001a school board I'd like to uh motion to request a motion to open the meeting please second all in favor please stand for the pledge pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America thank you very much I don't know how many of you know the uh basketball boys basketball teams just won literally 20 minutes ago 47.45 and in overtime Joey Koch because he does everything and uh in the last four seconds of the game so congratulations and the next game is Saturday two o'clock at Somers so if if you're interested with you you should be there I don't know if I can make it but we'll try to be there all right thank you all right we have a very packaged and there's always uh I'm going to uh turn it over
002to miss Tona uh for superintendo for the first presentation thank you foreign good evening everyone so tonight I'm honored to have a group of students here with us student athletes who represented us extremely well very recently in Dallas Texas they are our mail pack our varsity cheer team national champions thank you so congratulations we're going to call each of you up in a second so take a seat for a moment um you made us all so proud and I know that you were incredibly proud to represent Mayo pack in Dallas Texas and that night that you came home and stepped off the bus was probably the proudest moment I've had since I've been superintendent since July so thank you for doing what you've done thank you to your coaches thank you to the parents for
003the countless hours that you put in shuttling them around and being there to support them so I like to invite Steve Luciana our director [Applause] just a couple of words for our cheer team the work that they put in is I mean it's not just going out going to a competition they put hours and hours and hours of work into their routines year round to perfect what they do and to go down to Dallas in that atmosphere and that type of pressure and to come home with the national championship shows what kind of student athletes we have what a great job our coaching staff does and they got off the bus that was seeing their faces the excitement they had something I'll never forget and I'm talking to the coaches after I think they were
004in practice the next day getting ready for sectionals so they don't stop so it's just an amazing group of student athletes that we're all very proud of and we have a video of their performance down in Dallas [Applause] thank you anticipation okay [Music] foreign [Music] my life [Music] [Applause] George so now we'd like to call up our team members we have Jamie generio Owen Klein Bruce procell [Applause] Mia calderella [Applause] Ariana Cana rioto Isabella chioni Conklin CR Davis Juliana Greco Alexis LeBlanc Sierra McDowell Alexa [Applause] Dakota Caballero Delilah Greco Isabel Mariella and giannisone and we have our coaches Jasmine de Cosmo our head coach and our assistant coach Elizabeth so our cheer team is not done yet on February 25th we May pack are hosting the section one championships where our team will be competing
005for a sectional championship and to earn the right to go to the state championship so if you're around February 25th come watch watch these watch this team put on a great show [Applause] a lot of range [Applause] outstanding all right everyone is winning here the basketball game so is it true you guys just practice before you came here I know we've got another practice here well that's how you win all right very good congratulations again next on the agenda is the uh Steve there we have a presentation from the folks who helped put it together I was there with my son who's a sixth grader was terrific we have a presentation by Margaret Fox Ellie his check uh Eva V on Northwick and Ali Shirak and I apologize for all right hi I'm Kelly kischak
006Margaret Fox I just wanted to start with just some pictures from the 2023 Steve bear that just had lots of fun lots of smiles hard work ers so if you were asked to come here tonight to talk about the changes of the staying Fair throughout the years and how it's grown over time so we decided to make a little timeline to talk about it so it started out as a brainchild of Beth Hicks and Mary Jean cervini back in 2014 where it was it was really open to the sixth graders as an after school event on one and then as we progressed to the following year it was opened up to grades six through eight and it was on a Saturday in in May it was a little bit bigger we were just visiting and
007then we started we were asked to judge that day and so then we were like all right maybe we really need to get involved so and then 2016 um Elizabeth Stevens who's our department chair got a group of us together to start sort of talking about and discussing the idea of extending and moving the fair a little bit bigger yeah so what happened was um Mary Jean went off to another school and um a bunch of teachers really wanted to make sure this continued to happen so there's an art teacher involved especially teachers involved some Science Tech and so on and so we were able to then add on Research groups and Robotics and all different groups coming together so then finally in 2018 uh the National Science Honor Society started participating in the fair
008and Margaret Lyons coordinated an interactive art hallway and it really truly became a steam event where all the parts of steam were really being represented well it's very exciting 2019 was the first time that we were able to send students from our fair to the next level Fair the Tri-County fair and that was very exciting and since that time we've had over 25 students have an opportunity to go and we've had kids go even further to broadcom so we were able to host the fair in 2020 because it happened in February of or January or February of 2020 right before the pandemic hit so that was the last time until this year that we were able to have it full on in person and that's when we then also added on a math hallway to
009the to the fair and we also brought the fifth grade classes up to visit the fair on the Friday I think what happened then for us was that it became a true mayor pack event like it was that everybody was involved once those fifth graders started to come and so pandemic won't walk we decided that we could have we had to keep the steam Fair going so we created a whole virtual event event we created a whole Google site where we had all of the um participants do videos we had judges judging via Google meets we together in my house in my kitchen created a 350 bags of materials for our students in fifth grade to still participate in some way and they had a little card and Mimi Murphy was very instrumental in this
010and handed off all of the fifth grade kids they had a little bag and they created all these wonderful little activities or not activities more like steam challenge more like a steam challenge right and then those pictures went up on the cycle so part of the site art and so on and it really took over Margaret's entire first floor not just her kitchen so that's that's I got my husband involved my daughters my daughter was there yeah so next year we still had to hold it virtually for the public we couldn't have the public in the buildings although we were able to open it up to the middle school students to come and see it throughout the day on the Friday of that um and judging happened in person so he started to get back
011to normal a little bit at the time and this year this year we just felt like so much better life was bad the way it was supposed to be the fifth graders came um the public was allowed to come we had a technology hallway a math hallway we extended our activities into cafeterias um it's really taken over that whole first floor of the uh the middle school now we already have ideas to take over more for next year so yeah I mean the moment the fair was over we were creating a list of how we can improve it for the years to come so um keep on thinking of new ideas and jotting them down so this is just a chart of the participation of middle school students over the years Rome it's grown in
012quite a bit we started with about 58 students in the very beginning and now we're over 190 students participating it's been quite a journey it's been a lot of fun growth that we saw but that's what the chart just showed so we had you know approximately 850 community members come and visit the fair this year on that Saturday we had Mary wheeler clicking away as people were you know entering the building so we had maybe four or 500 people visiting so yeah so it's been nine excuse me nine years of lots of work and lots of you know lots of love of the science and art and technology and all of the things that go along with it it's really become a community event and we're very proud maybe we couldn't do without some help
013too so we'll be talking to them in a second about that so just the feedback we've gotten has been just so positive from staff from the community from administrators from students one student we overheard him say this is the best day of school I've ever had you know and you know when you hear that and then you hear from other teachers like he's not always very engaged in class you know you know that this is a different kind of experience that we're creating for for our students who might not just be the typical athlete or something like that so I mean creates a space for for those types of kids too and of course we could not have done it without High School help Ali and Ava thank you thank you um I'll let them
014talk about the things that they do but it is truly amazing so something a part of snhs that we do try to integrate within the fair is mentoring sessions every Wednesday or Thursday depending on the year we like to come in for the last 45 minutes of their period 10 and just help the kids with their projects get involved even if they just say hi I don't need help but maybe in a little bit I might need help okay no worries we're just there to help them it was about I would say about 40 mentors total that we had visiting for about six weeks straight between the few weeks so it was a big turnout and the kids really enjoyed it and it was great because we've actually been there for the past few years
015for mentoring and we've actually seen these kids projects grown from mentoring them from when they were in sixth grade to now eighth grade so it's been a great thing to see yeah so I was I remember being in the middle school and doing my own steam fair project which was super fun in itself and then now being a co-president of snhs and getting to give back was such a positive and gratifying experience um my sister too she was one of the Tri-County winners that got to go to Tri-County with her steam Fair um presentation but it's such a good experience for the children and then also for us as science Honor Society members because with the mentoring sessions to making goodie bags after school to making sure our judges know how to give positive feedback
016as a judge of middle school science fair presentations it's such a good experience and it's it's helped me get to where I am today I'm now in the Fantastic science research program at the high school and that would have been possible without me knowing how to do a research project in sixth grade so I know personally and for my family it was so beneficial and to the people I have around me my peers and my teachers it was an overall fantastic experience [Applause] foreign and I would just like to add how impressive it was that Saturday the entire Middle School was transformed it was something of interest for everyone that walked the Halls that day um I know that Margaret and Kelly gave Credit in the beginning to other teachers who started this but it
017is very very obvious the amount of work and dedication that the two of you put into this science fair um this year in the past several years but just seeing the timeline and seeing how it grows each and every year is inspirational we hope that you will continue doing this for as long as you are here in our school district and hopefully that's part of a very long time um did you want to say a couple words I was there with my son and uh it was amazing he had a good time and he's easily distracted so it was it was good that he got to do that and then I said why didn't you participate and so I think that's terrific I I just think it was great I think you had 850 people
018so one of my neighbors I'm not going to take the one for the SEC how many people come to a football game I bet you it's not 850. I said well I wasn't going to touch that but just think about it to come on that day and participate it's a it's a we're lucky to have you here okay so thank you to Ava and Ally for being here this evening I've gotten to know even Ally's breath a year and they're very passionate passionate about science and they are very um dedicated to supporting the younger students in our school district so thank you to both of you [Applause] for just a token of our appreciation and gratitude [Applause] thank you [Applause] all right terrific all right so uh uh thank you again and we're going to
