April 20, 2021 KLSD Board of Education Meeting

001okay i'm just waiting to see if um more names populate on the as attendees so we're just waiting for terrence and catherine right okay all right so now i was on the phone with catherine right before the meeting so she may just be a little slow getting on so perhaps we ought to go ahead and start with the hope that other board members will be able to join us within just a moment or two it's my pleasure to call this meeting to order it's 7 33 and tonight is april 20th it's tuesday april 20th we're here on a tuesday because it's the annual opportunity to vote on the administrative portion of the boces budget and also their boces election um i think if everybody's ready to please join me by rising for the pledge of

002allegiance to begin the meeting thank you i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice thank you so much everyone and as i mentioned tonight it's tuesday and we'll have the opportunity in the consent agenda to turn our attention to the oc's budget and vote and we're also looking forward to a presentation from our internal auditors we'll be joined by a couple of auditors from acumen partners i'd like to just start by saying thank you and welcome back tona lewisborough it's such an exciting week and we couldn't have asked for two prettier days with which to welcome our students more fully back to school so please just allow the board to express our deepest gratitude

003to everybody here with us at the table and all of our building administrators and teachers and staff members district employees in every capacity have worked so hard to make this week possible we know that we appreciate that and the jubilation experienced by our students we hope is just um you know at least a partial expression of our community's gratitude um it really is so exciting and wonderful to be able to welcome students back more fully and we're very much looking forward to hearing from you andrew with regard to how all of that is going so far i know we also have some very nice leadership news that you would like to share with the board and with the community and so with the board's permission i'm going to suggest that we just go slightly out

004of order tonight because i think we're going to be joined by a guest and we can turn our attention to the first item in the consent agenda which is our opportunity to vote on a resolution to appoint a new principal at meadow pond elementary school so if you're ready andrew i'm going to turn it over to you briefly yep i'm ready thank you thank you and then marjorie after that will we go back to updates please and by all means if you wanted to do updates first that's fine too well i don't want to keep ashland on the screen longer than necessary so so we'll start there and then we'll i'll come back great and do an update so uh as as marjorie mentioned a moment ago tonight we are very happy to be recommending

005to our board of education the appointment of ashland field to the position of principal at meadow pond elementary school effective july 1st 2021 several months ago ashlynn began in our search process as one of almost 100 applicants for this position she emerged as the finalist after a lengthy and rigorous interview process and we're very excited that she's here with us tonight throughout the hiring process ashland demonstrated a clear and passionate focus on the ideas that learning should be joy a joyful process for all students that each and every student must have the opportunity to find their individual passions and grow their unique strengths and we know that she values the collaboration of a dedicated and thoughtful staff and that she's eager to come to know our community and its many strengths and its interests always

006and its interest always in growing to be a stronger school and school district since 2017 ashland has been the principal of the mott haven academy charter school a public school in the bronx and the first charter school in the country to support the needs of students in the child welfare system she was previously the assistant principal at the same school and prior to that spent seven years as a teacher in the new york city public schools ashland holds a master's degree in educational leadership from columbia university teachers college she participated in the new york city teaching fellows program soon after graduating from hamilton college and she earned a master's degree in urban education from mercy college so we think she's very well prepared and a great experience for the position that we are recommending her

007for tonight and it's my pleasure to make this recommendation to our poor tonight uh and just before i finish though i do want to thank the many people who were involved in our hiring process many colleagues and students parents and of course i also want to thank carol ann castellano our current and long-time meadow prime principal who's leaving the building in such great shape for ashland to inherit and to move forward carol anne has already expressed her desire to help in every way possible with ashland's transition into her new role and of course we are very grateful and carol ann's actually here in the audience tonight ready to support ashland as she makes this transition as well super thank you so much for those words andrew and please allow the board just an opportunity to

