001All right, it's 6:30. We'll go ahead and get started. Uh, I'm Kyle Colunio, superintendent of schools. Uh, welcome to the South Senica Central School District budget hearing for the 2526 budget. Uh, at this time, please stand for the pledge of allegiance. [Music] I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Uh before we get started with the hearing, uh we always allow the candidates to come up and make statements. Um we will go in alphabetical order. Uh we have one person in attendance, so we'll bring up Mr. Dan Borst. microphone. I was told that you should use the microphone. [Music] Okay. Hello everyone. Uh I stand before you with an immense
002gratitude for the opportunity to serve on the South Senica School Board during the past term. It has been a true privilege to work alongside our dedicated educators, staff, families, and community members to foster a thriving learning environment for our students. Together, we've made meaningful progress. We've strengthened academic programs, supported the mental health and well-being of our students, and invested in professional development opportunities for all staff, not just teachers, because every member of our team contributes to student success. I am also proud of how we've handled our finances. South Senica has maintained some of the lowest annual budget increases in the region. That's no small thing. It shows our commitment to being fiscally responsible while still meeting the needs of our students in schools. I'm not just a board member. I'm a lifelong resident of the
003district. I'm a South Senica graduate and I'm a local business owner. This community is my home and I care deeply about its future. That's why I've never been afraid to ask the tough questions or take a stand when it matters. Even when it's uncomfortable or unpopular, I will always be a strong and honest voice for those who elect me. Whether you agree with me or challenge me, I will always make time to listen because every voice in our community matters. Together, let's continue to build a bright, inclusive future for South Cica. I don't take this responsibility lightly. I will continue to show up, speak up, and stand up for what's right, even when it's not easy. Your trust means everything to me, and I will work every day to earn it. I humbly ask for
004your support and your vote for another term on the South Senica School Board. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Um, you know, when we put the budget together this year, it was it was really my first time, you know, stepping into the role of the superintendency and, you know, getting to work with Miguel Andrade, our business official. And it was really such a collaborative process uh from from top to bottom. It felt like there was so much input and you know it really made me realize what goes into it at this level and it really I felt like brought to the forefront what South Senica cares about. Um in addition just looking at all the student opportunities it really I felt like we could see where those funds were going. Um, you know, our goal
005is to present this final version today, uh, and really take a look at the budget that was created in conjunction uh, with the board of education and the administration. Um, you know, in January we had our initial aid runs of our of the foundation aid and it looked as though we were getting, you know, it the projection was an increase of $700,000 in foundation aid and the final runs just came out last week and it came up just shy of that. we we were within just a few thousand dollars of that which was was beneficial to us um and really made it so this finalized budget has no significant changes um from the last uh from the adopted budget or really no changes at all. We were able to uh make all of that still
006happen. Um this year it was a little bit of a surprise of that much of an increase. You know at last year's budget hearing you heard Mr. Zalinsky say that Save Harmless was likely going away uh in the coming year. Uh it it's still here. You know, it makes the the next budget cycle a little bit of the unknown. Um but, you know, we will find out more in January when we get our next, you know, the following year's initial runs. And we're certainly keeping our eye on it. We're making sure we check the viability of all of our empty positions before we fill it. you know, just trying to maintain that fiscal responsibility that we've worked so hard to get to this point. Um, at this time, I'm going to bring up uh Miguel
007Andrade, our school business administrator, um, to present the budget. Thank you, Kyle. Thanks everybody for coming. Um, it's been a long journey. Um, and we're finally here at the budget hearing. And the purpose of this hearing is to present the district's proposed budget to voters prior to the vote. Um, most of these slides you probably are seen before. There's a couple that are new. Uh as uh Kyle mentioned uh state A runs came out uh recently and we were just a little shy about what we have projected that we were going to get. Uh no harm done. We make we made it work. Uh we're still within the same number and if nothing changes. Uh and we're just going to go through the hearing right now. Uh so people here and whoever's watching um or
