001good evening welcome everybody nice to see you it's thursday march 24th and it's my pleasure to make a motion for the board to go back into public session if i could have a second please seconded by ilana thank you all in favor please say and if everybody would please join us in the pledge of allegiance thank you wonderful thank you so much happy spring to everybody we've made it to the vernal equinox yay i hope everybody is doing well tonight we have the pleasure of returning our attention to the superintendent's proposed budget with an eye toward voting on a resolution to adopt it um and perhaps before we do that we can pause briefly for some board announcements if we have any i'm happy to turn the floor over to everybody else julia please um
002so i had the pleasure of attending the increase miller science fair last week and i just wanted to recognize all the students who participated there was many many really lovely projects and presentations and such enthusiastic students there talking about science and i also wanted to thank the parents who helped to share that it's a it's part of a pto collaboration with the district um and so we're so appreciative of that it was really nice for me to see it grow i was actually one of the coordinators in the initial stage of it and i also want to recognize our high school students who helped to provide they went around and interviewed the kids they were judges and they had lab coats and it was just it was really wonderful and so i just want to
003thank everyone who was involved for making that opportunity possible for those students and for all of those people to be back in the building together parents and staff and students was really just it was really lovely wonderful thank you so much it's great to hear other announcements i'll assume that maybe you're going to mention this also but the board had an opportunity to do a building tour of increased miller i think it was the beginning of last week and it was really great to get back into schools again it's been a while since uh maybe pre-pandemic since we've had an opportunity to tour the schools and to um go and visit kerry ford and the administrators at increased miller and to spend some time in um almost every classroom i think we separated them into
004two different groups and i think we probably hit the vast majority of the classrooms and other parts of the school it was really wonderful to see all of the great work uh that's going on and a lot of maskless faces some masked faces still um but it was really uh warm and and uh fantastic to actually get into the buildings and see what's happening on the at the grassroots level so much appreciation to the uh staff at increased miller until the administration for allowing us to do that thank you so much rory i really appreciate you mentioning that and yes thank you to our administration for making the time to allow us to walk through the building it has been quite some time since we were able to be an increased miller while there were
005students and staff in motion and it was a pleasure and thank you to our teachers for opening their classrooms to us we know that that's not always easy to do to have a group of um visitors observers and it really was very worthwhile and truly a pleasure so thank you for bringing that up rory other announcements i just had one additional announcement which i imagine probably andrew was also going to speak to but earlier this week we also had an opportunity for our first superintendent's coffee in over two years and i really want to thank our community first and foremost for coming back out to the coffee and of course also thank you to you andrew and to mary for being there and um it was wonderful to hear so many voices people came from
006across the district we had parents from katona and increase miller of course meadow pond the high school and the middle school and also i do just want to take this opportunity because i imagine this is not what you would say andrew but to publicly recognize that when you invited community members to reflect on where we'd been over the course of the past two years and where we are now so many community members spontaneously leaned in to thank you for and i quote the amazing fantastic job during remote learning and specifically with respect to your communication with our community over the course of the past two years and i did think it was worthwhile to share that with the board of education and with our community and to thank you and we eagerly anticipate your next
007superintendent's coffee no pressure but it was wonderful it was very well attended thank you to ashland field for hosting us it was over at meadow pond and really it was it was delightful so thank you and i didn't have any other announcements abigail welcome back i don't know if you had any announcements this evening we'd love to hear them but not to put you on the spot not tonight no problem thank you and then we'll turn it over to you please andrew thanks margarine thank you for those kind words um just a couple of hours ago danelle and neil and mary and i were in the gym here at the high school for a really amazing event uh which was a basketball game between our eighth graders and their john j middle school faculty but
008the story begins actually in sixth grade when these students read a book called a long walk for water that i believe all sixth graders read which is a harrowing story uh it looks like abigail might remember reading that story about a young sudanese person who comes and actually ends up in new york state but then travels back to sudan eventually to start building water supplies i think and and and so that was the germination for a fundraiser that students wanted to put on to raise money for an organization called i think water for south sudan and this basketball game was the fundraiser and and the gym was packed today i've honestly never seen the bleachers as packed or as loud as they were for this game it seemed like most of the middle school was
