

130what not even a year I guess what are the takeaways from those cut like are you since we're talking about a rollover budget and maintaining all of the same like not bringing back any of the things that were cut like are you does that mean that you're confident that we that it didn't create like harm those cuts like did is there anything that you feel like we really need to bring back in order to kind of write something that had impacts on on students and our community thanks for asking um bring back no um harm is too harsh of a word from my perspective but it did impact our plans um I have adored the small class sizes in the school district our class sizes are larger I have appreciated and love our language program

131our AP program and other course offerings that at times when you walk to those classrooms there may be five or six students there that it's been a gift in this community and has made us special and I miss having it I want to pay all Educators more particularly our lowest paid which are in bargaining units that we've settled with right now at 4% while 4% is aggressive I would have lik to have paid eight or nine so when that budget went down that changed our plans a plan that we have been working towards for a decade to increase compensation to maintain one of the best school district in the nation because of our class size and our enrollment patterns all those things now because we have a great board a great Community outstanding Educators and

132a team that season we will navigate it and manage it the other thing that I if I can use the word harm would I'm feel harmed by and scarred by as we were making those decisions over the course of three weeks so when I'm stopped in the grocery store and people are upset about the loss of positions or programs that we were having to make decisions about in the middle of the summer when people were on vacation and they were coming back in August and finding out that they weren't here anymore that hurt and that's not our traditional program and approaches we were not able to talk to people we were not a to have board meetings to talk about why we making such decision we were asked over a couple of weeks to do

133something that typically takes us years to do and I am carrying those scars because it's hard to feel good about it and as the target people say I don't trust the decision or I didn't like the decision I'm sure you didn't like I didn't like it either you think I wanted to tear apart programs Mandarin that I have worked for years to build and bring into this organization all of a sudden I have to say we can't do it anymore uh some of the substitute teacher position what we that position I worked to build over the course of years I and having to make those decisions over the course of a couple weeks and say they are gone and have to look people in their eyes who I love and recruited to do those roles

134that's hard so I will the harshness I will put on my shoulders as the leader but overall we're still doing good stuff and we still have a budget that meets the needs of our Learners and yes I would love to have class sizes at first grade or 14 or have an AP or a managing program that had five six students that's beautiful and maybe one day we get back there but the fiscal environment does not support it thank you Dr Brown and whomever I mean just to go off that question you know as someone who you know we look at the Personnel report this evening and I see some amazing staff that's left because I I think I assume we they probably found better paying jobs elsewhere and as you mentioned those esps are some

135of our most valuable Educators and you know being able we talked we heard a public comment about staff retention and I just wonder in this current climate you know I know as a board we're working hard to generate Revenue I just wonder what direction we can go in order to be able to pay people what they're worth as we look to the Future and Future negotiations I just don't I mean we've we've talked at nauseum about legislative advocacy about Foundation Aid and I just I I wonder in your years you know where's the Hope here of of how how to how to write the ship for public education is there any of course let me be clear despite that dark commentary I just provided I'm as Mo I'm more optimistic and excited about the future

136as anybody in the room and haven't lived through this and yes we have an RP right now to provide us some technical expertise to look at our expenditures and uh enrollment projections and what does that look like and does it look like more building fural buildings does it look like moving things around does it look like selling properties it look like that's the work and I can't my community right now they close Columbia Elementary School is a beautiful place it had 70 students in it when I was there and when I taught there and up until about 10 years ago and now there's one Elementary School in the entire not to mention not saying we're gonna do that y'all but after years of study and conversation they found more efficient ways to do even better

137for young people my niece and nephew went to a school was much larger and had more access to programming and was a better envir but the folks like myself who wanted Colombia there because it's what we always knew we struggled with it initially but now I see the benefits so I am signing up to navigate us through these challenging times in a way where it's going to be value add and an enhancement not us taking away stuff I think we can do both and yes we will continue to I yo seven years ago we were saying we want to be aggressive on compensation at the time when we proposed something initially it was not where we wanted to be or the ITA and other folks wanted to be and we kept working and we ultimately

138decided on decided on six-year agreements with most of our bargaining units at a number that people had not thought about before people at this table were upset because we were offering wait for it four three and three right because we had not heard of those kind of numbers and we knew at the time that was aggressive and it would require us to be creative in our approaches to and we did it now we're putting numbers out there that people that is that are aggressive and frankly are going to push us and challenge us to do things in in we changed our investment strategies we Consolidated programs we offered new programs we figured out other hey at one point we were a part of a healthc care Consortium right that was costing us a significant amount