019keep moving along here next on the uh agenda is the budget presentation so this is the same budget presentation that was done on Tuesday night in the work session uh again we aren't in not quite in the middle of the budget presentation it is still only February but we're doing quite a bit of work until the team is doing quite a bit of work and reviewing it and I really encourage folks to to read the materials and everything is posted online um there's there's a lot of information there I was incredibly impressed by the the thoroughness and The Impressions that you'll see the presentation now again um and if you have a question let us know but it's this thorough presentation as you're going to see in any budget presentation I would I haven't looked
020at all the other districts around but uh it's extremely available so with that I like that okay to the superintendent go ahead thank you thank you presidential so um tonight uh how our interim assistant superintendent for business and I will present the second budget presentation where we're focusing on estimated state aid Revenue projections so uh this slide shows the budget development process uh same slide as last month but you can see highlighted this evening uh budget presentation number two we're going to also include some departmental presentations tonight Athletics and facilities and look at our estimated Revenue projections so here you can see a bunch of priorities I have highlighted um reorganization of the administrative team to build stability in the district and the proposed Administration structure so we're looking to make a few changes first
021of all as I mentioned an interim assistant superintendent for business Christina Howe is here this year on just that on an interim basis we're very grateful to have her uh this year I wish that she could stay forever but uh I know that she can't do that she is a retired individual so she does want to enjoy retirement at some time so uh we will be we're in the process of looking for her replacement and we're looking to title that position assistant superintendent for finance and operations in our special education department um in years past we had an assistant superintendent for pupil Personnel Services we do not have that position this year and we're going to move forward without that assistant superintendent position so currently this year we have an interim director of special education
022we will continue with that structure to lead our special education department we're going to add an assistant director for special education and we currently have positions for elementary and special and secondary special education in the role of administrator and I'll go into some more information on the next slide we're also looking to hire a director of Technology this individual will have administrative certification so they will also be able to uh they'll be able to supervise the technology department and also provide some instructional support for teachers administrators as well as evaluate instructional staff um the assistant superintendent for pupil Personnel Services also headed the technology department in years past this year assistant superintendent for curriculum instruction and professional learning Michael Trombley he's doing a fine job heading the technology department but it is a large job
023and we're looking to have a separate dedicated administrator for that role um we currently have a data manager who's managerial and confidential uh where he is retiring we're looking to replace that individual to support the director of Technology we currently have a school information system specialist who will continue with us we have BOCES technologists some of them you see at our board meetings to assist us during our meetings and we're going to move to BOCES managed instructional technology for support and that will see a bit of a savings which I'll show you on the next slide we also we currently contracts with with kind of structure support we're not going to continue with the contract with the consultant for instructional technology but we are for infrastructure support moving away from technology we currently have a
024K-12 administrator who supports the district that individual is going to be the administrator for safety security and compliance to bring all of our safety initiatives in the districts together so there's definitely one person that's the go-to for that and then currently we have two assistant principals at the elementary level that are shared between the three buildings we're going to increase that to three assistant principles so there's a dedicated one at each of our three elementary schools so now when you look at this slide on the left you could see the most recent position information and salaries for all of the individuals that have those roles prior some this year someone in previous years and then on the right hand side you can see the budget plan for 23.24 and when you compare the two costs
025we're looking at a cost increase of about seven thousand dollars so in the grand scheme of the budget it's technically a budget neutral proposition but it provides us with the administrative support to run the district more efficiently where we have dedicated people in dedicated roles this next slide is a summary of our district enrollment and projected enrollment for 2324 we're estimating a change of a decrease of about 41 students again that is spread out amongst grade levels in different buildings so it doesn't realize much in the way of any staff savings but um we will continue to monitor our enrollment and this slide I included in the last budget presentation it shows the number of class size class sections at each of the buildings currently as well as the average class sizes by grade and
026the projections for 23.24 and we're looking to keep the number of Staff members at the elementary schools the same and at this time I would like to invite our director of physical education health and Athletics Mr Stephen Luciano to the podium to talk about the Athletics budget well thank you very much for having me tonight um I just want to go over go for athletics what we're looking to add our budget for next year sorry about that um as you can see um you know I wanted to put some pictures up of our athletes just surprised that they have being a maypak athlete The Joy it brings them and the benefits of being a student athlete here it may have had um our next our next slide so we have 30 varsity teams here at
027Mahopac we have three freshmen 13 modified with approximately 800 athletes at the high school which is a great number for a school our size and we have approximately 275 at the middle school we just brought back modified uh post covid so our middle school athletes now have a chance to participate in interscholastic athletics over the last few seasons we've had two section one championships um we actually just had one this past weekend in wrestling and obviously our cheer our cheer team winning a national championship and hopefully going for a sectional Championship uh coming up in a few weeks um you know one thing that we do for our special education students is a couple years ago when uh when I got to map we started unified basketball which allows our special ed students to represent
028Mahopac play for our school um in a true athletic setting we have our what we call Athletes which are our special ed students and our helpers which are our regular our regular ed students that are part of the team we have three athletes on the court at once and two helpers and it's just a tremendous experience for all our students involved it's been beneficial for everybody uh scholar athletes this is something I'm really proud of um last year we were one of four teams in section one that was a school New York state public high school athletics Association School of Distinction that means every single one of our varsity teams was a scholar athlete team so one out of um one out of four and there's like approximately 80 schools in section one so that's
029a huge accomplishment for our athletic teams our coaches and our and our teachers here at mayopath uh Collegiate signings last year we had 20 of our student athletes committed to play at the division one two or three level um this year we're going to be close to that as well um it's tremendous it's a tremendous fee it doesn't matter what division you play in college one two or three being a college athlete's it's just a huge accomplishment it takes a lot of time at up and so very proud of that so my request for next year in the last two years you've lost three phys Ed teachers students due to retirement I'd like to bring two back our class sizes at uh high school that were very high this year which led to you know
030logistical um restrictions with what we could do in phys ed class and also some scheduling issues as well um our athletic trainer since her time here we have increased our programs which is we brought back we brought modified back so it's a lot more work and a lot more students and she is also taken on helping our student athletes with you know mental health see it's something she's very passionate about and our athletes um use her for a resource that's needed and she's put a lot of time and effort into the mental health awareness of our athletes which is you today's world is very important I just briefly spoke about uh unified basketball I'd love to bring in unified bowling to add more opportunities for our special ed students right now New York State Public
031High School Athletic Association only offers two two Unified sports basketball and bowling and I would love to be able to have both here and give more opportunities for our students assistant coaches right now all of our varsity team sports have assistant coaches except for volleyball and field hockey and I'd like to make that equal they put in they have a lot of students that are involved there's a lot of work that goes into it like our other teams it's important that all of our varsity teams have assistant coaches uh girls ice hockey version so we have ice hockey here we have a boys team and we do have girls that play for it um sorry um we do have girls that play for our ice hockey team but section won a couple years ago started
032a girls hockey program Burge they have a team in Rockland County and it's abundant counties we've had some interests from our female hockey players that would like to play for that merge team it's a different set of rules for girls hockey and I think we should be able to give them that opportunity to be able to play the sport that they know how to play and it would be very beneficial for them uh boys swim right now we do have an Earl scheme that merged with pot Valley we have boys that want to swim here um I am currently looking for a school that would like to merge with us to make that happen but girls swim is in the fall season and boys swims during the winter season and to give them the same
033opportunity that we have in the fall would be would be like I said I just think it's great for all of our students to have more opportunities here all right so our coaching salaries you're always going to see an increase in that actual obligation obligation and we're also looking to add some coaches so that's where the increase is going to be I briefly spoke about our trainer um it's important that without with all the new responsibilities she's taken on to uh to um increase their salary equipment I try to keep that the same year to year um that's we also big purchases like we bought um a pole vault system a high jump system for our track team which is needed so um we try to keep that consistent year to year materials and supplies
034once again there's an increase with looking to add teams we need uniforms um we need you know football and Lacrosse there's always the big cost that comes with those Sports because of the helmets it's probably some of the most expensive equipment we use and they age out so every year when we send our helmets back to get reconditioned they have a lifespan so we're told there's 20 elements that you've sent to us that you can't use again because they have a lifespan that we have to replace those so we always look you know we want to keep our student athletes safe and make sure that they have the right equipment that goes to like our tournament fees uh pays you know for officials and we're looking to like you said we're adding teams that will
035there'll be a slight increases in that as well and our boc services that's where we pay um like the officials that do all our games that comes from that that service and our dues to pay for section one and to be part of the New York State Public High School Athletic Association so this part we're we're still waiting on waiting for numbers to come back from vendors if we you know with with the name change coming and if we do have to change our logo there are a lot of changes that we need with our uniforms with our scores table the banners in the gym our gym chair has got our basketball team violated to use and our and so in our game balls all of our game balls come with uh with our M