009in the bleachers and a lot of eighth graders were playing and a lot of middle school faculty were either playing in the game or watching the game and it was a very intense and the students actually won by two points in the last few seconds but but most importantly it was a joyous event and obviously a very worthwhile uh and a creditable event for them to want to really raise funds for this organization so it was really just a lovely event and and to come out of the covet experience and be able to have an experience like that was just lovely and of course there have been other events you know there was a dance last week at the middle school and tomorrow there'll be the play at meadow pond shrek they're putting on next
010week to play here at the high school a wedding singer will be performed and there'll be an art show right to spring before that here at the high school so lots of really uh lovely lovely things happening and but today's was really just awesome actually it was great to be there yeah so much amazing kudos to uh kathy o'neil and nicole estero and jeff swadowicz i think you all put that together um and i i can't imagine they thought it would be quite i i don't think they anticipated it to be quite the event that it was and orchestrated in such a way that all those middle school students could still get home on the 415 bus so all all really great um on on a very different note um we did just i think
011it was the day after our last board meeting so it's going back a bit now um but uh principal swedes did need to report uh to the community another uh finding of another swastika another a pair of very small swastikas that had been drawn at a desk in a classroom um and and that report went out on a friday afternoon and the very next week right away spoke with students they developed lessons again you know again the school takes this very very seriously wants the community to know how seriously it's taken and i think the difficult juxtaposition there is you go to an event like today's and you see the whole school seemingly you know out there filled with joy and when we walk through the halls of the middle school that's the experience we
012have in the middle school and we would want the community to know that these things do exist side by side and that there can be this really awful thing that we can call out and recognize that it's tremendously upsetting to people to hear about an event like that and at the same time know that life in the middle school on a daily basis is working always to be as warm and welcoming and inclusive as possible for all students so so those things uh continue to happen and then i was gonna say thank you for the very kind words about the learning uh the superintendent's coffee um you know we it was about about 25 parents or so it was clear they represented all the elementary schools in and the middle school high school i think
013also and and most parents uh that i hadn't met before so it was really nice to hear and to have a chance to reflect uh on their experiences these these past couple years they were very very positive as you said i took it as a reflection of the team effort in the district and it gave us a chance actually today we met with all of our administrators in a regular administrative meeting and it's nice to have that opportunity to be able to say here's what parents are saying about the efforts that you've all been making these last two years and the gratitude that we heard expressed uh this past tuesday so it was and we actually talked quite a bit today about the difference of being back in person again and being with people and
014while zoom you know helped us through out of necessity i think now that we're doing more and more things in person which we're also seeing how much is lost on zoom and how it's not a true communication between people uh and and has its own set of challenges so we're really glad to be back uh tomorrow uh the principals will be sending messages home about some additional changes in cafeterias for next week so they'll be sharing some uh some further return knock on wood as i say as all continues to to go well and we hope only that that continues so thank you great thank you very much were there any questions or comments before we move on please um i just wanted to thank you for sort of calling attention andrew to to the
015swastikas found and i think you're reflecting what this community is doing so well which is standing up and calling out and naming specific incidents and also that the institution is responding so strongly and standing with people that might feel targeted and that i think helps to create a welcoming environment when something happens that might make people feel unwelcome so just really appreciate wanting to underscore that thank you well all right then i think we're ready to move on to our featured presentation which is yet another opportunity to review the proposed budget and i think to revisit the slides also and we'll turn it back over to andrew and danelle thank you of course yeah thank you so tonight um i think i'll bless you as we mentioned previously uh tonight's the night we come one
016more time to present the budget uh apologies in advance it's going to be very familiar at this point to our board because you've you've been through this now many times in great detail but tonight we're asking you to consider adopting the budget and having what is currently the superintendent's proposed budget become the board of education's proposed budget uh if you so uh choose to do so tonight and then it would go before the voters on may 17th perhaps to become the community's adopted budget um there'll still be yet another presentation of this budget uh two two weeks or so prior to the budget vote that's a required what's called a budget hearing required by new york state and as you'll see at the end of these slides we're going to be presenting also several more