008watches it afterwards uh can understand what are we proposing. So just uh spending some time on the current expenditure conditions of South Senica. Um I know we just had a capital um buildings and grounds uh meeting. So some of you may know about the uh the project or the proposed corridor door fire doors work that is going to be done next year. This is part of the $100,000 capital outlay we allocate every year. Um jump into contractual obligations. These are the mostly collectible bargaining agreements. We have to go by them. We have the board has approved those. So we have to go and project those increases in our budget. Related to those contractual obligations comes the benefit side TRS ERS and health insurance. And you can see that the TRS and ERS is projected to
009be an increase from 10% to 16%. And health insurance will going to stay steady at 675. We're part of a co-op, so that helps uh mitigate the cost. Uh although 6% is is pretty pretty pretty big in a health insurance consortion, uh it has stayed steady. Uh and it hasn't fluctuated as much and that's the whole point of uh being in a co-op. Debt service payments, that's the key point that I want to point out this presentation. It it increased from 1.2 million to 2.1 million. Um and at the same time, so did our revenue. So uh we're going to see later in the slides that uh although the expense size or the principal and interest payments will go up for 2526 the building aid portion of it um will compensate for that increase as
010well. We just have to present it because we have to budget for it. Well and I think it's important to note um at last year's budget hearing you know it the number was presented that it was lowering to the 1.2 million from 3 something million. So, you know, there is kind of an eb and flow to the debt service and so we're while it goes up, it's we're not up to where we were previously. No, we're not. Definitely not. Um Okay. Uh just pointing out fuel prices, which we consider uh $2.4 to 39 uh4 a gallon and our current year expenditure is at 26,124,000. I mean, the school district feels those costs of electric and gas the same way that, you know, our taxpayers do. And it we've we've even, you know, since we've started
011the budgeting process, we've gotten some updated numbers that have really led to, you know, those higher projections. And it's not just us. Every district out there is going through the same um you know looking at their expenses related to insurance, electric, fuel, diesel um and adjusting accordingly um out there. Now let's uh let's talk about some revenues. So as Kyle mentioned of the state a runs came out uh we're staying at a 2% foundation in increase. There are uh increases in Bosey's aid and transportation aid and of course debt service. That's a big jump because of building aid. Our interest rates are currently at 4.2 to 525%. Still good time to invest in the long term and that's what we're taking advantage of. Um property tax cap for this year in year 14 of the
012tax cap is 2.29%. CPI uh is 295. And the reason why that's there is because uh when we figure out the tax cap, one of the eight calculation or one of the eight formulas that we have to use is this tax cap. We we in the past you could use CPI which was depending on what uh the region or the country was experiencing in inflation. Um or you could use the 2% now. So it's either or. And if and when um inflation goes down on the 2% then we'll use that number. So right now we're using the 2% and you've been seeing 2% because the inflation has been above 2%. But I remember at one point it was below 2%. Believe it or not look back and we have to by law we have to
013use that lower number. So can it happen? Probably. Uh but not now. Now we're using the 2%. and we're going to rely on the appropriated and reserves to balance our budget. All right. So, this is just a little overview about the New York State budget that just passed. um uh slat out $254 billion in um New York State aid for schools which includes education, housing, I'm sorry, 24 254 billion increase for education, housing, healthcare, public safety, and environmental. Uh some of the foundation aid highlights are listed here. U some of the formulas that were used in the past were not going to be used anymore. uh they're proposing to use uh something called S AIP and economic disadvantage data instead of the census and the free and reduced lunch data that we used to use
014before. Um there's a share ratio that is also being proposed by uh the governor and was accepted and uh the minimum 2% increase uh that the governor um proposed was accepted by uh the legislative. Again, the budget runs came out on May 7th and um again, like Kyle mentioned, we didn't see any any effect on it. So, we stay with the numbers and stay the course. And we really do feel fortunate on the uh the number that we came in at. You know, I know that there's other districts that are of similar demographic that didn't that didn't receive the aid that we did. So, we we're feeling pretty lucky in that regard. Everything is steady so far. Yes. Um, other highlights, I don't want to spend too much time on it, but I do want
015to mention a universal access meals was accepted. Sir remission bus transition process possibly it's going to be a four-year extension on that. Uh, the retiree salary cap waiver, it's extended for another two years. That was supposed to end June 30th. And there's the Belltoell internet uh device ban which is included. And we looked at these u these proposals approvals just because of the cost effect later on. We need to consider them for the future um when we develop our budget. [Music] So what so what is our plan? Um so maintain the 2425 budget projections go at the tax levy of 2.29% 29% pre- purchase any 2526 items uh from the 2425 remaining remaining contingency budget if possible. Uh we're looking at you know some um some fees and some um taxes that are going to
