School Board Meeting - 04/13/2026

001Okay, good evening everybody. Time is 7:07. Uh, tonight's school board agenda for Monday, April 13, 2026 is now in session. Call to order. First, like to uh stand and do the pledge of allegiance, please. >> To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> But I'd like probably like to stay standing, please, as we like to ask two of our students, Andy Shear on saxophone and Caitlyn Burns, our tener saxophone, to play our Star Spangled Banner and our national anthem. So, whenever you're ready, Heat. Heat. Thank you very much. She can't leave yet. I got a couple questions for you. >> So, how long have you guys been playing? >> I've been playing saxophone since fifth

002grade. >> Fifth grade. What? >> Like eight years. >> Okay. >> I'm a senior now. senior. >> Um I started on clarinet in fourth grade and I started jazz in >> last year on tenor. >> I'm a junior as well. >> You're a junior. And fourth grade you said you started? >> Yeah. >> What? What elementary school? >> Eisenhower. >> I'm from Baker. >> You're actually I went to both of them when I was younger back in the day. Uh can you make uh snakes come out of baskets with that thing? >> Probably. >> Sounded like it. There was a couple times where I thought it was coming was coming up. So, are you with anybody today? >> Uh, just our director, Mr. George. >> Would you like to give yourself a round of applause

003for teaching these great students? >> All right, that's it. I'm not going to torture you anymore. Congratulations on your senior year. One more year. You got it. >> Thank you both very much. >> Thank you, >> Mrs. Kramer. >> Thank you, Mr. President. Mrs. Bolus, >> present. >> Mrs. Hannah, >> present. >> Mr. Kyle, >> present. >> Mr. Lambert. >> Mr. Mascaro, >> present. >> Mrs. Peterson, >> Mrs. Schnore, >> present. >> Mrs. Snder, >> present. >> And Dr. Wetzel, >> present. >> Eight members, present. >> Thank you. Uh, Mrs. Snder, would you please read the mission, please? >> I will. Developing lifelong learners and responsible citizens citizens for a global society is the mission of the Upper Sinclair School District. Served by a responsive and innovative staff who in partnership with the community provides

004learning experiences that nurture the uniqueness of each child and promotes happiness and success. >> Thank you very much, Mrs. Snider. And moving on to agendum item number six, student board representative report. Mr. Rozo and Miss Donley, the floor is yours. >> Thank you. Good evening. We are glad to be with you again this month to share our reports. First up, I'll begin with our month monthly update for athletics. The spring sports season has started since our last meeting. Our baseball team is three and three with their next game tonight home against South FET. Girls softball holds a record of three and five. They are currently playing at Montour. The boys volleyball team stands at 6-2. Their next match will be tomorrow at Mount Lebanon. Boys tennis are currently 5- one. They are in action next

005on Thursday at home vers Fox Chapel. Our girls flag football team is undefeated with a record of 5-0. They are playing tonight at Manesscent. Girls lacrosse has five wins and one loss. As you can hear, they are currently playing in the stadium vers Hempfield. The boys lacrosse team holds a record of three and two. They play next on Wednesday at Norwin. Boys and girls track and field have their next meet on Thursday at Thomas Jefferson. Now for academics, 14 students from Upper Sinclair High School visited the United Senior Citizen Gathering on March 25th, 2026 at the McGloin Run Activity Center to help seniors with smartphones, smartwatches, and other devices. After introductions, hands quickly went up with questions ranging from texting to navigating apps and adjusting settings. The visit helped build meaningful generational connections. The Clear

006View Financial Reality Fair was held on March 25th for all Upper Sinclair High School juniors. Now in its third year with Clear View, the event offers a hands-on budgeting simulation that helps students build practical personal finance skills in a one-day real world setting. Now on to Bella. >> Hi everyone. Um for activities this month, there was an email that was released today um announcing the annual decision day for all seniors and it will once again take place on May 1st. Um and there will be two different food trucks with treats for the class of 26. Um take your child to work day is coming up and the student council is working on planning fun games and activities um during one of the blocks for the children to have the opportunity to all get together. Um,

007the communications art class at the high school has recently released a podcast called Panther Podcast. The goal of it is to show all things about Upper Sinclair High School and the school community by featuring different guests and um, highlighting different school events and experiences based on the high school. And registration is now open for summer programs for grades 1 through 12. Students can explore a variety of experiences including STEM camps, leadershipmies, math and reading labs, and middle school music camps. Um, and there's more information on the district website. And for arts, um, the performing arts department at Upper Sinclair High School will be taking a trip to Virginia Beach this Thursday to perform. And if you have any questions at this time, I'd be happy to answer them. Are you getting ready and excited for

008the summer? >> Well, thank you both very much. We appreciate it. Uh, now is the time I'd like to ask if any residents have any comments on tonight's agenda. Please come up. None. None taken. Okay. Uh, approval of the board minutes. I move that the board approve the meeting minutes of the March 2nd, 2026 board meeting as attached. >> Second. >> Mrs. Peterson seconds. All in favor? >> I. >> Any nays? Motion passes. >> Mr. Burchil. You are up. >> Good evening. We'll try to make this as quick as possible with the game going on behind us, but the budget is upon us. We have to have the proposed final budget approved in May and the final budget in June. Uh, of course, we never have the the information from the state as to what

009our revenue will be for next year. So, we guess uh and that's pretty much an annual thing. So, I will project and uh Dr. Warzo will start off the presentation. Definitely the first time we've done a budget presentation with theme music in the background. Um, we'll get through it. We'll get through it. Yes. Um, okay. Um, >> yeah. Add some flare this year. Try to make sure we keep everyone engaged. Um, all right. If you want to go to the next slides, Mr. Burchil said this is our first presentation uh, public presentation for the budget for the 26 27 school year. The purpose of the tonight's presentation um is set on the screen first to as we do always state the priorities for the budget which is the 2627 budget that we are talking about