139of money and was you know we those increases were far outpacing anything we were able to plan for so we decided to go self-insured y'all now y'all didn't add a whole lot of Staff now we bought that $30 million program inhouse with existing people Bob Amanda myself and we're now managing a $30 million entity and are able to manage the increase in cost from year to year so there are ways to do this and you're right it's going to require some season folks and some challenging thinking but a community of folks too the US versus them doesn't work it's us all looking to do the same thing but we got to be tight on how we get there uh to the community and to board members the document that I had asked for um that

140I was referencing that I have asked for that I was referencing the budget presentation document by function code is now part of the publicly available board docs if I'm not mistaken for that section am I correct about that it's under the agenda it's updated now and it's part of the public face part of board dos as well right so the very document in terms of the budget document that is the document that we normally engage and having a conversation about where we're increasing where we're decreasing um that document I think would be much more helpful for us in terms of having some further deliberations uh to Emily's Point like if people want to know where are my tax dollar is going uh the bar graphs that's great right the uh the pie charts that's great

141as well um and at some point in time we're getting down to actual dollar numbers and so that document would be helpful um it probably be good for the board to be able to have some time to um examine that document again as one board member I don't know if other board members agree I would like to see a contingency budget um and not necessarily making more work for folks to fill this out but just give me the number at this point in time uh I think I have an idea of what that number would be but it'd be important for us to to know and to hear that um but I think that we would probably need some time to digest this um and come uh on the eth uh for this conversation um

142in much more in much more depth um and if needed to add any additional meetings there we are the 15th is break that is not going to work for an additional meeting but let's see where we are on the eth it may mean a meeting on the 10th as well additional thoughts reactions comments good folks and I sure a number of us would love this document and print old school paper we can deliver it to you how like the old school days if we did that every Friday afternoon them things there used to be a Friday afternoon drop off you are correct for board stuff well I'll just give my regular reminder that we've now are meeting with two different PT we've already been to one of them it was a very fruitful conversation and

143they really appreciated us uh visiting uh the school and hearing their questions and concerns and sharing uh the information that we had so if uh from all the other schools if you want to coordinate with your ptas we would be happy to come come by additional questions comments just a comment with the contingency budget we will also receive this function by code which will show what a negative impact may look like yeah yeah all right good folks move on to the next agenda item fantastic thank you appreciate it looking forward to the additional conversations that are yet to come um agenda item 11.2 is a uh well do folks need a break are we good we're going to push through keep going uh I got Jill in my ear no one else even spoke but

144just Jill saying keep going uh resolution calling the 2025 annual district meeting and election of the Ithaca City School District and authorizing related matters uh to board colleagues knowing that this language uh was uh uploaded um earlier today for a variety of reasons uh one idea that we have is to explore what is on here there are mainly two pressing items from my perspective uh and that is again the ask of having a meeting next Tuesday between policy and HR to actually adopt this notice the notice has to be in a newspaper by April 5th if I'm not mistaken so and we are hoping to hold to an April 1 deadline um and that uh if folks feel comfortable today we can proceed uh but the key issue is that we would also be voting

145on a proposition two which would include expenditures of money already encumbered correct me if I'm wrong at this point in time so we're not asking to raise money we're asking for the possibility of spending money up to a certain amount um for uh some additional uh buses to keep our Fleet going I know if folks are ready to talk about our bus fleet at all as well as some capital outlay projects that we know um have been discussed in facilities if I'm not mistaken about some work that needs to be done at some of our elementary schools so um yeah how would folks like to proceed i' to see I'd like to see the specifics yep uh on the capital project expenditures particularly so we could very well meet between human resources was that your

146prop proposal yeah my proposal would be to have some conversation about it today tonight I know we're getting long but uh and then we would need to adopt on uh April 1 because we'd have to get it into the paper uh and if we can bring up the language for proposition to that would be fantastic or board members can see it here uh the first part of that annual meeting notice is simply identifying the date of the election as well as the location of our polling uh that seems to be sort of standard we have not at this point in time had any conversation about changing our polling locations so we'd be the same as we did last year the date is set by other folks but we're just sort of approving the date and

147the real conversation for us would be uh the language around proposition to um at this point in time uh for our community as well just to maintain some um Clarity and consistency uh the board has decided not to go out for a capital project uh in May there is a discussion and conversation about going out for a cop project in November or December uh as we have some more time to finalize the numbers and the projects um and for other members of the community this relates to a number of questions that we've been being asked things around bjm things around South Hill things around Enfield and Caroline all of those will be part of a larger Capital project conversation uh that will not be connected to the U may vote this year but it does