036logo branded on it so if if this is something that we have to change we're going to have to um buy new ones to meet the meet the new requirements that we have thank you Mr Luciano thank you and now I'd like to invite Mr Tim Walsh our director of facilities to the podius to talk about the facilities budget uh good evening my name is Tim Walsh I'm the new director of facilities here at Mahopac Central School District I've been here about two months for the first couple weeks since I've been on board I've met with the facility staff to see how they operate to see how their capabilities I've done tours of buildings to see their condition see what their needs are as well as meet with building Administration to determine their needs wants
037and desires and through that we've been able to develop a proposed budget for the 23 24 school year quickly here's some campus in-house improvements for this current year we have a few a few photos of Lakeview Elementary display cases which were constructed by our carpentry staff once completed they're quickly filled with student work we have a district office relocation project which we'll talk a little bit further in a later slide and we have a late the Lakeview field renovation baseball field a quick overview of the capital project and where we currently stand there's like a 10 000 foot view here the early phase which was the turf field that project is completed phase one which is the high school field renovation the pump house and the additional Athletic Field that project is substantially complete they're
038currently in Project closeout punchless phase 2A Fulmer Road Austin Road and fall School renovation that project is currently under construction phase 2B the Middle School in Lakeview Elementary project that is currently out to bid with bids anticipated to be received on March 2nd phase three is the high school music room window replacement Stadium Field Turf and track renovation currently the window scope project is awarded we're obtaining codes for the Athletic Facility renovation smartbond which is CCTV and access control systems that was awarded today Automation and that project is going through some middle review and anticipated start in several weeks the pfoa project documents are currently at New York State education for review projects we anticipate to complete for the 23-24 school year the high school we're looking to Abate some flooring and replacement through miscellaneous
039classrooms a full sand and refinish the high school gymnasium floor which is required to anticipated and mascot and Logo change and a continued replacement of hallway ceilings and Lighting the middle school we were going to anticipate replacing some miscellaneous doors that dollar value was significantly lower than a high school that's done with intent due to the anticipated work to take place in the middle school this upcoming summer Boston Road HVAC installation and new teacher conference room installing a bottle filler in the second floor hallway Fullmer Road replacement of hallway lockers and abatement and flooring replacement of five classrooms within the building Lakeview Elementary new sinks and countertops in the kindergarten Wing this is not every room but this is something that we can complete over several years and a window replacement to 29 units in
040a building district office relocation this is just an overview of the project that's taking place this work is to renovate some classrooms some vacant classrooms into office suites and then relocate the district office from its current location into the Mahopac Falls Elementary School this work is being completed by the mayopath fire facility staff to be completed in-house we anticipate to complete the project in the early spring I'm sorry the late spring and early summer and then a move of a Personnel from the building to the from the East Lake facility to the Falls Building year over year our anticipated budget we look to keep all line items consistent you'll see the contractual repair and maintenance line item with an increase and that is inclusive of the projects that we just currently reviewed all other line
041items staying consistent with the exception of utilities which have a minor increase due to anticipated escalation costs thank you Mr Walsh and now we're going to turn the microphone over to this how to talk about stating thank you thank you so a couple of weeks ago we received our state aid projections from the governor and this slide represents uh this column that's labeled 22 23 Mahopac state budget is the current year state aid status the center column is the governor's state aid projection and the far right column is the recommendation that we are making for the state aid projections for the Manhattan upcoming budget generally speaking what happens is the governor presents her budget in well this year late January early February um then we have an opportunity our associations both the superintendents Association and
042the business officials and meets with our legislators which actually we did today and we talked about some of our priorities and our requests for when they go and take a look at the budget this year we were able to meet with all of our representatives and talk to we're very grateful for the addition of the foundation aid but one of the things that's happening with the foundation Aid is there's a set-aside which means they're giving them money but they're telling us that some of it has to be used for an intended purpose so one of the conversations we had with the legislators today was thank you very much but if you could remove the requirement for the set-aside that would help us tremendously with the use of our state aid so that the use of
043that isn't restricted now the reason why we have the three columns is because we want to show you where our state aid is currently what the governor has projected and what we're recommending what's important to note about the governor's projections are that these are projections based on estimates so what we've done with Tony and I when we got these projections is we 've current state age which is the furthest left column to assess and analyze what were going to be actual dollars and some of the ones that we'll just know too quickly are if you see the first line which says Foundation Aid you see a significant increase as I mentioned that comes with the set aside the second line the universal Pre-K there's a very large increase with that but unfortunately vampac doesn't have
044a pre-k program so we're not able to utilize that money and we have to consider that what we're using our state aid numbers and that's why the last line You'll see what the total state aid is less Pre-K eventually we're going to be looking and assessing a pre-k program to have in the district we're just not there yet so at some point we will access that money and we've been told that it will continue to be available the Bosees Aid is one of those AIDs that is called a expense tree which means you have to spend the money to get the aid back the following year we've been pretty consistent with that and what we're estimating for the 23 24 year the 3.3 million is actually based on the aid that we're getting in the
045current year so you can see the 22-23 aid was estimated at 2.8 we're getting 3.3 so when we look at our projections for this upcoming year we're going to use the 3.3 million L estimate High excess cost Aid private excess cost Aid at the last Aid on the bottom supplemental public cost Aid those are all related to special ed and again those are expense driven AIDS so you want to be um conservative with those aides because that change is based on students IEPs their placement and the programs that they require so you can see the high excess cost Aid this current year we are using a 1.1 million dollar number but again in the far right column where you're projecting 000 because that's what we're actually getting in state 8 this year the other AIDS
046are the hardware and Technology those are again actual numbers based on student enrollment transportation is again an expense driven Aid and it was estimated at four million dollars we've adjusted that number to what we're actually receiving the 3.7 and building Aid is based on your capital projects as Mr Walsh described get building Aid when projects are completed so on some of these projects that Mr Walsh talked about have been completed we've finished the punch list we're able to submit those to SCD we'll see an increase in that eight but again we want to be conservative about that so when we're looking at this line we're going to use the 3 37 million 76 643 estimate for state aid right now once the legislature has a look sometimes they tend to increase that number and we'll
047have that information before the board is asked to adopt it so if there are any adjustments that are made we can make those adjustments at that time we talked about the tax levy limit estimate at our last meeting I won't go through the whole formula because the top hasn't changed what we were looking at is this line that's called coming school year exemptions for debt we were waiting for our state aid projections for the building Aid because the building Aid that we received goes into that calculation so now that we have that number you can see the last meeting this why that line was in red now it's in white at 867 which plugged into the formula makes a maximum allowable limit of 95 million 716 which is a levy increase that's tax levy over
048Levy it's not the budget increase of a maximum allowable 3.71 now want to be clear that's what the formula says that's not the tax levy that we're presenting we're not anywhere near being able to project that number yet we're still working on the presentations that the directors are giving us and we're putting all the numbers in and we're going to be assessing what the additional state Aid means for our budget before we come up with a test Levy number this formula is required by the state this is what our maximum allowable Free School District in New York state has to do this formula and has to submit it to the state now you can certainly go under that it would be if a district was going to exceed their tax legislative formula that they would
049have to have a super majority if that's not what we're recommending I just want to be thorough about that thank you thank you Miss Howe and as Miss Howe said she and I will be working on the budget and at the March meeting we'll be able to provide many more details at that time so this next slide I included last month as well we do get federal grants pass through from the state education department we do get some grants on an annual basis the Consolidated title Grant where you see four different title lines there and then the two idea lines are for special education these are annual grants they start on September one of each year and they expire on August 31st generally around mid-july we're told the amount of money that we have to
050spend and we go through uh data entry process and the money um goes to the specific purposes that are listed there and then we also have some one-time federal grants that were related to covid uh you could see here all of the different funding sources that exist the purposes their budgets and on the far right column is the end date so um the first five grants listed there all have an ending date of September 30th of 2024 so we have another entire full school year to spend those down and then the last four expire in September of 2023 that's second to the last column there shows the available balance of each Grant as of February 1st 2023 so uh we are looking at what's left to spend in each of those grants and making sure
051that we consult with our buildings and our district administrators to make the most of those funds so you can see we had a total of about 5.9 million dollars in all the covet grants and we've spent everything up to we have about 1.6 million dollars left so we've done a good job spending it down these are multi-year grants um very challenging to to spend uh and allocate multi-year grants usually we have things that are only for one year at a time this is not any part of the general fund but we thought it was important to to share this information with you so next steps as mentioned March 16th we will have budget presentation number three we will have our interim director of special education uh as well as our director of transportation and assistant