008echo your sentiments both from mrs castellano who um you know led the building not only for so many years but was a beloved principle to many children of those of us on the board whose children attended meadow pond and we're delighted that she's here with us tonight we really appreciate that and please also allow us to welcome ashland and to thank you so much for joining us this evening and for your thoughtful remarks and conversation with our board when we had the opportunity to speak with you recently and we're very much looking forward to welcoming you to the district i know in a moment the board will have the opportunity to vote on the resolution to appoint you but please don't feel put on the spot that you need to say a few words but

009if you wish to you know we would love to just create that opportunity for you so i'll i'll just pause and take my cue from you no i i appreciate that i am very excited and i just wanted to say that i very much appreciated the process um and how much time everybody spent getting to know me um and really making sure that you knew who i was in in the process and made sure i was a great fit for meadow pond so thank you thank you for the kind words and i'm really looking forward uh to to becoming the principal of meadow pond terrific thank you so much is there any further comment um you know let me please allow me to just move the resolution this is 12.01 on the consent agenda if

010i could please ask for a second seconded by rory thank you very much and then i'll pause if anybody else wish to say anything before we vote okay if not then i think we're ready so let's please vote all in favor please say aye aye aye terrific six zero and thank you so very much for being with us and congratulations congratulations congratulations thank you thank you so much so much thank you welcome thank you thank you have a great night thank you andrew thanks very much for arranging for ashland to be with us and i didn't mean to uh preempt your other announcements i know we have board announcements on our agenda i'm not sure whether board members were waiting to make other announcements we can just take a minute here if anybody was waiting

011to and if not we can circle back perhaps after andrew provides his update i know we're all really eager to hear the rest of your update tonight andrew so i'll turn it over to you thanks marjorie and i and i will in just a moment come to speak a little bit about the opening of school but just before that it was just a very short while ago that we heard the verdict rendered in the derrick chauvin trial and i wanted to say a few words as i'm sure most many are aware mr chauvin was found guilty on all charges in the murder of george floyd uh and and i imagine actually that as soon as i mentioned the phrase the derek shoving trial there will likely be some community members who would wonder why the

012superintendent is starting a board of education meeting with this news uh perhaps there'd be others who would immediately think that it makes sense and maybe there'd be many who don't have an immediate opinion or reaction one way or the other so i did want to just take a minute to explain why i would start here tonight talking honestly in school about critical current events and their connection to the history and the future of our country is important so that all of our students know and understand in ways that are appropriate to their ages that what happens in school is entirely relevant to what happens in the world outside school that what you learn in school matters now and for the rest of your lives and that what happens in the world around us is relevant

013to the learning going on in school each day what's happening in the world around us gives meaning to what we do in school every day i also believe we owe it to our students to help them learn to talk together about such important things even if they are sometimes very difficult to talk about and in fact sometimes precisely because they are very difficult to talk about we want our students to learn to talk with each other and with trusted adults about anything and everything that is important to them to their community and to their world and we want our students to learn to listen and to empathize even when they don't initially understand the personal relevance of a topic but can recognize that the topic is important to others the last year has of course

014been like none that any of us have ever experienced and for some in our country and around the world it has been far more difficult more dangerous and more tragic than for others the verdict in the derek chauvin trial whether whatever your reaction to it doesn't put an end to or resolve the year we've experienced or the long history of injustice before it it may bring a degree of closure for some and it may be seen as a measure of justice or at least a measure of accountability by others but it doesn't end or change the complex system of injustices that has been so extraordinarily evident in the past year just about a week ago new york state chancellor lester young and the new york state board of regents that he leads issued a draft

015statement on diversity equity and inclusion in new york schools the regents are calling on districts to adopt policies and to continue the work that we have begun in our district of creating school communities that are more diverse more equitable and more inclusive than ever before within this document the regents make the following statements they begin by addressing the cumulative national tragedies of increasing violence and discrimination directed at black and brown people as well as those in the asian and pacific islander communities and the tragic toll that so many have faced during the covet pandemic but that have been disproportionately faced by some communities the regent state and i quote these national tragedies have combined to create a perfect storm a storm that is powerful enough to propel us beyond the systemic racism that has come