017times for our various ptos in the buildings and we look forward to that so again this will look familiar to our board tonight uh we begin with our learning commitment uh always working towards achieving that environment in the classrooms that we're looking for in this budget uh we think helps us always move further uh towards this commitment we move on to the board's goals uh the leadership goal there which we very much appreciate the board's support both in creating the kind of uh inclusive and welcoming environment that we speak about so often and also in terms of supporting the learning commitment that we so appreciate and then in goal number two yeah we are on the right side uh in goal number two uh the fiscal responsibility that we take very seriously and as we've
018mentioned a number of times the budget that's being presented again tonight is within the new york state tax cap oops moving on to the development of the budget it's a lengthy it's really a year-round process but we show you here the process from the beginning of this school year up through now beginning with the establishment of those goals that we just talked about moving on to a budget conditions presentation that we made to you in november of this past year and then a lot of work with our administrators from throughout the district and they in turn have worked with the teachers in their buildings and other staff who develop the budgets that they think that they need and then we go through what we call central office review meetings to review all of those uh
019drafts of budget and then present it to you and going through all the many lines of the budget as we've been doing for the last uh six weeks or so in the next slide we show the enrollment progression and we point out that enrollment did go through a steep decline over a roughly 10-year period or so in more recent years while still declining not declining quite as steeply we can note here that this is this is common to districts in our region we know that this has been a regional decline and a new york state decline as the population does tend to continue shifting from the northeast out of the northeast into other parts of the country uh with and and with the exceptional pockets of places actually where uh for different reasons population does
020grow in some places but but overall we do see this decline around the region moving on this slide again shows uh broken out a little bit differently and we made the point in one of the earlier presentations that our elementary schools are growing uh how in the last four years or so those are the numbers in green at the bottom of that first column so we see some growth in the elementary school but we also want to point out that that growth isn't yet taking us back to the point of the kind of size at the middle school in high school that we had several years ago so we're still replacing larger grade levels with smaller grade levels as they move up so we expect the middle school and high school to still continue getting
021smaller for a number of years to come even as the elementary schools continue growing then we move into the budget drivers which we break out into these four four categories school program professional learning enrollment and class size and infrastructure and then we additionally point out this year uh this graphic that we've been using to try to help board and community and staff and and maybe even students be aware of our areas of focus so at the center is our learning commitment and then immediately around it these three very important areas of diversity equity and inclusion in one quad uh not the right word if there's only three one area and then social emotional learning in another and sustainability uh as the third uh key focus area there all of that surrounded by professional learning and
022pedagogy and technology supporting all of it and and these uh key areas have also gone into developing the budget for the coming year as has emerging from the pandemic which again i still knock on wood every time i say it but we are thrilled to be having events like the ones described earlier so now we move into some of the sorry that the right one does that say professional learning one more oh one more back there there we go thank you so in the first category of school learning a school program and professional learning uh this budget supports significant funding in the areas of learning and leadership related to race equity and inclusion it continues the pilot that the board actually heard quite a bit about recently from some of our science teacher leaders of
023next generation science curriculum at elementary schools uh we continue to support our innovation cohort which was actually a meeting this afternoon i think mary with you yeah to continue fostering new instructional practices uh a big a big infusion for books for cl both classroom and school libraries that are increasingly representative of all voices and experiences added opportunities for mental health support and increased extracurricular opportunities challenge success is an organization we've talked about a number of times that does surveys of students and parents to help us understand how the experience is going with we want to continue that as well as look for other tools that help us understand and be responsive to student needs and then importantly sustainability initiatives as that other key area including curriculum work professional learning and after school clubs for students