010review of all the internal and external factors at least the ones that have significant impact on the district budget budget discuss and review the value of the upper Slair education which again is why why we're all here shared proposed revenues expenditures and revenues and then provide some additional budget information that's relative to present planning a proposed final budget next month. Timeline to date just to give you a brief snapshot of kind of some of the bigger items that have happened. I certainly don't want to minimize it but going back to December the act one index we adopted that we would not go or look to seek to go above uh the index uh and any exceptions the index for our district is 3.5% that's the maximum amount that we could present as an increase. So

011in December, as a reminder, the board uh through our recommendation uh approved um to not seek exceptions for this year's budget. Then as we transition into the new year into uh January 2021, all department areas uh throughout the bud throughout the district submitted their budget. Uh they were due by the end of January. And then the months of February and March were were filled with many budget meetings uh again across the district leading to a lot of evaluation of those budgets and a lot of initial budget adjustments have already occurred prior to getting to this point in time. The priorities of the budget and we state them every year. Feel it's important. This is what essentially drives our work. first and foremost is that we deliver extraordinary learning experiences for our students. And that's not

012just in the classroom, but that's through any experience they have here in the district. Also, you know, second priority we always use to drive our work is to really balance the needs of the school district while recognizing our fiduciary responsibility to the community of Upper Slair. And then finally, remaining mindful of the interdependence of all aspects of of the students experience. um whether it's directly or indirectly, there's a lot of variables, a lot of factors that go into uh running a school district. Certainly a budget is a big piece of that and so we have to be mindful of those factors as we are proposing a budget to the board. Okay, we're now going to get into some of the again larger external internal factors and I'm going to turn over to to Mr. Burchil

013um and he is going to begin um in this section with one of our favorite topics the common level ratio >> common level common level ratio >> uh so basically what it is it's the total assessed value for the county divided by the total market value. Now how do you get the total market value? Well the state tax equalization board uses uh equations calculations sales information and they estimate it. So it's not a real number. Uh the only real number you have as far as market value is when you're done with a reassessment. The last reassessment was done in 2013. So what does that mean for us? Well, um the adjustment to the it basically what the common level ratio is an adjustment to the current market value to take it back to the base

014year, the last reassessment. So Alageney County was 2013. Uh there are some counties in Pennsylvania that go back to the 50s and 60s, believe it or not. So it's it can be it's it's magnified in Alageney County because of the total dollar values involved, but there just the whole systems broken across the state. It just isn't Alageney County. This is a statewide problem. Excuse me. So uh the issue is is that the current real estate laws group commercial and residential property gather together together and we've had numerous uh appeals by our large value commercial property and we've been unable or unsuccessfully I mean we mitigated as much uh liability as we could but target the mall foods CVS um friendship village it goes on and on. So, and you'll see in another slide here how

015much uh in refunds have gone back to some of the taxpayers. But what happens is residential properties have skyrocketed since COVID and commercial has not yet they're grouped together and the commercial properties see the same benefits as the residential folks. So, you can see what's happened um in 2026. You can't see that last number there, but it's it's gone down to 50.1%. So basically, if you bought a home now for 600,000, you would expect it to be a pray uh the uh value of it for tax purposes would be about 300,000 and that would take it back to what it would be in 2013, which they're assuming that you would pay 300 2013 and double that as of 2026. Any questions on the common level ratio? So what's the impact? Um, you can see what's

016happened as far as the refunds to date. Um, they're massive refunds and we've built in some buffers to uh account for these, but they're not it's not easy. Uh, we stay in touch with our our solicitor. Uh, they do a great job in keeping me informed. Um, I'm always talking to them before the budget and obviously during the audit period. Um but you can see that we have some large future refunds that are anticipated. Those would be for Whole Foods, um Target, and some of the other properties I had mentioned. Uh you can see that we've refunded to date $5.5 million for the last seven years and we anticipate refunding another 2.4. Uh so the total's just short of $8 million, but uh it's a moving number. There are a lot of appeals. It will

017continue. Uh it's slowed down some obviously because a lot of the peels once they come through um you know they're kind of set until the next reassessment. Um so they will slow down, but people will still appeal until we have the reassessment. There is talk and push for that to happen. So hopefully that happens sooner than later because it will take a few years to get it completed and on the books. It's it's not it's not a fast process because they'll probably leave at least a year and a half for appeals. Uh because that's that's going to take a long time. Um so the medical contribution coverage has continue to increase. Uh overall we've seen an increase over over 37% over the last four years. uh the consortium is doing as much as possible to

018mitigate that with increased um contributions uh deductibles and so on. Um but reality is we know what it's costing for medical and it's been passed on to the school district and then pasers in general has kind of flattened out but with the increase rates uh the increase in salaries between years you always have a built-in increase uh but uh it's it's increased dramatically over the last decade and uh schools are spending a lot on employer contributions to this state retirement fund. And you can see from this slide the contributions per year um back 20 years ago you can kind of see where actually not even 20 years ago 15 years ago where it was um you know just just over five and a just over five and a half percent and now we're at 37

019and a half% well we will be at 37 and a half% projected right now we're at 33.6% 6% for next year. Do want to bring it to your attention. We have the increasing increase in utility bills. Uh most notably the electric uh significant significant increase uh due to new contracts. When we locked in last time with as a consortium, it was right when COVID hit and we really did reap the benefits of that. Um the the rates have gone up probably about 90% uh for uh the demand. Uh also there's the rate the peak capacity charges. Everybody's been seeing this hit them at home. I don't know if you've seen you know you see these on the uh in the news. Uh people's electric going up 75% 50%. So we're not immune to that. um