052superintendent probably here to talk about special education transportation and technology and then on April 18th our building administrators will be here to present what's going on in their buildings and the requests that they have and the board will be adopting the budget that evening May 4th is our annual budget hearing and throughout the month of May I'll be doing various presentations in the community to different organizations and May 16 2023 is our budget vote and trustee election if you or someone you know is going to be away on May 16th please be sure to apply for an absentee ballot so the information is on this slide and this presentation will be on our website under um the district clerk page about all the budget information for this uh 23 24 school year and also every
053year along with the budget vote is uh trustee election so nominating petition information is also here on this slide and again you can reach out to our district clerk Melody larocca any questions for thank you thank you and uh thorough and detailed as I think you can get in a budget presentation here early in the process all right so let's let's keep going the next set the next item is comments on agenda items I think we do have a few people all right so I think the first person is Robert Kearns and I just want to we're got a lot more to do here I want to just make sure people are mindful of the three minutes sounds a little tricky to find yourself while you're up there with Steve Michaels will give everybody a
054chance to talk so just be mindful of that thank you go ahead good evening board members I want to start by thanking you for allowing me to speak tonight my name is Robert Kearns I'm a proud veteran I served multiple tours in the Middle East Africa and South America after receiving an honorable discharge from the Navy my wife and I searched endlessly to find the perfect town to call home and raise our two beautiful children Mahopac was an obvious destination for us the amazing school system in the beautiful Lake plus its welcoming Hospitality made it a no-brainer since moving here my wife and I quickly immersed ourselves into the community myself personally volunteering with MSA as a head football and baseball coach instill in core fundamentals in young men that I myself learned from the
055military last month my comrade from the VFW Sean McDermott got up here and spoke he pointed house how small of a veteran presence we currently have within this community and it continues to shrink every day this could be seen at our local VFW monthly meetings I myself am 31 years old on average I'm about 25 years younger than all our members today I looked around the room at our current at our meeting before coming here I was the youngest person in that room by seven years this is not unusual this to me is unacceptable veterans play intricate role in our community firemen police officers Pilots correction officers Carmel highway department and most importantly leaders and role models with that being said I fully support the veteran tax exemption I hope with this exception it makes
056me a pack an ideal destination for veterans both young and old I will end with a quote from quote from Calvin Coolidge the nation which forgets its Defenders will be itself forgotten thank you [Applause] good evening so most books have some sort of teaching Point including the one being voted on tonight but at what point does the how-to sex guide and glorifying glorifying meeting people on apps for sex outweigh these Lessons Learned I think it is an unfair to the LBG gtq plus community that they are constantly being sexualized in these books the ala's motives are questionable they're concerning and just a bit Speedy to me that Community deserves better especially from our schools with that being said and as I've mentioned before we these challenges are not going to end one can now try
057to turn the focus on the cost associated with the challenges to deter people but the problem Loops back to the lack of policy within the district to make sure that content accessible to our children is 100 appropriate and not borderline so where do we go from here how do we end this book challenging cycle because I know we all want this done another concerned parent brought to my attention a guideline chart established in one Texas school district when I'm done speaking I like to provide Miss Morocco with copies for each board member for your review and consideration basically this chart is broken down by a dozen themes it includes violence profanity glorifications of suicide detailed descriptions of sex acts and so on the school board then applied what I I guess I call a score
058to each theme the score of the book determined its appropriateness in each level of school and the elementary middle and high school and so on and before everyone's feathers gets ruffled and this gets in the hands of others not directly on the board I do not agree with these exact scores and and these guidelines this is purely just an example of how the school board can help guide the librarian in using recommendations from the Ala but also keeping in mind our local community and values I think establishing something like this will hopefully help curb the need for these future challenges because in the end like I've said time and time again it's not fair or feasible for a parent that continually get books thank you [Applause] Jim Brad Smith just to let you know what's
059next is James Maxwell so if you just queue up if you want to get ready okay good evening everybody boy thanks for having us here tonight and I want to just repeat some of the things that Rob Kearns was talking about um I'm one of those older guys that go to the meetings and look around and so happy to see somebody like Rob and my good friend that just raised his hand uh Freddie is raising his hand because he's a proud veteran and we need our veterans here we need our veterans in Bay effect they are from integral to what we do here they're they're lawyers and their police officers and firefighters just like Rob was saying so important they're dedicated they have um discipline and so what one of the things we're talking about
060tonight is the taxi before our veterans here we need to attract them we need to keep them here I've been in Residence of Mahopac for 32 years and I've been able to work with many veterans on a daily basis it's been the highlight of my adult life and I will tell you that and I'm not exaggerating so to stay in the time limit please consider the importance of our veterans here there are many many items on the list but we are here to talk about that and I plead with you please take care of our veterans here in Mahopac thank you thank you James Maxwell John Johnson good evening to the Christine and the rest of the board I always thank you for the time that you put in and the amount of effort that
061you put into this budget I've spoken before and I've extolled the virtues of the veterans in this County so I'm not going to repeat what everyone else said um we're partly there the town he took us all the way there it's time for the school board to take us the rest of the way there time is now I heard that you're adding in some folks and I think they're the right folks I think we need to get that incentive to those people to serve in those jobs volunteer firemen teas but we're Parkway there let's finish the job and let's get all the way there thanks [Applause] um Mr John Johnson I want to thank you uh for the invitation here on Jack Duncan on the commandant of Putnam County Marine Corps League at all meetings
062um this is a big discussion about the exemption uh I'm we talk about the younger veterans and you're all about I remember when it was all World War II my dad the Korean War veterans the younger brothers were the Vietnam guys well the Vietnam guys are now the older guys from 70 to 90 years old and they're diminishing also guys like myself I remember when I was called the kid the 31 year old guy I am no longer that kid um this community is very important to take that step we do a uh check check on a buddy every month and part of the discussion is their finances nickels and dimes this exemption can keep some of our veterans to keep their house to put oil in their uh uh the boiler in honesty what
063type of food they're going to have on their table so that's how important your decision is going to be and and I hear that from my fellow veterans that are beholdback residents and they the ones that actually have a a higher exemption than some of the uh a journey uh school girls how that's helping them so please please I begged you to take the uh an advantage of the situation thank you [Applause] thank you it's every Crowley he's probably here okay uh next is who GP good evening everyone thank you for the opportunity to hear what I have to say and speak tonight I come to you as a mom and concerned parent of the Mahopac community um and a book that's titled all boys aren't blue and the fact that it's in our library
064uh my question to the board is why is this book still in the library over the past two years this book has been banned in at least 29 school districts because of the lgbtq content and for being sexually explicit and obscene this has been named by the American Library Association Office of intellectual Freedom as the third most banned and challenged book in the U.S this year this book has no place in our children's Library cool mission prepare each and every student for College and Career Readiness to students to be responsible and productive of the global community in no way shape or form should we be discussing sexual orientation assuming the role of parenting there's a fine line there that is being crossed as to what is being put into our library and basically having access
065to obscene material in our library for these young impressionable children now I have no problem with anybody in that Community who anybody loves um but I truly feel these kids are too young for this type of material um where May a pack is a close-knit community that Prides itself on respect safety and doing what's best for our children I can tell you there's a group of growing parents in the community that are like-minded that do not agree with any of these books that are being put in our library and board members I'm sorry but we elected you to voice our opinions and our concerns and the fact that I'm hearing that people are voting on this book that are not reading the material is not acceptable we need to do better because these children are
066our future of mayopath I feel that all of these books whether they're in the library or not which I truly feel that they should not be in a pub in a school library Public Library fine but in school they should not be in school because school should be a safe place where none of this should be discussed um all of these books should require parental consent these books should be under lock and key there should be a specific um process for somebody to take out a book my question is if somebody wants to take out a book who's to say that my child is not going to the library to pull that book off the shelf um and I would say that if this vote passes tonight I move to have another committee review this
067book as well as all of the others that are in our library so thank you for your time thank everybody thank you everybody for coming up there quoting it's not easy and I appreciate it participation okay so let's keep uh moving along here we're going to do some sort of housekeep we're going to do housekeeping and it is going through the financials uh can I so I'm going to go through this fairly quickly again I I say this every meeting but if you want to know about our finances to literally to the nickel that well the pain you delivered these reports every transaction that happens in the district is captured there and you're obviously encouraged to look at that okay so we as a board have to approve these reports first one is um can
068I get a motion to accept the treasurer's report December 2022 can I get a second please second anybody have any questions all in favor aye bring a motion to accept the warrants of December 2022 second please second any questions all in favor aye make a motion to accept the revenue reports is December 2022 still move second please second any questions all in favor aye uh they get the emotion to accept the budget transfers of December 2022 second please second any questions all in favor aye motion two accept extra classroom activity report July through December of second please any questions all in favor aye motion two uh accept the claims audit report December 2022 second please thank you any questions all in favor all right now we're going to go on to the minutes can I