016to define america's institutions this systemic racism pervades all aspects of our lives including policing education healthcare employment housing access to capital and in almost every other conceivable realm it limits our potential as individuals as communities and as a nation there is no single isolated answer that will solve these pervasive problems rather the approach must be holistic and inclusive and the state education department and new york's schools will be an integral part of the solution the way we educate generations of students will shape our nation's course for years to come and those final words the way we educate new generations of students will shape our nation's course for years to come are our call to action george floyd and so many others too many to name cannot have died in vain we continue our commitment to

017making a positive difference to ensuring that every student and every staff member in klsd is welcomed is treated equitably and is supported in their growth towards becoming their very best selves our work will continue and it's most likely that tomorrow in schools many of our colleagues will process today's verdict with one another and with their students as appropriate to the age of those students to help our students know the relevance of events such as this to their lives and to the future of our country and with that i will now shift gears to a very different kind of news that marjorie has referenced in our schools this week so it was yesterday for the first time in more than a year that all of our students were welcome back to school the vast majority took

018us up on the invitation and this week will be a five-day week of in-person school in ketone lewisburg for the first time in what feels like a very long time within our schools this week i've heard nothing but enthusiasm for the change we're thrilled to have so many students back with us for the last two months of the school year teachers and all staff are thrilled to see so many faces in person principles like hearing voices in the halls again and students are happy to see more of their friends in school and certainly there are there'll continue to be some complications some challenges and assuredly some unknowns ahead of us there is more traffic in the mornings that traffic of course is the result of so many more people coming to schools which we're very

019happy about i'm very much aware of the traffic situation as are our local police and first and foremost we ask everyone to be safe and patient in that traffic being late to school is something we may have to endure for a little while and as we've practiced for the last year let's be as safe as possible while we endure it i've also heard the question quite a bit in the last few days of what's going to happen to the barriers that are present on almost every desk in the district at the moment at this moment the most honest answer that i can give is i don't know we know that the state no longer requires the barriers but they also haven't mandated that they should come down so we will think this through in the

020coming days we'll consult with neighboring districts and with our medical advisors and with our staff for the community and we will reach a decision that seems to make the most sense for our students and our staff and our schools we continue to hear questions about the prom and graduation for our seniors these are obviously important events and dr ceciliano and his team at john jay have been putting an enormous amount of time and effort into figuring out how these events can be accomplished while at the same time they've been organizing to bring all students back to school and they've been doing all this work in the face of always evolving guidance from new york state so that we can help our seniors have a fitting celebration and conclusion to the year as with so many

021other things there is no simple answer and no obviously right way to move forward dr siciliano shared information uh yesterday i believe with senior families and he will continue to share more information in the coming days and again we will reach the decisions that make the most sense and the work in the best ways for our students and our staff and our families and i i'm sure there are other questions out there too so i just ask us to remember that we have never reopened school in late april never had a transition quite like this one before so for now i ask that we stay focused on some really important things to give us the best chance of success keep wearing your masks every day stay home if you're not feeling well if you're eligible

022for a vaccine please make every effort to get that vaccine let's keep our community safe so that we can keep our students in school where we are so thrilled to have them for the next two months and through the end of june and that marjorie is my update for this evening thank you very much andrew we really appreciate you um drawing the connection between world events and potential closure or at least resolution today in the criminal justice system and the importance of raising awareness and helping our students process at every level so thank you for making that a connection and also keeping us surprised of how new york state is exhorting schools to do more in this regard and for being a leader in this regard and thank you for the update about our school

023reopening we really appreciate again all that's happening to support our students and our staff to keep everybody safe and to enable more students to be back in person fully i think we should just pause for a minute i'm not sure whether board members have any concerns questions please bill go ahead my question just i very much appreciate what was said and i sometimes struggle with how would we measure that we are teaching the right values and appreciation of diversity first of all i think the younger generations have less to unlearn than we did that you know any survey shows that a lot of the hot button issues for us our generation just aren't hot button issues for younger people so maybe they have a head start on us what i would look for is i