024so lots of support in the budget for those areas and then some new positions uh in the budget and these are just some there are others that are called out later under staffing the the one of the most significant being a new um administrative position an assistant superintendent level physician assistant superintendent for student support services and as we've mentioned previously this would be obviously at the level of the cabinet in the district office overseeing special education english is a new language that's a population that as we've mentioned is growing significantly again in our district but also regionally and we want to make sure that we're providing the best possible opportunities for those students as well as response to intervention uh support for uh students who need those additional academic supports and as we've mentioned in
025the past the real vision for this position is that the more we can strengthen the services that these students receive the more we think we can strengthen the experience for all students in our district about a third of our students are touched directly by the by the programs just named but we think all students have the potential to benefit when we develop programs that have developed in a way that are inclusive of everybody and included along with everybody we think that actually creates only a stronger experience for all so we really appreciate the support in building that capacity to do that kind of work continued support for the newly expanded curriculum leader positions that we've you've begun to hear from some of those leaders at our meetings this year and that's going to continue as
026the year goes on we're asking to increase a part-time nurse to become full-time at john j middle school we're asking to increase a part-time school resource officer to become full-time in support of all of our schools and then there are as i mentioned teaching and other positions also being increased in some areas and those are detailed a little bit later in the presentation i think it might be time for a new clicker um i don't know if there's budget for that uh so i think i'm on the right next one enrollment and class size staffing uh to support favorable class sizes and once again we've asked the board to support these four contingency positions uh that will help us uh if and when enrollment is not what we predict or expect it to be if
027there and and it i will say in the last couple years perhaps pandemic related enrollment in the elementary schools has been a little less predictable perhaps than in other years so these could be proved to be very uh much needed in the coming year we will see so we appreciate that next slide is infrastructure and here we're very excited about all the bullets first one in particular though a full-size electric school bus i think there was a front page article in journal news today about about the efforts in the region to move towards electric bus fleets we're excited about this possibility we do always want to say very clearly this actually the first item is not in next year's budget we're proposing that it would be in the proposition number two the vehicle proposition which
028comes from this year's budget at the end of this year should we have sufficient funds it would be funding for this one electric school size school bus which would give us a great deal of information about how an electric bus does and operates and manages in our particular geography and terrain and student population and everything else so the charging infrastructure necessary to support that bus is in next year's school budget and then additionally flexible furniture for classrooms and then other infrastructure needs corridor flooring replacements some bathroom upgrades and improvements to domestic water supply systems so important uh infrastructure to keep the buildings safe and looking good all of that leads us to a budget for the proposed budget is 115.778 million dollars that's an increase over the current budget of 113 million of 2.5 just
029over 2.5 million dollars or a 2.24 increase and we say as quickly as we can since that number is higher than two we want to be sure people understand that is still well within the new york state tax cap limit and danelle will explain that in more detail and we're also pointing out in this next slide that aim um there we go that uh although the budget to budget increase is just over 2.5 million dollars we do have a significant increase in state aid this year of just over one point almost 1.4 million dollars as a result the projected tax levy increase is at 1.25 percent and it's been appropriately pointed out before that we can't count on a state aid increase of this size so we're careful in building this budget that a number
030of the increases in the budget are such that they don't have to be recurring costs year after year so if the state aid were to come back down to maybe more typical levels in ensuing years we think we'd be well situated to continue funding the programs and the staff and everything that we're proposing in this budget that takes us to enrollment in a little bit more detail in the schools so here we uh in the first line we're looking at kindergarten enrollment you see here the projection is for enrollment to be very similar next year to what it is this year you know we keep our fingers crossed that that proves true uh we're budgeting the same number of sections which means the same number of teachers for kindergarten next year as this year and