020even though we're in a a market that that buys and sells in at larger volumes, uh we're still being impacted by that. So, in all, we're budgeted to increase about $375,000 for next school year. Unfortunately, that's just the reality of uh utilities costs right now. Any questions on on that slide? So, some of the major increases we have that are budgeted due to the external factors as we saw. We saw about I've built in about $800,000 in reduced revenue for the out uh reduction in the assessed value. Hopefully, they'll be closed by the end of the school year, but even if they aren't, it's built into the budget. Uh medical increase almost a million dollars. Electric 375. So when you add those together, just those three factors, so it's uh 2.155 million. And just for

021comparison, if we increase the uh to the max, which is our 3.5% max for act one, the uh revenue increase would be just a little over $2.5 million. So we're trying to put that in perspective. uh vast majority of the internal costs are from contractual obligations which include uh salaries and benefits about 72% of our budget and then debt service is 10%. Which that's uh the uh the bonds that are outstanding that have been uh you know that money's been used for capital expenditures. Um Dr. Rozo, did you want to talk about staffing levels? >> Sure. Yeah. So staffing levels and we'll get into this a little more detail um later in the presentation but essentially we have five professional staff retirements that's primarily teachers teachers psychologists librarians counselors nurses they make up the category

022of professional staff so we have five retirements uh that are scheduled to take place um at the end of June. Um this budget we are not increasing pro professional staff. There is no recommendation to add professional staff. Uh we are evaluating potential for reduction through attrition and that's not just teaching staff or professional staff. That's all employee groups throughout through the uh throughout the district. Um obviously when you hire new people and if you do replace a position and we'll show some more detail on this again later on. Um we're taking top step salaries and we are bringing people in at lower salaries. So there is some natural build-in savings that Mr. Burch always takes into account. We have um just recently as recent as last week received several classified staffing and those are employee

023groups such as aids and secretaries their retirements. So we are closely evaluating those. Obviously we're not going to make any recommendation that's going to be detrimental to our school operation or have a negative impact on our students. But when you do have retirements as Mr. Burcho highlighted up above 72% of of the school district budget goes to salaries and benefits which is the case you see in most school districts is about 3/4s of your budget being tied to salaries and benefits. And then you throw debt service which that number is not a very high number in comparison. You see there's very little discretion to make reductions without really thoroughly looking at uh positions through attrition and through other creative measures uh to cut costs. So, the next section we're just going to talk about, we

024we we always highlight this in the budget presentation because I think it's it's really important. You don't see this in a lot of budgets when if you if you watch uh school district budgets. I know that um probably people don't do that in their free time, but I have watched some budget presentations. And a lot of it is about the numbers. And you hear the budget, of course, it's about the numbers, but we can't lose sight of why we're here, and that is to educate kids. And so, in our district, we're very fortunate. We have a tradition of excellence and there's a cost that comes with that. Um, some of the things we just have highlighted a few of the recognitions on the screen, but I think it's it's always good for us to have

025remind people of how special and different this school district is. Um, you know, annually the Pittsburgh Business Times, that is one of the metrics that's used to evaluate all the school districts in Pennsylvania and that's based on the same metric which is standardized performance on standardized tests. Upper Sinclair, we've been very fortunate. We're always in that top one, two, or three in the entire state of Pennsylvania. Rankings come out in May. Regardless of where we land on it, we're going to be very high. Our students always do do very well. Um, not too many districts can say every single school in our district, all six buildings have national blue ribbon designation. Our SAT and ACT scores consistently rank among the highest in the state and highest in the nation. We share a lot of that

026information in our annual report which went out uh earlier this spring. So, it's always helpful and I think it's it's important for us to share that with our community. LA this past year, one of and we highlighted this several months ago which we thought was a really um special recognition was money incorporated recognized us for academic performance as the number seven ranked school district in the country and the only district in Pennsylvania. I don't share this for us to boast, but to remind people of how special this place is and and what you get at Upper Slair. Continuing along high quality programming. Again, this why we're sharing this is there's a cost to all of this. So, it does tie to the budget. At our high school level, we have a variety of offerings. Advanced

027placement, international balaria courses, um honors, academic, conceptual. We have a full gamut. If you look at our program of study, you'll see the breadth of courses that are offered to our students. Particularly, we have 25 advanced placement courses offered currently at our high school, 31 international back layer at diploma program courses offered. We have continued to increase this next item and it's a robust college and high school course offering. And I do want to give a lot of credit to Dr. Wagner and his team. He's really been pushing this. Um, but this essentially allows students to get college credit while they're in high school. We now have 10 total classes at the high school. We have world language offerings throughout the district starting in first grade. All of our students at the elementary level take

028Spanish. Uh when they get to fifth grade at Boyce, they have a year where they take Spanish, French, and German are introduced. Once they get to sixth grade, they pick the language that they will study throughout middle school. They get to high school, they can continue on with those languages, but then we also introduce three more offerings, Japanese, Chinese, and Latin. So in total at the high school, we have six languages, foreign languages for our students to choose from. We have international balaria program. Not many districts have the program and a lot of districts who have international backer may not have all three programs. We have the primary years program which goes through fourth grade. We have the middle years program which actually starts at boyce and goes through 10th grade at the high school.