024have two sons and i want them to be the ones if they see something wrong happening i want them to be one of the first that says this is wrong i disagree don't do that and to help the person who needs it um i think they would in this situation and i think some of that is from the school district so i think that that sort of you know um willingness to stand up for your beliefs i think is something that maybe the school can teach or model that would would be useful but in terms of how do you measure that something is improved so that the children were getting the right message it would be things like that i think well i think i think you make you make really important points and i

025think perhaps many would agree with what you said about the nature of young people today in fact in fact in listening to some of the initial reactions to the trial this evening the point was made by prosecutors how much they appreciated young people who played a role in the trial and in the in the events of the time and then standing up and uh standing up for what they believe to be right uh i i do think though also that institutions existing institutions can very quickly reinforce old ways of being so that if we're not actively seeking to transform the institution that those young people can can quickly learn old lessons also from us so it's that's that to me is why it's so important that we be actively working to change uh in a

026way to support the kind of growth that you're referring to uh and as to how to measure it um that's a complicated question a good question is always but certainly the voices of our students as they pass through our schools will be an important measure and what they tell us about the experiences they're having they have to date numbers of our students have told us about not such positive experiences in schools and we certainly hope that the number of those kinds of stories will only decrease and hopefully eventually disappear as time goes on so that will be a measure for us if i could just um just from a board announcement perspective i just want to also really congratulate the school and the staff and the o m and the administration and the teachers i've

027just heard from a lot of different parents who said their kids came home and said like it's so fun to be back in school and these are all you know not little kids these are high school age kids who are saying like it's just so fun to be back in school and you know in classes with my friends and learning in person and you know i think people are just really happy that we um you know are are there and i know it took a lot of work and and i hope you know people will be patient as we work through the glitches but i think overall the feedback has been incredibly positive and kids are really really happy to be back yeah i obviously i feel the same way and by all accounts it's

028been a resounding success yesterday and today i think the italian ices went a long way yesterday at the high school at least and i saw some celebrations at each of the other schools as well and it really is exciting to welcome all the kids back um one thing struck me which is related to wednesdays and in particular all of the professional development that we felt was necessary on wednesdays over the course of the last i guess almost a year um do do we feel that there's additional professional development necessary now to help guide our teachers back to what was the norm and and you know they've been operating in a certain environment for so long that coming back to what was the status quo and perhaps maybe leveraging some of the opportunities um that we

029have learned as a district or new technologies or whatever but is there an additional need now for continued professional development such as we saw on wednesdays and is there any plan to uh engage on that effort yeah i can speak to that a little bit rory um you know we are certainly planning conversations for this summer this afternoon we met with curriculum council at all levels and started to talk about summer opportunities um but i think that what's going to be really fascinating interesting conversation is to take stock of what happens now so now that we have all of this hopefully behind us and we have the benefit of all this learning and certainly speeding up the learning in terms of technology and all of our tools you know will there be this kind of

030over correction away from technology maybe for a period of time and then start to think about you know how it really does enhance like all of these things we've always said technology should enhance right it's not technology for technology's sake but you know over the course of the last year we've had to use technology we haven't had much of a choice but i think now we have the benefit of having it at our fingertips knowing how to use it well and now thinking about where it truly enhances the learning environment and where you know face to face will be so important and i think initially for sure everyone is looking forward to some face to face i was speaking with a middle school math teacher today and she said we just went outside with white

031boards and the kids loved it they said this is so much better um so you know i think that really appreciating the other kinds of opportunities that we have but we don't want to lose this moment we certainly learned so much um so we want to continue those conversations thank you that's right to the heart of uh my question mary i appreciate that maybe keep the whiteboards inside tomorrow though okay thank you we do we do also have to stay mindful of the fact that even though a majority of students have come back there are still a good number of students who are home and and we certainly um recognize our responsibility to those students and that does present to your question rory a different a different kind of challenge for our teachers how to