031we'll watch that closely but that's a place where if it does change unexpectedly we have contingency available the next slide we come to increase miller and and now we always remind people we're only looking at grades one through five here so kindergarten's not included now because it was on that first slide so we know that the school actually is larger than this but at increase you can see that at each grade level the sections for this year travel with the students and it's the same number of sections in the following school year the class sizes over on the right we think are favorable for next year and you we show there the two self-contained classrooms special classes that already increase also and those are also right now projected to stay at two sections with approximately
032six students in each section moving on we come to katona elementary school again in grades one through five there is one grade here moving from second to third where because of the change in the uh enrollment goal and range numbers in our district we do see a change there from four sections to three and that's a the the average size of is still slightly below our goal number which is 25 in third grade but that's a number that we will watch closely um and if things should change again we have the contingency positions available moving on to meadow pond pond um again you see sections moving on to the next grade level are the same in each case of meadow pond and the one that we've called out here previously is the fourth grade uh
033where the number is just a little bit over the goal still well within the range and again we will watch that to see just in case the population shifts and if that number creeps up we'll keep an eye on it now going to the middle school we uh show here and we're always quick both of secondary schools to call out that these are average numbers they're not as closely aligned with actual class size numbers as at the elementary school because of all the different electives etc that students take so but in terms of averages we're comfortable with the numbers you can see that the middle school is getting smaller next year particularly in the sixth grade and actually it's getting a little larger in the seventh grade but then smaller again in the eighth grade
034that's going to result you'll hear later about some staffing changes as a result of the declining enrollment there you can see the the average class size numbers there that we're comfortable with and you can also see that there's the one self-contained special class in the middle school with the projected enrollment staying consistent from this year to next moving to the high school okay again high school also getting smaller next year projected to drop by about 60 students and that will also result in some staffing changes that you'll hear about in a little bit again average class sizes high school students know that in fact real class sizes can vary quite a lot from what you see here with some being quite a bit larger and others being a little bit smaller and then again we're
035showing it's one self-contained class i don't think the number one appears there but it's a single self-contained classroom at the high school with an enrollment this year of nine projected to be a 10 for next year and then that takes us to staffing so neil is going to take it from here and i'm going to keep stumbling through best i can yeah thank you thank you very much yeah no and as andrew mentioned one of the significant uh asks is the um is the addition of assistant superintendent for student support services so that's a change here and go to the next slide this a couple in the next couple slides uh just show a little bit about the staffing changes having to do with uh teachers and as andrew mentioned we have four contingency positions
036uh that are within the budget but not seen on the pages not seen on the slides here other than by the asterisk the elementary there for k through five really that reduction has to do with kindergarten and that's a budget to budget reduction of one not an actual to budget uh right now other ten kindergarten sections and we're anticipating ten uh next year but as andrew said we have to continue to monitor those uh numbers and the population shifts in in the months to come uh having to with middle school uh in grade six the reduction there has to do with the incoming 6th grade class having lower population numbers and the need to shift the teachers in the middle school there the the rest of english english arts mathematics world language social studies specials
037is really a mix of information from the school administrators in middle school and high school about the shared staffing needs between the two sites and based on the needs that they perceive coming up and you can see a total reduction of 2.2 on that page or the next page uh again continuing with uh teachers were proposing a change in special education and asking for three special education teachers one at each of the elementary schools and this will allow us to really think about our inclusive model and and uh what we want to do there speech and language uh due to the needs of of students reading uh rti uh just allow a lot more flexibility and as andrew noted with enl we have a growing population of enl students so there for a total of
0386.4 increase next page for our support staff uh teaching assistants uh uh a change in an increase i should say in 1.0 having to do with special education and necessary support andrew mentioned that there are currently one full-time and one part-time nurse at the middle school but just based on the growing needs of the school and the need for uh two full-time nurses we're asking for an increase in 0.5 and it's also been really hard to staff we have a full-time nurse but it's been really hard to staff part-time nurse for that job uh clerical uh that increase is in direct uh relation to a direct relationship to the assistant superintendent of student support services and the growing needs of that department and that uh particular person would require clinical staff the 0.25 increase in
