001Good evening. Can everybody hear me okay, or would you like me to use the mic? All right, good. I'm Kyle Kuhlmann. I have the honor of serving as superintendent of schools, and this is >> Megan Taggart. >> School business administrator. So, we will be presenting the budget tonight and kind of you know, be in the host. So, we had the ability today to speak with our political science class today taught by Mrs. Dunlap specifically about the budget and they asked some really good questions. It was a really good tune-up for us. So, we are ready for you tonight. Our agenda is this. I am doing the welcoming and then we're going to do we're going to host the board candidates. We'll be doing that in alphabetical order by last name. Came to my attention today
002that in the newsletter we had all six candidates in there, but we didn't actually put in there that the six candidates are vying for three seats. So, we have three board members that their terms are up. So, we have six candidates, three will be elected. I wanted to say we had our hearing for the NYSERDA project back in February and one of the things that came from this style meeting was an attention to utilize our community resources to get information out specifically the libraries. I'll say Miguel and I had the ability to visit the libraries a couple times to drop off a couple batches of information. That was newer information to me and I felt like you know, we were able to kind of take that to heart and utilize it a little bit more.
003We do plan on it hosting questions. We'll save questions for the end. Questions for the budget, not necessarily the candidates. The candidates will just come up and give their statements. So, we will have the board of and candidates come up and the first one will be Shannon Brock. >> Good evening to everyone in the audience and to those watching at home. My name is Shannon Brock and I have been a member of the South Seneca Board of Education for the past 3 years. I've also been our district's representative to the TST BOCES Board in Ithaca for the past 4 years. I'm the owner and manager of a vineyard in Lodi, New York and a resident of Lodi and the parent of two South Seneca Falcons, one who recently graduated and one who is in high
004school. Before moving to this area about 20 years ago, I was a sixth-grade elementary school teacher for 5 years and I earned a master's degree in school administration, although I never became a school principal as I had originally planned. I volunteer my time and energy to the school board because I want our South Seneca students to have the best opportunities possible. Through lots of new board member training and experiences during my first term, I've learned that the highest performing school districts have a board that works together with the superintendent to set and achieve goals. That can only happen with a board that works as a team and provides oversight without overstepping their bounds. I have shown over the past 3 years that I'm a solid team player. I have positive and professional relationships with my
005fellow board members even when we disagree. I come prepared, ask questions, and advocate for students. There are a lot of exciting things happening in South Seneca. We have a new superintendent who's leading the way on fiscal responsibility, school culture, and community involvement. Our elementary school is implementing the science of reading curriculum to improve student achievement. Our high school students have great opportunities to pursue both early college, vocational, and technical education right here at our high school and at TST BOCES. We also have exciting and engaging after school activities for students in K through 12, including clubs, sports, music, and drama. Over the next 3 years, the South Seneca Board of Education will face many challenges due to declines in enrollment, uncertain state funding, teacher shortages, and rising costs. It's very important for you, the voters,
006to make your voice heard and select a board that will set our our school on a successful path. Public schools are our community's investment in the future. I humbly ask for your vote to help make the future bright for our South Seneca students. Thank you. >> All right. Uh next up, we have Brenda Eastman. >> I love using a microphone. Um everything that I put into the pamphlet, I'm not going to go over all of that. It's really If you haven't read it, um take a look at it. Everyone has gotten one. Um I've course searched over a 30 about 34-year period. I've served about 30 of those years and have done numerous things as a board member. I advocate for the district taxpayers. I advocate for the parents of children that go to our
007school and I've always been try try to be impartial um person when it comes to making decisions that are based on fact if we can clearly get those thoroughly looking through the process of whether it's doing the budget or talking about something that's um more personal. I see that we I believe that we have an opportunity to look at more um consolidation in our district whether that means physical or the way that we put some of our teams together or our grades together um elementary, middle school, high school. I'm most concerned and didn't put it in my uh on my uh hearing budget hearing is that we have not had for many years now probably uh more than 15 to 16 years we've had no curriculum mapping. So I would be an advocate for um