016be applied tariffs there my god some tariffs that might apply to some of these products going forward. So that has made us uh you know have a conversation with the principles. The principles are going to have a conversation with the uh teachers and just project what is it that we can uh prevent from paying too much next year. Let's consider that this year. Let's talk about it. It's something that it's in our minds. Um well and we have the ability to do you know bulk b uh bulk ordering through our local doies and things like that. So, we're just trying to make sure we leave no stone unturned in making sure we can get the the most bang for our buck, the most savings we can get um as we as we get ready to
017purchase. Yeah, definitely. Um we'll continue to use federal funds when appropriate. Uh we continue to monitor the market for investments opportunities. We do that all the time. Uh we'll update our three-year plan going forward. uh strategically use our reserves and fund balance accordingly. Just to remind you, on June 26, our last meeting of of the year, I will come to you with a proposed uh numbers to use for the reserves that were authorized in last year's budget to use. Um I'll show you the slide in the next slide. I'll show you what we're proposing for next year. This year we had a similar proposal. um numbers are coming in, expenses are finalizing, ers, eblar, retirement, uh those numbers are popping in. So um I'll come to you with a number and amount and explanation as
018to why we want to tap into these reserves to to compensate uh for the expenses in this year. Uh but for next year, we do the same thing. We'll actually look at those and plan accordingly. Any additional state aid revenue uh not in the projections will be used uh to fund appropriated fund balance. And of course we'll review uh the department budget to actual expenses to better uh predict what the expense for the future years are going to [Music] be. So here's the revenue budget side. Um New York State 8 uh there is an increase of 1.2 2 million overall. Uh we're going to keep that. Local taxes, we're going at 28,000 increase because of the 2.29%. Uh all other revenues, we're increasing to 1.8 million, 650,000 from last year. And of course, uh appropriated
019fund balance and reserves accordingly are going to be increasing to compensate for the budget. uh the reserve the 1.1 million. You can see that uh down there that I'm proposing that we budget 170 from Eblar capital buses the 130,000 on top of the 400,000 that we have budgeted. We are authorized uh per the voters if the both passes to go up to that amount to purchase uh transportation ERS and TRS accordingly and liability. Um, again, on the last meeting in June, I will come to you and I will say we're going to have to use Eblard of $60,000. I'm just making up numbers. Um, ERS, we're going to go $400,000. You know, like I'll come to you and I say this is what the expense this is what the bill came for. It's a good
020idea to use our reserves, our savings for these expenses. So, that's what that meeting is for. We're going to have questions in there. we'll answer them and we'll get through um all the other ones depending on what it is. Um insurance liability is one of those that is is a good one. I mean you remember we had an issue with with the roof and there might have been a deductible amount. Well, we were in the old insurance policy then and our deductible is very very very low that it's no point to use research for that. Luckily this year we haven't had any. And next year it used to be what $10,000? No, it was $2,000. It was $2,000. Our deductible is now going up to $25,000. So, it's a significant cost to where a reserve
021like this would make it appropriate that we would be able to use it if we were to have another insurance claim in the future. Yeah. Yeah. You know, the number of claims, not the amount of money that it's per claim. Anyway, the uh 26 the 2526 budget amounts to 28,213,000, an 8% increase from the previous year. Next, we're going to look at the breakdown. And just to point out, New York State Aid accounts for 51% of our revenue and their local taxes is 33%. Appropriated and appropriated reserves are 8% in total. Although the revenues are 6%, debt service 2%. Moving on to the expenditures, uh there's the 8% increase from last year. Last year 26,124, this year 28,213. I do want to remind the uh folks present that uh there was a decrease of 2.76%
022last year from budget to budget. This year it's an increase of 8%. Last year was 276 as you mentioned Kyle. There was a decrease in the amount of the budget in total. Well, and you know, while there's an 8% increase in in expenditures, right, in the the spending of the budget, that doesn't mean that the 8% goes is the responsibility of taxpayers, right? Yep. This is where the tax levy comes in, you know, so the taxes are actually increasing by the 2.29%. Sorry, in the previous slide we presented that um the total change um might have gone too far 1.2 million 07 um big number from there is the the building aid the building aid is is accounted for in that 0.2 2 million. That's why the increase is substantially higher because of that's where
023the building aid is is recorded. Do you know how much of that 1.2 million is the building? Uh I think about a million dollars too. Sorry. Yep. All right. So by law we have to present the budget in these three categories. administration, total capital, total program. Administration accounts for uh about $271,000 of uh of an increase to 33,428,000. Capital uh went up to 5,216,000. And program u it's going to,569 for an overall increase of uh 2,89,000 or 8% from prior years. Um, and you can see the million in the capital section because of the principal and interest payments that we have to pay. Here's a chart, a pie chart about what our expenditures look like or proposed expenditures for next year. 12% is administration, 19% is capital, 69% is for program. Now this slide right
