February 25, 2023 BOE Meeting

001joining us everyone thanks for coming back after Thursday night we weren't here too late thank you for a wonderful start to the deliberations it's my pleasure to convene the meeting and um let's start with the Pledge of Allegiance thank you [Music] one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all great thank you so much so I will gladly turn it over to you Andrew thank you thank you Marjorie good morning everybody thanks for joining us just a couple reminders for me before we dive in about what we're doing here today and some format um so we're going to go through the room all the remaining pages of the budget in the same format that we began to go through them on Thursday night we will pause periodically for your question so rather than

002having you ask us questions all the way through as we're going we'll take several Pages at a time please make note of any questions that you have that is why we're doing this today we want to be sure if we do answer all your questions um but we'll pause after you know perhaps eight pages or so and see what questions we need to go back and look at for that section and then those will be most we anticipate clarifying type questions and then if there are larger questions we certainly have time uh towards the end and we want to think through those with you and if there are things that we need to go off and do further research on I'll come back to you uh we'll do that at a later date um and

003that but that really today is about clarifying as much as we can and we look forward to engaging with you over all the questions that you have does anyone have any questions about format always just dive in and keep moving all right so then we're going to begin I believe today with Mary sections and then we'll be transitioning from there to Chris Nelson and Chris McCarthy and a number of other of our administrators so thank you Mary thank you and good morning everyone good morning so before I begin I'd like to express my gratitude to the board for this opportunity to present this part of the budget I'd also like to express my thanks to my colleagues fellow cabinet members principals and directors many of whom are with us this morning we've all worked collaboratively

004for the last few months on this budget and it's a true team effort and I just want to say I'm grateful for and we'll miss working with such dedicated colleagues so thank you all the blue Pages I'll be reviewing this morning represent more than 63 million dollars of our budget these Pages focus on some of the main budget drivers discussed on Thursday night school program enrollment class size and professional learning the overarching focus of this budget is to provide an experience for our students that's aligned with the learning commitment and pays attention to our three Focus areas diversity equity and inclusion social emotional learning and sustainability our goals for this work include curriculum that's aligned to the most updated standards instruction that's active relevant and intellectually engaging professional learning experiences for faculty and administration that

005are relevant reflect the most recent research on Adult Learning and provide our teachers with ongoing opportunities to enhance their craft and also class sizes that support a responsive student-centered approach to instruction so as we did on Thursday night I'll stop periodically as we review the pages for your clarifying questions regarding specific items and then after we finish presenting the entire budget we can spend some time on your bigger picture questions so the first four pages we'll review Identify some of the costs associated with salaries and other compensation from members of the Department of curriculum and instruction building administrators directors and clerical staff as well as stipends for our Innovation Grant cohort and costs associated within service so I'll reference both the page and the PDF page as we did the other night um it's something

006new this year so so the first page page one of the blue Pages which is PDF page three this represents the costs associated with the office of curriculum the overall proposed budget for these codes one second PDF three maybe 58 58. oh okay so my PDF pages are with the floating Pages those are right if you yeah once you get to the beginning okay on the computer I was going by there for the PDF it is Page 58 and then you'll see page one in the lower right corner yeah if you open the link through the um agenda it's it goes just to this section yeah I'm looking at my notes which are marked up in a different pdf version pages okay sorry about that so the overall proposed budget for these codes in the

007upcoming year is 1 million one hundred fifty six thousand six hundred fifty eight dollars which represents a decrease of twenty seven thousand nine hundred thirty six dollars um the funds in these codes are used to pay for the salary of the assistant superintendent of curriculum instruction one clerical person and half the salaries of the five staff developer positions in the budget staff development positions are budgeted in these codes as well as the blue codes on page four and these codes are funds anticipated for hourly curriculum development to compensate teachers for summer and after school work in the coming year this has been an area where the board has supported growth in recent years and has allowed us to support increased teacher collaboration on the bottom of the page you'll see funds that are designated for

008Contract Services in addition to other contracts the funds in this line provide opportunity to work with Consultants with specific expertise in a variety of areas you'll also see increase in our BOCES fees which include participation in the Region's curriculum Center and some specialized professional development um specifically we've included funds on the consultant Workshop line to support ongoing Partnerships with Facing History and ourselves art institute for writing and thinking and Teachers College reading and writing project we'll also be using funds in these codes to support us with Elementary science and new standards provide continued training on early reading instruction and interventions and support ongoing professional learning around social emotional wellness and thoughtful and deliberate use of instructional technology so page two which is PDF page 59 that represents the costs associated with supervision of each of

009our schools and departments including administrators and clerical support building a department administrators play a key role in supporting and supervising staff and students the overall proposed budget for these codes is 5 million one hundred twenty five thousand seven hundred fifty three dollars an overall increase of forty three thousand nine hundred nine dollars in addition to these salaries the codes include contract Service expenses including funds for the costs of a full-time school resource officer position and greeters most of the other contract Service items in these codes are at the secondary schools for programs and events like High School awards breakfast and graduation we also have some conference and travel funds and funds for general office supplies there and then page three which is PDF page 60. that represents continued funding for the fourth cohort of the

010Innovation Grant recipients with your approval next year will be the first year for this new cohort of innovators the funding 75 000 represents no increase from the current school year and you'll notice that our expenditures were actually lower in the last two years because the size of the cohort was a bit lower or a bit smaller rather then we move to page four which is PDF page 61. this represents the costs associated with in-service training and professional development so the overall proposed budget is 729 497 dollars an increase of 58 634 dollars on the top half of the page are the funds for the five staff developer positions I referenced on page one this represents the other half of their salaries there are also funds for professional development for teachers teaching assistants and other support

011staff we work with teams of both the building and District levels and making decisions about what professional learning is needed we anticipate the support of faculty in the areas of culturally responsive teaching practices reading and writing instruction new science standards and instruction and new computer science and digital fluency standards K-12 in addition we'll support ongoing work on performance-based assessments instructional technology and social emotional learning and we also plan to enhance opportunities for teachers to integrate sustainability into the curriculum on the bottom half are funds for travel and Conference as well as for Consultants who come into the district to provide professional development for staff the notice is slight decrease rather in consultant fees and a slight increase in travel and Conference expenses we feel these adjustments will allow us to provide relevant learning opportunities that

012are both internal and external for our faculty and administrators so we'll stop there and see if anyone has any clarifying questions on those pages 82 000 that's on Blue page two that's the shift from a part-time to a full-time resource officer is that the majority of that I would assume it's um contract contractual Services it's the 400 code on the bottom half of page two so yes that would be a combination of both the resource officer and then we've noticed that prevailing wage versus security gritters has increased so it's uh both of those and we do have five security greeters at each of the schools on Blue page one um the BOCES services consultant Workshop is up significantly certainly from the 2020 2021 year can you tell me a little bit more about what's inside

013of that yes so we have several Partnerships as I mentioned like Facing History in ourselves Bard Teachers College so the cost for all of those has gone up a bit each year but also some other Consultants one example is um both Forbes who's worked with our district on diversity equity and inclusion he's one of those people last year we made a significant increase in the budget specifically to look for consultants in that area so you saw that jump and then you see that we decreased it a bit this year since we've started that work already and we feel we can continue with some decrease in funds but it's it's still a significant portion of the budget right there are also things that go through that code that you know we can purchase for example some

014of the science um even some of the materials and things that we've been able to purchase some of the workshops that are associated with that like science 21 training and Amplified training at the Elementary level those are also included in that code okay and Bill if you look two codes above that the contract service code to decrease by twenty one thousand dollars so although it's not a dollar for dollar decrease um when we do use our Consultants through BOCES it maximizes our state aid yeah for that as well and then page two um similar question for uh contractual service that's 531 that's the school resource officer and the security agreement yeah the answer is the same huh we still be saying we can give you a difference on page three just with regard to The

015Innovation cohort yes um when you mentioned a slight decline in the participation you attribute that to competing priorities coming out of the pandemic and returning to in school instruction it's not a trend we would want to see continue so I just want to ensure that the stipend is competitive um you know we're in a high inflation period so we can talk about that and then also wondered you know would it be possible to increase the visibility of the work of the innovators both for our communities edification and then also even just in thinking about recruiting more innovators I don't have visibility into internally you know what the um knowledge is or the visibility into the program so just two thoughts related to where we are with that and you know it's interesting it has varied

016a little bit each year so the first cohort um was not impacted by um covet at all and then the second cohort we moved to this action research model but it was second part of their first year um was the shutdown so it was really interesting um and that was a slightly smaller cohort than the first year but we had you know changed the model and then this current cohort um still impacted slightly but in a very different way um but one of the things that we've done so we are working on actually um it's almost ready we're going to show it at our tri-states visit this coming week the work of the past two cohorts to help people internally at least have a sense of what those projects have been and then add the

017new cohort to it so it's easier to see some of the artifacts of their work wonderful and that also Spurs some excitement for others as well that's great so we've been working on kind of getting that out there but in mid-march we're planning to open the applications for new innovators and you know it's a significant time commitment and I think that we've all of the feedback we receive quite honest sleep from past innovators is very very positive in terms of being an impactful professional learning experience but it's also a significant time commitment and I think with the pandemic people are worried about time and you know if you're feeling overwhelmed already taking that on can be a bit difficult so I think it's a combination of things but we certainly wanted to continue and to

018infuse new energy in it as well it's great I really appreciate all the Insight you just shared thank you can we go back to that same line item on page two for a moment so I'm not sure what level of detail we're supposed to get into today but did we have a full-time SRO this year I know we switched to Westchester County we used to share it with the town and we only paid half and then we switched to Westchester County Police Department the only the only paying half I think goes back a long time a couple of years we've been paying the full amount quite a number of years even when it was the even when it was the Lewisburg Sr why is there a substantial increase do we did we not have a

019full-time SRO in the high school is that last year and why would there be substantially increased because of an SRO so this year we do have a full-time SRO however we had to work through the contract with Westchester County so that full-time SRO didn't start until I believe it was December so uh we had budgeted last year for the part-time but we were able to pay for full-time this year because of the late start um but Tana Lewis Borough did help us out um in the beginning of the school year and added additional security and and stops along their way so um there's no change to the sro's hours in the school buildings it's the same as it has been this year we're basically just now budgeting for the full amount because last year we

020only had in from December through correct this from this year we've had from the current year December 1st I believe I think that there are thereabouts December through June but in a full-time capacity but there was cost savings from September through November okay so we haven't made a decision to increase security or to add SRO resources for this year it's just a Sam it's the same full-time position and then the same security greeters of the buildings but as Danelle mentioned those costs have increased somewhat I think when we speak about Staffing we talk about budget to budget versus actual to budget so actual to budget there's no change yes Ilana um just on the Innovative Innovation cohort how many teachers are in it right now we have 12. and is it across all schools elementary

021middle and high and subject matter too yes so um we're planning on the 23rd March 23rd but the current innovators will present to you um Diane Cunningham will be here as well to talk about some of the process she's been supporting the cohort too um so you'll get to see some of those projects and as I mentioned we have a new technological resource called Glide that we've been using quite a bit and that can showcase some of the prior years but as soon as their projects are completed in June we'll include those in this Glide so now you'll be able to um you know for our teachers as well for example as a sorting feature you just type in math you'll see all the projects that were related to math right so they're all different

022disciplines have been represented in different levels as well and you mentioned a new model is it I think action research yes can you explain what that is sure and we'll definitely go into much more detail on the 23rd but it's really teachers taking a close look at their classroom practices and honing in on one practice um that they think will really make a difference so there's some data collection in that process once they've done that they create an inquiry question and then they take some steps and collect data based on that question to try to answer that question so it's kind of a cyclical and recursive process because then the collection of that data sometimes prompts them to take a different action it may be a further step or it may cause them to kind

023of step back and take another action but it's really examining their practice and being very reflective about it but that work you know from the innovators that I've spoken with over the years who have completed that process or anyone who's done action research um it's not the same as experimental design it's a very small subset of students always and even just about that teacher's practice but it's really impactful I don't think you can walk away from that and look at your practice the same way ever again so it's it's really interesting it's kind of a an interesting way to look at many things but especially being in the classroom thanks okay wonderful can we move forward great thank you okay so the next five pages so they're Pages five to nine and PDF Pages 62

024to 66. um we'll see most of the Staffing costs for our five schools these five pages total more than 31 million dollars and there's an increase of one million five hundred thirty five thousand eight hundred ninety three dollars from the current school year so if we just look at Pages five through seven these represent the costs associated with Staffing in our elementary schools so in total the K5 Staffing is projected to cost approximately 13 million one hundred forty eight thousand eighty one dollars next year approximately 783 000 more than the budget amount for the current school year the actual expenses and other variations on each page have to do with step increases Lane changes and retirement based on the current staff assignments so they do vary each year and we continue to present a superintendent's

025budget which includes funding for developmentally appropriate Elementary program including full day kindergarten art music physical education library and RTI support for K-5 students and these funds also include stipends for curriculum leader positions in the elementary buildings we reviewed Staffing and projected class size ranges on Thursday night so we may revisit this later on in the afternoon if the board wishes to discuss any particular sections our kindergarten enrollment is projected to be 208 based on our preschool census and the information on registration we have to date however the numbers continue to fluctuate for a few months as parents decide about children's Readiness for kindergarten and other factors so our October 22 enrollment was 205 students for kindergarten as we mentioned as for the other grades we have the same number of sections overall although there's a

026proposed increase at Meadow Pond so we'll continue to monitor those enrollments through the summer and as you know we have those four contingency positions to support any changes in enrollment that may occur and then pages eight and nine which are 65 and 66 on the PDF um they represent the Staffing for the high school and middle school so the 612 Staffing is projected to be 17 million six hundred eighty nine thousand ninety dollars next year which is 752 164 more than this year so much like Elementary there are annual variations due to our staff and other assignments age eight specifically represents the costs associated with Staffing at the middle school and the overall proposed budget for Middle School Staffing is seven million 697 767 an increase of about five hundred fifty four thousand as we

027mentioned on Thursday evening we are proposing 4.25 additional positions at the middle school two will replace the sixth grade positions we removed last year and two will be allocated to Second seventh grade sorry the .25 Position will support more favorable class sizes in all math classes in eighth grade so this proposal includes teaming in grades six and seven World Language Health visit music art tech ed family consumer science and rsti support we've also included funds for both Middle School team and curriculum leader stipends on this page age nine of the budget document represents the costs associated with John Jay High School overall proposed budget for these codes in the upcoming school year is nine million 991 323 dollars which is an increase of almost one hundred ninety eight thousand dollars the funds here pay for

028the salaries for all monitors substitute teachers and high school teachers as well as High School curriculum leader stipends the high school will also experience fractional additions or reductions in different subject areas based on the master scheduling process and as we mentioned the other night 11th grade next year is predicted to be higher than the current cohort while 9th 10th and 12th are predicted to be lower the overall enrollment at the high school is predicted to be down by about 31 students so here we'll stop again for any clarifying questions related to Pages five through nine I might have missed it but for the elementary schools um you said something about the same number of sections but each of the schools has a substantial increase so it's each school getting new staff there's um I think

029a lot of those increases are step changes salary increases things like that so we are we are proposing that one additional section at Meadow Pond I think also you'll see reflected for example at Katona Bill we talked in the other night about the fact that last year we had to add a contingency position in kindergarten that's now being reflected in the budget and also the uh that kindergarten session from last year moves to first grade this year that's reflected and we're increasing kindergarten by one section this year because of the increased enrollment in kindergarten so I think you're seeing I think you're saying two positions two positions at KES that are reflected because of increasing enrollment so that's that speaks to probably a significant piece of the increase at that school and increased Miller it's

030mostly step in Lane I would imagine that's right okay I think we're adding any sections there yeah thank you um so I I wasn't here on Thursday so I might have missed some sort of sort of broader conversation and I did want I did watch the meeting last night we're substantially increasing the number of teachers this year I think beyond what we've done in previous years and yet enrollment is only marginally changing right and and I understand there's variance of school to school but in general it feels like we're investing heavily in adding additional teaching resources plus I think it's 13 plus the four contingency positions and to the point that Mary just made or maybe you just made Andrew some of the increases that we see here are step and Lane changes which we

031anticipate for all staff right until they reach the end of the schedule so as we add staff the cost we're bearing isn't just this year's it's not just a 23 24 cost it's an ongoing potentially exponential cost it increases year over year over year and so I just wonder are we exercising the right amount of caution around adding additional such a large number of additional teachers um at this time and I understand that we had you call it the wind at our back and you know we maybe have the wind at the back this year we may not next year or we may who knows so to get to my question it's a much higher level question but it really there's a lot of money in these four pages that we're talking about here are

032we really confident that this is what we want to do is this the opportunity to talk about that or is there some other opportunity when we sort of talk about the budget holistically rather than at the line item level I think I think it's appropriate to talk some about it now and then again later on if the board still wants to come back and revisit big picture questions um well if you want to get specific one thing that is concerning me and I think I dropped you a note about it is around the team structure in the middle school so where we may feel we need two teachers we're actually adding four because we want to set them up as teams and I did watch that piece of the meeting from Thursday I'm not sure

033I really got a sense of why do we feel that we must add to teachers and and that gets to our teaming structure a little bit and maybe I can yeah and enlighten me a bit more I'd like to actually just address the first part of the question though so when you say a substantial increase in Staffing I do want to caution I'm looking at this live from the other night that showed 8.25 teaching positions that we're adding total of when you add up support staff and other positions you do get to the higher number that you mentioned and of the 8.25 we just mentioned to kindergarten and a first grade position that are due strictly to enrollment we we actually get those are driven by contractual class size numbers that we have so if

034we didn't add if we hadn't added that kindergarten position well we couldn't have not added it and still be within our contract understood but that's based on the demographer's study right and we said that we anticipated 205 this time last year we know the actual in kindergarten against that 205 that was a projection 208 was the it was higher than the than the projection the contingency that we added that's now moved to first grade and the projection next year is showing us that we'll need that position is it possible the projections don't prove it's certainly possible but we would not advise not adding that position to the budget now so that accounts for two of those positions and then the third that I'll just be briefly to the enl position part of that position we

035said the other night 0.4 yeah it's already added this year due to increased enrollment and we are projecting because all the trends indicate that that population just continues to increase around the region so that accounts for another one of those positions so of the eight I would I would say three of them are really accounted very much through enrollment then you're absolutely correct and and I think absolutely appropriate for you to ask it's appropriate for all your questions I don't mean to say it's not but I think the middle school question I think is one more for discussion uh and uh the one position at Meadow Pond and those are places where we are uh choosing to ask the board uh for increased Staffing to support smaller class sizes and I would say it's it's

036driven by um multiple factors a large one at the middle school for example um we would say this is still uh outcome of the pandemic where we are seeing uh quite different student behaviors uh academically social emotional and wise and we're asking for the additional support that we think for this period of time could be very beneficial to the students uh to continue to to continue their development in response to you know what I think most around the country recognizes are really traumatic experience um and I think um it gets it's a little easy for us to imagine that life is back to normal you know we're doing all of our things back in school the way we always have but I think if we asked our teachers and our building administrators they would say

037things are I don't like to use the word normal very much but things are not the same as they were pre-pandemic in terms of what we're seeing in our classrooms and in our hallways in our cafeterias around school on a day-to-day basis and so we think this is a wise investment uh to try to support uh the evolution uh in the in those ages the team structure is the structure that we've have in place and we've had in place for a long time we believe in it we think it's a good structure so what we say there is we don't if if we could add a single teacher and bring the class sizes down a little bit we may we may have put that on the table as the option but because we value the

038team structure we don't have the opportunity to add one teacher sixth grade and still maintain the current team structure it would we would have one three-person team which is I think not a very viable option and then other two-person teams so we we're adding two teachers who create that additional team and that brings the class the average class size is down that much more we wouldn't necessarily Advocate that they have to be at 21 we might say 23 would would be a terrific number but we can't add just the one we have to add two to maintain that team structure so it does create two at sixth grade and two at seventh grade and that's where you get to the four point two five and eighth grade is more about you know that's the place

039where we divide uh math into the more advanced classes and the regular track classes and bless you we've seen challenges around scheduling in the last few years both through the process by which students are recommended into and then I believe correct me if my own families have the option to wave through that recommendation process and it creates a difficulty in balancing those classes so we we tend to see either very large classes in the advanced or very large classes in the regular track or vice versa and it's hard to change it after the fact so we're asking for that 0.25 to better balance all those numbers and then at Meadow ponds similar some similar that's our largest projected fifth grade section across the district next year some of the same things I spoke about before

040and then some additional factors related to needs of students in the school that we think would be well served by by decreasing those class sizes and that's that awkward number right where we would go over 20 7 to 17 or something yeah right because of that third yeah exactly right so again uh I think maybe that's enough to say about that now we can come back and revisit that later and the only thing I would add there is I think I think a very appropriate discussion if I have at the end of the day is if the board is uncomfortable with the overall uh budgetary increase that we're asking for then that's the guidance that we would look for and then we would go away from this meeting and we would try to prioritize but

041we would want to come back and change we wouldn't be looking for such specific direction that it should be this section over here but not that section over there that's that's more in our world and that's to my first point about sort of how holistic or how we want to get and that's really helpful to understand that so if the board was generally feeling the budget the budget change is high you would go back and re-prioritize and and I think another but but you did also raise another very valid point which is that there's a difference between us adding funding that goes to Staffing versus adding budget that goes to other things consumable items that that are more easily reduced in an in a future year but I would also say Staffing while we say

042it does add to those ongoing costs on the one hand that's true and I don't I don't like to say the second point but it is also true Staffing you know we've seen historically in the past we do we do sometimes reduce Staffing when necessary for Budget reasons so it's not necessarily there forevermore if the if the need is absolute and that's the caution now I'm going on too long but that's the caution about uh that I was speaking to the other night about uh tax levy cap this year we're fortunate that Aid and other things that are increasing are allowing us to cover some costs that the tax levy cap alone couldn't cover and that's the kind of thing that in a future year could cause us to make some different decisions I think

043it's probably important just to finish my thoughts it's probably important to recognize that our teachers are our most valuable asset right I mean I'm not trying to suggest anything negative in any way no no I'm just trying to be financially responsible so for sure our teachers are our most important asset and of course we value them and of course we anticipate that our needs may increase over time that makes sense yeah I mean I would say that in the last seven years where we've seen reduction in Staffing it's just been unreplace to attrition you know where retirements happen and we haven't you know if we didn't need two teachers in a building we just didn't replace you know not maybe in the last two years but in years prior when we've we've we've actually also

044though made we've made reductions due to enrollment when the enrollment determines that it's not that you see that more the secondary schools in recent years we did that's those are the two sections that we talk about reducing from the middle school last year that was enrollment driven um but now you know the opportunity is presenting itself in this budget and we feel it's a really valuable one to take advantage of the support needs that we're seeing in the schools I just want to um clarify one thing or philosophically we're not looking to change the goal or range in terms of class sizes we are just aiming for the lower end of that based on the greater context of student need right now would that be we're not we're certainly not looking to change the numbers

045that are in the in the contracts but to be transparent it's fair to say that the Middle School numbers that we are asking for are well we know that they're well below the goal the current goal they are I believe the goal is 25. yeah and that and that's great and we're we're asking you to support numbers that bring it down below that and we think current needs you know Merit that and but we understand the constraints that the board has to wrestle with and happy to engage in that conversation with you well I'm going by memory here I think the case was more compelling in sixth grade than in seventh grade is that right in terms of the numbers yes I think I'd like to have a more discussion about this later because I

046think a lot of this will be taking the temperature of other board members sure uh as opposed to anything else one thing I did want to clock I have a lot of the same same thoughts one thing I do want to clarify you said for the kindergarten addition that it was necessary um am I interpreting this right the goal a goal of 20 is is a goal and a range of 25 is the maximum right right so the KES without the additional one would be 21. so it would be within the goal it would be within the range a little bit above goal oh I'm looking at this slide right now but I believe we had we were going to have a kindergarten that would have been over 25 Yeah by one are you referring