008curriculum planning. Everyone in second grade teaching needs to know what they need to plan for their third grade teachers. And I am very hopeful that the new science of reading program that's been initiated for the last 2 years and as a result of one of our new candidates um and the former librarian of the Lodi library um worked with the school staff getting that through the MTSS and um well getting that all done. So I encourage you to all get out vote to your neighbors get out and vote the best three candidates. And I appreciate one for me. Thank you. >> All right, next up Gerald Frank. >> Hello. My name is Jerry Frank. I'm almost a local resident of Alden. We moved here in '78. But I wasn't born here. Uh I taught for
00930-plus years up in the up in the Waterloo area. I taught in Buffalo for before that. I have a master's uh in education, art education. And we were working toward our administration papers. Uh unfortunately, we decided that we would rather teach than administer. And so we just stuck it out. Uh as uh Brenda was saying, curriculum is most important of the most important things that a school board can have the teachers work on. Whether it's grade school, high school, special areas, everybody should be knowing what the scope and sequence would be for their kids. And the teachers would know when they have achieved those goals. Uh I can honestly say that if you vote for me, I'll work with anybody on the board to achieve the goals before him set. Other than that, have yourself
010a great afternoon, evening. >> All right, up next Peter Jennings. >> Can everybody hear me? >> Yep. >> All right, good evening. I'm Peter Jennings, lifelong resident of the community, parent of six children across our district. I believe deeply in the responsibility we all share to provide the best possible education for every student, while maintaining strong sense of community that makes this district special. That begins with open, respectful communication among all stakeholders. Parents, students, teachers, staff, administrators, and the broader community. We may not always agree on every issue, but we should always be transparent, accessible, willing to listen to one another. Asking questions, requesting information, reviewing data, and seeking clarity is not adversarial. It is part of the board's responsibility and essential to good governance. The Board of Education has an important role in setting
011priorities, creating and funding positions, establishing policy, ensuring fiscal responsibility. This administration then carries out those priorities through implementation and recommendations. A successful district depends on healthy working relationship between the board and administration, built on communication, accountability, and mutual respect. Ensuring that decisions are supported by accurate information, aligned with district goals, and made with both student and taxpayers in mind is how a board operates effectively and in the best interest of the community. When it comes to programming, I'm committed to maintaining excellence while continuing looking for opportunities to improve and grow. That means it supporting strong academic achievement while also recognizing that student success looks different for every child. We must continue expanding opportunities in arts, athletics, career and technical education, extracurricular activities, pathways that prepare students for college, trades, military service, and the workforce. Every
012student deserves opportunity to discover their strengths and pursue their goals after graduation. Equally important is supporting and retaining our teachers and staff. My commitment is that we do everything possible to avoid layoffs. If reductions ever become necessary, I believe we should first pursue them through natural attrition, retirements, resignations, and thoughtful long-term planning rather than disrupting the lives of dedicated employees and the continuity of our classrooms. At the same time, we must continue looking for responsible ways to manage costs through operational efficiencies, careful budgeting, long-term planning, and identifying savings in non-instructional areas that staffing is not the first place we turn. Finally, our community expects and deserves responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars. That means balancing education educational excellence with long-term fiscal responsibility, planning carefully for the future, and making decisions that protect both program and taxpayers.
013My priority is to ensure we remain fiscally responsible while protecting the programs and opportunities that define our district. The balance is not always easy, but it is essential. I'm interested in doing the work thoughtfully, collaboratively, and with the best interests of our students and community at heart. Thank you. >> All right. Up next, we have Jody Latini. >> Good evening. Can everyone hear me if I don't use the mic? Because I did not enjoy using the microphone. Uh so, I am Jody Latini, a candidate for the Board of Education, and um I am a forever Falcon, as Steve Zilinski would have said. I graduated from South Seneca in 1994, and since that time I've done a few things, even though that was just a few years ago. Um some of those have been in education.