024here uh represents debt service only debt service as you can see uh for from 2122 22 23 and 20 324 our principal payments were was hovering around 3.5 million our aid was about 3.1 million leaving a local share of about 400,000 that's the bottom line there the green light uh that's the local share and as you can see uh our budgeting, our discussions with our adviserss. Uh our key is any new debt uh that we take on or any construction uh that we propose and we are going to take that on that construction should not affect the the local share. And as you can see as of 2425 the number is 387,000. Although we did see a decrease in principle and interest but you also saw a decrease in the revenue. Now for 2526 you
025see a smaller jump but still a jump regardless um of the principal the blue line and the building aid the orange line but the green line stays the same. That's pretty important that you understand or folks understand we're keeping it level uh throughout all these years and future years as well. Yep. Does anybody have any questions about this slide? Okay. Okay. Estimated town taxes rates. Um very very estimates, very rough estimates. Um and these haven't come in yet from the tax assessor. No. So we just have to present something something that we're projecting. Um you can see the tax rates there for covert are at $13.90. Loi, oid, and rulers were projecting at $20.55 per thousand assess and Hector at 1249. You can see the changes to the right uh from anywhere 30 32 cents,
02646 cents, and 28 cents from the prior year. Our true tax rate at 100% of our property will be 9.8 65. And that equalization is what actually help what makes it change. That's the percentage of what the state is saying that a a residence or property is assessed at. So if they're saying that um covert is assessed at 71% of the actual value um that's why it's more because it's not at 100% that's why it's more than the $98 uh 87 per thousand. Um and the same with the other ones. It's it's the state's way to try to say uh this is what it should be and the equalization rate makes it so it it makes up that difference. Um but that is not it's it's not a South Senica calculation. It's a state calculation.
027And here it's just the same examples um that we we can use uh home value at covert equalization rate is 71 in the state eyes that property should be 140,000 uh load eye assessed at 140,000 load $100,000 home they're saying no it's supposed to be 28,000 um per New York state using that calculation or equalization This slide right here represents just uh what's out there uh for tax rates uh for true value. You can see South Senica and Rumblings are neck and neck. Uh but the other town I mean the other districts in the various counties range from anywhere from $20.64. That's this is true value. This is before their own equalization rates. $20.64 64 cent for sodas all the way to Trumansburg at $13.60. Uh again, Romel is $9.64, Newfield 1578 and 1587 for
028Grten. Senica Falls 1642. Okay. So, the budget comes in and it's voted down. What happens then? Well, we get to work. uh the administration will get to work and uh keeping in mind that the uh that the budget is made up of expenses necessary to provide a minimum legally require services to operate and maintain school buildings and education programs, preserve the property of the districts and ensure the health and safety of the students. We can either propose or come out with the same budget, same number, resubmit for a second vote, and on June 14, we'll do it all over again. We'll do a presentation. June 17th will be the vote. We can go back to the drawing boards and propose a revised uh budget uh with attainable tax levy increases. Um and no capital outlay
029or certain expenses will will move out and go through the same motion. June 14 uh budget hearing June 17 vote or the third option is to go and adopt contingency budget tax. That would mean a tax levy increase of $0 uh which includes a $936,000 possible cut to the budget. And for that one, for that choice, there's no vote needed. We can go straight to contingency. the board can authorize for us to go to straight to contingency. So this is what it looks like on the left hand side. Everything uh the vote passes and everything is uh it's ordered ready to go. 8% increase budget to budget 229 tax cap levy. Um maintain the current staff. We purchase our equipment that we uh projected to purchase continue to use the facilities and classrooms. supplies. If
030we go to contingency, the new number will be 27,277,847. That's still a 4.42 uh budget-to-budget increase. And you can see that 442 has to do pretty much with um building aid and the debt. So, out of the 8%, you can see pretty much oh, you know, like it's it that's what that accounts that's on. Oh, you you're not we're not touching that. uh you you have a debt and you have building a cover it the 4% well I'm sorry the 400,000 local share that stays the same we pay our debt every every every year um but we do have to go on a tax lady at zero which means the $28,000 increase that we're going to propose for next year uh goes out uh we got to go down to zero or last year's levy