029And then we have the diploma program which is 11th and 12th grade. We have extensive options for electives. You know, you've seen a lot of those come through the board meetings and be presented during the curriculum recommendations which will happen in June. Um, but if you look again at what we're offering students, it's all about giving them options and choices to better prepare them for life after high school. Speaking of the annual curriculum review process, again, that is something very unique to Upper Slair. Um, we have curriculum leaders for all subject areas at all levels for each discipline. And they twice a year. We do it in December, I'm sorry, in January and then we do it again in June where the curriculum recommendations will be go through an entire process ultimately presented to the

030board for approval. That is very unique there. That is not what happens in most places. Unfortunately, most places are on a cycle where it's every three every five years your discipline or your area will be evaluated for change. That is something that's been a long-standing practice in our district that's that has had a commitment to it, a financial commitment to it, but a strong academic uh and programmatic benefit from programmatic benefit. And then also onetoone technology. Um all of our students K to 12 in this district have district provided technology for them. Continuing along and I I won't read everything on screen, but performing arts, uh very strong performing arts program in the district. You saw two of our students performing tonight. um national recognition. Um we have programming that's offered elementary, we have we

031have choir, we have musicals, we have orchestra. When they get to middle school, then we add band to that. Um and you know, that continues to grow throughout high school. Athletics, we offer 19 WPAL sanctioned sports. We just added girls flag football this year at the varsity level. We have 10 sports that we offer at at the middle school. So again, it's giving students opportunity, giving them the chance to participate uh in in a program or something of interest. Other offerings, our robotics program, which is relatively new. We'll talk a little bit about that more in this uh our robotics program is nationally recognized teams middle school and high school. In fact, our robotics program has more students participating it than any other program in the district right now. Almost 500 kids participating. It has

032grown exponentially. There's a cost to that obviously, but it's a cost that we believe is certainly uh worth it and it's benefiting our students obviously. Speech and debate, another again uh routinely state champions, nationally recognized. We added the middle school program this this current year and our club offerings are are endless. Again, all these are part of what you get in the Upper Slair uh experience. special education um variety programming here, unique partners programming. This past year, we added a middle school unified botchi team. So, we're continuing to look at programming, continuing to look at opportunities to better meet students needs, our counseling, and again, this is something that's not and some of these what I'm going to speak to next are not requirements. School counselor at each building. It's not a requirement to have

033a counselor in any of your buildings. We have one counselor in each of our elementary buildings. We have two counselors in each of our middle schools. and we have six counselors at our high school. We have school psychologists. We have four district uh psychologists for the district. We have other full-time staffing positions that again are not requirements. So nurses, you are permitted obviously or you are required to have nurses in school. But the studenttoteer ratio based off of our student population, we would have four nurses in the district. And that's what you would see in a lot of districts. This district made the decision we were going to have a nurse in every building full-time because that's what's best for our kids. Librarians, we have librarians in every school in the district. School police, a

034lot of districts don't have any any staffing related to school place. We have an entire school police force and have a police officer in every building and also have evening coverage in upper Sinclair. So the value of the upper Sinclair, what does it what does it cost? This is our certified cost from the department of education. our certified cost for one regular education student. So if you were paying tuition and your student was a regular education student, that number is $17,872. You have two students, you could do the math, it's doubled. One special education student, that rate is $36,000 a year. The average real estate tax bill in Upper Slair is $8,000. So again, these are data points we think are really helpful to share what the cost is to educate our students and what

035is our average real estate tax bill. So district spay, I I talked a little bit about this. Um district space upgrades, part of our district goals have been our strategic initiatives is to look at our district spaces, identify areas that we can repurpose, maximize to better meet our students and everchanging needs. And so I may ask a couple of my colleagues here to to jump in because they have been directly involved with a lot of these initiatives. A lot of work has been done this past year in relationship to these areas. Our high school library uh our high school library has approximately about 125 students per block accessing that space. A group of us spent some time with student representatives earlier this year, 9th and 10th grade. ask them how they're using the library space,

036what they would like to see in terms of upgrading it to better meet their needs. And so we are looking at modernizing the library, adding more flexible space, being more mindful of how students work, how the library is not your traditional library, but still is an essential piece to that high school. The funding cost of that is not in the budget. This was part of the construction fund and the capital projects that we laid out. So we are sharing though there is a substantial cost to this. Um Dr. Wagner and high school administration have have done a great job with uh leading this endeavor along with while we're speaking of the high school, the theater renovation. So, the high school theater uh just this year alone, this school year, we have 459 permits in the

037high school theater. Now, that includes school day and evening. That's more than one a day that we're averaging. The theater gets a lot of community usage, but the theater has not been upgraded um in in over a quarter century, and there is significant wear and tear in the seats. Um the lighting needs to be upgraded. Again, this is not affecting our bottom line in the budget this year. This is part of the construction fund that we identified as our capital projects um beginning last year and moving forward throughout this year. Um Dr. Wagner, is there anything you would like to add? I want to put you on the spot, but related to the theater renovations or library furniture upgrade as you know, you've you've been very much involved with that and have done a terrific

038job. >> Yeah, thanks Dr. Russo. Just um very briefly um it's it's exciting when spaces 26 27 years ago were so wellcrafted, constructed um that they've held up for all these years being two widely used spaces. Um the process of getting to what modernization would look like um has really been inspired by experts, outside experts um in the areas of of furniture and of construction, but also our students and many staff members um have also contributed ideas. Um so it has um thankfully been a collaborative effort that has led us to some of the final renderings and decisions around modernization. As Dr. Roso mentioned, focus groups of students um and just appreciate the support of two really wellused spaces in our high school. um having the the upgrade um that that I think will continue

039to make them centerpieces of our of our school. >> Thank you, Dr. Riner. Um the third one on the screen there, I'm actually going to ask uh Dr. Povvic to um as our director of special ed. She's really been the champion of this uh endeavor and um I'm going to let her speak to it because it's it's certainly a unique opportunity for our kids and they've done some great work. I do want to say Mr. Snyder and Dr. Angela both in all these projects have been very hands-on and I want to make sure that I I recognize them for that. Dr. Clover. >> Sure. And I would be remiss if I didn't thank Mr. Snder for all of his support for our efforts with our changes in special education and transition programming. He's been right

040there with me the whole step of the way. One of the things we were looking at this year is how we support our students and prepare them for adulthood. And as part of our special education, we are responsible for ensuring post-secary employment, competitive sorry, post-secondary education, competitive employment, and independent living skills as part of that transition grid. And independent living skills are is the area that we typically send our students out for services to provide those reach out for outside agencies to practice those skills, which cost anywhere from about $75 an hour per child on an individualized basis. And that doesn't allow us to really reach our full gambit. And so, how do we reook at how we do special education given our students that are coming up through that they starting to present differently?