014I've been a parent volunteer and the head of PTO. I've been a teacher aide in the classroom with high needs. I've been a teacher. I've been an MTSS coordinator. I'll talk about that in a moment. And I've been a union representative. And currently, I'm a principal in another district. And so, um I am excited at the opportunity to continue to come back home to South Seneca, um if the voters so choose, and continue to support our teachers, our staff, and our administration in helping reach their potential, um and reach their potential in a future that we cannot imagine today. So, some of the ways that I have begun to support that over my career at South Seneca, um as Mrs. Eastman indicated, um I, in my role as MTSS coordinator, was a I don't want
015to say a leader, but I was a a collaborator with the elementary team in bringing scientific reading to South Seneca. And I also was a collaborator in bringing social emotional learning curriculum to both the elementary and high school. And we also really implemented some data-driven practices and I was able to provide the board with some more concrete data than we had been looking at up until that time. So, as a candidate, I would endorse that we continue to support those those initiatives. In my time in education and fulfilling different roles, what I've learned is that every single person who is interacting with students and is in a support role is vital to the futures of our children. And my In my role as an administrator, I see my most important job is to support our
016teachers and our staff in supporting students. And I think that is the foundation of what the Board of Education needs to do. The board sets policy, the board sets tone, and the board sets the climate for the entire school system. And so, as we've heard many of our candidates talk about tonight, that needs to be respectful, and it needs to be based on transparency, and it needs to be based on welcoming voices that don't necessarily agree with us to the table to express their their concerns and to express their point of view again in a respectful and welcoming climate. And I think that is if we start with that, that's what is going to lead us through the next few years. If we If you're familiar and you're living in the world of education now,
017you know that the outlook is that the next few years are going to be They're going to have some hard decisions ahead of us, right? But if we're making them together as a community with the best interests of our students at heart, we will be doing our due diligence. So, thank you for the opportunity and I would urge you to come out and vote for the candidates that you feel will fulfill your vision for South Seneca in the coming years. Thank you. >> And next we have Rachel Clue Pepper on. >> I'm also going to forego the mic if you can hear me. Um my name is Rachel Clue Pepperon. I am an alumni of South Seneca. I graduated in 2000. Um I left the area for about 10 years and did my graduate work
018and got my PhD in French in the University of Georgia. Um moved back to South Seneca when my daughter was four because as an alumni of South Seneca, I really saw as I was out in the world how much I benefited from the um small student to teacher ratio, from the community community atmosphere that we have where everyone knows who you are, um which can be a good or a bad thing, um but in the end it really works to support students when they see their teachers sort of out in the world with them. And I wanted my daughter to have that experience as she was going through school. So, she's a a student at South Seneca. She's in the high school. Um she's active in the music, drama, and arts programs. Um at the
019same time um I have been working for the Ithaca College now at TST BOCES. This is my 21st year um in education. I also spent time in the Trumansburg School District. Um and if elected to the Board of Education, I bring the perspective of not only a lifelong resident, but an educator with a variety of experiences. So, as um a French professor, I had the opportunity to design and implement curriculum um and was responsible for assessment as well um and reporting that assessment um to my colleagues, to go to the Middle States to maintain our accreditation for Ithaca College. Um as a high school teacher um of French and now ELA, I am responsible for much the same thing um preparing innovative curriculum um implementing it in the classroom and then um using data to
020make sure that what I'm doing is solid, right? Um and so this comes in part from my background in research. So, if elected to the Board of Education um as an educator and a researcher, I bring um the skill of thorough preparation. Perhaps sometimes a bit too thorough, but I like to ask good questions. I like to make sure that um I have all of the information from everyone before I can make decisions. Um I also believe in the professionalism of teachers and much as Jody said, sort of building our our faculty, our staff, our administrators, everyone from our bus drivers to our superintendent, they all have contact with kids every day, right? Um and so making sure that we recognize the value in every single person that walks through the door, making sure that
021our environment is welcoming and affirming. Um that our curriculum is rigorous and that we are making sure that all students are reflected in their curriculum and in their learning experiences. Um I didn't actually write a wrap-up. So, I would greatly appreciate your vote, but encourage you regardless of who you would like to vote for to vote cuz that's the most important thing. Thank you. >> Thank you to our candidates. If you don't public speak every day, it's not always the easiest thing. So, I appreciate all your efforts that go into coming to speak to the community both that are present and on the live stream. So, we are going to hop into the budget. >> Good evening, everyone. Ladies. Um All right. So, today's budget hearing, we're going to go through some slides about how
022the preparation of the budget and at the end we're going to wrap it up with the propositions and the announcement of the vote, which is next week, next Tuesday. Um so, budget and legislative updates as of May 7th. Um again, there's been a whole bunch of you know, weekly extensions so people can still work on people at the legislature still work on the budget. As of today, I have not we have not heard any news. We're still pushing on with the budget that we have. There's no news. We have no clue when the New York State will finally adopt a budget. I can't remind you April 1st was the cutoff for a budget. We are on May 12th and no word yet. So, um governor is just uh they announced a tentative budget agreement, but
023uh the legislative came right out and said, "No, stop. Don't say that. We're not even close." So, to go over some current conditions in the revenues. Uh again, some of the slides you probably already seen them in the meeting meetings that we have had in the past. Uh foundation aid increased of 1% equivalent to 96,206. Um that's just a 1% increase compared to last year, which was 2%. Uh other aids that make up uh New York State uh aid is BOCES and transportation aid. Those increase um based on expenses from the prior year. Uh the increase in building aid is attributed to the adjustment to debt service and then I said a project. Our plan here at South Seneca is to strategically you know, rely on reserves and appropriated fund balance to balance the budget.