031my bad um and uh we can have to cut uh we have to make cuts through uh ordinary contingency expenses. Um then the leftover uh amount 727,000 has to come out of administration and program cuts. Those are called non-contingency expenses. Um and we have to eliminate those. Um what what does that mean? Uh when we do those eliminations, we have to look at computers, science equipment, musical instruments, maintenance, uh other type of equipment. All those equipment goes out. We we won't purchase any trucks. We won't purchase any any buses. We won't purchase anything that is equipment wise. Um other than that, uh any leases, uh certain supplies, uh the capital outlay, we'll have to the court of the doors will have to wait. And again, that's the one that you look at like is it
032really a safety concern? Do we need to then it's a it's allowable. If it's not, it can wait another year. We can fix it. We can repair it. That's the way to go. Um salary increases for management and confidential civil service employees not covered by a collector bar bargain agreement can be at the same level as last year. So no increase um for those folks. Everybody else that is a collector of bargaining agreement we must uh uh respect the increase and pay those out. Does anybody have any questions about the contingency budget section or anything else? All right, our propositions. All right. Number one, uh, is for the voters to approve a 28,213,993 proposed budget and assess the levy accordingly. Proposition number two will be to elect two board members to the board for a
033three-year term commencing July 1st, 2025. Proposition number three is for the board to be authorized to purchase uh transportation um motor vehicles. Um could be it could mean up to three buses and one van and the amount cannot be more than 530,000. Monies can be budgeted and or extended from the reserves. Number four is for the creation of a uh capital reserve for school bus replacements. Uh they always they only run for 10 years. The last one you you authorized and was approved was 10 years ago, 2015. So now it's up uh for renewal. There's this is essentially just the the one has ran its course over the the last 10 years. uh we've used those funds as needed and then we're to the point now where we have to reauthorize the the $2 million
034uh trans reserve for the uh primary focus of transportation and it these have to happen every 10 years. So it it's just time to to reup this is not a new process to the voters. This is just the next term and the funding of it is authorized to be up to 200,000 a year and that money comes from anything left over from unused funds at the end of the year and I will come to you for some authorizations um the first week in the first meeting in June. uh that just puts a little plate out plate there that says you know can we max out the capital reserves um you know 500,000 usually that's the only one that I do but there might be depending on where we're landing uh there might be others but
035those are just to give us the authorizations to put money in there we can't do it after June 30th that is why it has to be done before that after June 30th uh we can be it needs to go into the appropriated fund balance and depending on where we land it might push us over the 4% that is the limit that we can keep. So that is why we prepare uh in June just to say if we get extra amount of money we could put it in this reserve or that reserve. So we usually do capital projects and the last proposition is for the library uh 267,000 in total split between the interl loi and the fourth memorial libraries at 89,000 each. And this is that money that comes out of the school budget. We
036just post it on our ballot um of the voters um do you know your ability to be able to support the library or not or not support the library in the first week in December once the books are closed uh we turn around and we give a check to the folks uh to the three libraries. vote was happening on May 20th from 1 to 8:00 p.m. in the middle school lower cafeteria. I'll be there and so will Shellyley. Kyle will be hovering around there checking out everything. Um, that's all I have. Uh, does anybody have any questions? Brochures are here. Uh, they should have been in the shop already. I did hear some people did get them. Always worry about that shopper. Oh, okay. Um but um they're a good partner, you know. Yes, they
037are. They're they're they're just Yeah. Um but we have them. All of my shoppers, all the great We have uh in all the buildings uh in the entrances, we have the budget statements that we're required by law to provide. We have the brochures and both are in the on the website uh on the the business uh office website. Are you Kristen? So we did statements at the beginning. Did you want to come up and make a statement? Yeah. Thank you very much. No, you're all right. So I'll just introduce. Uh so we have board of education candidate Kristen Perry. So, I think I know most of the people in this room, but um after being in the school for the last 16 years, I figured it was time now that one is out and I
038only have two. So, I like working in the school. I like working with the teachers. I like paying attention to what my kids are doing and knowing what's going on. So I think I have a unique perspective of my kids are in involved in everything like everything. So I see and know what goes on in all the different aspects of the school. So I think that makes me uniquely qualified to do this. Thank you. Before we conclude the hearing, are there any questions about the budget that that Miguel and I could answer? All right, that will conclude our our budget hearing for the year. Thank you very much.