041What do they how do we need to help present prepare them for adulthood? And so, the areas that we really focused on was the vocational employment piece, but then also our independent living skills. And so, we initially were looking for a space of how to create a studio apartment. There's a few other districts in the area that also have a department in their school building and provide these services for students. So, we said why not us too? And as a result of looking and finding a space, created another opportunity for warehouse 319, which will be an opportunity for our students then to practice uh vocational skills by supporting our facilities and maintenance within our teacher supply closet. And so if you think of when you're shopping, uh, teachers be able to put in an order

042for their supplies and then our students through the support of Mr. Snider's department will students will then have a work experience by tracking inventory, impact, unloading, then Elsa processing that order all the way through delivery. So that when you know you get your Amazon delivery, you get that picture of what you're delivery to confirm that, hey, is that my front porch? Our students will have that same opportunity. and then also supporting the efforts of ensuring inventory tracking. And so that helps us with our vocational employment goals. But then the independent living part of that is then apartment 319 or sorry 404A which will then as you imagine a studio apartment that will house laundry, a kitchen, full service, all the equipment, uh a bathroom because where's the one place you need to make sure you

043know how to clean so that as an adult we will have those pieces in play. Our washer dryer setup. So again, the one piece that we always forget as an adult is transitioning from the washer to the dryer. So we'll have be able to practice those skills as well. And so as you think of a studio apartment, our students will have that opportunity within the school setting. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you. And lastly, in this area on the next slide, um is been another uh focal point of our repurposing district spaces uh along with looking at district needs and programmatic needs. And that's what I referenced earlier, our robotics. Right now, our robotics, we do lease space offsite for approximately $60,000 a year. And we um believe for one, from a cost standpoint,

044and also for what's best for the program and our students, this is needs to be a robotic center needs to be on site in the district. And so we really tasked our team um with identifying space that would meet the needs um of the program an ever growing program which also does you know it's a good problem to have but it does present challenges and so uh there was an entire team of people who've worked on this really throughout the school year and the recommendation is to bring this back on site to the small group instruction room which is located behind the resource center in the high school um high school library and it was the former rifle range believe it or not, many years ago, then it was converted to a small group instruction

045room and now um we are looking to convert that into our robotic center for next school year. So, we are currently under lease um with the the property that we are running until October. We may be out of there sooner. That would be the hope. Um beyond this being a financial uh gain because at that cost over four years, we would no longer have a rent payment. Um our kids now have access to the program throughout the school day. And so the gains there will be um significant. The other part that I do want to mention is we talk about and we talk a little bit later about alternative funding uh and looking for sponsorship. There's not a lot of property and areas and school districts that are ripe for sponsorship. This certainly is one

046of them. So while we don't have uh any funds attached to that yet, that will be part of our future work is looking at some sponsorship. And we actually do have um we already do have a family that is interested in donating funds to this and so we will have more information to share. But um again as I highlighted over this earlier this program is just grown tremendously. Great work by our people. Um Miss Smith, not to embarrass her, but she's happens to be here tonight leads our robotics program and has just done a terrific job uh in growing it so much and giving kids such meaningful experiences. And so we are um we're very excited about this and we think this will be what's best for for our kids and for our program. >>

047Okay, Mr. Burchil was going to move as quickly and efficiently through expenditures as you can. >> I will try. We're going to talk about expenditures, revenues, and some other budget information. So, uh the first section is expenditures. Uh like we said, act one is set at three and a half%. Uh our proposed increase to as it stands right now uh proposed increase to expenditures is uh about 3 point it's actually 3.26% uh which is about $3.5 million. Uh current millage rate for this school year is 31.5150 and one mill brings in approximately $2.21 million. uh that number has dropped a little bit because of the uh appeals and the reduction in assessed value for some of the larger commercial properties. So this is a busy slide. Uh I'm not going to go through every single

048one of these, but I am going to bring to your attention uh three areas. Uh the first one is the increase in electric uh which we talked about earlier uh which is in the 2600s. Um the 2900s are passed through for Southwood. Uh they've added an additional school this year. Um and so revenue that's coming in will be passed along to Southwood. So it's it's a in and out, but we still have to account for it. So that's increased about $450,000 for next year. And then finally, residential fees uh in the 2300s. It's related to uh special education. Uh this is a little bit different. The last slide was looking more of like what is the program and then this is more uh what is the actual expense. So you can see salaries and benefits.