024And just to point out that CPI came at 2.63 at the time of the tax cap calculation, uh which limits our potential to raise revenue, and therefore uh we came out of tax cap of 2.26. The point The 2.25 at the end is an uh 15-year average of the tax cap calculation. Now, from the other side of the coin, we're looking at current conditions for expenditures. Um certain things that we need uh we we're going to spend next year is the capital outlay. Uh that's the small projects that we do every year. We get building aid 81.5% in turn on that. We have it on the books. Uh we have to consider contractual obligation based on the many uh bargaining agreements that ranges from anywhere from 4% to 4.5% uh for next year. We also
025have to consider benefits. One of the benefits is TRS and ERS. Those are coming in at 8.25 TRS to as high as 17% for ERS members. Our health insurance finally settled on the rates last month. It came in at 9.75% increase individual and family. Our fuel prices are still locked in between $2.04 to $3.08. Uh Teacher associations and TAC are currently in negotiation as we speak. And just to remind everybody, the current year budget that we're living right now is the 28,213,993. All right. So, to recap on South Huntington's plan, we're going to maintain 25-26 budget projections with savings added to the appropriated fund balance if we have some at the end of the year. Go out at the levy of 2.26%. Continue to pre-purchase anywhere we can for savings purposes on 26-27 items using
026the remaining budget for this year. We'll continue to use federal funding where appropriate to offset expenses. We continue to monitor the market to make a strategic investments. Plan aggressively for 27-28 and beyond. And again, strategically use our reserves and fund balance for long-term planning. Any additional state revenues not in the projections will be used for to be able to appropriate for next year's 27-28 budget. And of course, we'll continue to review department budgets and compare them to actual expenses project uh expenses going forward, you know, based on market change. >> And I think it's important to note um that third bullet where we're trying to pre-purchase some items for the next school year this spring. I mean, I think we all realize in the economy today, everything costs more tomorrow than it does today. I
027mean, I paid a lot less for gas last week than I did this morning. So, we're just trying to pre-purchase some of those items with with, um, budget monies that we have allocated in it in hopes that we can get them at a better price, uh, instead of paying the more expensive price in the future. >> Correct. >> This slide right here is the budget comparison, the revenue side of it. This is New York State. As you can see, it's made up of many components. And on the far right-hand side, you can see that the legislative, uh, was supposed to settle between March and April. And as of today, there's no number, no solid number. So, uh, we plan out to go at the governor's, uh, estimates. A 14,689,452 at the bottom. As you can
028see, these aids are made up of foundation aid, BOCES, hardware and technology, UPK, high cost excess cost, private excess cost, and transportation, including some. There's the building aid as well. All those numbers make up, uh, the total on the bottom. We have to pull out UPK, and now we are 14,689,452. The other side of the one of the other two major components of the revenue side is tax cap calculation. This calculation is made up of eight items. Um, bottom line, we're allowed to increase the tax cap by 2.26%, which is 210,000 540, which takes the levy up to 9,514,365. So, with those numbers together, our projection of other revenues, debt service fund, appropriated fund balance, and applied reserve, we come to a budget of 29,391,320. And you can see at the bottom what the applied
029reserve estimates are for the makeup that 1.2 million 40. We're going to be using some EBALR. We're probably going to use some capital reserves for buses. Our ERS and TRS will be strategically used as well. And so, unemployment if claims do come through. Here's a pie slide for the folks that like these things. As you can see, New York State Aid is at 50% of our aid. Local taxes are 32%. All other reserves or and or just revenues are about 4% to 6%. >> And I think this slide really highlights you know, we get we really rely on our state aid. A lot of districts our size do. And, you know, as the as the state ends up giving, you know, typically 1%, but they keep talking about pulling that back for based on actual
030enrollment cuz right now they they those aid projections are based off like projections from 20 25 years ago when we were at some of our higher numbers. So, we keep trying to advocate at the state level for, you know, keeping the state aid, keeping those evaluations. Um, you know, and then our responsibility on the district side is to find those savings. Look to see how we can be more responsible for those dollars. But, you know, this is, you know, very when we were actually showing this type of slide to the students earlier today, and they had great questions around, you know, how do you provide savings? You know, and Miguel has talked about like state aid, building a transportation aid. You know, every dollar we spend at BOCES, we get back 47 and a half