032create the in-person experience that we want for all the many students who are back here now but also still how to support those children who are home those students who are home so there will continue being new challenges as well it's all the kind of reflection that mary spoke about in the months ahead oh that's a good point thanks for pointing that out yeah thank you if we could just stay on this for one minute thinking about the transition to the five-day in-person or five-day virtual week for students depending on where they're learning from my sense was that on wednesdays many meetings were taking place that might otherwise cause staff members to have to leave their classrooms and so the idea was that monday tuesday thursday friday we could provide assurance that staff members could

033really be with their students in the classroom can you comment on staff coverage and what's happening now with regard to teachers and staff members being available to students in the classrooms and how all of that activity that was centralized on wednesdays is now you know perhaps being rescheduled throughout the week and the impact it's having so to some degree it will go back a little bit to the way things were before but although to be honest it was already moving a little bit in that direction in part because this time of year in any year is our busiest season in terms of cse meetings that teachers need to attend there they couldn't possibly have all fit in the wednesday so they were already starting to move out into other days of the week so there

034will necessarily be some of that to the extent that we can limit it we will but there will be some need for coverages in certain places on a positive note at the elementary level the two staff developers are doing a lot of the coverage if you will which is nice because the kids really have access to high quality instruction during that time so um that's a great support that um they're providing allison and selina that's great thank you so much if there aren't any further comments or questions then thank you again for the update we really appreciate it and i think this brings us to 7.01 which is our opportunity to hear from our internal auditors this evening i will just mention for any community members who have joined us thinking that they might like

035to participate in public forum that after this discussion with our auditors we will turn our attention to public forums so please feel free to be thinking about putting comments in the q a at the bottom of the screen and we'll turn our attention to those comments in just a short while and i think that brings us to 7.01 so i'll turn it over either to julia or danelle to lead off um with an introduction of our auditors please so joining us today will be bill croft cpa and audit director for qm partners and also sharon eason she's the manager at accum partners as well tonight they will be presenting the human resource and payroll internal audit mr croft and miss eason have previously met with the audit committee on monday march 22nd and you may

036recall that julia spoke about this at our uh april 8th board meeting before i turn this over to sharon and bill i'd like to thank everybody who was involved in the internal audit the internal audit it begins with a risk assessment audit in which a queue interviews principals directors and other key participants of different departments after that a team meets with the audit committee um they reviewed the risk assessment this year it was determined that human resources and payroll audit would be performed acumen set up a secure portal in which human resources and payroll could upload the documents that they requested so my gratitude also extends out to alice and her department joanne lipola who's a personnel assistant in human resources amelia and i'm gonna try to pronounce her last name villanueva um she's the

037uh our new personnel clerk she walked in in the middle of this audit so that was and took off running and also um in our business office of course the whole business office staff but specifically margaret taylor the payroll and benefits coordinator and kim parks the district treasurer so with that i'll turn this over to bill and sharon bill and sharon welcome sharon are you there i'm here can you hear me i'll just uh i'll i'll just lead it off here allow me to introduce myself my name is uh bill croft i am the new director here in the education uh realm i know that in the past the dave moran has done the presentations dave is uh on his way to retirement he's still around here and there but um he sends his best

038and he'll still be involved somewhat but i'm going to be kind of taking over for him so i figured i would give that introduction and without further ado i will hand it off to sharon who will go through the audit on human resources and payroll everyone and everybody see my screen i'm sorry yes okay um can everyone hear me clearly yes welcome sharon how are you fine how are you tonight good thank you good evening everyone um as bill mentioned my name is sharon easton and i'm the manager here at accum partners our responsibility as auditors was to assess the adequacy and effectiveness of the internal controls over human resources and payroll operations in the district and we reviewed the period from july 1st through june 30th 2020 next slide please our audit procedures over