049We talked about that earlier. It's about 72% of our budget. Uh working your way down. So really only a couple things to highlight here. Uh we have seen a increase in some of the charter school expenditures related to cyber charter school. um that kind of has some eb and flows to it. Uh we have some years where we've we've decreased significantly and now we've kind of bumped our bump back up in the last couple years. And then in the 800s there, that's where you're going to see that pass through for Southwood and then the residential placement fees. And please stop me anywhere along the line here if you have any questions. Uh budget breakdown. This is just to um reinforce the fact that 72% of our budget is salaries and benefits. And then in the

050other uses and miscellaneous fees at the top there which is uh that includes the debt service which is about 10% so about 82% is salaries benefits and debt service. Revenues I don't have a lot of good news for revenues for sure. Uh we've been going backwards in our tax revenue uh for real estate taxes is obviously an issue and that's about 72%. Uh real estate tax and earn income tax about 72% of our total revenue. Um 80% of our budget comes from local taxes which as we all know the the the model it's hard. It puts a lot of pressure on our local taxpayers. uh we have more control because we raise we raise our millillage but then we also have more burden on our our taxpayers. Um so there's there's good and bad in

051that. Um upper Slair we've seen small increases in state revenue mostly due to our market value aid ratio. Um and so that probably will continue for next year which is how I budgeted for 2627. Um annual increases from the state don't fund the incremental costs related to the mandated programs. They don't fund the programs. Uh a couple years ago there was a cyber charter they started back with a cyber charter school re um uh reimbursement program and that's gone away in two years. It's you know there's very little help outside just regular state subsidy for regular education and state and special education. So, and then um the governor's proposed budgeting has increases, but obviously will not be finalized until after we approve our our budget. So, we do our best uh g to gather as

052much information from Harrisburg through my contacts and sources and kind of guess where we're going to be. And we've been pretty close over the last several years. So, hopefully that'll continue. revenue sources. You can see locals, you know, about 78 and then you can see on down state and the federal and then other um sorry wrong way. uh revenue projections uh were in the budget here presented to you tonight and up to three and a half percent I think we did zero two three and three and a half uh total assessed value for next year's uh anticipated decrease again until we have a reassessment uh like we talked about earlier we have about $800,000 budgeted for commercial property refunds next year um I think most of them will be settled by the end of June

053so So I have them built in as a reduction in in our total assessed value which by the way is in excess of 2 $2.3 billion. So uh we have a large value but you know every $10 million hurts. So um you know we we'll be refunding the $800,000 um either next year or uh the following year. State basic and special education subsidies budgeted increase 2.9% for next year. Um that goes along with the trend of um you know kind of what the the governor budgeted along with some additional information that I've gathered. Um you know there's a house that's um has you know you have the Democratic House and the U Republican Senate. There's always give and take and um in this case I think we'll kind of fall in the middle. So that's

054where I budgeted. Uh this is a very busy slide. So, I'm not going to talk about every line, but you can see that I have for next year, uh, no real estate tax increase, uh, which you can see would go backwards compared to the current year just from the loss in the, um, assessed value, 2%, 3%, and 3 and a half%. We're not making a recommendation tonight. There's still a lot of work to be done. Uh, so these are just for yourformational purposes. Um, the other thing I wanted to bring to your attention was, bear with me for a second. Of course, the real estate tax, which I did earn income tax, has kind of leveled out. Uh we saw some big increases right after COVID, but um some smaller increases over the last couple

055years. And then interest income, everybody knows that the market is, you know, there's been decreases in the Fed rate. Uh so that probably will continue. Uh so you can see the interest income between what's budgeted this year and next year is a reduction of $600,000 and basically that's just a reduction in in in the in the rate. So we'll talk about the state subsidy um in more detail on the next page, but anybody have any questions on this page? So these are your real estate tax revenue columns. based upon the uh increase or no increase in in the millage rate. Uh each 1% real estate tax increase is about $720,000 in additional revenue. That's um so your state subsidy, we kind of break it down and we do this every year. We break it down

056into two different sections. One is actual subsidy that's supporting programs directly and the other is reimbursement which is for pasers uh employer pasers costs and social security. So you can see that of the 23,400 um not even 14 million is directly related to to programming. You have almost $10 million as in reimbursement. So, of course, that's increased dramatically over the last several years with the increase in appeasers rate, but that be said, they have not funded properly funded programming. Some additional budget information. Okay. Yes. Um, we we share this annually. It's just our annual um where our staff falls in terms of their education levels and step experience. Uh so you can see the breakdown left side how many of our staff members um what their degree status is. The large majority are master's degree

057plus. Um the step experience um teacher contracts you you typically see uh you can see anywhere from 15 to 20 years uh steps. Obviously the higher step the higher the salary. Once you get to the top step that's when you hit your career salary. So you can see the breakdown we have over there in terms of where our staff follows the large majority of our staff. 64% are in are on steps 15 through 17. Um which again comprises the all the staff members that are listed in the red box there. That's not just teachers, it's nurses, psychologists, librarians, counselors, and our curriculum leaders. On the next page, we have a just a little bit. We extract this a little bit more. It shows you we have to track this information, this data. This shows where

058our staff are in terms of relationship of the the entire scale. So, um on that scale, what you see there are the you don't see anything right now, but it's the >> Mike Mr. Mascara, did you do that? Um, >> I mean, >> is that pro is the projector on We're going to take a temporary intermission. >> Mr. Burch, would it make sense to continue even though we don't have a screen >> or are we failing to >> Are we failing to record? Is this What? So, what we'll do for time sakes, we'll keep going. Everyone has the presentation on their screens. This will all be available for the public to see and so this will all be presented. But um on the next slide it's just as I was saying is the breakdown by

059step so you can see where all everyone falls. And why this is important is because when you look at at planning for future years you have to look at the years and when we know that we're going to have a higher amount of people reach that jump step that obviously has a more significant impact on your budget than in years when you have less people. And so it's it's really important we pay close attention to this data. Um, and you see we have a couple additional increases in our or additional pieces of information. Our our teacher contract step 17 is the last step, but where you see the largest increases in terms of compensation begin on step 15 through step 17. So while we had on the previous slide 64% are in that range, 56