069get a motion to accept the work session minutes of January 17 2023. thank you second second any questions all in favor aye uh lastly is a motion please to accept the regular minutes the minutes for the regular meeting of January 19th second please second any questions all in favor aye all right thank you very much with that I'm gonna turn it back over to superintendent Torah was going to give us the superintendent report thank you president lulo um I just wanted to give a quick mascot update so the public comment period to New York State education department runs through February 28 2023. uh the email is reg comments at nyse.gov the information is also on the website and I'm going to include the public comment that I sent to them already in tomorrow's newsletter as
070well as the the link if anyone would like to share their thoughts with the State education department I did email all of the New York State tribes that have indigenous people that lived in our region as well as throughout the rest of the state to um try to get them to understand our plight and the situation with our logo so as I get responses to those emails I'll share them with the board and the mascot selection committee has been selected uh emails went out to those uh that were selected for the committee as well as those who were not thank you to all the people that were interested in participating in the committee obviously it's difficult to have everyone that wants to be on the committee when we're trying to keep the committee as manageable
071as possible we have quite a few students on the committee as well there's about 60 people on the committee so we'll be reporting out we'll have some information at the March meeting um as was mentioned at the opening of meeting tonight congrats to our boys varsity basketball team they won their first Playoff round today the next game is Saturday at 2 p.m at Somers and our girls varsity basketball team they're seated number two in the uh their division their first playoff game will be Saturday at 11 A.M here at Mahopac high school and they will be um playing winner of whoever wins between Somers and Roosevelt which is in Yonkers but that's home Saturday at 11 so that's a full day of basketball here at home I'm sorry Stoners for the boys girls are here
072I learned about a student a graduate from Mahopac High School class of 2016 Brendan White he's been invited to spring training as part of the 40-man roster for the Detroit Tigers he attended Siena College on a baseball scholarship and he was drafted by the Tigers in 2019 so we wish Brendan the best of luck and hope to see him throughout the season as hopefully he makes the official team so good luck Brendan and tomorrow in middle school health fair is going to take place during lunch periods between 10 10 a.m and 12 20 p.m thank you to Val nirman for her work on this and the many Community organizations and District staff members who will provide resources to our middle school students tomorrow thank you okay uh we have meetings on the third week of
073the month on Tuesday the working session and um tonight to Thursday the 30th of the month on Thursday is the regular meeting but we do have uh maybe so we had four meetings this week I'm gonna we're gonna get reports from the chairs uh first one is the HR human resource committee that with that I'm going to turn it over to vice president Adam Savino for that report thank you president delullo uh good evening everyone the HR committee I met on February 7th at 6 15 at the district office uh pres were superintendentona assistant superintendo uh superintendent Legato uh president and trustee Martinez we did review the HR agenda which is tonight's on today's agenda which we'll go around later we discussed the new appointments recent resignations retirements coaching appointments some of the moas um
074and again it's all part of tonight's consent agenda HR some of the details which we have said numerous times can't be discussed as they are sensitive in nature we adjourned that in 1945 by 7 45 pm and I'll turn it back to you now thank you okay thank you Mr President Savino so next is uh our finance finance committee with that trustee Schneider please thank you we had our meeting on February 9th at 6 15 pm at the district office uh president were trustees uh masakra Sabino delulo and myself as well as the superintendent and intern super assistant superintendent of business no others were present on the agenda was reviewed the plane's warrants and treasures reports that were just crude as well as the budget presentation that was reviewed on Tuesday and tonight we had
075received updates for uh previous information that we'll discussed like our cafeteria spend down plan we have submitted that and we are still awaiting a appraisal on our property located um by the lake and we discussed the items for following up we discuss the challenge books and the associated plus with impact on the finances that and also apparently I guess been discussed that policy so it will be brought to be poetry meeting that meeting closed at 7 35 pm and in the next committee meeting is scheduled from March 19 pm at the district thank you uh next is our policy committee with that I'm going to turn it over to senior trustee who's the sound from good evening everyone can everyone hear me everyone hear me so the policy meeting then on Thursday February 9th and
076attend was myself chair of policy board president benzalulo or vice president Adam Savino trustee tan and McCracken and superintendent Christine toner assistant superintendent of the curriculum my trampoline along with our district Melanie larocco in addition to our attorney Mr Daniel Pedro a list policy meeting we reviewed a variety of policies one of the policies we reviewed was policy 3410 which is our dress policy code conduct the code of conduct is going to be reviewed this spring and the dress code is going to be reviewed accordingly with that and the board will get our update policy 4513 which is the library material selection on how a library book content is selected along with necessary maturity level we met and our attorney was there and we were advised the school professional to the student as a whole
077and the attorney's shortest there was no reason to change our current policy along with the library book selection we also reviewed policy 1420 1420r and 1420b Visa policies regarding complaints about the curricula and instructional material as we have learned we had paid part of it to have our challenge books reviewed because we do pay an hourly rate we updated our policy to change the number of Staff members from 42 and this will help with controlling some costs the other policy we reviewed was zero one one five are this is a regulation for anti-harassment in the school district the policy only exists and we now added the regulation to implement the policy also on tonight's agenda is listed for approval or required policy from New York State School Board Association which is policy 4321 programs for
078students with disabilities policy 5550 student privacy policy 5605 voter registration for students this is a required policy by New York state to allow students to pre-register to vote when they are 16. so when they turn 18 they are already registered to vote also on that note our district clerk does come to the high school to offer voter registration to students which are 18. part of tonight's agenda also required was policy 6685 Medicaid compliance policy 9260 conditional appointment policy 0101 which is gender neutral single occupancy bathrooms also as an effort to make access to our policies easier we are in the process of updating board docs which will be the repository of policies in order to have this transition occur at our marching meeting we will be adopting to change our policy numbers to match New
079York State School Board Association number in the policy I want to thank natality our District's clerks for all the hard work to make this happen our next meeting is still to be determined thank you so much thank you Mr software and I just want to highlight that the policies that Miss Mustafa was going through already the consent agenda so when we approve the consent agenda we're approving the policies that she just went through in very good detail thank you very much okay so with that the last uh last but definitely not least is the uh the advocacy committee uh with trustee uh McCracken our man in Albany uh Justine McCracken I know you're going to give us a little bit of detail because we're going to vote we're going to approve a couple of things
080here so I know you can give us a little bit of an outline thank you go ahead you guys so do the report and also talk about something well yeah so when we approve it you can give them a little bit of background yes all right thank you so the advocacy committee met twice this is a committee with board trustees and residents in our community various levels of government to give Maya pack a voice to Advocate either for or against certain policies so the advocacy committee met first on Thursday January 26 2023 in the Falls school building was at seven o'clock in attendance was myself Tanner McCracken or trustee Jonathan Schneider board president Ben delulo superintendent for student Tona and our resident committee members Jack Moda Daniela polzak Candice zeguan Jerome Mitchell Melissa Reardon Maggie
081trainer Christopher Harrigan Ryan Beckwith John Kelly and Elizabeth Swanson so the committee approved in that meeting was something called the advocacy suggestion box this is going to be on our district website and this is going to be a way for any Resident regardless of whether you're on the committee or not to submit policies that you may be concerned about that you believe that the Mahopac Central School District resources to help us advocate so that's on the district website if you go to the Board of Education tab under subcommittees you'll find the advocacy committee it's a big old red box you click the link and you have any policy that you want us to review this could be State County Town Federal anything that may impact the education system here in Mahopac and Statewide review it
082and a lot of times we'll create materials such as letters or phone scripts to Advocate to legislators or any other individual manual power over those decisions so that was approved in that meeting and we had a discussion on many issues such as unfunded mandates ventilation in schools mitigating the cost of challenge literature lunchtime and recess time allotment personal devices in the classroom and the big one that's impacting us uh very presently is the SED mascot mandate we also met again in February very recently I think was this week 's one time but Monday February 13th 7 30 on zoom and this is when we took action on the SED mascot mandate so we met at 7 30. presence was myself Tanner McCracken board trustee Johnson Schneider for president lulo superintendent Christine Tona and our resident
083committee members and in that meeting what we approved were two materials related to the Mandate towards our mascot here in mayapak so on the agenda tonight are two letters one is a recommendation to the board of education to send a resident to the State education department saying we request that you pay the state pay for any potential changes may come out to our school district and this is outside of what's coming in our state aid runs not the foundation Aid that every school district is entitled to get through the formula stating outside costs that are going to impact our school district school taxes we want the state to provide that funding if they're forcing us to make these changes so that's going to be if the board approves it that's going to be sent on
084behalf of the board second letter very similar in the language but it's slightly different for residents to use so this one will be on the website same place advocacy committee click it and download the document copy and paste the language but also add in some of your personal thoughts and opinions you can also put in how long you've lived here how many kids you may have in the district and then also other opinions you may have and then the second half is keeps the messaging towards providing the state funding then Ms tone has outlined the process but it's also there on the website of how to send this public comment to the state so that's there recommended languages there if that's also approved with the two actions taken by the committee in that meeting so
085that's what's going to be voted on tonight and thus concludes thank you trustee McCracken doing a great job and I just want to add real quick I mean we talk about advocacy and we've had success with this uh what I've heard is we're one of maybe not the only District but where we take this very seriously and we have all new elected officials locally and uh nationally every Congress person so this is an opportunity to come up we're giving you the platform to do this and trustee mcprack will tell you these Representatives local and National take very they pay attention to this he will he'll tell you because he worked in those all your work systems offices so thank you again Mr McCracken and uh let's keep moving along here to a very timely presentation