148include thank you very much it does include this language if board members can see it uh about again expenditure not um Revenue not asking for this money but the expense of this money having seen the particulars you're right these are all things we've discussed a great deal and I'd be ready to vote any time on this same agreed so again for transparency sake a key difference last year we had significant conversation about bus purchasing in particular our concerns our board member shared concerns about the purchase of electric buses at this point in time the governor's mandate stands there's debate about whether that will continue um but by 2035 the entire ICD bus fleet needs to be zero not the entire ICD bus fleet every public school district of New York State's bus fleet needs to

149be full of zero emission buses uh we have been on a somewhat regular basis of replenishing our Fleet almost within every 10 years not mistaken so about 10% of our buses we've been purchasing every year taking other buses out of the fleet find that that was the fiscally responsible way to do it in terms of repair miles wear and tear uh you name it and so that's how we proceed and so the numbers that you see here in terms of the number of buses the kinds of buses um relate to the needs that we have in not purchasing electric buses but a conversation about purchasing low emission or zero emission propane buses as the move we made last year in part and this year and again my apologies I know this has also been discussed

150at facilities um we know that right now uh whether or not ICD was ready for electric buses our infrastructure structure and not just icd's infrastructure the power grid would not support us at this point in time uh being able to get additional electric buses and so that is not the route that we are going um even while folks may have seen some a couple of our local school districts in the area are purchasing additional electric buses but I should ask how many do we have just for reference yeah yeah because at at at last week's um social justice the climate Justice action the climate Justice Alliance the student group um was a bit disheartened that we as a board as a school district are not moving ahead in purchasing electric buses and I reminded them

151that the community said that we needed to slow down Y and we listened to the community last year and as a result of that they that's of the reasons why they want to come and share out again at the facilities committee as well as um try to engage more in the community and I think that's a conversation that the board is open to uh and I apologize I'm looking at Todd because I think you and I had this conversation right now if I'm not mistaken there's a at least a one-year supply for Transformers did you and I have this conversation U yeah yeah on the side of Transformers yeah closer to two at times right so even if the district wanted to go all electric it it takes some a long-term planning if I'm not

152mistaken so Bob or anything that you'd like to add about our our bus fleet only I will just remind folks that the current technology and I um heard some promising um items on uh Battery Technology but if that does not materialize we will not be able to do our entire leag electric it it's just an impossibility at this point we we anticipate maybe 60% additional questions concerns so this is something that the board could vote on today if the board is comfortable doing so has seen the number the projects that we're aware of that have been discussed at facilities uh this would simply again to be to put this proposition on a ballot for this number of bus purchases as well as setting the polling locations I'm seeing a couple of head nods multiple head

153nods not every say it again it's amazing Jill did you look over I did I saw G Emily would you want uh yeah I'm I'm never a fan of well I have to to be a fan of majority rules because that's what it calls for but I'm seeing the majority of head nod so then if that's the thing then I guess I'll call the question uh should the resolution not pass it can be revoted again next week if one of the people who did not vote for it um raises it again so just procedurally what the Roberts rules so if that's the case then we'll entertain motions motion to approve resolution calling the 2024 annual meeting in ction of the itha city school district and authorizing related matters 2025 2025 thank you very good reader

154but it's been moved do we have a second second uh I heard Aaron first did Todd did you second it yes I almost just for histo history I want to put Todd out there uh I'll allow it I'll allow it moved by Jill second by Todd how's that uh debate discussion dialogue questions uh hearing none then we'll call the question all in favor all opposed any extensions we got it fantastic thank you all very much uh we will move on to agenda items uh coming up next these agenda items um for the most part thank you very much Bob appreciate it these agenda items um for the most part are uh are formalities of adding Dr Lei to um authorizations and for uh our as our new business official so that's what we have for

155the next couple at any point in time anyone has a question we'll entertain them but otherwise we'll go through them sort of one by one um that is the that is up to the board should they choose for that to take place it may just be better for us to go quickly one by one right because not all of the names are the same on each one that is correct right uh agenda item 11.3 will entertain motions motion to authorize assistant superintendent for business Dr Dominic Lei and assistant super assistant school business executive Emily shite to sign agreements contracts or any obligations with vendors Consultants contractors or other service providers for the 202 5 26 or4 26 2425 202 2425 school year second move by Jill second by Adam any discussion all in favor unanimous

156it also gives me an opportunity to once again publicly say Emily ship thank you for all that you have done and continue to do uh and will do and will do right good point um agenda item 11.4 we'll entertain motions motion to appoint assist superintendent for business Dr Dominic Lei is purchasing agent and assistant school business executive Emily shy is Deputy purchasing agent of the Ithaca City School District itha New York for the fiscal year 20242 2025 second moved by Jill second by Adam any discussion all in favor that is unanimous again thank you very much 11.5 motion to appoint assistant super attendant for business Dr Dominic Lei and assistant school business executive Emily shite to represent the Ithaca City School District on the workers compensation Cooperative board for 2024 2025 second moved by Jill