047to last year or the current school year rejected the projected I mean one of the where are you looking at the numbers bill I wrote them down from the other day um but I don't think we've shown kindergarten Broken Out by school I don't I think part of what's confusing is still actual to budget is different than budget to budget you're looking at it yeah it works by school correct right right I don't know and we don't want to move all those families not an option okay thank you all right can I just ask a counting question um and so the number is 8.25 teachers which doesn't include 8.25 full-time equivalent teachers which does not include the contingency right and is that because we're also including contingency in this year's budget as well we're asking

048to yes okay so that's the that's just the change in it and just to just kind of just the big picture wise the increase is about 1.5 million requesting and kind of all the Staffing is that they do that math right 1.5 1.5 just on those on the budget lines we just did the increase is a total of 1.5 so that's like one percent of the budget yes yes so for the total for all pages 1.5 yeah still almost one point okay it's and it's yeah in those codes overall global increase if you take the 1.5 over the 30 whatever number right what's the 30 number the so the toad I'm gonna do the math then I'll tell you yeah okay so yeah but you show that you have that slide of what the increases

049are from and the vast majority was health insurance contractual increases inflation and about a million wasn't your style correct okay [Music] thank you for sure okay so we're in a good place to move on to page 10 which is PDF page 67. so this page of the budget represents the cost associated with certain district-wide curriculum leader and liaison positions overall the proposed budget for these codes for the upcoming school year is one hundred eleven thousand six hundred twenty one dollars an increase of two thousand one hundred nine dollars due to small increases in stipends for leadership positions included in the most recent aldta contract and this represents the funds for the district-wide positions there are also some school-based positions and those aren't reflected here um in our most recent agreement with kldta we increased the

050number of positions and made stipends more Equitable across levels so which is first reflected in the larger difference in expenditures from 2021 to 2122 the other grade level in department stipends for curriculum leaders are included in the codes for the appropriate buildings as we mentioned earlier we'll move on to page 11 which is PDF page 68. and this page represents the costs associated with instructional equipment the overall proposed budget for the upcoming school year is forty five thousand sixty two dollars a decrease of about sixty six thousand dollars so the funds in this code are used for needed equipment especially in physical education art music and Science in the coming school year anticipated expenditures include purchases of large musical instruments such as an oboe for the Middle School updated exercise equipment a 3D clay printer

051and regular 3D printer as well as a spectrometer and water test meters at the high school you can see that this budget line varies from year to year based on specific needs and just as a reminder equipment is anything that's over one thousand dollars for one specific item it's not one thousand dollars in total so any item that's over a thousand dollars would include it here can you just elaborate why it's going down so substantially it's really just based on requests um for the coming school year so you can see that it varies from year to year I think there's a significant decrease in um some musical instruments that we were purchasing this year um so that uh students didn't have to carry them on the bus so there's a decrease of about forty thousand

052there even with the request for an oboe and other musical instruments but we were trying to purchase more musical instruments so a lot of the equipment codes are one-time requests non-recurring expenses so you do see it fluctuate year to year so we'll move to page 12 which is PDF page 69. and this page represents costs associated with contractual services and repairs the overall proposed budget for these codes is 70 994 dollars an increase of four thousand three hundred eleven dollars funds that are allocated in this code will be used for example to allow students to participate in academic competitions including Science Olympiad and Robotics competitions as well as to maintain microscopes and district-owned instruments we've also included funding at the high school for curriculum Retreats and potential consultants for our revised student leadership program John

053Jay leads the increase is based on an analysis of past expenses as well as current requests so we'll stop there for any questions on pages 10 through 12. the general question of like it sounds sometimes some of the categories are seem a little similar is it just sort of the state's designation of why they get divided up so for example some of the um like the instructional instructional leader is is and part of part of that salaries reflected elsewhere in other places yeah so I know Danelle can speak to that better than I can but I know that things that are associated with specific schools we try to code them very specifically to that building versus like for example one of our leader positions is K-12 RTI rk12 enl and so that spans all schools

054so that's why that would be in a different code yes so it is all based on the state reporting there's three major reports that we report to the state uh one helps them calculate our state aid and those different Coatings for example Transportation has a lot higher Aid ratio than some other items in the budget so and you heard me speak about BOCES there's a different Aid ratio for that so it's all about our state aid reporting and then uh to Mary's point about the schools we also have a transparency report which makes sure that we are equitably Distributing our funds per school building um and then we also do a forecasting uh report to the state as well but there all these codes are associated with how we ultimately reported to the state and

055then how we account such as the equipment code the 200 codes we know that those are a thousand dollar limit and useful life of over one year so we'll move on to age 13 which is PDF page 70. all right thanks multiple modes of information here okay so page 13 represents the costs associated with travel within the district for employees who work in multiple buildings and the mileage reimbursement we are required to provide to staff members who travel to conferences as part of job responsibilities it also includes travel associated with participation in nisma music competitions so the overall proposed budget for these codes for the upcoming school year is 700 7 450 an increase of 850 this increase reflects realistic expenditures for 23 24 based on analysis of Prior years and the presumption of some

056increase in in-person conference attendance then page 14 represents the costs associated with some specialized BOCES Services the overall proposed budget there is 252 906 dollars this represents a decrease of 43 914 based on past usage and anticipated needs so that's where we see funds for alternative and distance education Environmental Education and arts and education all of which support a number of programs and assemblies for our school this also supports concerts and other student performances and then we'll move to page 15. which is EDF age 72 so this page of the budget represents the costs associated with nearly all of the instructional supplies purchased in the district this overall proposed budget for these codes in the upcoming school year is 749 216 dollars which represents an overall increase of approximately a hundred and thirty thousand dollars

057so requesting these codes include most non-textbook supplies used by students in all courses from math manipulatives to science labs to paint and clay priority and Supply requests is given to those examples which will support our work with the learning commitment and enhance student engagement so some of the flexible furniture that we purchase at all levels is included there but other things include word study manipulatives at elementary some of the white boards and desk strips for fundations for example materials for stream projects some subscriptions are hegarty which is our phonemic awareness program that would be included there for middle schools some project-based learning supplies for family consumer science class and other unified arts and at the high school science lab materials graphing calculators for math classes microphones music stands and music Scripts foreign so we'll move

058on to page 16 which is PDF page 73. and this page represents the cost associated with textbooks in all of our schools so the overall proposed budget is approximately 349 thousand dollars which represents an increase of over twenty one thousand dollars so the funds here are to purchase textbooks at every level some class sets of texts replacement text from many courses at the secondary level the district does receive some state aid in the amount of approximately 58 dollars per student for textbook expenditures this year we plan to continue purchasing of additional texts for classroom libraries in elementary and middle with a special focus on decodable text for emergent readers representation of diverse authors characters and perspectives throughout our classroom libraries also at the high school New titles in the English classes to promote engagement and

059love of reading but all levels continue to audit their collection paying attention to things like diverse authors characters and cultures so students can see themselves represented in books and learn about the experiences of others there's also a replacement cycle for textbook textbooks rather at upper levels in math science and social studies and then we have page 17. which represents the costs associated with workbooks in all our schools the overall there is 167 555 dollars which represents an uh increase of approximately eighteen thousand dollars so the funds here are to purchase consumable student materials for which the district does receive some state aid as well so workbooks that we use include Elementary fundations Basics enVision Math Big Ideas Math for seven eight the middle school and high school World Language workbooks associated with our new textbook

060adoption and Trey call TRS as well as workbooks for some High School classes and in some cases the workbook code includes online access as well so we'll stop there for any clarifying questions about Pages 13 through 17. is there a math issue on page 13 is that we just we just noticed that so there's an updated page thank you Danelle uh which we just shared oh I apologize if if no that's not your I think we just had an older version on the screen some of you may be looking at but on the on the sections that are into today's agenda sections you divided up the numbers are correct on page 13. it was just an older version I think is that what happened there right yeah and a few references on page 13 but

061was updated I could be looking at it different yeah if you reference Kim monson's email on 222 there was um just a the formula didn't carry through on page 13. we'll see it again on page 31 and um uh table contents associated yeah it was just a formulation error but the budget totals are the same it was just uh when we plugged it into the to the this presentation it didn't carry through but if someone's done all of their work and no taking on the on the larger document they can still work from that they're not going to see lots of other places no I think there was blue page 13 blue page 31 um green page one and green page six we should get some credit for noticing right yes okay good job we

062have some gold stars for the end of the meeting everything's updated in board Doc it's okay okay so yeah so if you had printed this out or looked at or downloaded it prior to third to Wednesday yeah um that you might be looking at a outdated thank you this just might be a reality testing type of thing but things like um it's a page 15 and 16. let's start with 15 there's a a bump in middle school supplies is something is it just luck of the draw this year there's something going on at the middle school this is Page 15 up and down yeah can you look at the 2122 actual it's not that different from yeah so it just depends on Hollywood it's just a year to year and then on page 16. my

063school furniture and social stuff I guess just the cost of doing business I mean we spend about the same on textbooks every year just because there's a life cycle of a textbook and they're just revolving and each year there's it's not just like every it's going to be more episodic but just we have so many textbooks at just any given Year we're replacing some of them there's a replacement cycle you know and as we saw recently we had the adoption of new um World Language textbooks right so sometimes you see that bump and then other times it's just some things that have become Antiquated and a new version comes out um also many of the textbooks become worn so sometimes we need that kind of replacement as well which is you know a little different

064when we see sometimes the online subscriptions now that usually come along with the purchase of the new textbook area our classroom libraries and things like novels for English classes are those coded there as well all of those okay yeah so those are continually yeah continually added okay yeah sure and Mary when we buy textbooks now because I rarely see my students come home with textbooks they have there's always an online component that's what we've seen recently anything that we've purchased there is like a companion version so with the world language for example they purchased the physical textbooks to keep in each classroom but that also came with students having their own Online subscription um so that they weren't carrying the textbooks home necessarily so it's not like it's a subscription so like then I have

065a middle schooler who's like her global textbook which is huge stays home all the time when she's in school like are there two or are we buying two textbooks one for home and one for a school that wasn't the most recent decision but I think that really varies by department and course so there may be some cases I doubt we've purchased two for anything because in the classroom there's so if there's let's say there's four sections of 30 kids they each have a textbook and then there's 30 textbooks in the classroom right so it's not it's one and a quarter first yeah that makes sense right because they leave one yeah there'll be a stack of those textbooks and there's some in the library in there you know so it might be 1.5 per kid

066okay I think this is an ongoing challenge for Boards of Education to feel as if they have a global um sense of curriculum because things are so different now from the way they were done for so many years so I think it's just it's a great question for us like prospectively thinking about curriculum and how to ensure that we feel as appropriately aware of curriculum K-12 as as possible given that things curriculum is decentralized it's not always a textbook in a class it can be a series of novels it can be you can it can look very different from class to class it can be mostly electronic but nevertheless we have ultimately accountability or the curriculum um so I think it's just an ongoing and I understand with the workbox for elementary school is so

067much higher because they're you know every year disposable they're using it whereas in high school not really writing things just one tangential item on I think page 15. so we we have cases Andrew where I'll mention the PTA but there are other avenues for teachers to receive school supplies we talked about this relatively recently is are these the line items that should be covering all supplies necessary across all of the schools these are some of those line items and we feel like this adequately covers everything that a teacher might need in the classroom we do and we've had this conversation with our principals and we are very appreciative of our ptos and the funds that they are able to support to supplement things um and they do wonderful things like bring in uh guest speakers

068or field take field trips and that kind of thing but we we do feel confident that we have the necessary Supply funding here and I'm just referring to the instructional supplies so those items are fully funded here and this is where they should be paid for um I was just curious about um if the BOCES expenses you said they're they're some reimbursed by the state or yeah so uh when we review state aid on the revenue side yeah um part of that state aid is bow season and depending on the program there's different Aid factors okay and it's not it's not a one-to-one in the way that like a textbook is maybe a one-to-one that's like a more variable yes so with textbook Aid it's um for every text for every student we get 58.25

069cents um in state aid and that also includes our private school students that we have to remit to the private schools within our district but with BOCES it really is dependent on the program so something like arts and education that the PTO itself might be familiar with um that has a higher Aid ratio than some other programs um but generally speaking most of the programs at BOCES have some component of state aid there are some that we don't get state aid but primarily most of them we get a good amount of state aid for I think our BOCES age was well over a million this year and is the um the textbook one is it when you spend it you get reimbursed or it's just a sort of per student every year um is per

070student and then we have to report to the uh state that we did spend that actual dollar amount so we multiply 58.25 by our enrollment yeah and then we have to um submit that to the state for reimbursement so if we don't spend 58 dollars per student um then we don't maximize that state that's that portion of the state aid thanks everybody good to move on okay so I right now I'll turn it over to my colleagues Alex casabona who's going to talk to us about student support services and then Danelle will talk to us about tech center at bow season driver's ed sure so I'll be speaking to Pages 18 28 and 29 which in the pdf version uh begin with page 75. um so if everyone is on that page um you'll see

071that on on page 18 for me in page 75 of the PDF um this page really represents the proposed special education budget that's really designed based on our our best projections uh of what services and supports students are going to need for the 23-24 school year so you'll see in the first line um that that denotes a decrease and that's because a portion of that salary has been moved to federal funds that's our cpsc chairperson so year to year different portions are captured in this line and different amounts can be written off from those federal grants so that's what that depicts um the next line the 2250 150 10 are the salaries for our teachers and psychologists that are assigned to specific programs uh so you'll see that any shifts here are really driven by

072um any Lane changes uh step increases longevity payments that we project that this group of staff may be entitled to for the next year you'll see um underneath that is the line uh so 2250 151 150 410 which are teaching assistants so budget to budget the number of teaching assistants is not changing we have 32 of them um and again these numbers to note you know anything that we might need to be covering in terms of contractual obligations for those staff members the next line uh speaks to the our speech therapist so budget to budget there are seven last year it was budgeted for a new speech therapist that brought us up to seven we're projecting we're gonna keep those seven um and the difference here again are the anticipated contractual obligations and the fact

073that the the you know the person we hired has a salary that was a little higher than one was originally projected in the budget last year so that's what that amount captures in terms of our um the next line 153-10 You'll see there that shows um what we project we may need in the way of Home Tutors or home instruction for students and the way that's calculated is based on a three-year average so in looking back at the previous three years of what was actually spent versus what was actually budgeted we feel comfortable about reducing that by the 16 500 will be able uh to allow us to support what we may anticipate typically the numbers of students we have that are in need of those services um if we look at the next line

074that our pts and OTS and um that minimal increase again all contractual it's what we anticipate would be the difference year to year the last line in this section are teacher aides and it's uh 161 11 through 16 because it covers teacher aids in all five buildings so budget to budget the number of Staff Remains the Same but again the number the increase there is all around salary you know projected increases so but the budget to budget the number of AIDS across the district Remains the Same um so you'll see that that brings us to a total increase in terms of the employee compensation of 273 977 but again mostly contractual obligations we're not adding any staff in the next section where it speaks to expenses other than employee compensation we're anticipating that in terms

075of equipment or things that would need to be purchased under that line we don't anticipate any increase so you'll see That Remains the Same our contract services are increasing or we're projecting them to increase and this budget line really reflects any kind of um Contract Services based on student need so let's say services for students that might have visual impairments um teachers of the deaf any anticipated increase that we may need to contract for so we wouldn't be hiring someone but we would need to provide that support is projected in that number um if we continue to look down so you'll see a slight increase under the traveling conference and that really speaks to mileage reimbursement for our staff that's shared um and that travels throughout the district as well as ensuring that we can

076provide our staff with opportunities to attend conferences for new learning and connecting with colleagues uh the next two lines below that so 2250 470 110 and 472 10 speak to tuition um we anticipate we have five students that are either aging out or graduating of their out of District programs and that encompasses you know the reduction in intuition that's listed there so in terms of our BOCES services and tuition related expenses these are expenses for students that are um placed in both these programs but may have a service that's above and beyond the program tuition so um we anticipate that that would be an increase of about 25 190 dollars and again it's really student specific if a student that's placed in a program needs an additional supporter service um the last line in terms

077of supplies and reference materials uh you know that would really be books materials um for educators manuals anything like that so we're anticipating a modest increase of five thousand dollars because you know manuals and things do get updated or new ones are written so overall for this page of our budget you'll see that there's an overall reduction of 131 144 dollars but that still brings our instructional subtotal um to show an increase of 142 000 and 833 dollars okay so if we um go on to the next page which is page 28 PDF page 25. uh this page speaks specifically to the psycho Psychological Services that we receive we currently have 11 psychologists um on staff and one position that was written into the budget last year for psychologists that remains vacant which is for

078a bcba so that's it's 12 positions total but one position has been vacant the entire year um so you'll see that the change in budget from year to year uh there's a decrease of thirty two thousand dollars and that's because the psychologist that was hired last year to probably provide some of our services again in terms of the salary we projected was a little less than the salary the person came in at so um you know that that shows the change in budget year to year um in terms of you know the the benefits there are no other employee compensation lines there for the psychologist and that's why that section is blank the final page in my budget is Page 29 or page 86 on the PDF and this page represents our social work services

079so we have five social workers district-wide one for each building this budget proposes to keep that level of support the same so a full-time social worker at each of our schools and the increase here uh the 16 279 dollars again those are contractual so salary step changes Lane changes and any longevity payments for those staff members I'm just going to speak to two more pages because they are related to student services and then we can write for questions for Alex and I so we're going a little bit out of order here we're going back to page 19 blue page 19 PDF page 76 and that's a career in technical education so on this page of the budget we show anticipated expenses associated with students who attend the tech center in Yorktown at BOCES um career

080in the career and Tech program prepares students for post-secondary Education as well as entry-level positions in a wide variety of occupations examples of the different academic offerings are environmental Career Academy business Career Academy teacher Career Academy Transportation Communications construction cosmetology hospitality and Health Service career Academies um the annual participation fee is based on the number of students who participate in the program over a three-year period of time a few years back though they did expand the program to now include 9th and 10th graders although we currently don't have any 9th or 10th graders who are in the program so overall we are projected to see a decrease of a little over forty five thousand in this budget code I do have some enrollment points to share over the last 10 years we have seen as

081high as 37 of our students attend this program and this current year we have a 20 students who attend this program uh the next page is blue page 20 PDF page 77 uh this speaks to drivers education program if you look at this uh the budget the actuals for 20 21 and 21 22 or zero and that's because we were able to partner with Maya pack school district and the instructional portion of driver's ed was uh performed at mayopac and parents paid May a pack directly so there was no expense to our district um Driver's Ed is a parent-funded program they pay 100 of the cost however we need this budget line for instructional Services uh because that maximizes our state aid for that instruction um State the state has changed the driver's ed program

082to the way the program ran before kobit so um during copen it was permissible that parents could do the driving portion of the program and now I'm coming out of the pandemic the state says now we can go back to the way it was the parents are probably glad so this so we just see in addition this year but if we actually expanded this farther back we would see that 7 500 was what we budgeted prior to to the pandemic so I think we're going to take a break right there um just for questions and clarifications for Alex thanks Lana I think it's both for Alex I'm free Janelle um how because we don't know exactly who I guess who's coming in next year what needs might present themselves how how does the budget actuals

083look and kind of the lines that you were talking about and also Danelle like you sort of mentioned in the CTE that the numbers have fluctuated do we know for sure like what those numbers are for next year or is it just kind of a guess or an educated guess perhaps uh so guidance does work with BOCES on projection um so we had 20 students this year BOCES actually gives me those numbers of what they project will be our enrollment um in speaking with Marissa and I don't think she's here today but um I spoke with Marissa and she said she had 40 students go to the information session regarding uh CTE and will all 40 students sign up we don't know it's it is a choice for the students uh and then a lot

084as far as you know our projections so we base our kindergarten enrollment on what we project that the children that are currently in cpsc like if they will be students who we think might qualify we we project them somewhere in our numbers and think about what kind of program um certainly it is a challenge if we have were to have a student that might have more significant needs and require an out of District placement or you know a higher level of services um year to year those federal grants May cover some of those funds if we were to have something unanticipated but you know typically for incoming students we tend to know but there there really is no way to know month to month if there's going to be a student that may transfer in

085that would be high cost yeah thank you thank you Alex can you just um on page 18 and just give us the quantity so like we know we have 32 teaching assistants seven seven speech therapists 11 psychologists five social workers throughout the can you just give us the number of special education teachers the ftes that we have sure we have 44 specializes 44 ft's and um teacher aides 28. thank you any other questions on these Pages please just an observation because I heard Alex both you and Danelle refer to I think I heard you refer to a three-year average that you look back three years and find an average yes on two separate line items Home Services Alex you referred to and Danelle you said something similar around career and Tech is that is that

086related to how BOCES I like the idea of a three-year average for certain line items I'm just curious about when and why we would use that well I I I want to answer for both so when I when I was talking about the CP I said it was a three-year program so oh I'm sorry okay maybe it was already in my head and I picked it up incorrectly however with special ed the um we do look at the IEP needs and um so this was I um for home instruction and Hospital tutors yeah 2250 153 10. so we tend to look at what's the three-year average so students that are on home instruction and and I think we've discussed this in a separate setting um that sometimes if a student is um out for more

087than 10 days you know we're mandated to provide home instruction services at times for students that are special education students if we determine that we can't meet their need um within the district in the interim of searching for an out of District program we may need to place a student on home instruction so in looking back over the three years we kind of have a sense of and and we would know right if we had a question volatile there's really no way to project right back and you extrapolate so at this point we don't have a student currently enrolled who we feel may need home instruction for an extended period of time so it would really be these students who um you know for different reasons for short periods of time may need home instruction

088and and that's why we use that app thank you I like it thank you but if you did know a need coming up it's not that we always just use the averages and budget goals if she knows this right if we knew there was a student who needed a placement and we anticipated it might be six months of home instruction we would certainly calculate that and add that in thank you okay I think we're okay back to me um so next we'll look at page 21 which is PDF page 78. um now we'll look at 21 22 and 23 together and then Chris Nelson will be joining us um 21 and 22 are both connected to the library media centers so page 21 represents the costs associated with the salaries for the staff members assigned

089in our library media centers so the overall proposed budget there is 738 647 which is an overall increase of twenty three thousand nine hundred thirteen dollars which really just reflects contractual increases and adjustments on page 22 this represents the costs associated with Contract Services and supplies needed for our library media centers so the overall proposed there is 209 035 dollars an overall increase of twenty five thousand nine hundred fourteen dollars due in the large part to a purchase of new blinds in our Middle School library um and also includes Contract Services for certain online services subscriptions and multimedia resources it includes fees for our library automated system General supplies and of course new titles for our collections it also includes online databases and streaming services used by students that are needed to support curriculum that

090are not available on the internet for free our library media Specialists certainly play a significant role in the integration of technology and digital citizenship in our curriculum so along with our staff developers they support teachers in learning about the newest Technologies and modeling of new tools and collaboration for units of study across various disciplines and then page 23 was related to the area of video production we've not included anything in that budget as we have not spending been allocated funds in a few years so that one's mine so I'll stop there for any questions about our library media center I just have one question I may be on the wrong track here so you mentioned blinds in the Middle School library is that one of the spaces that we're looking at through the facilities committee

091are we I don't believe it I don't think so we're looking at the space in the adjacent to the library maker space yes gotcha thanks we're ready to move on okay so now I'll invite my colleague Chris Nelson to come and join us um and Chris will support uh review the proposed technology Budget on Blue page 24 and pink page 20. Chris good morning thank you for the opportunity to present our budget um most of you have heard my budget presentation in the past but I'll summarize the best I can in terms of some of the changes that we're recommending for this year uh the way the budget is broken up it's in two categories that's why you see two sheets um part of the accounting process is to make sure that we differentiate between

092instructional technology services and non-instructional which constitutes you know basically technology that supports the business of our schools versus classroom focused Technologies so that's why there's two sheets here so you'll see a pink and a blue the blue is broken out into Staffing as well as you know services and and devices and those types of things so so I cut up quite often we see we see the computers in front of us we think technology is is what's visible in front of us but a really a good portion of our budget is behind the scenes in terms of of programs and services and and and resources needed to support the technology that we see so although um you know we'll break down some of our purchases uh please note that it's a part of a bigger