031percent. Which is relatively, you know, for our BOCES, we're one of the lower ones. A district like Newfield gets back 76 and a half percent, or approximately there. So, depending on your, you know, the district's combined wealth ratio, and in other other factors, kind of goes into that, but we have some opportunity to find those savings. And like we're actually able to do some of our purchasing directly through BOCES, and at state contract prices. So, we're we're working hard to make those dollars go as far as possible. >> All right. So, now that we have spoken about the revenue side, we're going to be talking about the expenditure. 25-26, again, it's a 28,213,993. The proposed budget coming out next next Tuesday for the voters to vote on, 29,391,320. That equivalent to 4.17% increase budget to
032budget. In next slide, we present the proposed budget in the three categories that New York State requires to to present. One of them is the administration, the second one is capital, and the third one is program. Um These are the expenses compared to this 26-27 to 25-26. Um As you can see that for the administration, it decreased by 13,496. Capital increased to 741,730. That's really uh direct by the geothermal uh debt service increase that we have to put in the books, which is our reserve that we have to pay that debt. And total programs went up uh a little uh shy of 500,000 compared to last year. Total budget increase 1.1 million, 4.17%. >> And just to build off what he was saying, so our budget increase is, you know, with the geothermal my Cerritos
033project is part of it, but what we're asking from taxpayers is not increased. The that approximately million dollars uh that the budget increased, that is specific for our debt service reserve and our capital reserve for capital projects. The money can only be spent on those things, but we still have to account for it directly in the budget. So, because it's still an expenditure, that's the Like we still the money still has to go out from the district, so we have to account for it. But that part of the budget came specific from reserves that were specifically allocated for those purposes. So, we want to just make sure cuz we make sure to say in the presentation that there's no additional impact because if that money that's allocated came from money that we already had. >>
034Here's the pie chart for the 2026-2027 budget. Uh administration makes up 12% of the total budget, capital at 20%, and program at 68. >> The program is specific, like that's those are the things that directly impact it. That's staffing, like athletics, curriculum money, like all of those things make up program. Capital is your is our is the maintenance, our facilities, our like all of the things around those pieces. And then administration is exactly what it sounds like. It's all the Yeah. That's where all the cost of administrator salaries and all the the runnings of the district go into those pieces. >> Legal, insurance, all the things that make up for the district expenses. Uh capital also has the buses in there. So, um So, just so you know a little bit about what makes up
035those numbers. All right. This slide right here maybe Kyle can help me out explaining it. >> Yeah, so this is actually uh a really good indicator of of what we were just talking about with like the the geothermal project and how the money is allocated. So, we said in part of that project, "No additional tax impact." At some point, years and years ago, probably 20 plus years ago, there would have been some sort of tax impact for a project. I couldn't tell you the year. I don't I don't I haven't looked back that far. But for sev- a long time, even before Mr. Zelinsky's time, the district has had part of the budget a $400,000 local share that they've that we've kept steady for a long time. And that's particular money is to offset any
036of the debt service related to projects over the years. You've probably noticed there's been a capital project vote every 3 to 5 years for a long time. That $400,000 has been has kept that to be no additional tax impact whenever possible. So, if you look here, the blue is is the debt for for any of the projects. The orange is how much money how much aid we get from the state. So, the difference the difference is the 400,000. So, this is 400,000. Where it's skinnier, this is where some of the debt drops off so we don't owe you know, so there hasn't been that collection of 400,000. We that's where we add to the capital reserves and things like that. So, here where it goes back up, it did go up because of the geothermal.