086I turn it back over to superintendent thank you so um tonight we're going to talk a little bit more about competition the board had a very robust conversation and what I tried to do this evening is put a presentation for the board to take a look at hopefully it summarizes the conversation that you have on Tuesday evening so um we are looking to hold a public hearing on February 27 2023 uh to consider alternative veterans exemption increase senior citizens persons with disabilities exemption and volunteer firefighter and ambulance worker exemptions so we'll start with the veterans so the conversation on Tuesday night included a discussion about a gradual increase of veterans exemption levels so on this slide you can see our current levels that are offered to our veterans for wartime combat zone and disability and
087then you could see highlighted potential for 2324 and the increases to those exemptions we talked about a gradual um increase to get to the Town and County levels which you could see at the second to the last row so that potential of twenty seven thousand eighteen thousand ninety thousand could be the first of three years to get to the Town and County levels so where you see possible future consideration that's something for the board to think about for year two and then to get to town County levels for year three and then you can see underneath Town and County levels that there are additional levels beyond the Town and County that increase by three thousand to a maximum of 75 000 for wartime exemption increased by two thousand dollars to a maximum of fifty thousand
088for combat zone exemption and an increase of ten thousand dollars to a maximum of two hundred fifty thousand for the disability exemption so what the board discussed was just doing um uh the first step in the public hearing going to the uh where it says potential 2023-2024 levels so this next slide is a slide that I've shared before it's the impact of the veterans exemption level if we were increased to the Town and County levels for the average taxpayer with a five hundred thousand dollar assessed value home so you could see the school tax the library tax for a total tax of approximately 119.54 that's based on current tax levy numbers um so each year that the school tax uh Levy increases these numbers are going to change but um you can see the veterans
089exemption the currently the total tax dollars that would be reallocated to non-veterans is 945 932. so that's if we so the next slide talks about the the resolution um the board wish to go in that direction to increase the wartime exemption from 12 000 to 27 000 combat from 8 000 to 18 000 and disability from forty thousand to eighty thousand so looking thinking about the slide before with about a hundred and twenty dollar increase to go to the uh Town County levels if we were to look at a three-year gradual move in that direction it's approximately forty dollars a year uh increase to a taxpayer with a five hundred thousand dollar assessed value home and that would be for the 23-24 school year and then we talked about having a separate discussion uh in
090the fall of 2023 to determine any additional increases to the town accounting levels something in between or even Beyond those Town and County levels so now we move on to the senior citizen and person with disability exemption so local governments and school districts can opt to Grant a reduction on the amount of property taxes paid to qualifying senior citizens um the stipulations there senior citizens must be 65 years of age or older and they are eligible for up to 50 of the their assessed home value Exempted So currently the maximum income level is twenty nine thousand dollars and that would afford a senior citizen of 50 of their assessed value exemption then there's a sliding scale for those who make uh have a salary an income level between 29 000 and 37 400 where that
091percentage of exemption decreases till you get to thirty seven thousand four hundred where it's a five percent assessed value exemption so now uh there's new income levels limits available up to fifty thousand dollars uh which would afford a senior citizen a 50 exemption and again that sliding scale exists with an income level limit of fifty eight thousand three ninety nine that would provide a five percent assessed value exemption so on the next slide Putnam County has approved the implementation using a three-year phase-in process so uh effective March of 2023 increasing the income limit from that twenty nine thousand number to forty thousand dollars in 2024 increasing it to 45 000 and in 2025 to the maximum of 50 000. and since this is income based Putnam County has indicated that it's not possible to determine
092at this time the amount of the tax shift from eligible homeowners to non-eligible homeowners because we each individual would have to apply for that and show their income proof of income so looking at the discussion for a potential public hearing for the 23-24 school year just increasing the income level to 40 000 to afford that 50 assessed value exemption um and a separate discussion in the fall of 2023 deciding whether to increase that Beyond 40 000 to the maximum level of 50 000 or the intermediate and intermediate level intermediary level between forty thousand and fifty thousand and the last exemption to take a look at is the volunteer exemption so local governments and school districts can opt to Grant a reduction on the amount of property taxes paid by volunteer firefighters and ambulance workers what
093is allowed is up to ten percent of the assessed value of the home can be Exempted and the minimum service requirement is anywhere between two and five years so um I believe the town has just uh they're considering this exemption they're looking at uh having a five-year minimum service requirement five years so that's something that this board can decide if they want to go in this direction up to 10 of the assessed value accepted and any number of years between two and five would be the minimum service and again because we don't know who all of our homeowners are taxpayers that uh would qualify for this exemption we would not know what the tax shift would be to volunteer from volunteer to non-volunteer homeowners at this time so the discussion that we had Tuesday night
094was looking for the 23-24 school year providing the exemption starting at three percent of assessed value and then determining determining the number of years of service between two and five and then having a separate discussion in the fall of 2023 to decide uh if the board wants to increase that three percent to ten percent or anything in between so why are we looking at gradual increases so as mentioned we don't know the number of senior citizens people with disabilities and volunteer exemptions so by initiating this for year one at a a lower amount that would give us the information needed so that a better decision can be made in the fall where we have actual numbers that would tell us what the tax impact would be on non-exempted individuals then we also I actually found
095out today that uh from our attorney that the West Branch Reservoir situation is uh close to being settled and there will be some additional information shared in the coming weeks so there are some tax implications where a loss of revenue for that particular Reservoir would impact the total Levy for the town and would make some changes to people's uh taxes on their property and then we also have the potential future tax implications for the Croton Falls Reservoir and Watershed and that is several years out there could be a decision in the next several months but whatever that decision is will probably be appealed by either side depending on on who it favors and once it goes into appeal it could stay in appeal for quite a while before determination is made so it's just something
096to keep in mind as we look at tax implications for the future so next steps the board if they decide to move in this direction would hold a special meeting for the potential adoption of the three resolutions which I outlined in the presentation they're summarized here on this slide and as required by law a public hearing would need to be held on February 27 2023 at 7 pm here at the high school and then if these resolutions are adopted the implementation would be in time for the 2023-2024 school year because the deadline to report to the town is March 1st of this year so we'll leave this slide up and any questions comments on the board so the bottom line is a lot of information here I appreciate this tone of turning this around if
097you were watching on Tuesday night literally we got information I think within hours so within the last 96 hours we're getting new information and we were able to make it we were able to make a decision and the consensus at and I'm going to let people get a chance to talk here on the board is to do is to basically take one year we're going to do we're suggesting the recommendation here from this tone is to do this this is the recommendation that you see up there for the first year and then we will revisit this at the end we're going to get more information on the on the senior citizen and the volunteer exemption because we don't have any data we don't have any information all right and in terms of the veterans we're
098taking it we're taking a step in terms of moving towards towards the uh towards whatever future right now we're this is the this is as you're saying uh what we're moving forward again I'm going to allow people to make any comments um but we're required by law there's a deadline and what's the deadline March 1st I think we're going to talk about that so we have to add this proposal to the is it the to the town so I made a joke about Melody larocco running over to the town and putting this in at the last second but we're gonna we have to have we are required by law to have a public uh hearing and that hearing is going to be held as you see on the on the slide February 27th which is
099Monday at 7 pm and then we are planning as a board to get into a session to make the decision to go up or down well basically we're going to have it make a decision that day that night if we decide to move forward we will hand over the recommendations we'll hand over the information um and the proper uh documentation to the town and we'll move forward so with that uh any body have any comments briefly and we still got us a little bit of things yes sir so I'm speaking to the vets because you guys are hearing you've been here all right but they um this all came on quick Miss Tony went through it all it's all air but basically we got and I know uh Mr Maxwell saw before we had gotten
100you guys coming in we had gotten the seniors uh looking for an exemption and now we have the fire department and EMP and ambulance workers uh and on top of all of that Miss Tonya I just mentioned that we have uh some tax implications coming down with the reservoir so this is a lot of money it's not just you guys so I think what we came up quickly and we're going to discuss it more because we want to get it but we want to give we the way to give it and the way to give it right is to start it we wanted to start it and didn't want to make you guys wait so it looks like we're going to start it everybody's going to get a little something it looks like and then
101hopefully and again we'll work with numbers that we don't have the answer to we don't know how much these exemptions are because the information has not been generated yet from the assessor's office or County so we're going to start with something we looks like we're going to get an exemption for everybody and we'll revisit it next year and see if we can do better so thanks guys thanks Mike I also want to thank our veterans for beer for constantly pounding the service first and foremost this is literally the least we can do on Sunday on Tuesday was advocating to go right to the county Town level but it's better than nothing so I'm supportive of this and I'm looking forward to next year to keep pushing it up and we should go right to that
102level it's the least we can do for you all for what you've done for us in our nation and keeping us all safe so that I'm looking to support looking forward to the public comment on the 27th and the one thing I will say is the other two exemptions I'm looking forward to support but we do trust or do have more numbers on the veterans than the other stuff we do see what the implication would be so that's why I was advocating for that to increase right up to that level but nonetheless looking forward to the support to give you all relief it's the least we can do thank you for your service thanks anybody else all right all right thank you again yeah I'm just going to repeat this so we are required by