157second by Adam any discussion all in favor unanimous 11.6 authorizing motion to authorize fishop Baris for Clerk of the itha city school district itha New York and Dr Dominic Lei assistant superintendent for business to sign agreements reports and claims to the State education department in connection with the operation of the national school lunch program in the schools of the city school district cffa New York for the 2024 2025 school year second move by Jill second by Adam any discussion call the question all in favor unanimous again 11.7 to appoint Lori Mudge as treasurer of the itha city school district itha New York for the 2024 2025 fiscal year second move by Jill second by Adam any discussion all in favor 11.8 motion to approve the designation of Treasurer Lori Mudge and assistant school business executive

158Emily shy as the authorized signers for the dispersement of all funds of the itha city school district itha New York during the 2024 2025 fiscal year second move by Jill second by Adam any discussion all in favor unanimous uh and 11.9 motion to delegate the authority to invest School District Monies to Dr Dominic Le the assistant superintendent for business and or Lori Mudge the treasurer in accordance with sections 1604-a and 1723 d a of the education law and any other pertinent regulations second moved by Jill second by Adam any discussion all in favor thank you very much that now officially certifies Dr Le's role with us and other folks as well thank you all very much for going through those uh that'll bring us to agenda item um yep 11.10 which is a healthc care

159benefits audit uh as part of uh the audit internal audit every year the district has an opportunity to focus on a particular area uh this past year the ask was to focus on health care benefits uh in particular um to particular since we have moved things in house and not just being self-insured but then also taking care of all the book keeping inous as well um I happened to be the chair of the audit committee um it was uh I will say again congratulations to Emily shyp it was a phenomenal audit if I'm not mistaken there was only one instance where uh someone uh received health care benefits um even though they were no longer working for the district and just that was the only note that we received um and otherwise it was a

160very glowing um healthc care benefits audio from uh our outside auditor so again a really good demonstration of sound fiscal management greatly appreciate it I think there's a three or four-page document that is in board docs for folks to see as well uh there are no corrective actions there is nothing to recommend it was just the one notice and we've already put uh Emily and team have already put steps in place to uh make sure we have other uh the line the word is going to leave me there we go other internal controls uh for future so thank you again for that um but why don't we see if there's a motion and then we can ask some questions if anybody has any questions to approve the 2023 yes 2024 health care benefits audit second

161move by Jill second by Adam any questions discussion um question we did have a Community member who sent an email requesting to be on the audit committee did that follow through or I don't recall that was months ago but uh we have three community members who are currently serving on our audit committee I'm going to forget the names of I'm looking up yes Jed Ashton HEI Dew and who it's hey hey um and uh that was it yes yes yes okay so that was the Community member that just to um reiterate to the community about the the importance of their involvement and they have um requested to be on different committees and so forth we reached out to them yep yep so we thank them yeah we do thank them for their participation as well

162absolutely I couldn't hear all that but chis I Christina and I apolog I can't hear their last name any other discussion about the um audit uh our next audit committee meeting before we vote is June 11th if I'm not mistaken that's I think that's the date we decided April 8 yeah it would be in June yeah June 11th Wednesday June 11th and that is we are looking forward to going over our internal audit at that point in time if everything goes well the current year internal audit so we invite everyone to that but more information will be coming obviously before that time comes so any other questions about the healthcare audit we'll call the question all in favor that is unanimous as well uh I'm going to ask my board colleagues if we want to

163make an executive decision two things one I'm looking at Katie Hart and I know uh Katie and Casey did a phenomenal job of sending out a monthly board report that came out for February another one will be coming out soon for March uh that will include board summaries and includes links to YouTube videos about discussion items includes actions that the Committees have taken and so while we have committee updates for this evening um my thought would be that maybe we table those until the next meeting with an understanding that this summary will be coming out soon um the first week in April and in the meantime those committee meeting summaries are already posted on the website so should any Community member have a question about what is taking place at any committee they can go

164see that there uh but in terms of filling in our fellow board members uh tonight may not be the best evening for us to retain additional information but I I Look to how the board wants to operate Jill has handwritten notes I'm ready to go but it can wait motion to delay second okay y I think we should just say table but we'll just go from there all right so we'll put these on for the April meeting if that works and still go through sharing with our other board members in the meantime feel free to reach out to your colleagues if that's the case then we will bring the meeting to a close thank you all we'll see you all soon