093system and a team of folks that support everything as we go through here so um so if you combine both these pages is we're recommending a 3.2 to 4 million dollar budget as I said it's that's instructional and non-instructional uh overall year to year and it's a change in um about thirty six thousand dollars which is about a one percent difference from last year's ass which I think is pretty significant when you take into inflation and some of the other things that we have to kind of work with our budget philosophy at least from year to year is that we've been intentional to kind of look at our inventories and our services kind of on a four-year cycle so if we break our our inventory into a four-year cycle we tend to replace equipment one-fourth

094and then therefore it's more predictable in terms of our costs and then therefore are asked each year is pretty level so it's a conservative ask but as with all uh conversations you know all this is up to discussion if you have some questions at the end in terms of where we are so so if you look at page 24 which is I believe our instructional blue uh where we're at we'll see yeah uh the top portion represents the Staffing um and there's some changes to the Staffing but I'll overview in terms of some of the positions and responsibilities uh we have um different roles within our staffing we have a data team which can constitutes two two individuals so we have a person's a data specialist does a lot of work in terms of you

095know you know putting data into systems being able to ensure that the system's accurate throughout the systems but it also plays a large role in a data privacy uh making sure that we're in compliance in terms of where that data lives in terms of working with that and then we have another individual that's listed as our information officer which is actually a state designation which allows us to ensure that the data that we're collecting for State reporting efforts and things like that that's a large portion of that role so our dad teams pretty uh important from both compliance standpoint kind of you know posting data back to the state as well as internally using the data between systems and having an opportunity to work with that we have a Technology support team which constitutes um

096kind of your break fix your your installations in terms of physical products having an opportunity to um you know connect wires and do those types of things so from a network standpoint we have network administrator as well as a junior network administrator and a help desk person that allows us to support that layer of support for our users across the district and then what's probably the biggest ask this year is a shift from our roles at building level support so historically we've had a civil service title of a computer Aid position uh which it was intentionally designed in such a way that we had spaces computer labs if you will uh that we needed to be maintained and that Civil Service title was specific in terms of maintaining that space uh so it's a program

097approach in terms of being able to ensure that that students and teachers can use these spaces and so as we've moved to a one-to-one over the last few years we're finding that that title doesn't necessarily represent our intentions in terms of how we want to support uh folks so we so we had a lot of conversations in terms of what this might evolve too we did some research in terms of the role of a teacher assistant and and from that that's a a state professional certification but it's specifically designed in such a way to support students in terms of instruction aides don't have that capability at least in terms of job definition in terms of working with students directly so as we're finding the state is asking us to implement technology standards at all grade

098levels and our shift to push into classroom support versus lab support we felt that we needed a job description that replicated or at least represented that opportunity to do that so so when you take a look at the top of the blue um you can see that we have still one more computer Aid position here at the high school which is helpful because we do have some lab environments left at the high school but at the elementary levels we have three positions that we're asking to eliminate or at least reclassify those positions from a from an aid position to an assistant you know technology teaching assistant role so so from a budget standpoint they fall into different budget categories so you'll see a decrease in one area and an increase in another area and then

099the difference between those two costs represents just contractual you know pay increases and stuff like that so it's it's it's it's more of a technicality in terms of how we both hire and classify these individuals but it gives us a greater opportunity to support students in in all grade levels so we're hearing from teachers is that they appreciate the role of being able to bring technology into the classrooms but it's hard to help all teachers at all times and having a teacher assistant that can push into the classrooms and either work with students in a lesson that's already been developed in a whole class setting or pulling students out at times and giving them specific Technology support I think maximize the investment in terms of the tools we have at those grade levels so so

100that's our staffing changes in terms of where we are I'll stop there without going through the rest of it just in case you do have some questions because I think Rory you had brought up the fact that we're adding positions well it's it's listed as an ad but it's it's really a Net Zero from the standpoint that we're reclassifying some of those so I don't know if there's some other stuff this was not the line item I was thinking about but okay I think this decentralizing sort of lab assistance and pushing them to the classroom is is a wonderful change and I totally get that there might be some salary adjustments that has to take place there I mean I I think foreign just to clarify so we're going from a 0.71 teacher aids to

101a 1.0 and that also has to do with hiring and retention I think um we'll mention that on Thursday yeah yeah and coverage throughout the day so so you know the intentions uh with the computer Aid position was if something need to get started for the day and get fixed and going usually by midday or so things are in a good routine and we're able to kind of get the good day going now that we're supporting teachers throughout their classroom instructions there might be lessons at the end of the day that that we want to make sure we cover as well so it gives us more coverage I think as well does the classification change also mean a Personnel change and not necessarily all the people in their current positions can qualify for that so

102it's an application to the state um so so they currently are under the civil service but those folks they're in those positions would have to reapply uh to do that but they're all they're all aware of this recommendation and are able to achieve that that change so we won't have to displace anybody teaching assistant is a certificated um license in New York state whereas teacher Aid is not so that's that's a major difference too as a TA in Supply instruction and certified to do so yeah it's like an assistant so these positions stay on the technology budget they don't become teaching why not why would they not if they're now a teacher assistant designation why would they not go to the curriculum budget rather than the tech budget I think from the standpoint that that

103we want to ensure that these folks have the the appropriate Technology support um so so although they're assigned to buildings they'll be working as part of the larger team and and we'll be doing some cross-training and being able to kind of you know ensure that they understand a lot of the systems in those ways so I I think from uh you know a full you know transparency of the technology budget I think it's important to identify those folks that we're investing in to be able to do that so thank you any other questions on this page before we go to the pink page yeah sorry there are a lot of changes at the top the bottom is probably the larger dollar amount in terms of being able to take a look at that so I'll

104just highlight a few things for you you can see that um to the left is kind of the descriptions we we are on a cycle in terms of replacing every four years so when we have 12 grade levels you know divide that by four uh we're gonna buy three sets of of devices to to replace this year we've identified the 8th graders uh we we've historically done the 8th graders because we changed the model of device uh and and so you know we go from tablets to laptops and that gives us a chance to kind of make that transition into a more powerful or different type of device in terms of working with that and then at the elementary levels historically we've done kitten Garden in fourth grade seeing that on a four-year cycle that

105the students would keep those same devices over the four years but one of the changes the state has asked us to make for next years that we no longer have options in regards to Statewide assessments they're asking us to move to computer-based so that's a significant change for our elementary schools of going from paper-based to you know computer-based so instead of looking at the kindergarteners we're going to do third and fourth grade with new devices and that will ensure us that we can re-case those with keyboards and those types of things that will ensure that you know kids can practice throughout the fall and early spring to be more successful when you get to the assessments that will be now computer-based so so your third fourth and eighth grade will be our purchases for that

106and then likewise we'll be buying devices for faculty on a 1 4 piece or in terms of rotation so so when you look at the adult devices they're over a thousand so they'll fall in the equipment category so when you look at the equipment category that 110 000 represents a majority of that is is laptops for our faculty where as you look at the BOCES Services a good portion of that is is devices for three grade levels across those areas now we we have a variety of different Posse Services we we buy licensing and software those types of things throughout there we have some uh a professional development that goes with those same services that we we purchase so for example schoology we have a trainer at BOCES that can help us as we bring

107in new teachers and and folks that might need some support in terms of advancing the understanding of some of the tools whether it's like Gradebook questions or or things that help teachers evolve with the tools so so the BOCES Services is listed there you can see that's decreased over the years mostly because we buy devices through there and so a few budget cycles that go when we first went into the pandemic that's when we bought everyone all at once because we went from um you know non-devices for students to everyone having a device so that's why you see some larger budgets uh in previous years we're slowly getting that to more of a normal bubble in terms of work talking with that but overall we were able to decrease the BOCES budget by about 145

108000. so that is going to be kind of a reclassification of some of the stuff that we're having so so one one could be um like for example for example Zoom was something that we were very instructionally focused on because we're remote and we had to you know work in an environment that supported instruction we still have zoom in some of the Telecommunications services but they're not not for instructional purposes anymore so we're just kind of Shifting some of those costs over to the non-instructional side so when we get to the next pink page you'll see an offset of that so our net OC services are about the same but it's just re-categorized so that's why you see a big decrease in this side and you'll see an increase on the other side supplies supplies

109has been one of our biggest variables um the cost of our supplies have certainly increased much much larger than the rate of inflation uh our toner cartridges for example have over doubled in price in terms of being able to get those consumables so we were able to cut our supply overall budget I give a lot of credit to all our users and specifically our teachers that have centralized their printing being able to consolidate those things we're still having a lot of quality conversations in terms of what should be printed and where we can use effective use of paper but overall use it's down and I think that hits our sustainability goal but you can see the reflection here that also decreases over overall Supply budget seeing that we're using less printing supplies to be able

110to work with that so so there's a lot of subtleties in here but those are some highlights in terms of you know our next phase in terms of replacement and devices one caveat of being on that a rotation is that we have current devices that retire that are only five years old and and they have some salvage value um so we've been recycling those in such a way that we receive a little bit of Revenue back on on selling those to recyclers they ensure that that's you know sent to other uh organizations that could benefit from having slightly used technology in that capacity so again from a sustainability standpoint um where we're reinvesting in our own technology to stay current but we're assuring that the technology is being repurposed and sent off to areas that

111can work with it so so um we're very happy to be able to kind of keep our costs in control uh but achieve a lot of of the goals that we've set forward in the technology plan so any questions in this category is replacing every four years is that the norm I I I'm ashamed to say how old my computer uh I think the benefit of establishing an end of life is important um I think historically we try to stretch our resources as long as we can hold on to it there's kind of a inverse relationship to that you're extending the the life of that device but you're investing more time uh keeping it operational and you find that less and less of the new software works on these devices um so you're kind of

112Shifting costs and and so we've tried to kind of use our staff to be um you know more more supportive and and helping people use the technology in its more current state than using that same team to kind of repair older devices and stuff like that so so it's a return on investment I think it's it's more functional as the system goes there is some room if we needed to squeeze next year if the budget becomes tighter we could probably go to a five-year cycle might have to change strategies a little bit in terms of how we make that happen but right now I think four is is acceptable where we we have four generations of devices that we can maintain and support without having to increase increase your repair costs and time to support

113those devices and stuff I think I think another Factor there and we've seen such a terrific shift on the Chris's leadership in this area is that ease of use and reliability is a huge factor in actual use in the classrooms and that was a big problem it was a big problem historically that and if things don't work reliably people understandably they don't use them so this really has helped with that okay thank you so room for adjustment but yeah yeah we're conscious of that and like I said we can make some adjustments if it needs to be in future budgets but but we're happy to provide at least a a forecast that's beyond just year to year I don't know if this is a broader question or a now question but and maybe it's more

114of a merry question but are we two things one um are we feeling like the faculty and our comfortable with schoology and that's going to be sort of like we're investing in that for the Long Haul that's my first question second is are we considering any uh shift in when we introduce the laptop over the tablet those are two questions well I'll speak to the schoology question first so we Chris and I have been having conversations before the pandemic about a learning management system um and the need for one but certainly that's sped up um needless to say so we've been very happy with schoology um I think the conversations that we're having now are more around consistent use of schoology what makes sense what does not um you know from the very beginning we

115wanted it to be this kind of K-12 consistent tool for communication which it has been but when you think about our our youngest Learners they're not using schoology in the classroom so is it an appropriate communication device with parents right um but it is really helpful for teachers like even for professional learning purposes right teachers are involved in study groups and like our curriculum leaders have a schoology course and Paige our innovators do so it's just having that consistency we haven't had any conversations lately of changing to a different learning management system so I would see say that the learning management system in this day and age is really needed um but which one and how we use it I think is the more relevant conversation again just adding that a little bit Mary I

116think based on feedback we've heard future conversations also include you know the very good point you've made about if schoology is not being used in the classroom in the younger grades how do we help parents understand uh and how do we help them to use the right tools and know when certain tools are going to be used and when they're not going to be used so that they know where to be looking and when not to be looking and all of that I think there's something for us for the future to think about what sort of the outward facing look of these of these these various software tools to parents and the second part was just um the introduction of the laptop potentially in maybe seventh grade instead of eighth grade I just I don't

117know if that's at all a conversation or yeah you know and it's a conversation at all levels it's it was it was uh fascinating and Mary and I had an opportunity to meet with uh we brought together a panel of sixth seventh and eighth grade students and we kind of actually actually posed that same question to him um and it was exciting to kind of kind of hear their Reflections in terms of oh yeah I really like this aspect of it oh I like it really like this aspect of it because there's similar devices but they're different devices and how you interact with it so so you know there were some students and we're finding this too we're finding more use of the apple pencil and and digital note-taking and those types of things um

118so so for example most of our fifth grade environments now are are incorporating digital note-taking in some capacity so um it'll be that group coming up into the middle school next year and perhaps maybe scaling that that that as you become more interactive with the tablets where our needs shift or change in such a way that that cohort might by the time they get into eighth grade provide you know some insight in terms of whether or not there's a stronger use of tablets in that capacity one of the things that we tried to achieve at least in terms of the onset remember we provided devices for teachers very intentionally I think we were slow we were intentional we we had conversations in terms of how we can shift to a kind of a mobile mindset

119the pandemic accelerated our rollout to students and and I think we're just now having that same opportunity and say okay we had to react and we shifted and we we know that this is going to be our new Norm but but where does our Norm start to refresh and I think we have about a two-year window where that that first cohort of folks got their first tablets that will get to an eighth grade window to say I understand and have used this device for four years enough to say I need to upgrade to a different device or or this might be a good device to maintain so do they go from a a an iPad that's appropriate for that age group to something that more is like an iPad Pro which is more of a

120stronger larger um you know interface that's more usable for things like digit General arts and and note taking and and touch screen uh interaction versus uh just the traditional approach to um you know laptop and there's pros and cons like I said the kids uh that have taken keyboarding classes over the years really like the comfort of a full keyboard we have some students that that um prefer to touch keyboard that's on their devices so how do you create opportunity for personal preference where their students are using these tools but then also respecting the um which I think we've gotten a lot of value from it's the consistency in the classroom so so teachers know that there's not four different types of models of devices within their learning environment um in such a way that

121they can be more predictable and say okay everyone you know this is how we're approaching this learning opportunity and everyone's have this shared experience in terms of working with that that might shift as teachers two years from now start to understand because because they're more comfortable the differences between the devices and maybe leverage that in some different ways so so short answer yes we're talking about it but I think there's still a lot more conversation in terms of what what a recommendation might look like and I just add too it's kind of evolving because the newest generation of iPads and the um cases that Chris was discussing it feels like a laptop it has a track pad it feels very different yeah there's a concur on there now and stuff so it's so it's interesting

122like as those changes take place so it's not necessarily the iPads that you know and that was technology when we got the iPads two years ago they didn't have a touchpad it didn't have those things so so we're also learning as the technology evolves and then understanding our users in terms of how they have expectations for the technology to be able to support their needs and then respecting the learning environment that's not so differentiated that it causes stress retention within there um so those are the kind of three aspects we try to try to kind of evolve together but um but from a cost perspective if we were to shift to iPad Pros versus laptops there's similar price points so I don't think it would be a a a a greater investment to shift if

123we were to go one way or the other so that from that standpoint financially I think we're we've got a good plan to kind of support that change if we if we want to make that change it's just really reflecting in terms of what our outcomes of the use of the technology becomes if super helpful thank you I'm curious because we have the debate just on with our personal devices between getting the a large iPad with a keyboard or a large tablet or some sort of a keyboard versus a laptop and having informal conversations with with even some of our younger Learners um and again I have some younger nieces nephews and stuff like that they shout out into the ether you know they're talking to Alexa and Siri and those types of folks that

124that we're just the role of a voice play into this when we think about you know the natural you know digital note taking versus you know keyboarding versus voice interaction and and and you know it's exciting to kind of see um but in the same regards it creates some new new tensions right so so you have users that are comfortable at one level you have a system that's 12 years long and you're trying to evolve into Justice you're moving with that and then you have teachers that are continuing trying to understand is is this either age appropriate or you know curriculum specific or whatever it might be to kind of Leverage those tools so it's it's always an exciting time in technology but in the same memory cards I think we have some more conversations

125to have um as we learn more so just because just before we move on so um first of all I think it's commendable budget overall at least the blue section haven't looked at the next section yet uh everything seems to be relatively flat but in particular in an inflationary period that we're in uh the ability to reduce your supplies line item is phenomenal um and as a member of the sustainability committee I just want to commend everybody for the reduction in paper usage we're taking our medicine ourselves right and that reduces the number of printed budget books by I don't know maybe 10 or 15 or even more yeah so thanks very much it's great to see that line item coming down and yeah encourages to continue to reduce our paper usage yeah and and

126I'll I'll share that too because I I know I know it's been much like debate in terms of what type of device print versus noun print has always been a good discussion too and quite honestly it's it's it's making choices right so it's it's not print or non-print it's it's where do we best use those resources and you know at the elementary level we find a lot of visualization and and color choice and those types of things if you're building bulletin boards and doing those types of things there is a role for for printed items but in the same regards how much is appropriate you know do we have the right resources in the right locations at the right times and and so we're having some good conversations but as a whole we're doing I

127think a a great effort to kind of produce and and look at that thank you it's going to save this for the pink page but because you mentioned Alexa I'll just go for it here um can you update us a little bit on our efforts to um protect students from the onslaught of YouTube uh ads and things of that nature when they're using video content and also just thinking even about the tool thank you very much for providing us with a tool to interact with our PDF budget um you know the extent to which any like metadata is being saved now and um and the security of information that our students are both providing and receiving when asked to look at video related content yeah and and and quite honestly that that's another evolving technology

128that is where we're trying to stay ahead of and understand but we've put tremendous safeguards in place um you know we have firewalls and we have those types of things that traditionally have have stopped malware and viruses and those types of things but those same tools have evolved in such a way that um they're denying certain levels of communications between systems outside of our organization and do those types of things we've done a lot with uh what's referred to as geofencing um so so um we had a I think was the seventh grade or eighth grade group was in Montreal and I'm getting text messages on the weekends and stuff like that no one can get into their email and that type of stuff because of the fact that that we had specifically said that

129if you're not in New York Connecticut Massachusetts area that you can't get into our systems we've done a lot of work to kind of narrow that case you know we can modify it you know it's a it's a but in the same regards uh it was just exemplified in terms of some of the protections that we have in place uh to make sure that data is is stored in a smaller space and accessed by a limited amount of users um encouraging students not to use their personal logins I think is an important message as we provide as a school district their email addresses and those types of things there's very little information that's connected to that you might be able to use kind of the 22 or whatever to establish you know what their graduation

130is and perhaps maybe you can then decipher what age there is but aside from maybe their last name and and and their their age there's no other personal information there that's there so so even or even our younger students that might stray and and go through a you know a chain of videos that might be collecting some patterns of how they're using it it's within the context of a school use of their accounts in such a way that that that's separate and different than their personal you use and and their personal information so we've kind of divided that and we've been able to kind of work with that um could I interrupt you for a second and ask you to pause there because that's fascinating and are we then going in and studying our student

131user logins and looking at patterns of video use once once they're instructed to go over here to look at videos do we do any reporting to then see you know the slippery slope of where the students ended up in their student accounts I think we've been more reactive than proactive on that so I've had many appearance and we've had some some great conversations in terms of how to curb behavior that they're observing and and giving them tools and flexibility to to both Monitor and limit use of Technology outside of the school environment um so so we we know we have those in place I think collectively I don't think we've done an analysis to know exactly how deep or how how far students stray um but but it's hard to even so let's assume a

132student um is curious about Rockets I don't know whatever your topic might be and all of a sudden they're in a tangent and they've watched now 22 different rocket videos um from our perspective we don't know what the topic of those videos are to know whether or not they're they're pursuing their interest in entertainment um because now they're exploring their favorite characters uh you know whatever their games are whatever it might be versus something that's more subject related in terms of doing that so so some of our aggregate data we can give patterns of how much sure how far they're using their videos we have a harder time differentiating in terms of are they off topic in terms of their learning exploration versus just finding some entertainment value and some of those things so so

133the tools are getting better we do have safe searches and those types of things in fact we have a lot of teachers that quite quite often emails say well why you're blocking this video it's an appropriate video well if it's not classified as being you know grade appropriate if it's not flagged when that video goes up to YouTube it's not going to be presented so so so a lot of these folks they're just throwing videos up and it's not classified or already blocked but I think more of the Mindless type of stuff the things that that aren't necessarily bad for kids but maybe aren't the best for kids that's kind of the gray area that we see a lot more of the conversation around in Germany I appreciate that and what I'm hearing is this

134isn't a scenario sadly where more money would solve the problem but should there ever be tools out there where it is a question of more money please don't hesitate to ask because these are some problems we'd really like to help solve yeah yeah and and let's think long term as well short term too I think I think because we just kind of you know everything appeared and kids have these devices they naturally are curious about what they're interested in I think that's why they're doing a lot more exploring that's maybe off task if you will um uh I I think the teacher's doing an outstanding job in terms of of both curating content and being able to push uh you know students to more appropriate content we're finding that more and more of those examples

135that are there giving kids a better understanding and how to use that tool better um in the absence of not having those tools they couldn't practice those Choice making and things like that that so I think having the tools has helped I think giving them more time to practice with the tools I think like I said that that fifth grade cohort that that's had them for a couple years going into middle school is going to have a different appreciation than our exiting 8th graders that maybe didn't have that Foundation when they came into the middle school as an example so um so I didn't mean to make this a long presentation but in the same regards I know they're important topics to kind of work with thank you in terms of doing that so other

136questions so the blue again was instructional pink it's much shorter this is all our non-instructional pieces so as we take a look at our systems things like Envision which are which is our math and our math our business office software we have front line which is our HR software we've got e-chock which is our school website software we have Blackboard which represents our mass communication notification systems and those types of things we subscribe mostly of all those services to BOCES and so therefore you see the BOCES budget that's there the changes as I mentioned there was an offset of some of the telecommunication tools that we had that were an instructional decrease that's why you see an increase so it's not that we're spending more in those categories it's just been reclassified in such a

137way that that we're there so so overall that's that's the nature of that um again we do have a little bit of contractual services so that when we need to bring in somebody to kind of you know address you know some changes to some of these areas that we have at least a little some flexibility to bring in the expertise to help us but but in general um you know if you add both Pages up we're only asking for about a one percent increase overall wonderful any other last questions please go ahead I just actually want to Echo some of the thoughts that have been expressed about what a great job Chris does managing his budget and then also call out Chris you began by mentioning uh some of the behind the scenes work that

138goes on and and I think one of the questions that you were asked alluded to some of the blurring of lines between the different types of work that happen technically related to technology but also related to other things so I just want to also use this opportunity to call out that increasingly Technologies in so many different aspects of our schools right from the phones that we use our computers now the clocks that you see on the walls the PA systems many of the safety systems that we use and Chris's department is increasingly involved in operations that in some cases might have fallen onto o m and there's a close collaboration there that we really appreciate but just an increasing amount of work that is supported by our technology department that's still managed within this budget

139so I just want to thank you for that Grace yeah and I'll share that as well we have a great team they do a lot of study a lot of research all those changes that the Andrew spoke to it's uh over the last couple years we've been trying to to work smarter and not necessarily harder in those capacities so as much as we updated the PA system last summer and the clock systems and those types of things we've been trying to take down some of the silo approaches to the system this system this system this system and we're trying to get to a point that we kind of had this unit unified system approach uh that that all these are kind of functions of One Core system um so the efficiencies that this that our

140team has been able to kind of create um it's it's it's blurring the lines but I think in general I think we've been more productive in a lot of ways because it's not just a phone system anymore it's a mass communication system that allows us to you know bring in the PA system to your phone in terms of being able to do you know as one example they're all kind of coming together and it comes with its own set of challenges so in the same way that our cars might stop running because of some computer malfunction we also now see increasingly that the Reliance on chips and software and other things are touching more and more aspects of our lives so it does come not bit not in any way due to Chris and the