060are at actually at the step 17. Okay, if we'll move on to the the next slide, this is the millillage impact on cumulative revenue. So what we've done there and this is a slide we've shown historically. It shows you as Mr. Burch had mentioned earlier. This goes through potential millage increases. There's no recommendation tonight. That's not the purpose of tonight, but we showed what a 0% increase 2, three, and 3.5, which would be the max. The the second column over shows what the impact would be on taxpayers for an assessed value of a home at $250,000. It shows you by percentage what that monthly impact would be. And then as we move over to the right, the the final three columns show you what the impact is um based off of decisions we make related

061to taxing for this year. And so what is the impact for one year by going 0% or going all the way to 3.5%? What is the impact over five years? What is the impact over 10 years? And so why we show this is while we're not making a decision about five years down the road, 10 years, this is all cumulative. So for example, this slide shows that regardless of what we would do in future tax years, if we had a 0% tax increase this year over a 10-year time period, it's approximately almost $29 million in revenue less that the district would have, assuming a 3% increase in each subsequent year. So again, this is just a slide that the board has asked for in the past. We used to share with the public. So it

062shows you what is the short-term as well as the long-term impact on district revenue based off of our taxing decisions. Role of fund balance. Uh I'm going to turn this over to Mr. Burchil. Um but I just want to highlight the fund balance has continued to be um an area of strength in the school district. Our our finance team here has done an excellent job of appropriate use of fund balance. That's essentially your your savings in a school district. Uh and making sure that those funds are used for one-time appropriate costs, not for recurring costs. That's where you see school districts run into financial difficulties is when you start to use fund balance for recurring costs. So Mr. Burchil will provide a brief update uh relationship to our fund balance. >> Okay. So fund balance

063is important for a school district uh to find to provide sufficient cash flow through the lean year months which would be June and July before the uh real estate tax revenue starts to roll in for the next school year. Uh also it's you're able to uh use it to to uh fund unforeseen expenses and then it also it demonstrates financial stability. So when you go out to borrow money in in the bond market uh you you get a rating from one of the rating agencies usually standards and pores and this helps in the bond rating and saves money for the school district in the long run. Uh just of note act 48 of 2003 limits unreserved undesated fund balance to 8% for a school district of our size. Uh so you can see well you

064can't see but you can see the general fund uh we've had uh we've had small increases each year. I do want to bring to your attention that 17 18 and 19 were bond refinancing and you cannot budget for a bond refinancing which actually is in the business section tonight potentially uh in in July we might be able to refinance bonds. We can't budget for refinancing. So uh that's why there were larger increases in those years but relatively speaking all of our increases have been below 1% of our total budget which is uh financially responsible uh and yet slowly has grown our fund balance uh as our budget has grown also. So this slide just gives you an idea of where we stand as of right now. Uh if we were not to raise taxes at

065all the way the budget stands right now, you're looking at almost $3.8 million deficit, if you raise uh the tax the millage rate to the max, a three and a half%, you're at about a 1.277 million deficit. But we talk about it almost every but every uh month when I do the financial report, we have expiring licenses that will come off permanently in the next year. That's 812,000. that potentially could use fund balance to pay to cover that. And then we have some other one-time expenditures that we are exploring and we'll make a recommendation in May. Any comments, Dr. Roso, on that? >> No. Okay. Uh it doesn't look like we're getting the screen back anytime soon, so I apologize. Um so we're closing out the presentation here. Um or on slide new and ongoing

066unfunded education requirements. I won't read through all these. The whole purpose of this. This is one of the bigger challenges in public education is there continue to be mandates that are required not just of our district but of all districts and there is a cost to them and the funding does not accompany uh does not come along with the mandate. So we have a sampling of some of those more recent uh or newer mandates. Obviously, this list is not exhaustive, but um you know, for example, online online state testing moving for PSSAs and Keystone exam, that's great. We fully support it. There's a cost to that. Um the right to know law, for example, u one of the reasons we put that in here, the right to know law, and it sounds terrific. We fully

067support, we obviously comply with it. creates transparency. But the large majority, if not close to 100% of our right to know requests don't even come from Upper Slair residents. Most of them don't even come from people in Pennsylvania. They primarily come from companies and agencies that are trying to conduct research and and and promote their their studies or produce some type of literature on information they gather from school districts. That creates a manpower issue for school districts. And then it also creates legal costs. every time we have a right to know, there's a legal review of it. So, these are just some examples. Safe to say, again, fully agree with it. It's been there's been a lot of really great success stories that have come out of it, but there is no funding that's attached

068to that at all. So, again, I put this on there because we all need to just continue to advocate. I I I don't know that there'll be changes, but I think when there's mandates that are issued, particularly by the state, I do wish, and I did share this in a recent meeting with one of our state representatives who came came in to meet with me, that I wish that they would be the legislators would be a little bit more mindful. On the surface, a lot of this legislation sounds good and it is good, but when there's an absence of funding, it's it really has a negative impact on school districts. Speaking of funding, the next slide, alternative funding, this has been a goal area for the district. Um alternative funding is used to leverage uh

069outside funds to support unique programming in district um to otherwise to promote things and to do activities or to um provide experiences for kids that otherwise may not happen. Alternative funding is not there to pro replace recurring costs. Um but we do have here shared some some information some some things uh some areas in terms of alternative funding that we have secured this year. Um we've had the a moonshot grant for civic engagement the high school was $15,000. Um we have a PCCD grant that was awarded for $171,000. We are pursuing a pretty large grant right now. Um pursuing the public school facilities grant requesting $5 million. And so we've talked about that in previous meetings. Not sure how conf or we'll whether or not we'll get that or a portion of it, but we

070are we certainly are pursuing it. We had just had a recent donor who uh donated $250,000 to the school district over a 5-year period. It was a former baseball player who wants this funds to be used to help improve athletic facilities for all programs. So, that's something we're currently looking at. And as I mentioned earlier, something like the robotics center would be ripe for sponsorship and securing some alternative funding. So we have made a lot of gains this year, more work to to come in this space. This does help offset some of our costs for sure. Key takeaways um again just quick reiterate there are unique external factors that are affecting our budget. Um common level ratio, healthc care increases and and electric costs um equivalent to $2.1 million. That's that's substantial. salaries and benefits.