103law to get this in if we're doing this by March of first we have to give note we're giving notice about the public hearing on Monday February 27th a couple of less than over two weeks from now at seven o'clock we're going to meet afterwards and make a decision and then assuming we move forward with this we'll have Melody run over to the to the uh courthouse and and hand in the paperwork will driver okay Adam's volunteered to driver and we'll we'll and I can't say it better than Mike and I appreciate the comments so with that I'm going to move to uh the next item on the agenda okay um this is new business and again this is one of the heard some comments about this book we are going to vote this book
104I'm going to read their resolution this is under new business we're going to vote um whether this motion carries or not so whereas the book oh boys aren't blue it's deemed as a challenge book and it's currently included in the general circulation at the high school library whereas placement of the book in the high school was challenged on December 16 2021 whereas the district curriculum book committee convened reviewed and provided a recommendation to the superintendent of school January 14th 2023 resolve upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools the book all boys aren't blue remains in the high school library if you further resolve upon recommendation of the superintendent of schools the Board of Education approves the process of the superintendent of schools providing that a parent of any student that does not wish for
105their students to borrow this or any book be notified of building principal or libraries in writing and an alert will be placed on the student's account to notify the librarian during his book checkout so with that we're going to take a roll call Vote Yes or No in terms of approving the recommendation of the superintendent so let's just start to my love I don't think we should remove them but I think we have extra protections or gets checked out I think that should be on the book shouldn't take a parent notification so I can't support removing it but I can't support going in as is I understand okay Fernando sorry trustee Ortiz yay Mike uh I'm fundamentally against removing any books foreign yes so I just want to say as I read the book all
106boys are in blue and as I described at the December 2020 the board meeting I'm not prevented books and the committee of recommendation for old boys are going to feel the content especially the sexual content does not belong in a school but in a local library my parents send their children to school they trust us to educate their children and protect fall I'm not in agreement with the recommendation from the committee that feels the content is not inappropriate for high school age students I also would like books of this nature to have total parental control so I say no thank you John Johnson before in every book don't ban books just ask for parents permission no [Applause] is it so it's four three or four two in an accident okay so so all right so
107the motion does not carry which means the motion does not carry so no there's no action taken and therefore by default the book stays in the library okay all right let's move on to the next one sure uh let's get I I think we can go back could it be brought up on a motion for a resolution I would say that it has parents permission if you stay in the high school why don't we yeah let's do this let's let's make that determination at the next meeting okay so that'll all right so what uh what I'm saying is we're going to determine whether we can we revisit it or this particular book because of where we landed and we'll make that determination in the working session in March okay is that a Lucy does that
108answer your question all right Melody you're okay with that is that yes all right well I think it would be just what I said a motion to do the resolution to having the high school but to have it with parents permission instead and then we could vote on that all right that's a little all right that's a little bit different than what I said let's let's do this let us we're going to go to back to our attorney find out what the appropriate process is in terms of moving forward and what's what can be done and then we'll work okay that's right to have an amended resolution where all you'll do is replace the third paragraph to say via further result upon recommendation of the Board of Education that it's approved for providing a parent
109provide permission for this book to be checked out for a student everything else is the same but you changed it wasn't approved or not approved so I believe the next course of action if the board wants to do a re-vote next month but no further action until you have a quorum in either direction so we have that we the only thing we could do is revoke yes right so what you have to have is five in this case it's four to three we don't have five so the motion does not carry which means the motion to kind of the motion for the book to stay in the library is not carried so by default it just stays there so what we're talking about is what we're going to do next so but as the stoner
110was just saying we have to we but we can re-vote and we can do that next month okay all right now yeah go ahead can I add something to and I guess when we do get back to you I would ask you offering from uh that was that was my fault Mike so listen yeah uh we're very good here about letting people talk you can sign up but you have to be is the Quorum here okay we let everybody talk so any shout shouting out it's just not appropriate all right and it's it's not respectful to the Ford so I appreciate it apologies are in order as well all right okay let's move on please next is the um Santa was talking about the emotions to approve uh hey can I get a motion to
111approve the unfunded mandate letter to nysed so move second please all right second any questions all in favor aye aye hey Melody you can put me down as an eye because it's not lobbying the legislature so you can put me down as an eye all right congrats that's great all right so next one is uh unfunded mandate resident letter to United motion to approve sell move second all in favor aye all right now we're going to go through some other things so donation RF RRS Sunshine fund uh all right go ahead please thank you okay so be resolved the Board of Education except year by acceptance the donation of 25 in memory of Stanley uh bus driver that passed away to be used to support field trips for the students of the Malbec Central School
112District right all in favor aye Lucy do you want to read the next one a squat rack for be used by the Mahopac High School football program thank you so much thank you all in favor motion second Jonathan all in favor all right all right jumping ahead okay now we're gonna get to the consent agenda okay I will I encourage people to read it it does have quite a bit of information and approvals there including the HR materials I do go through that in detail on the Tuesday meeting so if you want to get more information on just try to pay attention at that particular meeting but in in any case please uh encourage people to go through it so can I get a motion yes sir I just want to highlight for for the
113two two policies that are passing with this tonight so it's a mandated policy but that student duration yes sir a voter registration for student s something that is now going to be in our schools it was something that was possible I actually did it I took advantage of it in my AP government class you register to vote so when you turn 18 you're automatically enrolled and ready to vote the day you turn 18. it's a fantastic way of getting our students ready to be specifically minded citizens engaged in our political process I know Melody LaRock is going to end up in the library I think May 11. is that the correct date it is May 11th so you can see our district clerk and get students to to sign up to register to vote and
114honestly my opinion we can make a whole day of that the high school library yes okay and a whole day of that make it a Civics day for our students to just have a fantastic opportunity for our students and the other one is something we did discuss in the policy committee is that committee that does review challenge books bringing that level from four teachers to two that is cutting our costs in half it brings the balance I have two residents an administrator and two teachers I think it's the policy was not updated since 2001 so I think it's taking the process and how it acts today and I think that's going to be the best change we can make as of right now to help you with those fiscal costs behind the challenge of literature
115so two policies I want to highlight my strong support for us I'm voting yes all right thank you very much and yeah I mean I think anything we could do just highlight the registered registration to vote we talk about Civic Readiness and participation in the uh in the political process that's that's absolutely incredibly important um and I know my older two kids I forced with the world so um Okay so at the end all right so now we're going to get to uh public comments I think we're gonna vote on oh you can say that I'm sorry thank you all right motion to approve the consent agenda second all right we already had anybody have any other comments all right all the favor okay very good all right now we're going to get to public
116comments I'm going to just read this really quick you guys know the drill already uh all the common period will not exceed 30 minutes we will we ask all speakers to adhere to the policy you have to maintain public decorum appropriate for school respect the three-minute rule uh in terms of the timing address me the president of the board conduct yourself in a civil manner of singing language is obviously not tolerated comments and questions should be made in a respectful way the board president will it's up to me to do any comments or derogatory inflammatory or inappropriate out of order I will will stop the commentary personal attacks or criticism of any person connected with the district will not be uh permitted all right so I don't have it up on my screen here so
117we do have resonance comments okay hi everyone thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to speak tonight um my name is Jennifer Healy I wrote this as we my husband's sitting in the audience so I'm just gonna read what I have here my husband and I have been living at Mahopac for the past 14 years I'm an educator in North Salem I've been currently teaching for almost 20 and I teach third grade um we're here to speak tonight about the mental health of our children when you hear the word suicide it makes you wonder what could cause someone to take their own life but when you find out that harassment and bullying would cause someone to go to these measures it makes you wonder even more why how the young lady in New
118Jersey who recently just took her life last week hits very close to home life is not the same as it used to be teaching is not the same as it used to be parenting is not the same and neither is being a child we live in a society where we battle with technology think back to when you were in Middle School now add an Instagram Facebook Snapchat Tick Tock these platforms are making children feel more isolated than ever we have three daughters in the mapac Central School District two are currently at foma Road and one is in Middle School we are beyond happy with all of their experiences so far but recently our oldest daughter was part of a cyber bullying incident something we never thought would happen to her but it did we monitor
119her cell phone use and this still got past us she did not come to us when she was being harassed and emotionally abused because she was scared to this caused her to be afraid to go to school gave her nightmares and she didn't have the joy she once had thankfully time heals and she's beginning to act more herself and feeling better about school but it's still a work in progress we are so thankful that she had a friend that brought it to the attention of their parents we're also grateful for the maypak administration and support staff for their compassion time and support we are fortunate that this did not turn out a different way what we wonder now is what happens next we have some questions about the maypak code of conduct and a few
120references we would like to make when we look at the code of conduct our daughter was emotionally harmed which interfered with her educational performance and emotional mental well-being and she feared for her safety we wonder what are the consequences for bullying the document clearly shows consequences for weapon possession Distributing and consuming tobacco alcohol prescription drugs in addition it talks about hazing Commission of a crime and engaging in behavior that brings dishonor to the district where would bullying either in person or through technology fall under what are the specific consequences if we are unable to answer this so will students we notice a big focus in middle school is the dress code yet once students are in high school the dress code no longer applies students clearly understand the consequences of not following this code yet