037That's us spending on debt service, but this is the expected state aid. The difference there is that $400,000 that we've budgeted for and allocated specifically um as our local share. So, Oh, I broke it. Why did I listen to your stupid Okay, there you go. There you go. I don't I don't know. So, that that last slide was just that indicator. That spacing between it it shows here's your debt service and then the orange line is this is how much state aid we get. Because for our projects, we get approximately 82% um of the money returned in state aid um on what we spend. And the the thing that helped us out with the NYSERDA project specifically was we also got an additional six and six million plus that offset that even more. So, us
038coming out of pocket for um with the debt service reserve and the capital reserve made it so it's able to be fully funded over the life of of the project. >> And the line down here is your local share. As you can see, it stays steady over the years. Uh the jump is because of the advisory inclusion. It was about here at this level before the vote. Now because of the vote, we have to go and increase that level. >> And here would have been the bus garage, right? >> No, it was more for the business. >> Oh, the bus Okay. >> Because it just came out of the the debt that we paid off, and now we're going to increase it up again. >> So it's part of it's going up for the bus
039garage, the steps up again, and then in within the next couple years, it'll drop off again. And so this is you know, like So in order for us to keep our districts in good shape and be able to keep up with the maintenance with new projects, you know, we try to maintain some level of debt um so we can keep up on the work because if emergency projects um you know, for example, when the the roof of the gym blew off a couple years ago, that was an emergency million-dollar project. We did get to claim it on our insurance, but then our insurance went up by $30,000 a year. Or just uh the claim >> Yeah. >> the claim cost. So we're we used to be at like $10,000 a claim, it went up to
040>> Say like $50,000. >> $50,000. So deductible as our deductible. So we went out, we shopped our insurance to get a better rate and we get a better deductible. So it's it's this kind of long game, but we need to make sure that we're maintaining our buildings. Obviously, the original part of this building is 1938. It's not getting any younger. So we need to keep being able to maintain these properties. Okay, so changing gears on the next slide here, we're talking about town town tax rates. Again, the only actual number that is concrete is the levy. What goes into this calculation are tax equalization or equalization rates from the state, which are not final as of today and won't be final until June 30th, and the assessments. And those assessments happen at end sometime around
041July. By August, the first meeting in August, we should have uh the tax rates locked in. You know, with all those figures completed, and then we can finally come to the board and the board will approve the levy, and then we can start sending this information to our print shop to start printing tax bills. All right. So, right now, only 25 26, you should have seen these in your tax bills, if you remember. These right here, you may or may not, these are estimates. But, compared to them, we're seeing a 19 cent increase for the town of Cover, 46 cents across Lodi, Ovid, and Romulus. And Hector is going up 27 cents, and that's to 11.76 per thousand. >> Yeah, and each year we try to talk about the equalization rate. That is the the
042state's view of what percent of your home's value you pay in taxes. So, they're saying that the town of Cover is assessed as fully assessed. They're saying all the Cover homes, what they say for the assessment is full value, where they're saying in Lodi, Ovid, and Romulus that you know, you're paying taxes on what they claim is 42% of of the value or of the assessment value. So, you know, that's what makes the you know, there's that ratio in there that makes that come up. So, if if there has been a reassessment, if there things like that would make that number actually go down, the price per thousand. >> So, a little bit examples about what uh Carl just explained about the uh the tax rates and the equalization rates. As you heard, we already
043had you can see a tax assessment done. So, they're 100% uh their houses are valued by New York State's eyes to be those values. But somewhere in Lowville, there's a $100,000 house that New York State says, "No, your house is actually valued at this." So, uh you you're going to be getting a bigger chunk of the taxes coming to you. Um again, all these are just estimates as of today. They're not 100% they're done they're finalized by June 30th. That's when they come out. Um I'll update my formulas. And then when the assessments come out in in July uh by the different towns, I'll reach out to them and I'll get the information from them and put them in the formula. And then by the first meeting in August, the board should have the levy
044ready. Uh the amount doesn't change it's just what the tax rate and how the levy is going to be spreading around the towns, the five towns. Right? And here's some uh around the block estimated rates. Um I went with uh similar size districts enrollment wise. Uh but then again, I included this for New Scotland just because of the locality. Uh you can see that we're 8.77 true value. Um Surprise, Lowville went up to 9.28. That's what the SBA told me that. But again, these are estimates, you know? So, um some of these might not be finalized, but I just wanted to point out where we we always hover around the bottom line of the tax rate around uh, the area. Um, the highest one is Manunda. Uh, Lansing is up there with Seneca Falls and
045Romulus. And we share uh, spot with Romulus and Red Creek. All right, we have to talk about what if the budget gets voted down? Again, I like I explained in my other meeting, uh, we have a few choices, right? We can uh, propose the same budget, resubmit, go to a second vote. Uh, we'll do this all over again, the budget hearing. Uh, I don't think the board members need to talk again or the candidates, but whatever. Um, you know, we have to present it again, go through the motions on June 9th, and then vote on June 16th. Another choice that we can do is propose a revised budget, um, with certain changes, present it to the to to in the budget hearing for June 9th, and and have a vote for June 16th. Or just