141tour of his staff but there are some inevitable uh changes in the way we work also that we're all adjusting to I have just one more question um in these budget line items there's uh you know the software licensing and things like that I'm wondering if there is um we do seem to have a lot of different pieces um you know there's infinite campus there's schoology I'm wondering are we looking to streamline or you know was there kind of a a mother app underneath you know where all of the other pieces come it does seem like we may have some redundancy we do we do have a lot of redundancy well not a lot we do have redundancy in the system we're getting better at aligning a lot of those Services last year we have

142hired a new professional developer in the role of addressing instructional Technologies and our our work this year has been helping teachers um exactly address that is can we get to a toolbox that's a core set of tools in such a way that we can do 95 of the work with maybe six or seven programs versus the same amount with you know 14 different programs and this ensures that the teacher doesn't have to manage as much so if you if there's a smaller toolbox but more powerful toolbox can you be stronger at using the tools within there and in the same regards does it reduce the complexity of students having to learn so many different types of programs throughout their their life cycles so a fourth grader is using this tool they go to the fifth

143grade teacher has a preference to use a different tool and all of a sudden you find that the students are adjusting but in the same regards are they starting from scratch each year or are they becoming stronger and using those tools as they progress so so this year we've done some good work with that we have some professional development opportunities for for staff this Summer that we're already planning to kind of continue to focus and I think the pandemic kind of helped us uh you know walk down the buffet of all the different resources there all these all these great digital tools out there and now we're just trying to get it down to you know what's our lunch box what are we going to be able to use every day and be able to

144kind of work through that great Chris has helped us you know as we consider anything new you know kind of that word of caution like before we add on something else right let's think about like is there another solution either embedded in something we have or that works better with something we already have that we can come down to a smaller number of Tech Solutions helps families as well as students yeah and I was thinking kind of from parental yeah exactly you know I think it's important that the parents can interact with it as well yeah we have a motto in our department we try not to over engineer things but uh yeah so we try to simplify as much as we can but that's often not always the case depending on what kind of

145solution we need to move please I think just very anecdotally and very quickly um what I've noticed at HR conferences is that the number of vendor tables is shrinking because there are companies like Frontline or buying of different spaces and so you might find this very Innovative company and they do one thing and then Frontline says well we can do that too and so I think we're still navigating you know we're just gonna have to have a deeper conversation about that um because it's just it's just a matter of doing the research and what they offer but I think there are companies out there trying to reduce the amount of redundancy or fiber for all stakeholders thank you thank you so if you're ready we'll go back to page 25 and 26 of the budget

146document which are PDF Pages 82 and 83. so page 25 represents the costs associated with the attendance office at the high school um this overall proposed budget is 59 233 an increase of 1226 dollars the position is necessary to meet our responsibilities set forth by the state education department plays a key role in helping us to respond appropriately to attendance artists Audits and record keeping requirements this code includes salary hourly and overtime costs and then page 26 of the budget represents the costs associated with the guidance services at the middle and high school so the overall proposed budget there is one million seven hundred seventy six thousand four hundred eighty nine dollars an overall decrease of twenty seven thousand five hundred twenty three dollars so this represents the salaries of counselors and clerical staff as

147well as tutors we may need to provide for students on homebound instruction so these codes also provide funding for Infinite Campus and our new score system which is replacing Naviance as well as general supplies is that the increase in contract Service yes we're just researching I think Bill's question which is the increase on page 26. [Music] that's a big part of that one um student is Westco contract a student assistant West Westco contract um I think that might be the project the proposed drug and alcohol counseling service oh yeah yeah sister County contract yes what the decrease in the salary line was that student there were some retirements and then the new people hired at a different level yeah there's no reduction in staff there buttons on these pages all right so Alex presented on

14828 and 29 earlier this morning and Christian will take us through 27 and 31 shortly so age 30 is the last page that I'll take you through and this shows the costs associated with co-curricular activities so the overall proposed there is 517 912 dollars an increase of fifteen thousand five hundred sixty two and this reflects an increase in the number of stipends and cost of Contract Services and supplies for musicals OC's Consultants related to the musicals are also reflected here for example accompanists and costume designers who work with students the funds here also pay for stipended positions for advisors such as yearbook newspapers and Science Olympiad also a dedicated amount of funding for Performing Arts programs at secondary school as well as additional funding for arts and education associated with our secondary school plays um

149we feel these the funds in these codes are important to the overall School experience for students and are key in helping students to become and remain connected to the school and greater community and we're thrilled to have more hopefully in person back to uh in-person practices and performances and look forward to many mornings any clarifying questions there are the leadership positions for student leadership advisors reflected here is that the increase yes are they in that code yes those are in those anything else on these pages or this page I'll just can I just make a quick comment it's very evident that the middle school and high school and it makes abundant sense because of all the clubs and everything that's there their stipends are substantially higher than the elementary schools and it makes sense to

150me but but it's a huge variance and I even see the elementary schools are increasing slightly but I would love to see some way to expand these stipends into the elementary schools as well and I'm so I think he'll get any arguments okay thanks I think we're always looking at ways that we might you know expand programs and um you know our chorus I know is outside of the school day for example so you know thinking about kids I I totally get it but I'm just thinking there may be opportunities and and there's a very noticeable increase to the middle school which makes abundant sense but 14 000 per Elementary School seems oh to me yeah carries Carrie's helping us from reminding us the PTO provides a lot of that support I think another another

151difference though and some of this is also contractually driven and needs would require negotiation another piece though is that as students get older their involvement in clubs and activities is a lot about their learning how to facilitate so you hear Danelle talk about having to train student treasurers to be involved in that club so from a state level the reason there are extracurricular activities in the oldest in the older grades is that students are learning to become have Agency for themselves and we don't necessarily expect that of younger students so they are more involved in activities that might keep them busy and engaged and that's where the ptos have been really helpful in supporting them but it doesn't necessarily have the same school structure around it traditionally at least doesn't mean we can't look to

152change things are we ready for yeah Christian McCarthy yeah thank you Christian good morning good morning good morning morning so I think start with our nurses page which is overall page 27 84 84 on your document so we start with our we have uh seven registered nurses within the district one in each of the elementary buildings and we have two in the middle school and we also have two in the high school um where this becomes critical especially having two and two at the middle school high school obviously the high school is much larger but it also creates um the ability to help within the system it's very challenging to get um sub nurses on a regular basis for the needs that the program has so the ability to have uh our nurses to be

153mobile and go from Bill in which we often share from the Middle School to the elementary or the high school we just had one of our nurses out for a period of time and one of the nurses from the high school then moved into that role so that we had someone in-house instead of a sub for that elementary school at that time so it's really critical that we maintain that those seven nurses especially with the incredibly we have many students who have very fragile situations that we have to help them manage to get through a school day and that seems to be increasing um over the past couple years especially at the elementary level um as we slide down to the actual numbers the equipment code that you see is all part of our AED

154changeout program uh we are we do have ads throughout the district that are nearing end of life so we are each year we pick up about seven or eight of the newest models that are out there the ones that we get actually have the CPR uh pads in them that actually monitor the compressions and give feedback to you so if someone was having to perform CPR who is not as skilled they did not have the same level of training or Comfort level it does get provide you feedback in order to help you uh hopefully be more successful in your efforts the contract Service is a very large portion that is tied to the cloud that monitors all of our student records and things like that uh their health records over a period of time it

155has to be a separate Cloud obviously for um confidentiality so that that's pretty much takes up a large portion of that that is the maintaining of the different testing things they do for Eyes Ears things like that the school physician is Dr casaro he's our school physician for all levels been with us for a number of years he really does play a vital role in that in every case that we're not exactly sure where we should be on we actually we go directly to him so that he kind of leads us through that it's also critical obviously for our Athletic program because he actually validates the physicals and the eligibility of all our student athletes the health services you see is always a big number and that number will vary it's all these are our

156students who are get placed outside of our district for whatever special reasons that they have in order to meet the the needs that they have uh so that that's really not something we have a lot of control over because it all depends on the number of students involved in the program and the cost of those programs yeah and I can add a little bit to that that's the health service contracts that the board sees um for private school placement so we do have a private school within our district and then some of our students do go to private schools outside of our district and we're required to reimburse the public schools for the health services that they provide to the private school so you'll see those contracts throughout the year come across the board agendas

157to the different public schools and that's the co that's the health services line there the travel conference you see is a contractual obligation that we have and it's also critical for our nurses to stay updated with the newest information especially within the state and then their supply code is for all the soups and nuts in order to keep the offices running and provide services day to day for our students we have any questions about this page um I do I I'm just a little curious what is the um kind of recommended student to nurse ratio you seem to be pretty well staffed here yes so I don't know it's really a little more complicated it's not what we have it's it is the requirement is actually much less uh there's many situations where you could

158have one nurse running multiple buildings um the reality of that level of care would be dramatically would dramatically drop off that we're able to provide especially when we have uh students who have incredibly are medically fragile they have we have diabetics we have things that that where our nurses are help testing because of their age we also um when you talk about a situation of the Comfort within a building within the teachers I can tell you anytime a nurse is out and that we're sharing it's a high stress period of time for the administrators in the building and for all the teachers because they feel like they don't have that safety net uh there in case of an emergency so yes we are definitely above the state minimum um but I would say our experience

159showed us that even when we had cut half of a nurse at the middle school level we found ourselves often understaffed with the amount of work that was actually coming through the offices So currently the way we're currently set up with the seven we are often behind with the workload because it's dramatic at different times of the year at different times of the day for our nurses if you're a single nurse in a elementary building and you have a number of medically fragile students that could eat up a large portion of your time and then you're trying to maintain the office and the in the normal volume that's coming in and out so it's pretty I can tell you our nurses definitely feel as if they're on the edge as far as the amount of

160volume coming in so although we are absolutely above what the minimum requirement would be we are meeting the needs to the best of our ability of our of our clientele it's a it's a it's a great question Anna and Chris has described it well it's a really unusual generous word situation in New York state you're not required to have a nurse in a public school in New York state at the same time you can be required that through an IEP to have a nurse travel with a student on a bus in certain situations which we do have currently yeah and so the range of what's required versus what's necessary versus it is really unusual and we have definitely seen uh recovered and through shifting needs of children we we see the need very much so

161and as Chris points out a single episode can tie up a nurse for a significant portion of the day so when you have one nurse in the school who's there you know there are a number of many students in the school that require the services they can be stretched very thin at time to time so we it it's also fair to say you we really appreciate the board's support we have increased our nursing services in recent years as Chris points out that the world around us as I'm sure you know it's become increasingly challenging to bring in nurses on a short-term basis or on a substitute basis because they're in such demand in the world around us so to be able to maintain them in the house really creates valuable flexibility within the district I

162also think it's the reality of having a first responder in the building for it as situations become critical which can happen it's never planned it can happen at any time to have someone be able to manage that situation especially successfully is critical to the safety of our teachers and our students allergies are an increasing issue in terms of having somebody on staff who's comfortable assessing and using an EpiPen right yeah that's very helpful thank you I I didn't think that we would want to be at the the minimum requirement and it's just a better understanding of of where we land and you know with five buildings and and different coverage and different amounts of students in each building that's very helpful thank you any other questions Chris just uh two line items so the school

163physician looks like a 20 year-over-year increase maybe you should just speak to that and then the health services for other districts that really is directly related to the number of students who are in other districts is it fair to say that that number is always going up I don't see any fluctuation at least over the last three or four years is an increase this year of fifteen thousand it was an increase of fifteen thousand last year and so on I'm just curious if if we're seeing an increased number of students at other districts that we need to support right so if it's okay I'll take both of those questions because those are probably the two line items that Chris doesn't put in I put into the budget so to answer your question about uh the

164school physician um Dr chrisara we have not seen an increase in his rates for as long as I've been here so at least like 13 years it's always been flat um we are not sure if things will change with him from one year to the next I'm seeing how he hasn't increased his rates but we have utilized him so much more with covet and during covet and questions so we're just anticipating that um also hope he's not watching you know if we're required to go out to an RFP at some point if he does raise his rates there could be some potential increases for if we do look for different positions he also he provides the same services to many school districts in our region and the same person yeah and then as far as

165the health services other districts this is really based on I know we talked about like a three-year average but this we really looked at what the bills are coming in this year because that gives us a better idea so Health Services there's a calculation that the other school districts do and it considers salary and benefits within that calculation of our portion you know salary for their nurses and benefits for their nurses oh so um I do see that that number would always increase the only um way it would decrease is if less of our students went to those private New York State private schools that are billing back those private schools so we will see some fluctuation from year to year and it could decrease from one year to the next if less people are

166attending private schools that bill is back but since it is linked to salaries and then nursing supplies which would relate to CPI um and this year we are seeing more of an increase in the invoicing is this the area to know where we end up seeing almost a wash because we also receive revenue from other districts can you point us to where yes so we have a private school in our district um it's it's a wash for us other school districts who don't have private schools in their District it wouldn't be a wash and if our private school ever closed down we still would be obligated to to pay this line item uh we do happen to have a private school that other school districts send their children to to this private school and we

167do provide Health Services to that private school so then in turn we bill out um and if you look at the revenue line there is a revenue line that indicates health services and we did increase that because again we are seeing increase okay um so now we're going to change to page 31 which are is our Athletic program it leaves 88. yes 31.88 so our Athletic program currently we are we're a member of the New York State Public High School Athletic Association which I know Andrew probably gave you an update we have a number of students competing at the state level uh within that program and that's throughout the 11 sections throughout New York State um within this program we have 70 plus teams and the reason I always say plus is because certain teams

168provide opportunities but it's not always clear like within our track and field program we have multiple levels um that can also be delineated by certain races like if you look at cross-country for instance they'll have freshman races JV races Varsity races but depending on the amount of students we have at the different levels will determine determine that we also have sports where we allow uh there's some crossover a few a sport like golf we don't have a girls team in golf but we have athletes that make the golf team they also have the opportunity to choose to play in the in the women's sectionals versus the male sexual sectionals they have the opportunity to choose either or uh in that path so you'll see that's why we use that kind of turn 70 plus we

169also have um additional program on our bowling program which is a single coach but we we do send some support with them so we allow them to take on additional students who may not be competing at the varsity level but still have an opportunity to be part of the program so we have a number of programs that kind of fall into that um within that we're pretty even from the male female perspective with 37 teams for each side um from that perspective uh we are looking uh because it will go to we'll slide over we are looking to increase that a little bit and offering some different programs uh especially at the modify level uh we are looking to bring back our modified football program our modified football program was housed here for many many

170years we were approached by the community a number of years ago about wanting it to go into the youth the youth World they thought that was the best best model was what was happening is we were having students because the times when they start the um the youth program starts much earlier in August uh which impacts obviously families and their vacation things like that and then our program starts you know at the very end of the you know actually we started the very historic school with we push ours an extra week forward um what we found over the past couple years their numbers began to be impacted by that um they had approached us a couple years ago about thinking about bringing it back uh because we thought it was a way to get more

171interest for the program obviously football the numbers have been declining over a period of time ours are pretty steady at this point from the original declines um but this would be a way to kind of have a Resurgence also have an additional program for our our students to participate in because you can carry 50 plus at the football level you're not because it's not a sport that you're going to cut in because there's so many different opportunities that you can create between offense defense specialty and things like that currently we have a large number in the fall especially we have field hockey we have two volleyball teams for our female athletes plus cross country um as well as soccer and we're on the male side we just have uh cross country and soccer so this

172will provide a big fill a big gap for that for that group of kids and then fast forwarding to what with the hope of that mean that we'll get a large number of kids get involved in our that will carry over into our JV program and then eventually to our Varsity program in addition for the first time since I've been here I know we should bring on Mike bucklett uh there was a real concern about the fact that we do not have a modified program uh at for the boys level in Lacrosse Chris in the sport of Lacrosse and the reason behind that for years ago is that we were our lacrosse program was really at an extremely high level and we found that a lot of the startup modified programs didn't create much level

173much of a level of competition for a program at the time our current situation we're seeing a much smaller number of student athletes in the sport of Lacrosse than we have over the past years we've seen it start to slowly decline over a number of years and this will now provide we do offer it for our girls our girls program so we're looking to provide that same level of support for the boys program and get some more kids involved at this level your higher level kids would probably be involved with the app process and playing the JV level so it would be providing a lot of opportunity for students to have represent their school have it right have everything right here as opposed to having to be all over the place and being split between

174the two so I know it was something that they were really excited to bring back thinking that it will really impact long term the numbers of students that are in that particular program um any questions about I don't want to get too far into anything without any questions about either one of those two um explain a little bit more I wasn't sure I understood the youth versus modified and they I think you said they approached us and I'm not sure the interaction works yeah so I had a um so we have a a touchdown Club is a organization of parents that provides support to the football program they're heavily involved in the youth program or have been and kind of start to graduate up um that group approached me about you know the current state

175of where the youth program was a parent yep the parents when you say a youth program just to clarify youth program means a program that's not affiliated with the schools to run outside it's a private program not run by us yeah it's a separate uh not-for-profit right that's run for our particular Community but not by us although many of them have the same use our name and things like that they're not uh affiliated with us in any way except that they end up being our feeder program and so obviously we usually have a really strong relationship with them uh football is one that we haven't had a very strong relationship with just be it's more been distant not adversarial in any way um and so we're thinking this is another way to kind of connect

176the two programs because in the end the participation rate will drive the program success um not just from a winning perspective but for students experiencing the sport itself so the feedback from that was that there was a lot of conflict between number one the start times because it dramatically impacts a family if you're if you're locked into football in the second week of August as opposed to the first week of September um and then there there was some fluctuation in their numbers there and so they thought that we would be able to provide a little more leadership at this level tied to the program get some more excitement around it and and then from our perspective too we're providing a much needed opportunity for for students at that age level great you're saying it creates

177parity between the offerings for boys and girls in that season yeah it feels a big gap yeah because the girls we have multiple we have two volleyball teams we have a field Hawk we have soccer and cross country where we only have soccer and cross country for our boys not related to budget but just thinking about the potential benefits of a program existing both at the modified level and then up through JV and up through Varsity I'm just reminded of something we heard about in The Music Space which was where our older music students are buddied with younger music students in the orchestra would we ever have opportunities or do we have opportunities of that nature for our Varsity or JV kids to kind of I don't know play with or Inspire our modified kids

178yes a lot of the programs do tie together I know a number of our programs even when we don't have they get involved the youth program they'll go work clinics and things like that and they give back um I think that's something that's I don't know why wide scale by our kids which is great um but I do think it creates more opportunity because you have the connection now uh within the school and up working up through the program that I think it could make a big difference from that perspective and create more opportunities for that to happen nice to Envision any other questions here yeah please so that the addition in the coaching and the addition and the equipment is that all mostly football it is it is yep I'll take I'll take you

179through that now so the equipment obviously you see a big jump from 24 to 86 unfortunately the football equipment that we have to purchase is not cheap and it's in large quantities so we'd probably be in the range of ordering 60 at a time helmets or over 200 uh shoulder pads are up you know could be 150 a pair so it adds up pretty quick uh when you're providing all that plush uniforms things like that um lacrosse boys across is more expensive than girls across because it requires helmets and shoulder pads uh which we do provide to make sure that they meet the New York State uh public high school and nfhs rules uh that it falls in line with all the safety requirements that they must have like for instance we had bought the

180boys shoulder pads for lacrosse about two years ago and that was when they they changed the requirement as to what had to be part of especially protecting the heart things like that same thing with our catchers equipment with the new modifications we make sure we provide it is what often happens students just want to use what they're comfortable in and then that may not meet the requirement and create a safety scenario that's potentially could take place well you know nine ten times probably does not but it the the possibility of it needs to be uh addressed and that's how we do that through the purchase of those equipment doesn't it doesn't mean that they become annual purchases though correct no we're usually just updating you know and if students do have equipment that does meet

181the standard then we do we don't we don't force them to then use our equipment but so they do have options within that I don't know where our modified football program would have practiced previously but was the youth program utilizing our fields or yeah but after hours they'd be down in the pit area more more often than not but we probably had just had we would have a higher rate of use of metal Pond um after school because we've got teams enjoy going there it's quiet it's a great space um so we probably use a lot utilizing that more we'd still be utilizing the pit in the middle school we would try to make um we would be putting the goal post back at we have we have goal posts that we have kept back

182from when we uh did our renovation of the contest area the stadium we didn't throw those goal poles out we kept them in storage for this purpose so that they'll be reinstalled at the middle school so our goal is to have as many of their events right here on campus especially their actual games when we can fit them uh that sometimes it's not possible but for the most part football will will be on campus uh the athletic trainer situation that they things like that I would assume that in prioritization of the contest field that varsity Sports whether they be not football or football would get the contest field over like a modified football game would be on AP Farm correct yeah or it would be it would be behind the middle school on the grass

183field grass fields are still the best fields to be on I know we everyone prefers that I want to be on the turf for obvious reasons but the safest field is still the grass field so we would utilize that field and our varsity teams always take precedent over JV and and modified we kind of rotate it when we can fit it we do if not we use all the fields we have access access to Chris can we just go back to the equipment line item it's the largest increase yep so the in last year was 24K and this year we're going to 86 so that's a substantial increase is that just to support equipment for the football team no no so I I misspoke in the sense that that those are very much tied to

184our supply line because they're not items over a thousand the equipment actual equipment I use the term equipment because that's what we call it when we hand it out to the kids but when we go through these line items that you'll see so if we go to our equipment line item that went from 24 to 86 is that is the new scoreboards so the scoreboards that would go into the high school gym is that pretty much that entire cost um and so the goal there is that we're going to take the current scoreboards which are quite old but still do work they're they're not they're they're not um completely at end of life we then move those two scoreboards down to the Middle School our the older gym or we call now the north gym

185uh that does not have functioning scoreboards uh the ones that are down there are from a I don't know when um so those would those would just be removed off the walls uh entire entirely and then we would take the scoreboards we have here which I think were 1990 something purchase 1995 I don't know if it was part of the original is either part of the original 1993 renovation or it might have been a little bit after that so they we've been updating them through the best that we can but those would then fall into the middle school and that gym would become fully functional so that we could in the event if we had to peel up wrestling match we could have an additional uh use of that space so one of the things

186that we are blessed you're thinking of is when we have when we bring our wrestling program to the high school to put them front and center in our in that gym and then we then find ourselves tight on Space we could then use the space that they vacated for basketball and then return it back for wrestling practice so it'd be kind of like a shift Shape Shifter from that perspective we would still get we would take these scoreboards to the very end of life you know hopefully they would last because they wouldn't have as much use down there so they would just be able to sustain for a much longer period of time but then we would put the new boards into the high school gym which are much needed and that'll that'll really Elevate

187that space with everything that we're doing right now and creating a multi-purpose uh piece and I know that our booster club is working hard to raise money for a media board which is although quite expensive allows you to do so many things in that space and that would be compatible with what we'd be purchasing in order to run all of our events so we get scoreboards and a um scores table our current score is stable we're covering all the all Indian related um symbols from the many many many years ago and it start it's falling apart at this point because it's probably in the range of 20 years old um so we'll be transitioning those those two items so that's what you see that that big jumping cost and then you go next year it

188will return back it's not this is not something you'd see you probably wouldn't see a number of 86 from this year every year because we're not going to be replacing things that cost that much money in that in that line item and I think you answered the question so the money the booster slope is attempting to raise for the media board doesn't overlap with new scoreboards so no so the money there the the media boards are Standalone but it's the same company so they're compatible so we could build off of foundation we've created with the scoreboards that we're putting in so they would just tie right into everything uh seamlessly but it's a separate entity it's a separate board in a separate Place uh it's basically allows you to have almost like an iPad on

189the wall so you could be watching film you could be uh live streaming a graduation there you could be with the new bleachers that are going in you could be it could be an overflow space it could be a movie night space like it really becomes endless uh it helps with all of our tournaments because everything will be posted up for everyone to see so it creates a much it really changes the space uh and creates it turns it into like a multimedia space for a number of things that impact our program obviously in a very positive way but then it does give some opportunities for the district to utilize the space in different ways and then I see there's a gator in that line item as well is that an additional so the gate