039operations and maintenance really helps to balance out the middle school and will allow um o m to properly staff or just better staff the middle school for a lot of the evening and uh saturday weekend events not that they really need some support and the overall uh the final page uh if as we mentioned the 1.0 administration with the growing and evolving needs in student support services 4.2 increase teaching overall 2.75 increase support staff which leaves overall 7.95 okay and i think danelle are you yeah there you go so in the next few slides we're just going to go over some of our budget numbers and budget terms so you'll see budget to budget tax levy tax cap and tax rate we'll address in these next few slides so in this next slide this is
040a reiteration of what andrew had mentioned before our current budget and our proposed budget the increase is two million five hundred thirty six thousand a hundred and ten dollars and that represents a two point two four percent increase however our tax levy will remain under the tax new york state tax cap limit this next slide shows uh the budget history you can see that our percent in tax levy increase is 1.25 and if you look at the history going back to 2017-18 that is uh with with the exception of the year where we had zero tax levy increase um still the lowest in those years and then in 1617 we did have a decrease in the levy the next slide we'll be talking about our tax levy um so when we do our tax levy
041we have a tax cap calculation that we take into consideration uh just uh just to familiarize people or remind people that it's uh sometimes there's a misnomer of a two percent tax cap there is a calculation that is involved um it does take into consideration the consumer price index or two percent this year the consumer price index was well above two percent so we take two percent and then assessment growth factor is also in that calculation so these next two slides walk us through the tax calculation and as you can see we start with our previous levy we have that assessment growth factor we have some exclusions that we're permitted to take out of that calculation and then we add them back in at the end we then use that allowable growth factor of two
042percent um that gets us a tax levy before those exclusions that we need to add back in and on this next slide you'll see those added back in exclusions and ultimately that gets us at what our tax levy limit could be to remain underneath the new york state tax cap uh that limit is 102 million one hundred fifteen thousand two twenty six and then on the next slide um it just speaks a little bit about those numbers so what we are presenting in our revenue side of our budget is a tax uh a tax levy that is lower than that allowable limit we are permitted to go 2.42 higher in our tax levy than the prior year but we are only requesting 1.25 mainly do that to that state aid that andrew just spoke about
043if the board does it did decide to exceed a tax cap limit we would need what's called the super majority which is 60 of the votes plus one um and we are not presenting that to the voters we would only need a plus one majority this the next slide shows our revenue budget so we do uh have other revenue sources besides uh tax levy uh the the largest uh the second largest would be state aid and you can see that that increased by 1.3 million so that helps offset that that percent increase and takes the burden off the local share of of the budget in this next slide um we can see comparison between our current year tax levy calculation and this year and you can see we take the budget we look at our
044other revenue sources we do plan to ask the board in june to use some appropriated fund balance and reserves and that gets us to our number that we will raise our need to be raised through the tax levy so for 2223 we're looking at 100 million 190. tax rates if you move forward one slide actually we can go to the very next slide this shows a history of our tax rates by the towns in our school district these are estimated numbers we work with our town assessors and project out what we believe the impact would be to the taxpayers but until we set the tax levy and that's done at the end of july these are subject to change but they will they won't vary too much so you can see bedford has a decrease
045um same with north salem and pound ridge and lewisborough has a slight increase so with that i think i'm going to turn this back over to andrew thank you daniel thank you very much so that takes us to the summary slide where we say you know that we think we think this is a terrific budget for our students and our staff in the district uh it supports the learning commitment uh and in those key areas of social emotional learning diversity equity and inclusion and sustainability we're we're thrilled at the opportunity to be able to add these new positions and support them in key areas while well as we've made the point a number of times not adding too significantly to the tax burden for the community so we think this is a good budget we've
046begun to hear about budgets in neighboring districts we think uh this compares favorably uh and you know we're proud of uh the opportunities that we think it will create for our students so we're really pleased to be able to present this to the board and uh we present on the next slide the language of the actual propositions again the first proposition being the budget proposition itself in which we ask the voters to allow us to levy the taxes necessary to support this budget that next proposition number two is the uh vehicle proposition that i mentioned earlier and it's in this one where we call out both the electric uh full-size electric bus electric buses are significantly more expensive than traditional diesel buses you can see it there a cost of 386 975 000 for the