039human resources was to review we reviewed the district's board policies and the department level human resources and payroll policies and procedures we also reviewed that the district is in compliance with established policies and regulatory requirements we reviewed and tested a sample of 23 new hires in the audit period and we also reviewed and tested a sample of 10 terminations in the audit scope to ensure that the compliance with the procedures the board policies and applicable laws and regulations we found that the new hire processes and procedures were properly adhered to including the new hire checklist and we also found that the termination procedures were adequately implemented and adhered to we move now to the payroll section of the audit the payroll procedures performed were as follows we reviewed and tested a sample of 15 employees

040awarded stipends to ensure there were adequate controls over the stipend process we reviewed and tested a sample of 10 teachers awarded tenure to ensure adequate controls over the teacher evaluation process we also reviewed the payroll processes to determine that the payroll certification is adequate and that the payroll bank reconciliations are completed timely in addition we reviewed two of the most recent federal and state quarterly payroll tax forms to ensure that the quarterly payroll taxes were filed in a timely manner and to end that they were reconciled to the taxes paid per the payroll records during our audit procedures we noted that the district has established adequate controls over its payroll processes and should continue to reinforce staff awareness and compliance with the established protocols now for the audit ratings as they are defined the audit

041ratings are defined in three buckets a satisfactory needs improvement and unsatisfactory unsatisfactory indicates that there are significant weaknesses in the internal controls and the compliance as they relate to the policies and procedures and the regulatory requirements a step above that is needs improvement which indicates the weaknesses in the systems of internal controls and all the compliances with the related policies and procedures and the regulatory requirements and the needs improvement usually requires that management's prompt resolution to prevent further deterioration and the possible losses in the district and above that is satisfactory which is the highest rating that can be given in an internal audit and that indicates that an acceptable system of internal control and satisfactory compliance with applicable policies and procedures and regulatory requirements the findings generally indicate modest weakness that require management's attention next

042stage please based on the results of the procedures performed that i've outlined earlier the internal control structure is rated as satisfactory over the human resources and the payroll functions in the district we found that the district has established adequate controls over its human resources and payroll processed and should continue to reinforce the staff awareness and compliance with established protocol and and um in conclusion i would like to thank the management the staff and the dis the staff of the district and the audit committee for the assistance and the courtesy that's been extended to us during our audit and at this time i would pause for any questions thank you so much sharon we really appreciate the overview um you know the opportunity to hear directly from you this evening congratulations denell and alice and our

043entire team on a clean audit that's what i'm hearing and we're delighted and that's great news and thank you let's just pause in case board members have any clarifying questions or comments yes please rory um just a generic question for you sharon thank you so much and uh congratulations everybody on such a clean audit um sharon for you was there anything at all that you requested that that was either delayed or that you weren't able to get when you conducted the audit and perhaps is there anything that could have gone more smoothly or sped up the amount of time that you spent on the audit or was everything relatively clean um well given that we were working solely in a remote environment we had to take that into consideration right and um there were a

044few glitches in the system on our end um in getting the you're on this the staff in the district to upload information to the to the um portal because that also required personal cell phone numbers to authenticate the individuals and at one time for some reason we had there was a disconnect and that kind of it was on our end and i had to get our technology team involved for that but overall the response was very um very timely from from the um the business office and um i was able to have zoom calls or telephone calls within now with alice with um kim and kim and um also i forgot who the other person was that was giving us the information she works with alice joanne joanne absolutely yes and joanne johan was very

045instrumental in pulling a lot of the information together and and doing it very quickly so all in all i would say you know kudos for to the to the business office for being so flexible and you know for pivoting in a time of change and getting us what we needed given that we could not come into the building and go through records and things of that that nature sure and i understand the complexities there associated with the technology and to be expected and again thank you so much to everybody involved and if i could just oh go ahead i don't have a question so if you have a question from jeff okay thank you julia i just was wondering in light of um some of the comments made earlier and just been thinking about the