046go to contingency budget per the board's permission and and adoption, uh, which means tax levy increase that we saw a few slides ago will go away. We can't increase the levy more than last year. And uh, we probably will have to find cuts of 789,875. For that contingency, there's no vote needed like I explained, the board just directs the superintendent go to contingency, and then we go to contingency. So, what does that look like? Uh, on the left-hand side is the regular proposed budget that we're going at, 29,391, 4.17% budget-to-budget increase at a tax uh, increase of 2.26. Um, on the right-hand side is the contingency budget. That number comes out of 28 million 601,000 at 1.37% budget to budget comparison. Tax levy, zero. We can use We lose the 210,540 calculation in the tax
047cap that we calculated that we can go above. That goes away. Uh and then on top of that we need to figure out where we can get 579,325 off the budget. All right? That could mean eliminating equipment purchases. Uh you know, the capital outlay we have to look at. Uh leases, buses. For buses if we can uh certain uh supplies might need to be trimmed back down. Salaries will also need to be looked at. Certain agreements uh not bound by a bargaining agreement could be kept at the same level, not cut, but just no increases. >> Uh actually, I want to speak more to the proposed budget. So, other it says maintain current staffing and programming plan. Um if you listen to the board meetings, we've talked about um the possibility of restructuring a the
048library positions um and possibly reducing down to one. So, I would say this, it it it is ongoing. So, it like we have some other personnel related items that um if they come to fruition, then we have full intent to keep two librarians for for the school year. Um I believe it to be a very good possibility, but um it'll kind of unfold in the next couple weeks, but you know, our goal is anytime we have to reduce staff, it is through attrition. Um you know, we've uh we've just recently had our high school principal take a new position. We have now rehired the high school position. Um we're working on restructuring the administrative team. Um and we're looking at those positions across the district. So, it's like we we do not want to reduce
049by any current staff. We want to do it by attrition, and I believe we'll be able to do that and maintain two two librarians for the 2026-2027 school year. >> All right, next we're going to be talking about the propositions coming up. Proposition number one is for the the budget approval of 29,391,320. And our proposition number two is to elect three members to the board for a three-year term commencing July 1st, 2026. Proposition number three is for the purchases of up to one bus and one and then in total of 300,000 and where the funding can come from either the reserves or fund balance. Um And the last one is for the libraries. We're bound to collect taxes for the library. This is not something that we propose. It's just a collect on top of
050it. And we turn around and once the collection finishes in November, around November 15th, once we've reconciled everything there, usually the libraries will reach out and say, you know, you know, send the check and and we do. And we send the checks right away because everybody needs to be, you know, accounted for. So, as soon as that happens in in the beginning of December, we send out the money for that collection. To finalize the presentation, just want to remind the vote is happening next Tuesday in Interlaken campus in the auditorium from 1:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. Signs will be out. It's clearly marked, so we'll be using the the not be in through the main entrance of the elementary. It'll be through the um I think you go right into the auditorium. So. >> Yeah,
051at this time Oh, at this time we'll happily take questions. Donna? >> I have a question. In the beginning of the presentation, I saw a spot that um said there's um negotiations happening. >> Yes. >> But there was no It didn't seem like there was any placeholder value assigned to that. >> So, there was what in >> Is there Is that somewhere that I In a different spot? >> So, >> Nothing. Can you go back to >> No, I'm looking at I I There was There was a spot that he had mentioned. >> That SSTA and DETAC are in negotiations. >> Yeah, cuz what the one slide in the beginning I didn't get a picture of cuz it was hard to see. I was trying to zoom in. It didn't have a placeholder value, so
052I wanted to make sure >> Yeah, so We have We have accounted for, you know, just kind of uh a placeholder value for So, it's it's all part of the the programming. >> We're still in negotiations, so uh that information is included in the budget. >> Oh. Thank you. >> Yes. >> I am here as a concerned um district resident. Um hang with me. I'm going to come to the budget issue at the end, but I want to preface that with a few items. We're really blessed in this school district, as has already been stated, to have a very good student-teacher ratio. Students get lunches. get breakfast. There's no hunger issue. I understand that certain supplies are given across the board to students so that there isn't a sense of students feeling left out because
053so and so has things that I don't have. From my perspective, you have a lovely facility, even if it is a bit aged. You also have a wonderful athletic field. Um however, I am concerned when I hear about the proficiency levels within the school. Quite frankly, I find them appalling. I mean, 30% for elementary, I find that really sad. It's better for secondary, but it's still nothing to be terribly proud of. And so, my question is, as a taxpayer and facing the budget next week, why should I have confidence knowing that my property tax has increased 17% this past year, why should I have confidence that if I vote for this year's school budget, that the money will be used effectively to improve core student proficiencies? Therein lies my question. >> It's a really good
054question. And I would say if you looked at our proficiency levels from so, last year when we initially got designated as a targeted school and need better intervention. Um from last spring scores increased over the previous year. Given, they were bad. We had no place to go but up. Yes. >> gone from really, really bad to just really bad. It's still bad. >> But it's we're working towards trying to get towards good. Right? So, right I agree with you. The scores are bad, but we have to start somewhere. We We've made some changes. We actually received targeted school intervention funds. So, this year we intervene uh was the first year of our new reading curriculum in the elementary. We're anticipating seeing increased scores based out of that. Uh we are on the list again, right?