190the gator that where these are as we kind of go through we currently have the one Gator we have is at the end of life we we are hatching it you know together um we are considering depending on how the end of this year goes is that we might use funds from this year instead in order to meet the need so we're working through that so that again it wouldn't be additional costs which we're working within that one that one range that the scoreboard is our number one priority uh the gator is something that could come into this year as we were finalizing the actual use of our current equipment money based on the neat the actual need so often when we do equipment we have to kind of change gears when we see that

191things are starting to wear in a way that we didn't hadn't anticipated and so we kind of recalibrate and say okay if we do this now we will have to push this thing another thing off in that period of time in order to make it work and just a reminder equipment is considered contingency budget code so there's very specific rules and regulations of transferring in or out of equipment codes so on that page we did we did list a number of equipment but of course if one equipment cost is higher than another then we would have to shift and um in the scoreboard is absolutely our priority yeah but by no means are the scoreboards going to be 86 000 no that was not the estimate no the the it's right the the scoreboard is

192going to fall right around that 50 number it's going to be in that range slightly more and then then we use our normal funds for things like uh pole vault mats um and anything that falls under that over a thousand dollars but we kind of recalibrate to see each year to make it make sure it meets we don't want to leave a gap in a program in a given year because of the need twenty thousand for the supplies is just what you were talking about with helmets correct the equipment yes yes yeah is that safety consideration across all sports what's that because you mentioned that New York state has some safety requirements where we're purchasing shoulder pads and how much we fall under almost all sports for fall under the nfhs the national Federation rules

193and then we are required to meet all their standards difference there are certain sports that fall outside of that uh but then we just meet the standards of whatever that organization is that we follow um contract Service the big original big jump you saw in contract Service was we do have two athletic trainers uh we have a male athletic trainer and a female athletic trainer and that is the main Drive behind that and I can tell you that the board's support of the second athletic trainer has dramatically impacted our program in an incredibly positive way our students athletes it's and it's not just from a first responder safety perspective the relationships that they developed with the student athletes is is surrounding them by quality adults who who they confide in and trust and share you

194know concerns within a program I'm often brought information about a program that may have some issues going on because of what is shared and they know that that you know they let them know that they're going to bring it to me um it's really a positive place and we they're helping kids back from injuries they're they're teaching them how to avoid it uh they're heavily involved in our strength conditioning program we're running night programs for our female athletes our male athletes and everything in between it's really been great I I get a perfect example is um we have an elite athlete that's up at the state level this year who is incredibly serious about her craft and they had called and said they were you know we really want to get more involved in a

195strength conditioning program right away I put them in touch with our two athletic trainers they or have with a day later had the parent in with the student athlete met with them created a time frame a plan for programming so it's really been great they are outstanding human beings and and we know now we all got to experience you know if you you know this past NFL season when you saw how that can have you know something catastrophic can happen at any moment and the importance of having um that that level of staff is just critical to the program and the safety uh of our kids and uh and they have performed uh above and beyond so we're thrilled them and thank you for that but that's uh that's been a huge addition a really

196positive one and that really is the fault because their their contract covers pretty much a large portion of that um of that number the next piece is around equipment repair so this is a number that years ago was in the 20s when I first came but since we actually have our own laundry room we do all our own laundry and instead of sending it out that's what our equipment manager does um each season then he can track track what we need and we update as needed whether it's replacing uniforms getting things um sewn cleaned up things like that then he also attracts all of our equipment we send out pretty much the main things you have to send out uh your is your football equipment is really the helmets more than anything because it's the

197one object that does actually get drop tested if you drop tested a hockey helmet or you drop tested a Lacrosse Helmet they'd actually shatter uh and crack because they're they're not designed for that the same way a football helmet must meet a standard and they do the drop test and to ensure that they meet that needs around that particular sport so it's really the only one that we really have to have to do it for um the other ones are just they they really that refers to is cleaning of the equipment that we have and so we'll send we'll send we try to limit what we send out because it is very expensive but we do focus on what is absolutely needed to get done the uh traffic service is really uh wait oh okay

198because it's traffic service and facility rental our traffic is really what we um lewisboro police get involved and provide support for us at different games that's a much smaller number um and then our facility rental is gymnastics uh ice hockey swimming you know we now have a much larger number of teams almost our entire winter sport grouping um is has to be played or compete elsewhere um and so that and so you'll see that that's a big part of what those numbers are and everything is just getting simply more expensive um to to go to to go to these facilities um travel and conference is any of this professional development that we're doing it's also tied to our coaches so we currently have coaches up at the state at the state level supporting our student

199athletes that are there and so it's providing for their transportation and mileage things like that and hotel stay the BOCES that those are our fees that come out of section one BOCES which is all of our officials uh this the portion of scheduling that they do things of that nature that fall under that number and that's one that generally climbs you know each year a little bit um but it's critical obviously to the the ability to run the program and then our supply close which job which we not only are things more expensive than ever before unfortunately for us uh we're now looking to add this Pro program which is obviously there's going to be costs associated with that and I will then open up the floor to any questions you might have thank you

200sure please I saw Ilana and Liz I so Junior only in elementary school still so I'm not as familiar with all those sporting stuff so excusing my questions sorry different but um I'm curious how many student athletes do we have um in school we're we're approaching right around the 800 number okay um but within between the Middle School and the high school but that's also we do have some three sport athletes we find our three sport athletes are mostly in our cross-country track and field because it they tended to cross over um we have a bat right now numbers around 75 three sport athletes about it'll be a little over 200 two sport athletes and about 500 uh single sport athletes that fall into that grouping so like right now our numbers we're still in

201registration are in like the 700s but I expect that we usually get a real push at the very very end so I I would say our numbers will be right around the 800 you know give or take between the two buildings 800 unique registrants so unique students no no no because you have to have with the multiple Sports it's going to tally them in two ways one is for sport and then then that's why I said we have those multi-sport student athletes that are also built in there so that's what I'm saying our goal is gonna with support of the board with the additional program we're looking at potentially 75 additional students right off the bat that could be added to that number um and would push probably the Middle School number over 300 which

202is would be great so do we have a sense of unique participants like how much I think the question is how much of our student body is participating in the um you know the extra this I guess you figure out it's at the 500 mark would be because that's individual sports they were at 475. um so you're gonna it's gonna be give or take in that range and so for this new program you're anticipating it would serve 75 new students or it might not be new students but 75 students participating correct at the modified level because that we can carry such a large number and in the past we have had pretty big numbers at that we're anticipating that the excitement of it coming back is going to draw a little more interest and we'll

203probably get a larger number of students will jump in because it's year one especially uh and there'll be a lot of excitement around it and you know things at that level so we do anticipate there being around 50 there and then our our lacrosse is usually around that 25 number but we could carry more if if if it needed to be we that's another sport where we try to carry a little bit more um because there are some options especially at the modified level to create some more opportunity so we would look at that if that number was higher we would try to avoid cutting it if we could yeah yeah makes sense um and is the program is it both for male and female athletes so no they're these are both male programs because

204uh and they fall into our current model because we have we're offering more female programs at the modified level currently so like I said at the in the fall where football would fall in we're talking about adding 50 students uh volleyball we have two volleyball teams for our female athletes we have a field hockey team we have a soccer team and we have cross-country but we only have soccer in Cross Country for our male athletes this would increase the opportunity correct even it out more yep and then in the spring it'd be pretty much to make them identical because the only program we don't offer is boys lacrosse but we do offer on the girls side and so they would now have that at that at that age group as well and I was curious

205about the trainers I'm are the trainers in the um the workout facilities that were they well so they have their own space where they provide therapies and taping and things like that for our student athletes which is in the high school right across from the fitness center at the high school so they're in both space cases and then obviously they're working games on the whole campus yeah they generally only leave campus like if we have a sport like hockey we always send one to our hockey games because now that we have two we can because I can keep one back to run basketball just because hockey can be you know in a moment's notice can become a really serious situation so we want to make sure we had our own people there and then they're

206also it's important for our student athletes in that scenario as well because they're developing the relationship as opposed to it's just having coverage there which is what the section provides we pay for an ENT they have no relationship so that when a player comes off if they're nicked up there's no one checking on them no one talking them when you have an athletic trainer there they're saying hey what happened or I saw this are you okay and now they're that's how they get ahead of a lot of injuries and and can keep them from getting to a worse situation and just one sorry one more question about the fitness center I remember that was something that you just spoken very highly of in the past and again is that space used by just student athletes

207are you finding that also other other students are using yeah so it's it's part of our daily physical education program so grades 9 through 12 every other day there is based so half the population of the school will go through the our end of the building every each day and then at minimum half of those those will be in the fitness center if not a lot of times we're doing shorter segments and they're going between both they'll spend a segment in the fitness center and then they'll go down to the gym and be into more traditional like badminton things like that um so it kind of goes back and forth but the fitness center is the whole base of our physical education program uh then after school we offer it's like a fitness center intramurals

208where we have it it's open to all of our students we have 50 60 up to 70 kids at any one time in that space who are not currently athletes and often some of them aren't on any of our teams so we're excited about that it's really around creating a a healthy space for kids to spend time with each other which is what you're seeing happening at the college level if you go you now see these elaborate fitness centers and that's creating positives positive space for kids to congregate and and and and take care of so much and then it's also tied to you know if you think about depression anxiety which is at its highest with our kids and honestly for our teachers as well um it is the best prescription in the trains

209that I've been that starts with you know the impact exercise can have uh in many situations I know for my own kids who have dealt with different things it was a big part of their prescription and getting them to a good place thanks you're welcome um we've heard I think over the last few board meetings that there's a sense that we are under investing in interscholastic athletics um what I'm seeing here is like um 10 increase in the budget and I did because I was curious about what we had heard um just kind of look at our peer districts and it does seem that we're on the high end on a per pupil spend I was wondering um do we have more teams or more opportunities or it all depends on how you're grouping if

210we group ourselves with the schools we tend to which are Harrison you know those type of schools uh Fox Lane Byram um even if you go around what Somers is offering Yorktown we are pretty much in the same range as them we're not dramatically below anyone or above anyone some have different resources at higher levels that are built in and for somewhere right where we need to be so it's you know from that perspective it's if we're going in with like schools you know we're we're competing so you have the sense that we're you know well-funded solid operations it's a little bit of a loaded question from the presidential thing so I'll give you an example um this is my 14th year my Supply budget was when I came here was 82.5 for the last

21113 years it's been 80. so even with all the increase in things that have happened over those 14 years of the price of things that that's been pretty stable where we've made our jumps within our district have been around uh program opportunity which I think we're doing wonderfully we have invested in coaches which I think assistant coaches especially because we we're now we've added them in many of our Sports at the JV level which is critical to the development of programs so we've just invest our monies in different ways so you're not you may we may not have jumped in one area but we are you know I think in a great place in other areas so it's really a it all depends on where we are and some places we're doing great other places

212were catching up would be the best way to put it and then just one more question when you're talking about adding you know uh football on one side and and Lacrosse on the other and you talk about um opportunities are you talking about a number of teams are you talking about actual opportunities for individuals like that because football's so much larger right as a team so the team sports you get you bang for your buck so when we talk about I don't there's not an individual thing I can put out there that says okay I'm awesome I'm gonna get 75 50 kids it's always that bang for your buck where we have kind of move to when you talk about the interview we now have um ice hockey for for our girls is an option

213so this year we didn't have an ice hockey player that was ready for the varsity team but they were in the skating program there so we are that is an Open Door and we we're anticipating another group of of our female athletes coming up to become of age to be part of that um we have a one of our gymnastics uh athletes is we have we were competing with four throughout the year we have one that's qualified for the state level that's where you're kind of seeing the individual wait we've added those um Sports which aren't drawing large numbers but are drawing unique opportunities for our kids to compete and share their talents right I was just trying to understand so like when you have a bigger team so you mentioned there's field hockey and

214all of the different girls Sports um do we have the same like kind of number of opportunities for female students and versus male students yeah even if the team like the number of teams is not the same correct so the um our current numbers like leading into this year we're right pretty much dead even and depending on how you do it you could shift it one for the girls a little higher but for the most part it's around 37 Sports per gender so we're from that perspective we're right there you're you're always going to see right now there's going to be a more dominant uh male participation and that's something that's common throughout the country uh so it's that's why we started moving to some of these unique opportunities okay we we know we don't

215have a large number of gymnasts but we were able to sneak into a like our team that won the section is seven schools so it's almost like a dream team that they end up putting together which doesn't go over quite well within the section but otherwise our students wouldn't be able to participate we do the same thing with swimming um like our boys has is a much smaller number right now but we have a relay that's going to the states that would have never had an opportunity to compete at the state level because they we wouldn't have we wouldn't have got there so and that happened well as well this uh fall because we had that one athlete from Fox Lane with R3 and now we have a state level uh Team so we're getting

216experience at a whole different level I think maybe what Liz is trying to visualize if I'm not mistaken is looking at the modified opportunities for kids and thinking about wanting to maybe adjust our parody of offerings for the boys and the girls when we think about two volleyball teams and a cross-country team a field hockey team and a soccer team for the girls in the Middle School approximately how many students how many female athletes could that be and I understand there would be a variable because cross country there aren't any Cuts so you could yeah you're going to see around 15 athletes per volleyball team okay so that's three that's a general number right there then you're going to see soccer will be up in the low 20s anywhere from 20 to 25 Cross countries

217could be it all depends on the current year we've had 50 we've had 20. you know that that tends to fluctuate because it's such a sport that you have to be really committed to from the perspective of something you really want uh we have a lot of part-timers that kind of can get involved in that uh they're doing a little bit of both um so that's where you're kind of field hockey again it's going to be right around that 20 Mark anywhere 20 to 24. and on the boys soccer team it would be around it'll be the same same thing boys soccer team has traditionally carried between 20 and 25. again super helpful that that sort of so female lead opportunity is about 90 girls in the middle school and if we add the football

218in the fall and it comes out at around 75-80 boys yeah you start and you'll see that it's similar to the high school level in that there's more female offerings in the fall than any other time during the year they're they're really loaded there and then we're looking even into things like I had a a meeting with students yesterday about um the push of flag football for our female athletes which is you know Catching Fire around the country and we definitely have some interest and we're going to offer some intramurals a couple days to see where our interest levels are and then we'll monitor that and make decisions based on how that turns out but we have a excited group of student potential future student athletes who have are really advocating and so we're going

219to start and we're going to start with the intramurals this year the spring offer it see how see how it goes have some meetings and then we'll go from there with that I think any other questions yeah please I'm just curious how the cost sharing works when we have the teams that are between schools and where that's kind of reflected in the budget so it reflects it's really good it's a per pupil type thing so like for instance um skiing we're we're getting drilled we take the heavy the heavy burden skiing because we're almost all it's almost all of our kids so then we'll we'll bill back for the ski the ski lift tickets things like that uh we kind of work together with Transportation so that's not going to be a particular thing that

220they're billed for so often we team up with North Salem and they they help us when we have we're in a crisis and they'll take the kids to the mountain for us things like that but though it's basically a per pupil I'll I take the bulk which is why we took over the ski program because it was almost it was 90 95 John Jay student athletes and then we have a couple students from North Salem and we had uh two students from Somers so we try to help them provide opportunity for us but they're so they're getting filled back these much smaller numbers uh gymnastics it's um we pay our we have to pay a fee to the facility and then we pay a small portion because we only have students we have we pay

221a small portion of the um coaching fees things like that and and with those when we Bill back we reimburse the expense it's not a revenue line we just reimburse the expense of what it actually cost since since the modified editions are the substantial piece of the budget here can you help me understand how you evaluate the need for additional modified teams is it based just on the youth organizations sort of coming and talking to you or is it based on it's used everything we do for the most part is going to be interest based so we have a being part of the New York State Public High School Athletic Association we have these are the sports that we are permitted uh to utilize as part of our program so we can't have outliers uh

222and that fall under that same umbrella they can be separate as clubs and things like that like our ultimate frisbee doesn't fall under Athletics because it's not part of the program I'm specifically talking about the addition of modified Sports to existence no yeah so what I what the point there we looked at was we had the feedback from our community but then we also look at what are we currently offering and we have a currently we have a gap in what we're offering our male students at that age level so when we see when originally when we thought that was being met yeah with the outside program we were we were comfortable with that but after receiving the feedback from the community that you know it could be met at a much higher level with

223the with the connection back to the school and some of the concerns that were arising within that we felt that it was a good time that Andrew and I started having the conversations over a year ago about the possibility of bringing them back and then we in year two we followed up with that so it's really based on those those two concepts same thing with our boys program we added that because we we are currently offering every other option that's that's there as far as far as interest we're receiving um and so from that perspective the only support we have never offered since I've been here was modified boys lacrosse for the reasons I shared with you earlier but then when um our new coach came in and looked at and we're looking at the

224numbers and we started tracking having those conversations we said it makes sense that it will provide an additional opportunity that we don't currently offer our boys and it'll create some Equity within that program and hopefully it'll drum up larger numbers of participation long term within that so it's a combination of the of all the above you do evaluate all of the sports and determine whether you think it's appropriate to add it's not really based on youth organizations oh no it's not just no I I there's things I do so we do say no to for sure um now they bring in um something basically it's like anything when something comes in we look into it and say okay what are what where what's their angle where is it coming from and how does it then

225how are we seeing it from our perspective and sometimes the two match up and when they do it makes sense to team up and make a move yeah I guess my question is I'm assuming that we are doing that evaluation independently that we're not depending on excellent organizations to come with those ideas to us right that we're evaluating the demand within the org within this yeah on our own information yeah so the the lacrosse one was was newer for us that and that was simply because we are seeing a drop in numbers and we that's something we're concerned but then we're seeing a similar thing at the Youth Level so there's years we had much higher each level like when I came we had two JV boys teams we had um 40 kids at the

226varsity level and so you're looking at pretty large numbers there we're now have we've for the last five six seven years we've had one JV boys team and then you're seeing numbers in the in the 20s as far as the program itself so you're seeing a decline um and then what they said they were we were getting information that they're seeing something similar at the Youth Level from a perspective and then our purpose was if we can meet the need and it makes sense we would like to have it in-house we were always had the information that it was going to be beneficial we're now seeing that where the numbers are it really would be and that's why we're getting behind it uh to push it through I'm confused I'm a little confused as to

227whether we're adding programs because numbers are declining or we're adding programs because enrollment is increasing I think can I just put it another way I think we've heard that there's interest out there we've we know where we have parity and where we don't so where that shows us that we have a certain number of girls participating in season we don't have the same number of boys participating in in-house programs Chris has heard uh in in the case of football over a few years that they're seeing declining enrollment that they attribute to what we talked about the summer start aspect and that if we own the program here we might see an increase in that enrollment if we were providing the program here and it helps us to create a parody of opportunities between boys and

228girls and then what we always do once we add something is we monitor the actual enrollment in what and what actually turns out to happen so we'll watch that over a year or two not dissimilar to when we add an academic opportunity a few years ago there was lots of discussion about adding additional languages here at the high school and we added a mandarin program didn't sustain the enrollment over time to the point that we don't have that program anymore because we don't have enrollment in the classes so in the same way you know sometimes we put a program in that we think there's interest for after much discussion sometimes with Community sometimes with board and then we monitor to see what happens on the either the enrollment proves to be the case or it

229doesn't so and it's also the connection between the programs so when you have a modified program in-house it's much more connected to JV and varsity and you have a developmental stages within the program as opposed to just taking kids in from the outside separately so that's why from a coaching perspective it's a desired piece from you know inside the in-house then there's the piece of being able to offer where we have a gap and then it's also with the information of what's happening outside where maybe that program's not meeting the need the same way that it had in the past so it makes sense for us to to try to do that any other questions thank you so much we appreciate you joining us thank you I just wanted before we break um I just

230wanted to Circle back to 28.50 which was blue page 30. I believe it was worry or Bill forgive me um somebody asked about the instructional leaders if they were coded here um I did some research as Chris was talking they are not coded I'm sorry to know that the question wasn't about instructional leaders it was the new stipends for the leadership program in the high school okay the advisors not instructional leadership okay sorry if I asked a question I think I might have misspoke so what was the question then again so I can we had recently added in in the actuals for this year it'll show that we have stipends that amount to approximately I think it's closer to twelve and fifteen thousand dollars but I was asking whether this fifteen thousand dollar increase is

231actually more reflective of the actuals rather than a budget to budget sorry if I misunderstood then I will no problem not go back to that thank you so that brings us to the conclusion of the instructional portion thank you thank you so much and just to check in with the board we're running a little bit behind schedule and especially as a courtesy to administrators who've joined us to present I'm going to suggest we take as efficient a break as we possibly feel is comfortable so it's 11 37 would we be able to come back at 11 45 or is that too short or do we need pardon me we need a break I think we do need a quick break yeah so I'm gonna make a motion to recess briefly seconded by Julia and I

232think we're all in favor thank you see you at 11 45. because he tells us where he's you know okay thank you so much everyone thank you for your patience it hurts here we are coming back and it's my pleasure to make a motion to um return to public session thank you Julia we're secondly all in favor please say aye aye seven zero wonderful okay thanks again everyone for your patience we're gonna get back on track and we are ready to move forward with the proposed budget for operations and maintenance we're going to invite Paul Christensen up to join us thank you welcome Paul nice to see you so now we're in yellow right yeah no thank you right you're right in the wrong direction yeah hi Paul hello everybody um I'm here to present

233operation which is pink Pages 13 through 19. they run continuously I don't have the PDF yeah so that's PDF it begins on page PD or PDF page 47. first I want to thank everyone for the opportunity to come personally and do this um it's great there's a lot of Cooperative effort especially working with the business office and they're great staff and the other directors Transportation Athletics technology we're basically a Triad those three directors in terms of how we coordinate and plan and work together um we wanted to we being operations wanted to thank this group for the continued support both financially and philosophically over the last decade we've worked in almost locked step and uh together we've got quite a record of improvement and maintenance the key in operation is just in fact that it's

234maintenance it's staying ahead of the curb so that things like the five-year building conditions survey are void of those uh Priority One issues which are post haste must correct immediately and they get into the two through four which give you the opportunity to manage them and I think that is significant in a big Institution um I just a review uh there are six buildings that operation watches over um we have 175 Acres of property on that 11 playing fields and in terms of page 13 this is our operations staff in our opinion we are perfectly staffed when we are fully uh employed we have a significant number of openings right now that we're actively engaged in replacing they're all custodial level but there are 46 FTE in operations and then one additional one for a

235total of 47 when you include the messenger over at the warehouse print shop so a total of 47 FTE this was uh well established last year and remained stable this year there's 12 custodians at the high school 11 at the middle school and the difference is the middle school is 20 000 square feet smaller then the three elementary schools have four custodians and this works exactly with the metric of correctly Staffing for cleaning based on the National Standard which grades everything from hospitals to warehouses so we're perfectly in line with that National Standard and we find when we are fully employed that we have no problem we struggle a little bit when when we're a little short but we find we have no problem so you'll see on page 13 that there is a increase

236of 247 733 dollars this is all primarily due to the annual increase that you see in those salaries so there is no additional FTE in operations forecast for the coming year questions foreign is equipment requests in our codes and the primary codes are 16 20 16 21 and 1622 the warehouses code is 1670. we have asked for equipment that increase budget to budget by nine thousand six hundred and twelve dollars this is primarily that amount is primarily for a new Pitney Bose machine we have this wonderful machine which we chose to move because it was beginning to fail from the untempered space in the bottom of Meadow Pond Elementary School up to the eye building which is air-conditioned and heated and we've been able to coach it along while we queue up to get a

237new one now this machine is almost 20 some years old and get on a given day there'll be as many as 200 pieces of mail that passed through there so this is uh very helpful imagine licking all those stamps if we didn't have it plus the discount that we get using that postage machine so the big deal here is that increase but also in those other codes in custodial in maintenance and in grounds we have a replacement for a floor care machine in custodial this is a stand-on mini floor scrubber we have a dry stripper and what is a dry stripper well we are moving away from chemical stripping waxes because of the downstream issues in terms of the environment to doing it with uh sanding basically a dry stripper and vacuuming up and taking