046board of regents initiative to advance further advanced diversity equity inclusion in schools i wonder if from your perspective as auditors you're introducing new conversations with school districts or helping school districts with another dimension of internal audit even related to something like human resources for example you know i think that was outside of the scope of this audit perhaps but with regard to looking at board policies and practices can you share with us from your perspective as auditors whether these conversations are relevant to your work and whether this affects you also in your role as auditors of school districts um i i think it's you know in our traditional auditing uh universe it's something that uh i think we need to probably include a little bit more i don't think uh we have uh i don't

047think we looked uh we looked somewhat into it uh sharon i think but we don't really it's really not part of the big autoscope but again again it's something it's an evolving where we evolve as as people as internal auditors and it's definitely something i think we need to consider more so in the future would you agree with that i sharon sharon got i think she she left or she hit a butt she's not in attendee waiting to come over as a panelist i appreciate your comments thank you some of us had the opportunity to attend a workshop facilitated by westchester putnam county school board association where attorneys who represent other districts and our own district you know spoke to some aspects of how school districts can advance this work and perform what i think

048would be referred to as um an audit through the lens of equity looking at board policies and practices and so i just i i think it's interesting to consider um the different levels of auditing and what i mean you know we can internally audit ourselves but you as our internal auditors you know i i just wondered if there was actually you know a role uh or a partnership that we would enter into at at some point if not tonight but in the in the future um through this lens but thank you for your comments regarding the evolution of the work yeah no i think as we evolve i think it is something we we will start to look into thank you thank you if there aren't more questions i do obviously want to thank sharon

049and bill but i also just wanted to take one moment just to um personally name the members of the audit committee because we um you know meet in the evenings and they're not normally present at our board meeting so i just wanted to thank them personally so i wanted to thank benjamin fetter dan iamaselli david proskin joe garofalo michael looper and michelle mew for being a part of the audit committee and volunteering their time as community members to support that committee so i wanted to thank them along with the two of you thank you julian thank you so much to the audit committee for having extensive conversation in your subcommittee so that we could have this overview tonight and be in a position to in just a few moments vote on a resolution to adopt

050such a clean audit we appreciate the efforts of the audit committee and thank you so much to sharon and to bill for joining us thank you danelle congratulations are there any further comments or questions before we let our auditors go on with their evening okay thank you again for joining us we really appreciate it thank you good night everyone good night good night good night okay great thanks again and i think this does bring us to our opportunity for public forum so in a moment kim when you're ready i'll ask you to help us out i'm not sure whether we've had any comments submitted to the public forum email address prior to tonight's meeting or if there are comments to share with the board we appreciate your assistance thank you marjorie um there have been

051no comments submitted to the public forum email nor have comments been submitted to the q a okay well thank you very much and thank you to community members for joining us this evening and just for being present we appreciate that and i think this now brings us to the consent agenda minus 12.01 because we already had the opportunity to vote on that one resolution so i think what i'd like to do is ask somebody to move the consent agenda and then we can pause for some discussion since we are here tonight to also vote on the boces administrative budget i think we should probably just take a moment to provide some context for that but would somebody be willing to please move the consent agenda thank you julia seconded by liz i appreciate that and

052then if we can just pause perhaps janelle or andrew if you'd like to just share some words about the boces budget and um i know we also have some policies on the agenda for second reads i don't know whether board members had questions or wanted to speak to those as well thank you or i'll i'll speak to the boces budget so marjorie you mentioned earlier um at the beginning of the meeting that the reason we're meeting on a tuesday night uh rather than our usual thursday night is to vote on the administrative portion of the boces budget this is the day that the state has picked for districts um to vote on boces budget statewide so putnam northern westchester boces is our boces um they have proposed an administrative portion of their budget totaling nine

053million eight hundred sixty six thousand nine hundred and eighty eight dollars this is an increase of two point three nine percent from last year so last year their uh budget was nine million six hundred thirty seven uh thousand one hundred ten dollars katona um pays a portion of that um it is spread out through eighteen districts which are part of putnam northern westchester boces so the administrative budget has two components to it the first being administrative functions um such as board of education superintendents office central office business office human resources um general administration administrative costs and debt service so these these functions increased 2.35 and this that makes up about 30 percent of boces administrative budget um so the other 70 is uh retiree health insurance boces is required to put that into the administration