047electric bus and there's actually one other electric vehicle a little lower down a transportation four-wheel drive electric vehicle at a cost of 46 thousand dollars that would also become part of our transportation fleet and help us particularly on the on the snowy days or bad weather days so the total amount of all the different vehicles that are represented on this proposition is down there towards the bottom nine hundred twenty one thousand nine hundred seventy five dollars but we always say again that we're not asking for additional funds to support these purchases these would be funds that would be remaining in the current year budget and we're asking permission of the voters to transfer them different places in the budget so that we can make the purchases for these vehicles out of this year's budget and
048finally we move on uh to the summary slide showing the dates we're now all the way up to that march 24th date uh if the board does in fact adopt the budget tonight then we move forward to that public hearing that i mentioned on may 5th and finally the budget vote which is the same date for every school district in new york state may 17th and then the next slide shows the budget presentations that we will be doing uh very excited to be doing these in person in our schools this year an opportunity for all of our ptos at meadow pond on may 3rd at increase miller on may 4th the middle school and the high school pto has decided to combine this year on may 5th and special education pto will have a presentation
049also on may 10th and katona elementary school on may 11th those presentations will be the same presentations that we've been making to you uh all these weeks but it's really an opportunity for community members and parents to come out and be with us and ask us questions that they might have about the presentations that we've been making so we look forward to that opportunity and finally we just advertise date of the vote remind our voters that on may 17th it's their opportunity to vote the budget and with that we would ask one more time if there are any other questions on the board we're happy to try to take them um i hope there won't be too significant tonight at this point but we if they are we're ready to handle those two i i
050have one yes i think this is going to be easy too all right um you mentioned earlier that uh other school districts are seeing similar percentage decline in enrollment many are yeah right many yeah i mean it does vary um you know there are parts um communities in some of the southern westchester communities uh uh you know port chester or an asean where actually population growth is significant and where for quite a number of years since the advent of the tax cap tax cap has been really challenging for places where population has been growing quite dramatically uh but then in other communities um you do see declining enrollment okay that's information that you could find on the state education site or i don't know if it's on the stated website actually if i if i
051can just interject westchester putnam county school board association sends around at this time of year on a weekly basis data that they're collecting from all of our neighboring schools related to anticipated budgets being adopted by boards of ed but also if you continue to scroll down they do provide beds enrollment for 2122 and anticipated enrollment for 2223 for every district in westchester and putnam county so you can actually see district by district right there in the spreadsheet percent increase or decrease and that many of them are experiencing declining enrollment great thank you from the same pile of information uh you soft pedal that the hour tax level increase of 1.25 percent puts us in the lowest quartile perhaps lower than the lowest quartile in terms of um increases across the across the county which i
052think is to be applauded with all this new stuff that's coming on um i i think that's fantastic and it continues a trend our past what seven eight years you've had remarkably stable budgeting and i think the net only with this budget are we approaching in nominal dollars a budget we had like seven years ago i know well done if there aren't any further questions i'll just underscore bill's observation that you know even as this budget responds to and is quite forward-looking with respect to the needs of our students and with respect to fulfilling the vision of the learning commitment and some of the specific focus areas that we've been hearing about it's a remarkably judicious budget with respect to an anticipated levy increase it really is um a very modest levy increase and especially
053when compared out across the region um the numbers will continue to come in but it it really is projected to be as bill said toward the middle of the bottom quartile which is terrific and again very responsive to our student population and our student needs we really appreciate the deliberations that have been ongoing for many many months that enabled us to have such smooth budget deliberations here as a board of education and we appreciate the participation of our building leaders and directors who came and spoke to us on a saturday morning with tremendous pride and thoughtfulness and care about their work and their leadership and their connectedness to our students and it really has been an incredibly smooth process to get to this point so we thank you for all of that ongoing work and