055Because our scores haven't been good. Next year, so we got $200,000 uh from the state for the 25-26 school year. Next year, we're we'll get It's like 209,000. So, we've started working on purchasing the math curriculum. And we're working on going up through eighth grade for both of those. So, we're working on that curricular piece to put solid, consistent curriculum in because part of it um part of the analysis that was done was there wasn't a consistent There wasn't consistent programming across the grades. Where now we have curriculum in place and our our administrators are working on, you know, ensuring fidelity across the buildings. So, >> And we're using the full amount of the the state aid United States federal fund of Title I. So, that rate of return is better than both of these,
056although we are using both of these funds in these purchases because it's 100%. We We can reimbursed by New York State 100% of what we spend. So, right now there's a plan and the middle school is almost towards the end of their first year and the middle school, too. So, uh the funding is being allocated accordingly to where the need is um and we're getting that money back. So, that's my part. >> I I will say, Susan, I I 100% agree with your analysis and I think that's kind of where my frustration comes a little bit, as well, especially with um some candidates being heavy on the adult adult adult and forgetting the student student student. Um I have I'm a lifelong resident, born and bred here, you know, born and bred my child here.
057Um but it the school that I loved and grew up with is not here. And that's really hard for me, as well, because I see my son not receiving the same education I received, not being held accountable in the same way that I was held accountable because of this. And that's a really big concern, I think, for a lot of us um voters is that it the emphasis on the education piece is not there. Um and how can we um Like I think it it does go like that to to Susan. How do we How do we see this reflected in the budget? What are you doing to implement new things to accommodate the lower standards to raise them up? Because it's not I I don't think it is working. I don't think even like,
058you know, from going from really bad to bad, I don't think is going because we got to really bad. So, how are we fixing that and how is that in this budget? >> We just answered that same type of question. Right? Like this I would say from the point that we were on the list is let's say really bad, we've got a new elementary principal. Now we have a new secondary principal, we have a new superintendent. Like we're collectively working at that. It It takes time. So, I understand your concern concern with the confidence of that, but it does take time. We are leveraging those state funds towards new curriculum that you know, like you've seen the budget, there wasn't a specific spot that called out curriculum. We're utilizing these state funds to leverage that
059so we don't have to take away experiences in other places. We are working with consultants. We're We're We're doing all these you know, we're utilizing all the resources we can to help bring that experience up. We're still trying to provide opportunity experiences to a very rural community that doesn't have a lot of opportunity, right? Like we don't have a grocery store out here. You don't There's a lot of things that our community has to travel 30 minutes just to to get food, just to get, you know, other resources. And even just to travel, you have to go 30 minutes just to get access to the places. So, I would say it's it's going to be a long process. And I think once we get back, you know, this year's test scores in the fall, we'll
060see that a more steady increase. Now that we've had a couple year Now that we've had a steady year of everybody going in the same direction. >> So, when you say you see it being long lasting, you yourself you project that this could take how long to get um proficiency levels up to a satisfactory level? >> I think you can only make so much growth within a year. I don't think >> I I I understand that. I'm asking you to sell. What are you envisioning? >> Well, we haven't done our spring benchmark testing to see where we were in the fall to where we are in the spring. So, I would say I don't necessarily have a great answer for that, but we are hoping to have that data collected in the next few weeks
061because we're we're almost to June. So, that data will start to be collected within the next couple of >> That's not the question. The question is you as an individual as the superintendent, as you look at your students now, what are you When are you hoping that they will arrive at a level that is well, where they should be. Are you thinking 5 years? Are you thinking 10 years? What are you thinking? >> I I hope it's within 5 years. Like I think you know, I think it takes multiple years in a consistent program to really have success and to show growth. So, I would believe you know, we'll start seeing that each year and within 5 years we'll see significant growth. Any other questions? Thank you all for coming to the budget hearing. A
062reminder, the vote is next week um on the 19th from 1 to 8:00 p.m. in the Interlake campus auditorium. Thank you so much. >> Thank you very much.