238it off in solid waste so we are expanding this as we go forward in maintenance this equipment asks are for plumbing pumps a lot of the pumps across the border from being under a thousand dollars to being over a thousand dollars and as you know that all of our buildings are heated with hot water systems and that this gets around the building with these pumps so we have that we have minor small HVAC equipment things that you will see in classrooms and breakout rooms that provide air conditioning these DX converted things that you see on the wall or in the ceiling we take care of those ourselves in grounds we are going to buy our first electric ride-on lawnmower making a nod towards sustainability and trying to reduce our greenhouse gases incrementally as we move

239forward in time and then at the warehouse in addition to the Pitney Bose machine we're asking for a substantial amount of money to upgrade the audio visual mobile recording ability so that things from graduations to board meetings that don't pay take place here stuff that's off-site we can once again have state-of-the-art equipment um during the course of this last year we experienced a few hiccups which are mostly due to Aid any questions about equipment or o m so just an accounting question here just is there a reason that all the codes 16 2016 21 1622 were put together as opposed to sort of broken out by maintenance custodial grounds it's the way the um the department is presented now when we look at the codes in Envision they aren't bunched like this but this is

240a category here to talk about equipment which has special first of all it has to be tracked has to be approved it has anything that costs over a thousand dollars Falls onto equipment we've had things that used to be just general supplies that now have crossed the line so uh talking about equipment because of the special nature is why they're bunched is that helpful uh otherwise to know you can help me here yeah so 1620 code is related to custodial Services 1621 is related to maintenance services and then 1622 is our groundworkers but since it's all encapsulated under operations and maintenance it's the way that we present it in the budget and you can see different ways we present different things in different sections of the budget it's just the way um we've presented it

241in the past if you want us to break it out differently in future years we can certainly I think I'm just curious but also if there's multi-use across those different departments or it's just I I would say they do intertwine and sometimes oh I just we really send by my back of the envelope math 50 000 pieces of mail per year seems really high uh well there's so many things that go out you know everybody's uh paper paycheck for example if they aren't using the online deposit it's mailed there's a tremendous amount of communication back and forth between vendors bill paying Etc hey Mom yeah it's still paper processed but also families like I mean if you have a child with an IEP all of your notices around the IEP come by mail um you

242know the notification of your progress on your IEP the notification for your IEP meeting all of that is paper yeah and I I do want to add to like our the check disbursements they are currently paper we are looking into going to more electronic format we've started that with our Medicare reimbursement um our former employees where we directly deposit their Medicare reimbursement into their bank account and we are looking into uh transitioning over to that system with our vendors but it is a huge gender taking that the business office is working with the bank and working with other school districts so I think if we Implement that program and we would see a significant decrease in the in the mail and the paper that goes out I would imagine that number has come down over

243time because we have certainly moved things electronically where we can yes and then there are still I mean think about budget vote there are required documents that have to go out to every household in the community that have to be hard copy mailed we don't have the option to make that electronic does sound like a high number but it has come down like just uh like just what I was just talking about if there's a thousand kids that have those plans and that you get six or eight letters a year that's eight thousand letters just that one thing you know so if there's four of those one things that's 35 000 pieces in there we don't do the summer mail engine I haven't looked a stamp for like five years or something I can't you

244don't have to let them anymore it tastes delicious any other questions on these pages the next two pages represent the single two largest sections of O M's budget outside of Staffing h15 is Utilities in 1620 these are 481 82 83 84 85 and 490. or 81 is telephone it's our copper lines we still require a certain amount of erectile copper lines these lines don't go down in power outages they're self-powered with low voltage and they help with emergencies so we do have a small amount of continued copper line requirement and you can see it's not a huge line item and hasn't increased um 16 24 82 however is a very different story it is our electricity purchase right now we are anticipating an increase we hope is no more than a hundred and four thousand

245one hundred and fifty six thousand dollars we won't know for sure until the current bidding which is in process concludes on March 8th when the aggregator who has gone out to bid for 28 entities in our immediate geography schools and municipalities comes back with the answers for these bids they did so about eight months ago and the answers were terrible so we have been coached by experts in terms of this holding number this might change up or down on March 8th but right now it is significantly higher than it has been in the past um 1620 483 is fuels fossil fuels for the schools are heated using ultra low sulfur number two which we buy through a state contract one building is heated with natural gas that's Katonah Elementary School the budget to budget increases

246eighty one thousand one hundred and seventy one dollars this is entirely the fuel oil because we have engaged in the same kind of electricity group purchase for natural gas at KES that number has dropped substantially from last year 16 uh 20 or 84 is propane only one Kitchen in the district has a gas stove that's a KES propane is used there the only other two places propane is used is in the high school there's propane used in the chemical labs in the Q wing and there's propane used to make hot water and the increase in that propane is directly uh reflected in an increase in number of people taking showers so we have much cleaner athletes from our propane bill or is it the laundry well that laundry I think they're doing a lot of

247it with cold water I don't I don't think it's I think it's a lot cold water but it is showers we've seen a cultural change it used to be our shower facilities had just turned into storage rooms yeah um and now they're not now they're being used again this is showers are cool again showers are great we're very happy to see this but it is reflective yeah all right interesting once the heating system comes online then that hot water is made from the it's a parasitic load on the boilers and we don't see the propane load then in the winter but it is the shoulder seasons and then the summer season or is used substantially 1620 485 is water and sewer connections at KES this is flat um this building is hooked up to town

248water and town sewer and it is substantially less expensive to maintain that structure for those things than the other five buildings which aren't connected the same way so our business to business difference on page 15 is an increase of a hundred and eighty eight thousand largely due to the forecast increase in energy for the coming school year what's the BOCES coverage at the bottom um OCS it's telepath that's flat we share that with technology that's a code that is split between operations and technology but it's basically an OC service it's just over here we don't actually Bill we don't actually administer it or buy it but it's shared in our code that helpful yeah yeah thank you page 16. page 16. let's have one quick question so we're buying all green energy right electricity sorry

249electricity is the increase that we're seeing in the electricity line in any way related to the fact that we're buying only green energy would it be cheaper if we were I appreciate it might be marginally cheaper but would we see a similar percentage increase if we were not purchasing green energy yes sir our neighbors in Connecticut their utility told them that the supply and your electricity bill is basically divided between delivery and supply their supply side would go up 100 from 12 cents a kilowatt hour to 24. um fortunately the utility and the area that we are in New York state has many different fuels in the portfolio of fuels but our choice of green energy has been about a penny less per kilowatt hour than being with the utility so it this increase if

250we were with the utility is anticipated to be or projected to be significantly greater than that's good and they are only required by law to have 30 percent green at this point it's changing in New York state because of the climate Acts thank you that's great you're welcome page 16. Contract Services building maintenance and repair this is the maintenance arm of O M this is where the rubber meets the road in terms of all that stuff that happens during the year and this is also a heavy category for o m these codes include school property insurance minor repairs minor building improvements all mechanical system repairs contracted compliance inspections and they keep growing because the laws keep changing such as fire sprinklers drinking water elevators lifts playgrounds gym partitions Professional Services for these areas such as

251Architects and Engineers General operating services and repairs recycling programs small equipment maintenance landscape and landscaping services Sports field maintenance items and many more things annually just to cover the top layer there there is also included on page 16 Insurance 16 24 20. this increases Thirty one thousand dollars this year it is basically supervised by the business office but appears in this code because it is covering the areas that we are responsible for in o m 16 24 30 and 16 21 430 are travel conference thank you very much for supporting that for o m we take advantage of this two of us go to the conferences that are held in Saratoga as well as participate monthly and peer group meetings and this is substantially helpful to be able to compare notes with other facility people

252from the Great Lakes area all the way to Montauk we get a chance to talk at these conferences thank you project save 16 2402 this is flatter neutral safe schools against violence and Education Act this is mostly administrated at the business office level but it does appear here in our code 1621 401 contract Service compliance inspections increases by fifty thousand nine hundred dollars just to take a minute and talk about this these are the things that are weird that are required whether they are by State education or by health code laws Department of Health Etc that you do annually so they are your fire suppression systems in your cooking areas they are the fire extinguishers they are the annual fire inspection that the fire marshal takes care of that Nexus RC of Oats they are

253all the requirements that we have for our potable water four of our active schools operate under the same regulations that a full municipality does because of Wells so every week we have well Quality Water monitoring and as you know we are working hard with the Department of Health to conform some things that have come to light recently in Bellows sampling so that's an extremely important part this code 1621 401 has increased over the years that I've been here it's nearly double um and it's all due to these required compliances that we fundamentally must engage in oh equipment repair 1621 402 this remains flat and this shows that the folks and it's everyone from the custodians who work on their floor machines to our maintenance mechanics that work on their own equipment with the exception and

254thank you very much to transportation for the van maintenance do a good job this isn't a great amount it's uh twelve thousand dollars and it's small engines it's repair to a variety of portable easily transportable things that have to go out of house for repair snow blower son things like that Architects fees 1621 405 decreases forty thousand dollars and it's really in reaction to the change from planning for the bond to no longer needing that planning but we do maintain uh the ability to hire these experts which includes the engineering staff that we can tap into at the architect as well as we will often have the architect and or people in their office come and consult with us on everything from Gardens to flexible Furniture so it's really an important thing to have in

255in there building repairs 1621 434 and 1622 401 which is in grounds and to toggle back and forth in this year is a good example of that toggle 1621 434 which is small building repairs decreases by a hundred thousand dollars so that 1622 401 can increase a hundred and ten thousand dollars now these things in 1621 434 in building repair are not large capital projects these are the maintenance repair items that you have you've got a broken toilet you have to replace it we have a broken HVAC unit that you have to do maintenance on but over in grounds we have increasing demand for maintenance there and the maintenance and grounds is largely in landscaping has to do all our grass fields now have more attention paid to them because as you know we have

256a larger athletic activity taking place on those things all of our elementary schools are mowed with Outsourcing because we only have two groundskeepers on staff and they concentrate on the high school and middle school there is a significant increase in labor costs on these outsourced things and so we're just keeping Pace with that we do do rfps to get competitive pricing um and we feel at this point that we are doing exactly what is needed not a great deal more but in this code is where the famous nematodes are so those are helping us with our Diamond Fields where the girls play softball on AP Farms our baseball field uh here on the high school which are beautiful what do the nematodes do the nematodes the nematodes are applied because you mean the the beneficial

257The Beneficial name of toads it's not a nickname okay beneficial nematodes they're they are in fact a roundworm um and they're applied live this is not the traditional roundworm we are all afraid of with little kids in terms of stepping on uh as we walked across the grass this is a very much smaller nematode and the purpose of this nematode is to reduce the grubs that live subsurface and eat the roots of grass and ruin our grass fields so they're very beneficial to the grass but not to the grubs so we see here in these codes on page 16 which is all about maintenance of our entire built environment and playing environment and increase of 42 250 dollars budget to budget it's a complicated set of things are there any questions yeah well age 17

258is supplies and Page 17 is increased 68 800 budget to budget this is largely due to inflation very beginning of the year we were notified we were buying our toileting papers through a BOCES contract that that contract had gone up 60 percent for paper towel and other products used in our toilet rooms um it wasn't anticipated we found ways to pay for it during the school year but it's now partially reflected here this inflation is greater than the national inflation and we've had certain areas in our budget that have come out at significantly higher than the cost of living index where we're oh 15 percent average versus eight and a half but it's here so 162502 which is office supplies for project save no increase custodial cleaning supplies it's a big one that increases fifty

259three thousand seven hundred and forty dollars and it's all inflation our folks are very conservative we don't waste products this isn't an area where we are seeing increased use it's just increasing cost office supplies for o m is an increase of 260 dollars partially also inflation and maintenance supplies and this is fan belts air filters plumbing parts and miscellaneous hardware that's on nine thousand eight hundred dollars also mostly inflation our maintenance requirements aren't changing they remain relatively flat we have we believe we're adequately staffed with the correct people with the correct training and this is just the supplies they need to maintain the buildings but the costs are going up so once again a budget to budget increase on page 17 of 68 800. it's 18 we're gonna switch from the big schools to a

260small area this is our Central store room is located in the basement of Meadow Pond Elementary School it is where the print shop and that used to be were all male sorting took place but as I mentioned earlier we moved the Pitney bows machine so it was now in a tempered space that space under metal Pond is not tempered it does have heat but it isn't air conditioned so we felt it was very important given how sensitive and how old the machine was to move it I won't cover it again but um 16 60 is flat this is the overtime for The Courier um a thousand dollars that's flat uh supplies uh on this page uh are a thousand dollars and that's an increase once again it's part of this paper products inflation um so

261but this is a very simple page 18 increase of a thousand dollars or any questions the next one goes into a little more detail on the warehouse a quick question are we still storing PPE yes we're required by state to maintain a minimum in the event of an additional outbreak so that we have it on hand things that don't store well are disinfectants those need to be brought in they have shelf lives Etc so our favored disinfectant the hydrogen peroxide stuff that ultimately expires and it's all labeled as such so but the paper products the masks and the face masks and the gowns and things like that yes we have a good Supply and right now we're staying abreast with the testing kits that are available through various things those are not costing us stuffed

262in page 19 that's the continuation of the the central Printing and the related Courier we see a 1670 160 a slight increase in salary here this isn't single individual this is uh FTE number 47 in the department um this is a courier and this increases just the normal annual for this Idol equipment this is the big one twenty thousand dollars in this category and it's split between the Pitney Bose machine and the AV Equipment so this helps upgrade the ability of the career who acts as the videographer to be able to be mobile um and substantially modernizes that equipment which also includes a PA address system or board meetings that are outside of this environment um The Contract Services listed here 1670 402 and 417. these are the maintenance contracts for large copiers and also

263some of the leasing um this is equipment that's housed in this area and uh includes some of the repair you can see that the business office because that's where it's really managed it's doing an excellent job with the leases and the maintenance on this equipment this this code is flat the BOCES code for printing 167490 is also flat that's due to the district continuing to move towards the digital environment oh applies this is printing paper of a variety of sizes needs cardstock Etc and this has got a three thousand dollar in case we are working with our printer make sure that our inventories are only just what we need rather than storing a lot of material that at times has aged out oh it's at a minimum so the on this page is 23 000

264increased budget to budget largely the increase in equipment any questions on the page so to summarize 13 through 19 the O M budget increases by 577 thousand forty four dollars big chunk of it is in utilities happy to answer any questions if there are any questions about nematodes am I allotted I'll limit myself to one yes sir do you buy them by the pound do you need a license do you need a prescription yes that they can only be applied by licensed landscapers and they're bought as live cultures and they come in boxes they're small boxes and they're distributed through the same devices that one would distribute fertilizer over a lawn it's that kind of thing and you drop them um in the spring very early in the spring as before you actually get grass

265growth so that they are ingested by the grubs and they do their job from that point so only for the board's edification since we're talking about the beneficial nematodes could you just also remind us whether we're still employing the dogs to chase the geese that's ongoing yes we are yeah geese relief peace relief thank you yeah and since we're talking about animals um how are we doing with the uh turkey vultures at the middle school turkey vultures are a real plague um and because they are protected our ability to mitigate against them is quite Limited and uh there is very very little we've tried a few very clever things we've tried motion sensor balloons that inflate you know like uh an advertisement we've tried motion sensing water sprinkler systems that spray them um they aren't

266as prevalent as they once were because now the grocery store is doing a better job with its garbage container and as a more frequent uh pick up over there but they love the big tall trees and so in certain cool cold days you'll see them on our Sports field the contest field you'll see them sitting on the top of the lights but they're not nearly as bad but there's very little we can do wow sounds like we have to engage in a dialogue with the turkey vulture Community it's probably a great idea thanks includes our animal portion of the presentation thank you so much we really appreciate it thank you thank you thank you very much okay it's always hard to follow animals I am going to be speaking about the final page final pink

267page um Paul ended with pink page 19 and Chris Nelson spoke about pink page 20 previously so now we're looking at pink page 21 or PDF page 55. and this is classified as undistributed expenses and this is because it's associated with a variety of expenses that are not assigned to one particular function within the pink pages so we label this undistributed you can see by the expenses represented on this page that we are increasing sixteen thousand two hundred and nine dollars uh the first section we see a small decrease in general liability insurance um we did see Insurance speckled throughout the other uh Pink pages on pink page one we sort um 1010 code showed board uh School Board legal liability insurance that did increase approximately a budget to budget of four a little over

26814 percent in 1620 that Paul just spoke about we have insurance for school property and asset um there was an increase there as well in 1910 here on this page we see a slight decrease and then Nora spoke on Thursday night about her codes and there was insurance for transportation which we saw a slight decrease in her budget as well overall working with our insurance company uh similar to health insurance our total insurance speckled through those four codes is projected to increase approximately 12 percent uh the second line item on this page is school association dues this is associated with uh keeping uh up to date on board developments instructional areas curriculum negotiations and litigation so it's all association dues that we participate in judgment and claims remains flat these are for costs and associated

269with tax certiary claims that we haven't previously reserved for and then finally um the last two items are related to BOCES administrative and capital charges so we are one of 17 component districts with BOCES and we are required as a participant to uh take part in a cost share of their Administration and then any Capital portions that they maybe um uh expensing in a current year um so that is our share we do see a slight increase in those two budget lines uh for a total increase on this page of that concludes our pink pages is there any questions on this one particular page maybe just one quick question on that 670 000 BOCES charge do we know what we get for that I mean do we have an opportunity to audit that it's a

270big number and it's in addition to all of the other BOCES services that we purchased from BOCES right we know what that yeah so BOCES does send us uh back up to go along with that and then later on I believe it's that Tuesday meeting in April the board does have an opportunity to vote on the BOCES budget administrative charges associated with running that building okay program thanks for adding up all the insurance increases and decreases the worst mostly increases unfortunately yes so I think that leads us to 14.04 I know we normally are we good to yeah I think we should continue okay but please I think we're scheduled to continue through to the end of the budget and then public comment and then the break so if everybody's comfortable yeah let's keep going

271so um 14.04 this is where we start looking at the green pages so if we look at green page one and you can just give me a minute to get to that section um it's PDF page 94 for those who are following along so employee benefits this is uh the 9 000 codes this is a significant portion of the budget um and the first budget line You'll see the first two is New York state employees retirement system and teachers retirement system so these are both mandated by the state that we contribute towards those retirement costs um New York State retirement costs are for clerical staff custodial bus drivers monitors and teacher aides any of those non-certified staff members overall we see a decrease of approximately 251 396 dollars uh the ERS rates um vary from

272the tier levels uh so this is an estimate uh based on the current rates and the projected rates the second line item related to retirement is the TRS system so this is for our teachers and administrators who are certified uh we are projected to see a decrease in this line of slightly over a hundred thousand and that's due to the project that anticipated estimated uh decrease of the rate from 10.29 which is our current rate this year to an estimated they haven't finalized it of to 9.76 uh this is related to salary so you won't see a a correspondence exactly from that 10.29 to that 9.76 because as salaries rise we do have to uh we do pay according to their salaries um and next line item is social security this is our employer contribution

273from FICA and Medicare and Medicare ficer for the calendar year of 2022 uh the salary cap was 147 000 in 2023 the salary cap is a hundred and sixty thousand two hundred so we're required to pay uh FICA we match that FICA expense for those numbers we do not know what the FICA increases will be in 2024. um the next on this page page talks about life insurance unemployment insurance disability insurance and those are minimal increases that you'll see um and the largest item on this page and we spoke about this on Thursday during our presentation is the medical insurance uh we've seen uh increase in medical insurance anywhere from an individual coverage increasing this year alone of 12.45 percent to family increase of 14.91 percent um this of course is offset by employee contributions

274and we continually monitor that as we budget but overall this is just a just shy of a 1.9 million dollar increase um to our budget um underneath that line You'll see Medicare reimbursement payments so our retirees once they become Medicare eligible our insurance plan requires them to participate in Medicare Part B and then in turn we are required as part of our plan to reimburse those employees for their Medicare what they pay into Medicare there's also Irma which is an adjustment made based off of income it's an income related fee um and if retirees make a certain income they have to pay in more to to Medicare Part B and thus we have to reimburse them more uh that we uh we do require our retirees to to show proof of Medicare Part B and

275their contributions before we reimburse them uh so we continually watch that um Medicare Part B the basic level did increase uh from 2022 to 2023 or excuse me it did slightly decrease um in 2022 the re reimbursement was 170.10 per month and it went down slightly to 164.90 per month and uh but again those are my regulations to change as well um finally we have self-insurance and Union welfare benefits that is contract contractually obligated benefits that we provide to our staff and then uh the final two lines all lumped together as retiree retiree term leave payments um these are our length of service payments I I excuse me are some of our length of service payments are paid in a budget line 401 and in total um we see uh 461 196 for length of

276service uh we estimate um that would save us approximately 28 and 500 in Social Security costs so we pay that directly to a 403 b uh tax uh shelter annuity company and that's how we pay it that's why it's coded in that 401 code instead of that 180 code right above it um any time also anytime an employee goes out on a paid leave we interpret this as a benefit and we benefit we uh budget for it in this category as well um but to summarize we do see a large increase in this category in this page alone of uh 1.5 million dollars um slightly over 1.5 million dollars and this page alone represents um close to 29 of our total budget I'm sure that there's questions on this page so we pay their entire

277Part B like we refined the entire Part B cost yes for Life uh so once uh once a employee or a retiree becomes eligible they do provide um their Medicare eligibility to us uh we do re refund it along with their spouses but in turn our premiums do decrease um foreign yes or I should say until they if they decide to go with a different insurance company and we no longer um Carry insurance for them if an employee uh turns 65 gets Medicare Part B or I'm sorry retirement Medicare Advantage and they go to their own plan then um we do not reimburse them because if the retiree goes chooses Medicare Advantage we don't have to pay their health insurance or their Medicare that's interesting because Medicare advantages like 45 percent of Medicare enrollees now

278and is predicted by most people to go up so more and more people will be picking Medicare Advantage which is interesting for us then am I right oh I'm sorry I just had a very is the cell is the self-insured when people take other people's Insurance like a spouse's insurance or what does self-insured mean uh that's that's our dental and vision coverage for one of our bargaining units we self-insured that we're it's a reimbursement program so we label it as self-insured um so they submit their claims to the district and we reimburse them so a few years ago we looked at the health insurance costs and we had I think it was putting them Northern Westchester and then there was maybe a PPO option and we had migrated away from self-insurance option to night ship

279and it looks just looking at the trajectory here that we had a one and a half million increase last year and almost two million dollar increase this year so three and a half million over the last two years and at the time one of the reasons that we decided not to look at one of the Alternatives was it was a substantial escrow that we would have to put up and I think it was around 2 million and I'm just trying to remember but it seems maybe like it's time to re-look and I don't know if we've looked whether the rates for the other options have also increased along the same lines or whether now and you know the you know the child I'm talking about crisscrossed and we're now maybe we'd be better off and

280look you have to make a decision but these are substantial increases like three million over two years is a big three and a half million over two years the big increase for the district I wonder if it's worth taking a look or have you taken a look at the other options so I I have I do not know what the other options their percent increases were their premiums are but that is one thing I will take away from our discussion today and let the board know and get back to you or maybe some of the finance committee could look at her you know thank you I was going to ask with regard to the teachers retirement system am I right in recalling that this is the number that is predicated on a five-year look back

281and an average yeah the TRS does use a smoothing effect yeah uh when they when they do their rates um so it is a I believe it's a five-year look back I don't have that information right at the top of my fingertips here but yes they do um have this smoothing effect so that there's not this up and down motion that we've seen in Prior years I just wondered if if not for today but maybe it's helpful to us in anticipating where this might go next year if we could just know where we are in that cycle I remember there was a time where like a zero was gonna hit and so things were going to be more favorable for school districts in terms of a percent increase and I don't know if we can

282you know this is an area where you know unlike the health insurance increase you know we're benefiting from a little bit of a decrease here would be helpful to just know where that might be headed next year any other questions on this page offers a lot of ground you have five pages left that is the biggest single line item increased though right so we should pay attention to it that's the big one yeah uh okay so if we'll move right along to green page number two PDF page 95 this is our serial Bond you can see that this is a fairly steady uh number uh it does fluctuate between print principle and interest as the debt progresses through we can see a higher print principal payment and a lower interest payment but all in all