054portion of their budget um the budget to budget increase was 2.4 from last year so the total administrative budget like i said mentioned before increased 2.39 percent our portion is calculated using two factors um half is based on our assessed value of our properties and the other has half is calculated using what's called an arwata which is our weighted average daily attendance so katona lewisborough's administration portion is actually 644 729 and this is a decrease of negative of 0.9 from last year's portion which was 650 hundred and eight dollars so anybody who's following the budget book um you can view this in our budget book it's the last page of our pink pages and um you can see it code 1981-490 and that's last in the pink pages was there any questions if the overall

055administrative budget is going up why is our share going down so it's calculated the costs are spread out through the different districts so those 18 districts and each district um their weight depends on that our water formula and then also our assessed property values so our portion actually went down even though the boces budget didn't increase okay okay do we have a sense and we may not have it for tonight but it might just be interesting to know whether our portion is going down more so because of property values or more so because of attendance um i don't have a sense of that tonight but i can i can review that and let you know thank you any other questions or comments about the administrative portion of the boces budget that we'll vote on in

056a moment comments or questions about any other items on the consent agenda um on the next item marjorie i just had a quick because we are going to vote for uh two members of the board of boces and it looks like there were only two candidates in that election i just wanted to clarify that that's actually the case is that right far as i'm aware yes thank you okay if there aren't any further comments or questions i think we can vote on the rest of the consent agenda all in favor please say aye aye okay great i think that's seven zero and this brings us to recognition of donations and gifts item 14.01 and tonight we have two generous gifts on our agenda so i will move a resolution for the board to accept a

057gift from the john jay middle school pto in the amount of a thousand dollars and this will go for a maker space lab in the middle school and five hundred dollars from the meadow pond faculty association for the meadow pond spirit award if there's no further comment or discussion would somebody please second the resolution thank you catherine no discussion then we can vote all in favor please say aye aye aye and thank you so much to the john jay middle school pto and to the meadow pond faculty association for those generous gifts and this brings us to board dialogue if any board members have topics yes bill please shamelessly going a little bit off the target but i very rarely do this but i feel compelled to do it now uh to speak as a

058physician um i recently did a lot of research on the vaccine for my company that i work for i really dug into the numbers and i came to a few conclusions i'd like to share one is the bottom line is is that it's better for your health to get vaccinated than to not be vaccinated that the risk of something bad happening is or hundreds or thousands times less likely than dying of covert depending on your age group um they're not well you know that we haven't studied them for years there's complete logical reasons to be hesitant but um i just wanted to put like the j j cloth issue in perspective and you know in a way it could be reassuring that we they gave seven million doses and they were able to detect something

059in six people so they are watching very carefully the science is good the science is ongoing but um uh i just wanted to make that very clear for the community at least that the recommendation is based on science uh is to get the vaccine thank you bill any other topics or comments tonight okay then i think we can look ahead to future meetings the board is next scheduled to meet on thursday may 6th and that will be our opportunity for a public hearing of the budget in between now and then policy is scheduled to meet friday april 23rd 9 a.m audit is going to meet monday april 26 at 7 pm and policy will meet again friday april 30th at 9 00 in the morning and then looking ahead um friday may 7th sustainability will

060meet at 8 15 in the morning and saturday may 8th in the district office we will have a special voter registration at 9 00 a.m thank you very much to the district clerk kim lonzon for facilitating that and if i'm not missing anything earn councils on may 7th thank you parent council also meeting may 7th 9 30 in the morning 9 15 9 15. okay great thank you and if there's nothing else i think we're ready for somebody to make a motion to adjourn would somebody like to make a motion thank you moved by julia seconded by rory all in favor please say aye bye bye you all everybody thank you so much and looking forward to seeing everybody the next time take care thank you thank you good night