121does anyone go over the aspects of the code other aspects of the code of conduct is it reviewed and Revisited as the year progresses because we'll be honest we look at it at the beginning of the school year and then we don't look at it again we are currently living in a time where cyber bullying is more prevalent than ever and I hope I am not under over my time sorry um where cyber building is more prevalent than ever and students need to clearly understand the consequences of this what worries us what um what about those children who are the ones bullying or the ones that do not have emotional support at home of course our schools cannot control what happens at home but we can't control what happens within our schools each and every
122day when looking at Bay pack School website we search to find concrete information on what is being used to teach mental health as well as what um as well as the issues surrounding it we need resources available to parents to easily access to better support their children at home and I apologize if I missed it on the website we are so fortunate to have the best health teacher for our daughter and know she's gaining knowledge to support her in this area but is it enough maybe for our daughter but what about those that do not have the support at home and open communication about what is happening in their lives each day in North Salem where I teach we use the L ruler which supports the social emotional well-being of our students every single day
123my third grade students do a check-in on how they're feeling we focus on various emotional Works each month to help them identify how they truly feel oh sorry okay um basically what I'm saying is we check-ins for every single student not just the ones that are in need for everyone um we're asking the district to look further into how we can best support our students each and every day here in maypak mental health awareness should be at the Forefront of our work thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak here today and I'm confident that we can work together to tackle this very important issue thank you [Applause] thank you um just a lot of what you raised tonight are conversations that we have on a regular basis uh we do have Yale we
124will replace uh came into the district I believe last year is the first year um so it's a work in progress as as you can imagine it needs to be fully rolled out fully implemented and fully trained uh staff in order to make it as beneficial as possible so we have had conversations about that um and continued conversations about how we can support our staff so that they can support our students and and further educate everyone it's a changing world covid made a lot of changes social medias uh definitely a challenge for all of our students and um I I'd be happy to talk to you further about this as well thank you Justinian thank you next Jennifer thank you president and superintendent Tona I'm glad that I'm following uh Jen Healy and my remarks
125because I wanted to talk about mental health and the way that we're prioritizing our spending and our budget particularly as we go into budget season we are uh kind of we're spending a lot of money on things that are not directly helping our students or I think you've addressed it in the fact that you're looking to reduce the number of people involved in the book challenges because we're spending up thousands of dollars on these book challenges right now we don't have a social worker in the Middle School to deal with incidents like like she's talking about and yet we're finding money to spend on book challenges that are being brought forth with a particular agenda that are raising important issues but nonetheless are wasting a lot of time and energy and it's time that we're
126spending in these meetings I mean Community discussions um so I think we just need to be really clear about where our priorities are budgets our statements of our values we'll talk about our values and I think what we need to be doing at this time of tremendous mental health challenges um you know through the report this week and on the number of you know girls Feeling Extreme sadness and considering suicide I mean this is this is no joke I think you all know this but we have to put our our money where our words are and so the budget really has to reflect those priorities and efforts that are taking from that I think just need to be dealt with very honestly because it's a trade-off and now we're having conversations there are people out
127there having conversations about disregarding the the state directive on the mascot that's millions of dollars potentially where's that going to come from you know so we have we want to keep Indians on the school board and yet we won't be able to find a team to play the game on the field like really what are we talking about here I think we need to have an honest conversation with the community about our budget priorities about the trade-offs that we face um you know State advocacy is great I don't know that the state's going to give us 30 million dollars because we kicked the can down the road on the mascot issue um so I think we just need to be really honest with people about what we need to be funding and not waste our
128money on things that are you know achieving political agendas that don't have a place here thank you thank you to the board for letting you speak today um I want to talk about a few things the first thing is the Veterans exemption um I feel the board has spent much time discussing this issue I think it's time to make a commitment and honor their service um I think the public hearing will validate this and confirm the implementation regarding the two other exemptions the senior citizen and persons with disabilities and volunteers I feel they're unanswered questions about the financial implications is there a residency time required can you just move here to get the exemption how is disability defined for volunteers must they volunteer in our community and not elsewhere can it be combined with the
129senior can they get the greater or both I think that there are so many on those other two exemptions that I really think you know we waited so long and we had the numbers on the veterans and now we're so willing to jump forward on the others I'm not sure that that's correct so that's that regarding the mascot all I can say is Kansas City Chiefs okay if that's not offensive I don't know why Indians are offensive I think everyone should write to the New York State education department and express our concerns that the state is using their budget to force their identity Politics on our school district if we decide to do this um and this is about the funding I thought that when I read the law the original Law in paragraph S2
130it does say it should provide brands from funds appropriated for this purpose the local school districts to assist them in implementing the guidelines for this this law so I know this the threat of cutting stay-date to our children is a powerful threat but most likely overreach is eventually was litigated um now the budget it was very inspirational to see all our athletes and steam participants and although I I have grown children I appreciate these accomplishments dedication of our teachers and our students however I don't want to be the Nielsen pelts of Mahopac but as I pointed out before we've lost 25 percent of our student population and we haven't adjusted our spending we need to embark on a program of revisiting how we do everything from the number of um people involved in all processes
131to reviewing our transportation we need to think outside the box perhaps we need to bring a Specialists that does this ask each department to flowchart their work find out where we have duplicity where we can cut double work the job expands to fit the time when I was financed we took over a company we went over all the positions individuals were paid a hundred thousand and they didn't have a job and I'm not kidding you ask how this is possible we have 133 million dollar budget and I'm sure there's money to be saved cutting one percent should be easy maybe even five percent I was I was not encouraged by the proposed budget from our facilities manager at 12.2 percent increase Athletics proposed 5.4 we need to reduce costs not was the need to reduce
132costs not communicated to the department heads did we not get the message last year when the budget did not pass cost reduction should be a priority from top down to every employee in every Department every day I read how everything is so expensive for our community we have to be responsive if we cut our taxes maybe we don't need all these other exemptions we could just lower the people's burden um I noted wrap it up please getting rid of that property are we moving everything I know Mr Schneider said something I don't know if that means we're going to sell it or something offline oh okay um we need to see how the 4.3 million in federal grants was used all right you're about a minute over okay and Putnam County has announced that because
133they've got four million in their state aid they're not going to have any budget increase and we received quite uh over three points three million more so all right thank you [Applause] first of all I would like to say that when we come up here to speak I don't have to say thank you for letting me speak this is a government building there are court cases that allow us to speak and address all of a sudden First Amendment rights do not count anymore it's weird how you just pick and choose it's really very strange but first I want to go kind of in order on something I know there's a vet there's um a health fair going on in the middle school I was very disappointed in the one in the high school talking about
134giving information to kids about vaccines that's inappropriate and I'm hoping that parents get more involved and realize what's going on inside of these schools in Mahopac schools they're Clueless but they are keyboard Warriors out there so many of them then you what everybody wants to talk about feelings and all about you know the native Indian let's get rid of the name I bought this up before the governor vetoed a bill okay the burial site protection act that would have protected some I you know remains that will have gone to vetoed it last year does she really care no she does not care at all and then last yeah the books I am quite disgusted I have never in my in my could see a group of people to say this is good let's read about
135sex I can't see a father saying yeah let's sit down and let's read this book together could you imagine daddy's little girl sitting down with him and reading these sexual explicit books some of you have children at home grandchildren at home in a few years when they're in middle school and when they're in high school they may come home with one of these books and say Hey Dad look I'm reading this book and you're going to pick it up and you're going to be disgusted because you're a father and that was your little princess I don't know how any man any man can approve that shameful absolutely shameful thank you you know okay that's it um just want to thank everybody for attending tonight I want to thank everybody for the commentary I always encourage
136it we want to hear from the public I'm going to take executive privilege here I'm going to read a little Happy Valentine's it was almost two days ago so I want to try to end on a little softer happy note uh two days ago was filled with roses chocolate hearts and fancy dinners but my son is a sixth grader at our great middle school told me the other day the Valentine's Day is really about friendship I said what make your friends so I know he's a bright kid he's sixth grader he's very creative but I like that I'm pretty sure one of his teachers or the team that he's on had something to do with it so I want to shout out to the middle school and the message of love and friendship because that's
137what he's going to carry forward whether you know he decides to flirt with a girl or or whatever uh he knows the important of friendship so I'm not saying we all walk out of here holding hands and you know dancing out of here but just think about that we've got everyone's got opposing a vision not everybody but we discuss but we're all part of the same process to help our kids get to the next level and to make them productive working and successful and happy and it's more and more challenging than some other folks have talked about so with that I'm gonna ask for a motion to move to Executive session to discuss a Personnel matter can I get a motion please so moved second please all in favor all right all right we'll see
138you next month thank you