283this page has decreased sixty three hundred dollars we do have that debt dropping off in um that is not reflected on here so this is the last year that it will be this amount and then as we take on a different borrowing opportunities with the bond project this this number will fluctuate on green page number three this is Ban you can see that we haven't had any activity here in four years bands are Bond anticipation notices so when we issue debt we may issue it as a ban which is a five-year note and then reissue a longer Bond note once uh we progress throughout the project so with the capital projects we'll borrow as we need the funds because we never want to borrow um when we eat too much money in advance so we'll

284borrow in smaller chunks these five-year notes and then then ultimately have a larger Bond um that we've seen and is that the approach we plan to take for the for the recent bonds we will work closely with our bond Council and our our fiscal advisors so they'll really guide us through that process and it depends on how the construction process is going whichever is most advantageous to the school district we will look at pursuing um the next green page four again you you see that there's been no activities in this page for four years this is bands and this is where we um for buses and this right now we've been purchasing our buses through propositions I'm using funds from current year budgets uh there is an option using this method to purchase uh buses

285and take a five-year Debt Service out against bus purchases uh we haven't done that in since 2016 but it is an option and we will continue to show this page in the in the budget just for reference purposes uh page five this is our debt service related to um our EPC uh we began this in 2015-16 it is an 18-year uh Debt Service program and you can see that there's it's flat uh once you net the principal and interest payments together and then finally uh green page number six or PDF page 99 is related to our interfront transfers so we have two interfund transfers the first one is a transfer to Capital and that's um where we can do some minor Capital Improvement projects we have continuously done this uh transfer to Capital throughout the

286years I'm we are projecting a hundred thousand decrease in this budget line and this will would be to continue support for flexible Furniture in our classroom district-wide Corridor and classroom floor flooring replacement upgrades to our bathroom fixtures tile and counter tops roof gutters storm water Replacements uh playground field upgrades bleachers such as bleachers and fencing and Storage uh grounds and fencing Paving concrete placement art rooms kitchenette quarters and ceiling tile interior construction mechanical systems repairs and district-wide renovation or Improvement to our domestic water well and then General infrastructure that's not being addressed by the bond that would be outlined in our five-year building condition survey um I'm sure the the board is probably wondering hey we have this huge Bond project why do we still need this interfund transfer I kind of relate this to

287um if you're putting an addition on your house that's one bucket of money and we're spending the bond on that bucket or those Renovations and then this is our maintenance cost that Paul was just speaking about that we always want to be ahead of the game in maintenance such as replacing some flooring that might not be outlined in that Bond project but that still needs to be done so keeping that consistent repairs and maintenance on our buildings while we are still looking at the bond project and then the final line on this uh this uh budget is transferred to special Aid fund this is associated with our extended year program or otherwise known as our summer school program for our uh special education Community the state does pick up a large portion of the cost

288but we are responsible um for maintaining a portion of that program also some are residential or out of placement districts uh the summer residential students in an out of placement District would fall underneath this transfer to special Aid Danelle just a quick question on the on the 1.8 million yes that's in the transfer to Capital line why is that not just in operations and maintenance lineup and why is it in transfer Capital line item do we get a benefit from putting it in there or what uh yes so there's two answers to that so Capital Improvements are just coded differently with with the state so we would in theory go if we were to um some of these would require SED project numbers so they would have to be in what's known as the capital

289fund and that's where you'll also see the bond project and we would go up to the state and get SED project numbers and get aided on accordingly which would be a higher building Aid ratio and then um so the the maintenance that Paul was speaking about in that 434 code those are really minor ones although some of these may seem minor according to the state they would look at it as more of a major project anything over 35 000. that makes sense thanks any other questions on these people in this in the capital transfer is that the money that we're also allowed to like hold over each budget is that where it goes or like budget would we have tend to have cash at the end of a year is that the line that is

290unbalanced yeah no no it's in a different line that's a different line uh but you are correct in thinking that we can roll over capital projects from one year to the next which is also a benefit of this transfer so if we start um repair on an art room um in this some in let's say in the springtime when we don't finish it we we do can roll that over and that's reflected in the treasurer reports um that quarterly report that the treasurer gives you can see the different capital projects that we carry over from one year to doesn't impact your threshold area without impacting the I mean the dollar amount so the 1.8 is the 1.8 but we can carry that over from one fiscal year to the next encumbrances it's not part of

291the what's the calculations right separate from that the other questions in these pages does bring us to the end of the line by line liberations thank you so much to Danelle and your entire team for all that has gone into preparing the proposed budget thank you to Andrew of course and thank you to our administrators who are here with us for the Long Haul I know we're not quite done yet but thank you for presenting and for contributing for helping us to articulate the needs of our students for next year I think at this point we're going to pause for public comment and then take a break and then come back for some board discussion um that's the proposed plan and anybody can be thinking about whether they want to slightly revise the timeline because

292I know we're slightly off of our schedule but I think we're actually about to catch up to our schedule which is great um so it's my pleasure to turn this over to public comment if anybody is waiting to speak with us we invite you to please introduce yourselves come to the podium not then I will close the public comment period now we're actually ahead of schedule which is very exciting let's see that um so it is 12.50 and I think we're going to recess for a Break um and then come back for for dialogue and discussion so I'll ask for a motion to recess thank you Alana seconded by Catherine all in favor please say aye 7-0 and let's perhaps resume rather than at 1 30 should we aim to resume at 120 so it's

293still the 30 minute recess yeah wait we'll be back at 1 20. thank you thank you okay great thanks so much everybody it's my pleasure to make a motion to turn to public session seconded by Liz thank you all in favor please say hi hi great 7-0 so again we've concluded the line by line budget deliberations we appreciate the opportunity to engage in some q a along the way and now this is our opportunity to engage in some substantive discussion about any of the higher level proposals or um proposed increases to the budget in listening to the questions that have been asked so far most of our conversation is going to pertain to the proposed Staffing increases at perhaps metal Pond and the Middle School and I'm happy to turn the floor over to all

294of you for discussion and if there are other topics that hadn't Arisen but that we want to also but on the table we can certainly do that I guess I want to be thoughtful about what Andrew was saying which is it's not necessarily maybe us to say we want less teachers or whatever but like do we want us how much less do we want to spend and to like at a much higher level like do we want to think about and I'm not proposing we should but just like do we want to think about like is it one point two percent tax like is there a Target that people want us to try to get to or not are we comfortable with the 1.54 or five one point five six five six um and then

295like sort of drill down from there or not I don't know just yeah so I think that's a great um question and just to recap something that I think we mentioned the other night when we add up the opposed um requisite increases contractual obligations or the health insurance increase that we discussed at the end of our previous discussion here um those increases are not entirely covered by the increases in Revenue sources that are non-levy Revenue sources so if we wanted to propose to continue to run the school district in the manner that we're running it for this school year we would be required to increase the levy somewhat and we know that the outer limit of the possible Levy increase if we didn't want to go for an override is in the neighborhood of a

2962.52 percent uh Levy increase so I think the highest level the conversation is somewhere along the lines of okay if we need a moderate Levy increase you know what is a place that the board would like to see the proposed where would we like to see the the budget land to achieve that proposed increase and specifically it felt as if most of the conversation was coalescing around Staffing because that's about a million dollars um so yeah I mean again it's just it's more of a budgeting question of Are We comfortable that the increases we'd be taking on this year we'd be able to pay for next year and years to come especially if you say well you know in those years there might be other things you want to increase and do they would they

297would warrant their own Levy increase so it's really just a matter of um I guess rechecking and reassuring that the increases that we're considering and the coverage of some of them with non-guaranteed money is okay and we'd be okay next year if state aid was less if interest was less and et cetera et cetera and everything else stayed the same because of being contract increases next year you know there'll be some inflation next year the health insurance May well increase again I mean I don't think it's ever going to not increase hopefully it's not 2 million dollars every year but it'll increase um so it's really just that is the nervousness that then makes me think about well um and again I say this in my usual position is we should leave the educational decisions

298to the Educators being on the board doesn't make you an educational expert so I'm a big believer and if the Educators say something is necessary something is necessary I think the at least in my eye the softest spot would be um the seventh grade expansion of a team to go from predicted 26 to 21 you know because 26 is one overall goal and well within the range so if there was an area that would you know if if we decide we are a little bit nervous about this increase that would be one area to discuss I think it would be the the softest area um so that's really just that's just where I am in terms of I mean ultimately I think it's like we don't ah and that money so if we don't absolutely

299but that's like a philosophy you know what I mean like so if it but if it would improve the quality of the experience of ourselves then we would want to but I mean in terms of my question what what would how does the math work I mean I'm sure you guys did the math so how does the math work that the next year more of the if the same budget carries over like most of these expenses are recurring it would have to be from the tax levy I would imagine I mean unless other you know the aid could be the same you know it doesn't have to be a worst case scenario but it can mean that next year we have to take up some of next year's tax levy increase to cover things we

300decided to do this year we could reduce the staff back down yeah you know I think I think there's there's always a balance between long-term planning and what are we able to do now and in this year's budget and those things are complicated as I was trying to say the other day by the by the the institution of the tax cap and the fact that what we do this year actually impacts what we can do next year because of the carry forward of and and this year happens to be a relatively easier to think about the numbers because of the very round number of the 100 essentially 100 million dollar tax property tax levy that was in the current year budget any percentage that we think about a percentage is a million dollars yeah and

301a point one of a percentage is about a hundred thousand dollars so the way I would describe it is we probably need at least this year to cover if we weren't adding any staff positions we know we need about a 0.5 x Levy increase to cover costs or about 500 000 on top of what we're getting from state aid and other revenues and we're asking for roughly a million dollars on top of that and we're roughly a million dollars below what we could ask of that million dollars that we're asking for while it's true that the vast majority of is in Staffing not all Staffing is the same so we've talked about the fact that at least three of the positions are ones that we don't see as really discretionary in terms of the needs

302that we're meeting uh so now you're down to six or seven hundred thousand dollars that's remaining uh from that million and I think that's what we're talking about here and then it and then it does become a question of the more of that you reduce um which is what we're discussing the lower that base is the following year um ironically to cover some of those same costs and that becomes a part of the sort of complicated calculus that we try to do um you know we we know that there's always the possibility that in a year or two years time us could increase so significantly we do have to reduce positions many of us lived through that in 2008 when the financial crisis hit and we had to make reductions so we certainly don't hope

303to relieve that kind of experience but we know that that's a possibility so then we try to balance that forward-looking planning with what are the what are the needs we see right now and what would we ask to do to try to meet those needs and um it is absolutely true that the the numbers we're looking at in the Middle School are coming down this the class size numbers are coming down quite significantly we wouldn't be asking for that unless we thought it had the potential to make a difference uh for what we're seeing currently in the middle school and and we would agree with you completely that if we had to prioritize between the two we would probably prioritize the sixth grade a little bit higher than the seventh grade both because of the

304numbers and also because it's the transitional year coming in it's the youngest students Etc um having said that if that's where we understand if the board we would probably still ask the board to say to us today we do think you're asking for a little bit too much we'd like you to ask for a little bit less and then we would go off and think about exactly where we would place that and how uh rather than have you know I think as you just said if I then have the board say to us this so we I haven't I I don't think I don't know where the board is I don't we do this every year every other year at least and um you know I have my say and then I don't usually it's

305not um felt although this year is a little bit different than other years in terms of you know prior years it really was very solid budgeting and there was really no no nothing to this is a little bit different but the need is been they did I think you know another consideration in that request I know in my conversations with Jeff is just this stability piece too in terms of Faculty because what happens you know last year we reduced by two sixth grade teachers those teachers go back down to the elementary and you know another year they may come up right so there's professional learning there's you know in it's a different job yeah it's a different job and just that feeling of it may change every year and then similarly from middle school to

306high school as well sometimes shared staff so I think that just that feeling of a sense of security around there will be these sections but also of course balance and the primary focus is student need of course yeah um but it's another issue to consider really appreciate that additional Dimension and if we can kind of put that on one side and then differentiate it from the student need which has been I think spoken or addressed on Thursday night and to a certain extent here today but when you think about the three elementary schools coming together and the excitement that students experience about meeting other sixth graders and forming as a team do you feel confident that with the proposed Staffing additions that the quality of the team experience from a social emotional standpoint for kids

307will still be as good if not strengthened in the proposed model can you just touch on that a little bit I'm sure you've talked about that or I imagine you have I mean I I feel they would be strengthened because when you think about and Jeff has done a great job at the middle school of talking about you know the main focus being knowing our students well and Common Sense would dictate the fewer students the better you can know them right so those relationships and things like that um certainly could be strengthened a bit and and I mean the numbers aren't so different it's still you know many students but I think when you have a slightly smaller class it's a little bit easier to do the social piece I mean Alana and I were

308just talking about this because her student is entering middle school next year right they um traveling with the same group of students for all your core classes but having that team connection is helpful but then in other classes like unified arts or other family consumer science in some cases you might be with a different group obviously in music and things that are more of a choice so I think it helps the experience but I think we have a strong experience now this would just be an attempt to strengthen it even more may I ask about um but you're talking we talked so much about the difference um the struggles that are happening in the middle school with the students everybody experienced the pandemic all of our students did I'm just curious is it is it

309an age thing that they're getting into middle school and it's like that's what's causing more of the struggle is it more Independence in middle school it's that they're all joining together and that's what's causing I'm not hearing the struggle that they're hearing more in the elementary school who also experience a very difficult and disrupted education over the last three years as well yeah I think just the different options exist right so at our elementary schools our three principals and their assistant principals have done a great job of leading like social emotional learning you've seen examples on your walks of morning meeting strengthening connections um that's another way to do that but they're with the same teacher all day long and so that's the biggest difference so when they go to middle school for the first

310two years they have this transition of being with fewer teachers not just the one teacher um and then when they get to eighth grade it increases a little more and then obviously in high school they have a different teacher for every course and subject so I think all three levels have seen their struggles for sure this is just one opportunity to help with that I want to Echo that last part a little bit because I think we've we've talked about it more here because of the Staffing request but I wouldn't want the takeaway to be there's more more challenge at the middle school most covet than there is at the high school of the elementary schools there's there's challenge across the board I don't think we see an opportunity to make a change at the

311high school in the elementary schools across the board in the way we do at the middle school with these two teams so that's why we've talked about a little bit more here but I think all that principles and all of our teachers would say across the board we're still seeing some of the remnants of coming out of this pandemic in the way our students you know and our colleagues are working together in schools I appreciate that I figured I just wanted to clarify foreign I'll use the word measurable that we would be looking for to know that the addition of these staff made the difference that you're hoping that it's going to make I I just want to add that developmentally so when you you think about the trajectory of students in the transition like

312Mary referenced from a single teacher to multiple teachers it's why many middle schools engage in that team model because it allows for those teachers not only to teach content but also those executive functioning skills that students are going to need to manage you know multiple expectations presented by different people and you know and multiple assignments which is a big shift from what they have in fifth grade so allowing that structure to be a smaller team and even a third team just really allows for those students that maybe need a little more time to develop those skills and and really kind of solidify that student skill base to have that opportunity very miserable question Jeff and I did speak about this the other day and one thing that the middle school has started to do for

313the first time this year is more carefully track referrals based on student behaviors in the school and there's more um some more documenting of that happening so we don't have the opportunity to Look Backwards but we will have the opportunity to look forward and the hope will certainly be that we would see a decrease over time and this would give us that opportunity and then we can we we always do look at academic performance and we can see whether there's any impact here or not one other clarifying question sorry when you would look to introduce two more teachers into the middle schools for a new team not to add those teachers to the existing team so they have three different teachers they're still at two teachers right they've won for English and science social studies

314okay and I guess I guess I've um calling from one of the presentations this year and I don't remember which it was but there was a conversation I remember saying something about sort of the kids who are currently entering Middle School lost some of those developmental moments in elementary school I remember what we were talking about we had a conversation about sort of the social workers and mental health yeah it was I think it was around academics though and just like executive functioning stuff that sort of develops during Elementary School I think we were talking I don't remember what we were asking about what they were really describing was that this particular group of incoming sixth graders really lost a lot of the opportunities or typical opportunities that students would have had to learn to

315work in groups to share materials to do more Project based in the you know independent things so negotiating with a partner kind of giving up responsibilities because the nature of the pandemic meant we weren't having group work we weren't sharing materials we were much more in that kind of like roles and you know you're facing the teacher and the teachers up front so um you know we can anticipate and I think it's what the middle school is really doing with home days and I had the opportunity to sit in on a lesson that Madison Olson did for sixth graders on setting goals so I think it was like Mr Weiss and Mr Andrews classes came together so lots of you know middle school kids together but the lesson was on setting goals for yourself um

316and really thinking about what's a realistic goal so I think that as as a whole that sixth grade those sixth grade students our students are just needing a little extra support than students of the past that were maybe able to transition into sixth grade and and just kind of manage having multiple teachers and multiple assignments with ease like that so long-term wise I mean I have a couple hypothetical questions that like I think one of the concerns that sounds like um financially is just that if we aren't able to get this much state aid we would have to have a large increase and I think the hypothetical question is if we just financially if we just increased the budget to what our contractual obligations were if we were to face a similar financial situation to

317like kind of what's Happening Now where we're having a humongous increase in um health insurance and stuff would we have a sufficient amount within the tax cap would we be able to even meet those obligations in year two or year three you know it's I think it's it's actually very hard to project out right because I mentioned the other night the tax cap is dependent upon inflation so while none of us likes to see high inflation rates because of all the cost it adds it does allow at least for the two percent tax increase to be in place I don't know how many years ago it was but I remember the year when we had a 0.12 tax cap so it's possible that could happen in a given year and if that happens coupled with

318still increasing health insurance or mandated retirement system contributions then we're going to have a challenge regardless of whether we've added positions or not quite honestly yeah and then and sort of in terms of the other positions if we're sort of thinking the pandemic heard kids starting in their third grade year so then um you know like at what point do kind of the kids who come into school are now kind of maybe back on a normal cycle where they've been through kind of the whole system so would those with that need for additional attention maybe kind of outlive itself at some point or would this be it's possible right I mean The Kindergartners now that's certainly The Hope right that we wouldn't that we would at some point down the road we won't be talking

319about the pandemic anymore how long that takes I'm not sure that'd be nice so so for me just at a much higher level we're seeing sort of substantial pressure on the budget this year because of our contractual obligations because of uh the increase in in inflation and also the increase in the insurance rates right so we have substantial pressure separate from we're going to add anything or do anything we have substantial pressure on the budget already and it's kind of carried by the fact that we also have this bump in state aid and Westchester County funding and and our own investment income which Frankie we might expect to see that remain at maybe not quite current rates but at some sort of high rate for some period of time so it's not reasonable to say

320that that might go away next year I don't think so I guess my question is one of timing is this the year that with that pressure that we already have on the budget and I know it's fortuitous that we have this additional state aid is this the year that we then also want to say we're going to add an additional million which is a recurring cost those are not one time this year if we take on that million this year we're taking that on for every year essentially into perpetuity as well as the increases there so so the what we call are we calling contractually obligated increases those would apply to that that 945 000 year over year over year I just wonder whether we might want to be a little more fiscally conservative and

321wait or some of those positions wait until next year so that we're not putting so much pressure on the budget because you know going to a 3.6 increase is that the right number am I saying that right yeah 3.6 is substantially higher than any increase that certainly during my time you're on the board but even prior to that I don't think we've been anywhere close to a 3.6 budget to budget increase so I just wonder with that increase that's already there based on things that are outside of our control should we temper our Ambitions a little bit um to be a little bit more physically conservative I really don't want to debate that I want to leave that there and say that's absolutely a perspective and another perspective is depending on what happened you know

322we could choose to not remove some of the positions this year arrive next year and not have the opportunity to be adding positions at that time because of other changes in other factors that's that's a possibility too because the tax cap is that right because of a change in the tax cap because of PRS increases because of other things that we can't predict right now it's possible that we may not have that option to add positions next year I don't it's hard to say and I and I think though um you said I think he says I could should we take a more conservative approach I suspect we'll see neighboring districts for the most part going to the tax cap in their communities so um not that what one District does necessarily Bears on what

323another one does but just point in comparison I would say we are taking a conservative approaches however that might sound by staying a million dollars short of the tax cap this year it's the largest budgetary increase the largest rate of inflation in a long time also I mean like if you think about inflation rates yeah yeah I mean we're saying that 460 000 is due to inflation right it's a top or we can yeah it's the it's the combination of inflation and the health insurance and the and the contractual cost that we would have it's those three things um I think um I do want to say I want to preface this before how remarkable it was that outside of O M talking about toilet paper specifically we really didn't hear that much about inflation

324I feel like there was a lot of pencil sharpening and really thinking about don't put little toilet paper it's very important you know what maybe we need everybody can just bring their own um one thing that um you know as we're as we consider additional teaching positions um you know one of the other areas in the budget um was in athletics when we're talking about adding two programs that are very expensive in terms of equipment and I would never and do not advocate for having different numbers of opportunities for our female versus male students but that equipment total could add up to a teacher salary so you know another equipment was uh it was the the scoreboards were in one place but there was also the helmets the shoulder pads helmets and shoulder pads for

325two sports that require significance 60 was the scoreboard 60 was the scoreboard okay I included the scoreboard um in my bad math so I apologize for that but you know it's just it's just one of those things like are there potential other things we could be doing because there are youth organizations in the area that have served served this need for a number of years so it just seems like an odd time when we want to bring on more teachers which to me are curricular versus extracurricular if that's where we believe that you know our students are best served I don't know maybe we could get more creative I think honestly this goes back to two things one is recurring costs versus one-time costs and also the I think um impetus that Andrew shared at

326the outset here which was you know does the board want the administration to go back and to reduce the proposed increase to the levy um or reduce the overall budget I mean these things do go obviously hand in hand um and then there would be any number of places to look whether it's the four contingency positions whether it's the interfund to uh transfer to Capital um you know just on Thursday night we spent 600 000 on flexible Furniture you know and we're talking about 900 000 in teachers so I think that's where what you're suggesting is that you want the guidance from us as to whether at this juncture we would like to ask the administration to take a look and come back with a lower proposed Levy increase or perhaps no Levy increase and

327again the options are you know from zero to two point five percent and at the moment we've got a one point five six percent increase that we're evaluating right I didn't want to get so granular but I just wanted to give kind of the opposite side to you know the the discussion of Staffing I think we all also ought to talk about the other non-teaching positions and I mean they have the same impact on the budget and they have the same contractual obligations year over year and they probably don't give quite the same lift at least not academically um to the students so I think we haven't really talked much about about that there's two monitors at the high school and I'm not sure what what why we feel those are necessary and I think

328there was two others and then four contingency positions I I get that we do that every year but I would like to understand a little bit more about why we put all of that funding against contingency um Staffing positions when we don't always use it for contingency Staffing positions we often transfer that funds elsewhere and we move around and so there's some money in the budget that gets moved that we could be thinking about well if we were to allocate that to teaching positions how might that change the budget so I think there's some other things rather than just poking at the teaching positions that are here that we probably all agree we'd love to bring on more teachers right um but there's other opportunities both in new hires and in that contingency budget that

329we probably should consider just for conversation's sake if we pull out the 945 if we say that's the discretionary increase to the budget or however we're going to use it let's not talk about in terms of what it is but just what's the discretionary amount the increase year over year to the budget is 2.82 percent instead of and the increase that we would need to make to the tax levy is 0.93 so that's sort of the floor of the conversation except not to I think if we take into account what Rory just said he's actually suggesting well maybe you're just suggesting the new proposed staff editions not looking out more globally at our current model of delivering education and asking about existing positions I'm not sure which one I'm not sure I understand the distinction

330there say that again I took your comment just now to be a more Global comment about um Physicians in general but I think actually what you were talking about are the newly proposed staff positions not touching existing positions when you say we ought to go back and take a look I just think about newly proposed is the newly proposed right but I think what we're always saying is like maybe it's not talking about what are the newly proposed but like what are some of the things that are in the existing budget like the contingencies that could be reduced in order to I'm trying to temper myself because Andrew said hey let's let us figure out you give me the number and then we'll figure out which things are the priority just the way you're saying