054effort and congratulations to janelle and her team for all that has gone on behind the scenes to prepare these numbers and to andrew neil and mary for your leadership um to bring the staff together to develop these proposals if there aren't any further questions or comments then next up on our agenda is the opportunity to vote on a resolution to adopt the budget would somebody like to move that resolution if we're ready to look ahead to 7.02 thank you bill seconded by liz any further discussion there's no further discussion then we can vote to move forward and authorize uh that this will become the board of education's adopted budget in the amount of 115 million 778 990 dollars all in favor please say aye 7-0 thank you very much and then moving on to 7.03
055we have the opportunity to vote on a resolution to adopt the second proposition which as has been mentioned is merely asking for permission to move funds that we already have and to continue with our bus replacement cycle in order to keep our kids and our drivers safe on the road our district has an expansive radius to the tune of i don't know 52 square miles um we use our buses until end of life and until um you know we see the rust and this really is critically important to the safe passage of katona lewisboro students both to and from katona-lewisbro and to other school districts where we provide transportation for new york state mandate to multiple uh private institutions and parochial institutions in the region so if there's no further comment somebody could please move
056the resolution thank you rory and seconded by catherine any further discussion all in favor please say aye aye wonderful thank you 7-0 this brings us to 8.01 which is an opportunity for public comment not aware that anybody's waiting to speak with us tonight it is again a testament to the ongoing work of your central office review team and the deliberation process that we were able to arrive at such a quiet night of adoption so thank you for that and then looking ahead to consent agenda 9.01 would somebody like to move the consent agenda first thank you julia seconded by catherine i'm not aware of any items that are going to be pulled out for separate voting did anybody have a question or clarification comment not then we can vote on the consent agenda all in
057favor please say aye aye aye aye 7-0 thank you and this brings us to 14.01 which is our opportunity for some board dialogue if there are any topics comments i wanted to mention that the facilities committee or part of it had the opportunity to tour the middle school in high school this week and we had great tours um led by jeff sweattowicz and steven siciliano um i think it was really helpful and again like the meadowcon tour that we were on last week um just feels really good to get back in the buildings and you know see them buzzing with activities even after school hours um and we had a lot of questions lots of good insights and some historical perspectives so i just wanted to say thank you to to paul and danelle and
058andrew and the principals and and the members of the committee that um were able to make it thank you thank you and i'd like to say thank you to liz for arranging uh those tours yesterday and i know there are others that are upcoming and at one point i don't know that we really contemplated inviting all of the members of the facilities committee to tour the buildings and it's a pretty heavy lift for the administration and others in the buildings to do so um but liz was determined to make that happen and and we um were able to do it actually without without a lot of heavy lifting we had such great cooperation from the building management so thank you liz for making it happen i know the community members were very grateful um i'll
059also say i really enjoyed the fact that both stephen and jeff presented their thoughts about the buildings we've done similar walkthroughs in the past but it was presented probably because paul is more knowledgeable in the various parts of the facilities it was presented by paul or perhaps by the architect because he also is very knowledgeable about what we want to do but what i really enjoyed hearing directly from the building principles about what they saw and what their visions were and it really brought it home for me just how necessary some of these we had an interesting walk through one of the boys bathrooms in the high school and i think at that point we convinced a lot of people in any event it was it was really thorough and really well done and uh
060in short notice on on the part of the administration they really um made it work and it was it was wonderful so i don't deserve any of that credit i think the heavy lifting was done by kim monson and she ought to be thanked and recognized and appreciated for the fantastic district clerk she is so thank you kim thank you both and thank you kim wonderful thank you so much and thank you for the tours any other topics or items for board dialogue if not then we can look ahead to future meetings 15.01 the policy committee is scheduled to meet tomorrow morning 9 am sustainability committee will meet on friday april 1st at 8 15. the facilities committee will meet next on wednesday april 6th at 7 pm the board of education is scheduled to
061meet thursday april 7th at 7 30 p.m and then again tuesday april 19th at 7 30 p.m this is the evening when all districts in the region meet on a tuesday night to approve the boces budget facilities committee will meet again wednesday april 20th at 7 pm finance committee will meet tuesday april 26th 7th pm and policy then again friday april 29th at 9am and that brings us to the end of the month of april did we miss anything i hope not that sounds like a busy month yeah okay then might i be so bold as to suggest that we adjourn to some march madness could i have a sound please seconded by rory thank you all in favor please say hi 7-0 good night thank you very much you