331I mean that's that's actually Andrew's being very clear that if the number is too high let us know then we'll go back and look this is your suggesting in fact yeah they'll probably prioritize other things other than the Staffing because they feel that's very important so I mean I guess and I'm going back to like we're so we're so the floor is 0.92 in terms of tax levy the top of the tax level is 2.52 is that I mean so okay so that's the floors because 0.93 is that accurate I mean yeah the floors but we could say we want nothing and then there'd have to be changes but assuming we don't want to cut anything then it's pointing to the existing graduate right and that we're going to cover the cost of contractual obligations

332the insurance and sort of inflationary increases to electricity well like inflationary and other electricity toilet paper Etc and then we're not sure we want to do the discretionary spending so right and then the discretionary portion of it is sort of that 945 and that takes us from 0.93 to a 1.56 terms of the levy it's helpful so actually the contingency positions is is a interesting aspect of it I mean over my tenure here I've been I'm very comfortable with the contingency positions are used when they have to remember in the beginning it seemed a little weird to me that we were like already paying for four extra teachers but it became very clear that they're only used when there's a real good reason to use them having said that maybe with I guess it would

333be up to you to decide how to do it but it could be that since we're already sort of adding teachers that are there for class size issues would we need less contingency positions um but I guess that that again just sort of throws the ball in your court if if we feel like you know the look at a lower increase you'd have to have different things you can look at and that might not be the way you want to look at it either in terms of the direction that we want to give the administration and the proposal the proposed budget includes a 1.56 percent of the increase I think this was helpful to consider that if we're not anticipating cuts we would be at a 0.9 3 percent Levy increase so you want to

334add something to that vanilla and I are just both looking at each other because I think our math comes out a little bit I think I think our our floor at which we wouldn't have to make Cuts right is more in the 0.5.6 here okay sorry okay thank you okay so we're between that and oh yeah and actually I think you did say that because you said 0.5 for new 1.0 is the ask from 1.0 is available on the table right um yeah if we took out those 945 000 I have about 0.62.6.6 okay and more or less just for everybody's benefit that's about six hundred thousand dollars we're talking about um we have historically been in the lower lowest quartile in the region um I think it's safe to assume that with the 1.56

335will be well within the lowest quartile and I think that you know the question for us is in terms of balancing our responsibility to our taxpayers and our responsibility and desire to best meet the needs of our students do we feel comfortable with that 1.56 or do we think we should ask the administration to go back and to find Opportunities to lower the proposed increase to the levy or of course somebody could get out there and say I want you to get closer to the tax cap but I'm not hearing anything in that direction so I'm going to assume that's not where we're headed I mean I think there's an opportunity to sharpen our fence a little bit and I'm not sure that we want to come up with a number and say oh it

336should be one percent or it should be 1.2 percent I think we should say hey is there a way that we can reduce this for me anyway I think it's it's a little the little head it's a little fat just a tiny bit and I think that if the administration had an opportunity to come back and say these are our lowest priority items what do you think you know if we were to drop these off and then some of those may feel compelling to us like oh I don't want to cut that I don't know it feels like there's an opportunity and if we ask the administration to go back and see if there's a way that they can sharpen their pencils and come back with the different slightly different proposal that might get us

337for me anyway would anybody else like to share a perspective does that feel you know maybe that encapsulates how other people are feeling too short conversation or if somebody you know a different thought we're going to be arguing both sides that's what happens especially with doctors like two doctors has four opinions if you talk to an internist eventually they'll say the opposite just let them talk they'll say the opposite of what they said before um my concern actually was more about what we're building this year and paying for it in the future rather than 1.56 isn't a problem for me it's really more are we committing future dollars that we would love to have now as opposed to yeah I I think in the inflationary period that we're in and considering point six is baked

338in there is one point five six reasonable I think so I mean you know to me it wouldn't be a big difference if it was you know 1.4 versus 1.56 it's really just more the the seeming I sort of like you know um more on thin ice for some of the money some of the money we're spending is not built on on Solid ground right now and who knows what happens in the future but I mean Andrew said that you know when that happens we'll have to look at the budget but you know you take it year by year so I just wanted to clarify my concern was more about future financing which might not be compelling for us right now versus not not not the number 1.56 being high understood thank you I think

339there might just be a little bit more sensitivity about the budget because on Thursday we also did look at you know all of these different exemptions which you know I agree with and think are fantastic but the reality is it does shift some of the the tax burden to you know a different population um and we did just pass a bond and so um I think that it's probably really important for us to understand and I don't know you know how well this can be communicated but like what the risk is in in going too low in in how it could hamper us in the future because I think that's really important to communicate um to the community because um it does help if you know how things work a little bit and that we

340can set some aside in in the in the fun balance and and you know how we use um overages we have to offset the following year's tax leverage there's there's a lot of information I think that is not you know commonly known um but I genuinely don't I think that this is this is a good budget and um listening to um all of the people go through their their sections I mean it's very hard to find places where you can say oh look this is just silly it's you know I think it was very thoughtfully put together um but you know given all of the other kind of externalities inflation the price of toilet paper um you know energy and all of the other pieces that go into it people in this community understand that

341um and I I think that their support for that as well I think that you know this is a community that really values public education and the you know amazing array of programming that we can offer um but it is it's just gonna be a little bit more of a delicate and difficult year based on all of these other kind of pieces and I think maybe because of the Regency of you know passing all of the um exemptions maybe we're feeling a little I don't know less comfortable with it than than at an ordinary time thank you I'm just sort of still doing the math one of the other considerations is because of the tax cap if we don't grab it this year we can't necessarily make up for next year correct right so it

342you can you can also flip it the other way and say by not going to the tax cap very limited this year we're leaving money on the table that we might want in the future but so you know for that reason I think you know you want to have some number there because you can't get that number back next year necessarily yes we budget to our needs right we budget to what we need as a school district we don't budget to what could potentially be available to us at least we shouldn't but we should be looking and we are at what we need as a school district and that's the levy that we're going to place on the community to me what what's available while I understand the compounding impact of either taking it or

343not taking it this year we should we should try to stay on course to budget to what we need this year versus let's let's grab what we can get and then I mean I think the counter test so when I think about to go back to what Liz was said which is when we go through the budget line by line there's nothing that's glaringly excessive right it all does seem like things that you could make a good argument that we need them in order to support our students and so we're sort of hedging in the other direction saying like we may need those now but what about next year in the same so and Andrew's saying like well if we need to cut next year we cut next year so in the same way that

344we can it's the same argument backwards or forwards really right I don't know I mean this is the dollars coming out of the taxpayers pockets this year the person that you might so I mean and that's Our obligation so I agree with you but if we were in a situation where we didn't have the windfall from the state and we were behind we were not within our tax cap then what would we could and we'd be asking a very different question might we'd be saying uh oh we're over so where would we be cutting as opposed to well let's add all these things and we're still within the tax cap but for me anyway I I just feel like it ought to be a little more conservative I mean I guess I am more inclined

345to give you a number rather than say like come up with let's bring them back to us I don't know I mean or not I'm gonna be sort of inclined to say like can you get us to do or whatever that number is because otherwise I feel like we just keep going back and forth and it's not anybody else is there a number that we wanted well I don't know I'm not sure that I'm hearing bill or Liz say to go back and and reduce from 1.56 I certainly hear Rory saying that maybe you're saying you'd like to go back and cut you can think on that and I'm not sure whether Elon or Catherine would like to land you're not looking to cut I mean the answer to my question was if we need

346to cut next year we'll cut next year I think I heard Liz saying she's comfortable with the number and it feels you know it's a good budget and we don't please don't feel pressure to say anything anyone but I'm just kind of looking for some general direction for the administration between now and when we come back and March 9th waiting to speak I mean also what I said Thursday night which I think it's a very um responsible budget given the inflationary pressures right now that we are coming up at 1.5 for six one point five six percent is incredibly low you know it almost feels like a non-discussion in some ways because of just the environment that we're in that that it's it's so low and yet it's going to deliver so much value to

347the students um I do think the the question about like are we going to have state aid like in this number and you know you know we can't predict the future and we have a governor who happens to be extremely supportive of public education both houses are extremely supportive you know I think I think we're going in a good direction for education for public education right now um so while it might not be the same number there there's some reform like I just think there's a lot of good there's reasons to be optimistic about the future of public education funding um and so you know and and I do think like that the compounding things are is a real issue to not take it and with especially knowing the increasing just how we've gotten so

348hammered on health insurance and I I mean I don't see that changing um that we might need that just I know we I know you budget about you want to budget for the year but I do think having an eye toward these things that are contractual and not going to change is also important and so I would I feel like you kind of get both with this budget this reminds me of something Scott kept saying and I never understood what he was talking about I was too embarrassed to say anything but I think part of what's Happening also is that we are probably reaching out a new steady state in terms of enrollment and so there was a period where we were sort of funding other things because of declining enrollment we needed less sections

349of this less sections of that and that was sort of helping us and yet we can still increase business and this because you know of a declining enrollment now that the enrollment's not declining we no longer have that definitely we benefited from a lot of non-replaced attrition over the past 10 years so that could also you know the new reality is in a district that's not shrinking substantially you know you don't have that type of cushion in your budget we all just so slowly everybody starts looking at me a little bit more I think a little bit of what lives uh just a physical responsibility and the fact that we just passed the bond and tax exemptions into Warrior's point we sharpen our pencils a little bit to everybody else's point that it is a

350really fiscally responsible budget and so much work and care has gone into it I wonder the same thing can we sharpen our pencils a tiny bit I just feel I I can't I I would be reluctant to put a number on it though because I I feel like I wouldn't want to hold them to a number if they felt like they could go above that or below that um so whenever I stand right now maybe the other piece of it is also like I was kind of saying a Communications piece I mean we're talking about a 1.56 increase the tax levy but a lot of people are going to see three point what in those four and you know that that is going to be misinterpreted I would say a lot um and and so

351we need to think about how we talk about it and I I know that we have these chairs here for people to come and and really kind of participate but not everybody has the time and and so that might be part of the challenge so I'm hearing some trepidation but mostly acknowledgment that [Music] um given the exigencies within which we're working that 1.56 feels like a responsible um percent increase for the levy and um as for optimism about the future of public education some cause for concern about whether we'll have the money to cover our costs um and wanting to ensure that pencils have been sharpened to the greatest extent possible I'm not hearing a number or a need to reduce to a certain amount we are going to be coming back to review the

352budget again um but I'm not I'm not hearing a lot of concrete Direction in terms of what we'd be asking the administration to do and I think mostly I'm hearing yeah Comfort comfort with the budget um and you know correct me if if you hear it differently we don't usually like to count votes so publicly but it doesn't sound like there's four of us who would say go back and do a different budget so I think in in the end Andrew and Company needs sort of like a yes no either we have this homework to do or we don't and I mean everybody should speak up but I don't think there's four votes saying that they should present a new budget so I mean I guess I'm sort of feeling like maybe we can't man

353I'm not saying we mandate that but would it be worth saying like can you look at it and see if there's any like with a refreshed look I mean because I know like for example I feel like we have had years where we've only had two contingency positions in the budget or three I know we we reduced one wait what two years because I don't I don't know that we have but we certainly can't go look yeah I mean Danelle and I keep really good track of sorry I was getting over to my left uh but the contingency positions and and one I think we we talked about with KES we use right away uh um I think early June last year became very apparent to us and also when there are six period assignments

354uh where we can't find uh long-term substitutes to fill in for positions for teachers who go out on lead and sometimes it's advanced notice someone could be going on a maternity or or paternity leave and that gives this time to to search and do do our due diligence to hire people and sometimes it doesn't work and we need to rely especially in the Middle School and High School for sixth period assignments um I don't have the exact numbers of the amount of people this year compared to last year going out on leave but I mean we're we are constantly Fielding leaves and not all of them translate into contingency positions but sometimes they do and give you an example um that has nothing to do with leaves but it's just enl and we we've talked

355about that a little bit where um the growing needs of the students just based on the state mandated number of minutes increased to a 0.4 this year so we have two teachers who are uh thank goodness they want to do it but they're teaching over their 1.0 and yes they're getting paid for it but that's just to cover what we have right now and I think Alex had done some tabulations for next we're going to continue to grow which is why we need the we're asking for that full position also to say that it's very Dynamic and it's really uncertain and when you look at that major bar graph of trending down and then try of our total population but then within that there are these pockets of interesting growth especially the DNL kindergarten at

356KES um and then we you know we there's not a necessarily the growth in sixth or seventh grade but it just speaks to I think how Dynamic school districts are and um that's what we're trying to wrestle with ourselves and figure out I'm sure if that helps but I'll say is it's hard to it's hard to predict what we would need next year for contingency positions just based on everything and also just overall with being a teacher shortage too as well and so even just trying to find Subs is very difficult and we've spent um thank and thank you for last year for the advertising money because we've used that in local papers and we've used that uh for different internet platforms to drive and it's to us um and we've done some other things

357on the website to make it more welcoming and when people as a landing spot but still it's still it's still difficult to find those positions and and sometimes we do have to rely on our own staff staff those missing periods in a sense and they do come out of the contingency spots so I guess the question would be do we feel confident that all of these positions would be filled that it sounded like um Paul Christensen had a bunch of Physicians unfilled um so what happens in that case yeah no the custodial um recruitment has been difficult for sure and that's not a lack of anything from Paul's department for teaching positions we have not had difficulty finding full-time teachers it's more of the substitute route or the or the short-term leaves that we need

358people for say three months or four months that's been a lot more difficult um but just as an example I mean we have we have um an elementary posting out on Olas right now and I think it it sunsets in a couple weeks and within two weeks we had about 80 applicants not all of them are credentialed right but out of that 80 there's certainly three really good teachers too this is to um teachers that we knew that had already retired back in January to begin the timeline of searches for that so I you know the quality in there I'm sure there are it tends it tends to be some of the civil service positions that have gone unfilled so some of the support staff positions some of the office support the L M positions

359a bus driver or two those are the kinds of jobs that have been really hard really for all schools to fill in recent years and not just full-time teachers full-time teachers which can take a while sometimes but we generally we fill those positions um and that does you know to be transparent that does create some opportunity it's we obviously we want to fill all those positions and there have been times this year when our director of Transportation has been driving buses and we would rather not have that happening because she's got other things she needs to do and the reality is that some of those unfilled positions then create some salary that we do end up putting somewhere else or transferring somewhere else at the end of the year so it does create an opportunity

360in the budget it's just not an opportunity that we want no right but what we want to count on for next year so I think we're looking at a 1.56 Levy increased in the budget that we're going to be looking at next is what I'm hearing I think it is tempting to point to contingency positions or to you know anything that might emerge as sort of like a candidate that feels right before you know but as We Know if we the the what we're being asked to give is the guidance to come back with a lower number or not I'm just not hearing enough Direction with respect to you know come back lower at this number or go back and lower it I think generally speaking I'm hearing that people are comfortable with the 1.56

361for a variety of different reasons for the record I am not at all comfortable with that number yes I am hearing that um okay so is there any further board discussion before we move forward right well thank you again for the budget deliberations and um should we ask the principal some really hard questions I mean they're here we're going to well we have to look forward to Future meetings here first [Music] and so we're next going to have an opportunity to discuss the budget or to review it again on Thursday March 9th at 7 30 pm here in the library um and what would what would be envisioning at that meeting before I was just thinking the same thing yeah I'm not entirely sure we'll be coming back with the same budget I'm not hearing

362direction to make any changes or any sometimes we leave the state just with some questions to get answered to come back but I'm not hearing any questions about any I I did have two follow-up questions uh insurance and TRS the smoothing so we'll come back with okay that information for those questions though that could impact this budget or just informational questions that people are interested in yeah oh entirely clear to me what will talk about the questions that I would have posed on that I think I have posed would ending on the response to them potentially result in a decrease to the budget do we need two monitors at the high school why do we you know need to add two teachers to seventh grade you know why so I those questions are still open

363for me it feels like the majority of the board is comfortable with not getting a response to those questions on that no I think if you have remaining questions about individual line items let's discuss those yeah let's talk about the monitors for sure yeah we could talk about the monitors and and also we can confer with Stephen as well but my understanding with the high school um is it's not so much about the number of students because as we see that is decreasing a little bit with enrollment um but according to Stephen in the system in the assistant principles it really has to do with just the multiple exits within the building um and also just just making sure that students are acting in a safe way in in ways something changed I mean the

364number of exits is the same the number is decreased hasn't it you're only allowing one opening in the high school I think over the years and I I would have to find the exact paperwork this because I I didn't look for and I'm happy to find um go back in time with Danelle to previous budgets but I heard from one of the assistant principals that there used to be 14 monitors and and we're not anywhere close to that right now but that was really to service those different areas of the hallway I know there's been vaping incidents in the bathroom as well as students going to their cars um in between classes which they're I don't think they're really supposed to be doing so it's just really just eyes on the campus and I think

365they're trying I don't think Steven's goal I don't want to speak for them is to regain 14 I don't think that's his goal I think this is just to give a little more flexibility to just student safety in and around the campus yeah so we can find them wrong yeah and well I you know we can find more from Stephen too just to in the community I've been hearing a lot about the bathroom concerns so I think some more coverage in the bathrooms would be I don't know if anyone else is hearing that but I've heard that yes from multiple uh people and also a lot of the traveling out back and forth to cars during the day I've heard a lot yeah yeah yeah it happens not from the administration I'm just saying from

366parents stories they're hearing I guess while we are on that topic I mean it and I'm sorry because I know you can't speak for Stephen yeah don't do the best I can would it be the vision that adding monitors would help a problem like vaping in the bathroom I mean it is it is confusing to me that we have a problem with vaping in the bathroom because we do have monitors so I don't understand is it a shortage issue or it you know do you think that adding staff would help a problem of that nature that's smooth substance abuse counselor which may be a good combination of that I don't know I think I think again I think that's I'm not sure to your point at that uh addresses the root of the problem right

367I don't think it gets down to that um but certainly we can ask Stephen a little bit more about some of the I think supervision difficulties that he and the administration are having so we can certainly get a little bit more because I want to make sure that it's not exclusive to John Jay High School I think if you talk to families or administrators in other High School communities high schools in general are seeing an upward trend of um more issues that require discipline so you know because again this this would be where covet has impacted high school students and having Liberties like an open campus so I think Stephen when he spoke to us about it specifically noted that the two monitors he was asking like so the increase would be to add to

368the supervision um in the parking lots when students were leaving you know to check cars because right now it was drawing from people that were in the building that could be supporting you know just keeping that extra eye on who's going in a bathroom or you know is there a group of students all of a sudden coming to a bathroom but and it's not exclusive to John Jay High School I think many high schools are struggling with this right now but again we can ascertain more information from Stephen and the staff is that mostly answered who were being offered a solution to a problem that we didn't we weren't told existed and now we're being told oh well there is a problem and here's the solution right so you know sure it feels to me

369like there's opportunity to look more closely at certain line items on this budget and I get it that the board feels comfortable with the 1.56 but it's not really a 1.56 it's a 3.6 increased budget to budget and where it not for that land windfall which we may not receive next year we wouldn't even be able to meet our requirements within the tax cap and instead we're just taking that we're pocketing it and saying this is great and now we're adding hey you know what even though we wouldn't have been able to meet it within the tax cap the additional expenses that we have to incur we're going to add to it and and that's all well and good I completely get it but there are a number of Staff positions which as we said

370uh increase the budget year over year that it's just not really clear do we really need them really need them why can't we have one more monitor do we need any more monitors there was a recent change to the security protocol at the high school here that I was also unaware of it just it feels like things are creeping in without a whole lot of knowledge and that's okay I yeah it's it's a little frustrating it feels to me like there are items on this budget that are substantial that we're not really exploring thoroughly enough in light of the fact that had we not gotten that windfall from the state we wouldn't be able to afford even Our obligation so I'm okay but you know just I it's probably a few other examples I could

371say but if there's no appetite I think that's I think again I would just I would describe it differently the the windfall as you put it from the state does allow us to cover costs that we otherwise wouldn't be able to cover and it creates the opportunity to put some positions in places where we do think they're needed and putting those positions in places where they're needed creates uh provides service that we think is needed in the coming year and in a future year those monies might allow us to cover costs different costs that is a reality also while we think these positions are very much needed for the coming year we could remove them and lower the budget that I was trying to I think some of you have said then there may be

372a future year where we don't have funds we may be making other Cuts because we don't have necessary funds available to us so it's this very fine line you know and it's Ricky to talk about we're not we're not adding positions just for the sake of adding positions we see a need and we're asking for support for those positions the funding that's applied to those positions might have to be applied elsewhere in a future year and if it is we'll obviously make that adjustment it would come away positions would have to get reduced and they might be paying for health insurance in a future year or for something else and that's one of the really challenging dilemmas under the tax cap environment um that I don't need to say morning I I hear you and

373that if we don't have to spend money we shouldn't spend it and tighten it there but I just worry like I'm curious about even if we were to kind of like go a little bit closer in on certain budget lines I I don't know how much it would affect the overall budget you know at the end of the day I think looking at some of the increases in the places we're talking about while they're whether in there are large percentage increases or whatever on certain lines it's not actually at the end of the day the sum of the money is not that much money so I I don't I don't know that we would get to anything mean like a meaningful difference that and and sort of balancing a dollar a percentage increase against the

374programmatic or the benefits of of doing that I don't know if they outweigh each other I mean I'm curious but I don't think that we would get to that I didn't see places where we get to like a large enough sum of money that would significantly impact that but those are recurring costs right so they're every year you're going to have to recur that cost I'll have to tax the community that extent plus any increase any contractually obligated increase on though on that million dollars right exactly except that if we don't need all those positions going forward like I think there's some potential that if you're kind of investing and putting in the addressing the student needs now they don't they don't kind of multiply over well there's the student need of kind of like

375students coming into the middle school for example needing a little bit more support and if that doesn't get addressed in the next year and they're kind of continuing through the program are there and then more needs later on or you you know I think the idea of the monitors are needing additional sort of whatever the campus is I mean again I'm not as familiar with the high school personally but um you know looking at our Capital Improvement plans there are a lot of design features that are going to change the way that the campus is used over the next couple years so that may alleviate the need for a number of monitors in addition to technology upgrades that could allow us to monitor in different ways and gather information differently I just I you know

376I don't I think that idea things are changing rapidly and that yes we should think we should we should be fiscally responsible and I don't know that these are actually recurring like ongoing thing costs and you know and our population thing is not it's not varying that much that we're like going to have this huge growth and we're going to need to have more staff in the future what's pretty kind of flat on that right now so I don't know I mean I hear you it's always nice to spend less if you can but I would say like I think last year we you know we reduced in the budget a few Middle School teachers an elementary school teacher so I mean I think some years we might go up in some years we might

377go down so I don't think there's like this continual addition to our teaching staff that we've seen is so with respect to Future meetings um at the moment we are scheduled to come back on Thursday March 9th at 7 30. and maybe we're going to get back to everybody with respect to what the proposed agenda is going to be for that meeting if we're meeting on that day and then we had also built in a couple of other placeholders March 16th March 23rd sounds like March 23rd was solid because yeah we have two presentations that evening so perhaps we're coming back on March 9th and it looks like we're headed toward not meeting on March 16th not needing the three meetings we don't need an in between now and the ninth finance committee is scheduled

378to meet Tuesday March 7th at 7 pm in the district office and sustainability is scheduled to meet Friday March 17th at 8 15 a.m in the district office again we're coming back on the 23rd for sure 7 30 p.m here in the library and then Friday March 24th policy is meeting at 9am did I miss anything we were thinking we could this month that the 16th is more than likely not necessary not going to say that right correct the night because that would be the regular that would be our next two-week Opera the next two week interval would be March 9th and then we had built in the 16th as a contingency but it seems as if we won't need the 16th I think just for the routine operations of the business we should plan

379to be coming back on the 9th it might be a light meeting as a public meeting goes but we'll have a consent agenda and um and and go from there okay those are our future meetings and would somebody like to make a motion to adjourn moved by Liz and seconded by Catherine all in favor please say aye aye thank you so much everybody enjoy the rest of your weekend thank you