071Again, like most school districts, 72% of our expenditures, we are heavily reliant on local tax dollars, which are primarily residential tax dollars, as we well know. Um, and our fund balance will be used for one-time expenses, and that's why it's built up, and that's an appropriate use of it. And Mr. Burchil is a very good um shepherd of of that process and then the role of the fund balance in the district. Next steps um we will continue to review expenditures obviously evaluating staffing levels between now and our next meeting uh will be happening and we do anticipate attritional reductions in the district that we would present uh next month and when next month we would present a proposed final budget that would not be adopted until June. And so the timeline slide um tonight was

072the detailed presentation. This is obviously the most um comprehensive presentation that we deliver. In May, we would have a brief presentation and we would that would be May 4th propose the to adopt the final budget proposed budget. June 1st we have a meeting schedule. We will have a budget update if needed and then the final budget we would seek adoption on June 8th. So that concludes the presentation. We certainly be glad to answer any questions. This definitely was a very unique presentation for Mr. Burch and I. We lost our screen. We had the DJs playing in the background the whole time. But so I appreciate your focus because it was it was challenging. Any questions and if there's anything that we you need or would like to know more about obviously for the board or

073for the public for May, please let us know. We'd be happy to provide that include that in our sharing of information. >> Thank you both or everyone who's contributed to this. I know how much time and efforts put into not just setting up today's presentation, but how much you enjoy delivering it as well as I'll tell you what, Mr. Burchil, I will say this, you might have been the only one not distracted when Dexis's Midnight Runners was running. You you kept face, man. That was pretty good. >> So, it was good 80s report, too. So, thank you guys very much. I know there's a lot of work that goes into it and again there's a lot more that's going to go into this uh moving forward before you present your uh 2026 27 budget in

074May. So I thanks and appreciate you exhausting all potentials and trying to figure out how we can best uh move forward and continue in our excellence in our education programs. Dr. Roso, I'm going to turn the mic over to you very very briefly. >> Yes, it will be very brief. Um uh yeah uh just a couple quick updates of the district. Um I always like to start with something positive. Uh I want to highlight our um our high school student visionaries. It's approximately 14 students at the high school. Uh Mrs. Voyco shared information about that. Um it was a group of uh involves junior class students and uh over a 7-week period of time they raised over $100,000 for blood cancer research. And uh I think that's remarkable. I was fortunate enough I went to

075the event that was the Hines History Center where all the funds were raised which was close to a million dollars total with all the participating schools. Um but our students were exceptional and I do want to our two student board reps actually. Uh Anthony was part of this year's team and Bella was actually part of last year's student visionary team. And so and I think uh we have a lot more interest coming in the future. So great work by our high school kids uh and really commendable um the their efforts. This is certainly a a very meaningful cause to many people. So uh great job for high school kids. Uh fourth nine weeks of school has started the final n weeks of school that began last week. So we are going down the backstretch. Uh

076spring calendar. Uh it's always we this time of year we always give a shout out for the calendar. There's not too many nights where there isn't something going on in the school district. Case in point right behind us. Um, but whether it's musicals, uh, spring open houses are coming up, um, there's a lot of things, awards nights, national honor society coming up, April and May are jam-packed on the school calendar. So, Mrs. Voica does a terrific job promoting that to all the staff and to the families, but please anyone if if if you're looking for anything to do, there's there's usually something really positive highlighting kids happening in this school district over the next two months. Uh, and the last thing I would highlight and mention is, um, April 30th, we do have, um, a

077team of us that will be having an artificial intelligence parent informational night. Uh, and that will be at 7:00 in the Boy Theater. And that's part of our our district goals. And part of what we need to do is to make sure we're continue to educate parents uh, and really engage them uh, in this world that we've now live in, which is has a lot of artificial intelligence. and it's it's going to continue to grow as we all know and increase in in everyone's lives. And so that event will be held um April 30th. And that's all I have for for my update. If less there are any questions, we can move on to personnel listings. >> Thank you very much. Administrator's report. Uh Mrs. Mack, you have the next three agenda items. Uh personnel

078listings, affiliate affiliation agreements, and uh agreements for performing arts. >> Great. Uh good evening. And the attached personnel listing reflects um a lot of our summer school teachers and para profofessionals. Um as Dr. Razo mentioned um we do have some retirements for the classified staff. Um so six those are mentioned too as well. >> Mrs. Bis >> I move that the board approve the personnel listing as presented subject to all required pre-employment history reviews and clearance requirements. I second >> comments. All in favor say I. I. >> I. >> Any nays. Motion passes. Mrs. Mac. >> Great. Uh, the attached agreements are for approval of the renewal of affiliation agreements with the University of Pittsburgh in Washington and Jefferson College for student teachers and interns for a term of five years. >> Mrs. Hannah, >>

079I move the board approve the affiliation agreements with the University of Pittsburgh and Washington and Jefferson College for student teachers and interns for a term of five years subject to final terms and conditions acceptable to the superintendent and solicitor. >> I second the motion. >> Comments, questions? All in favor? >> I. >> Any nays? Motion carries. >> Last one, Mr. Mac. Yeah. Uh, so we're asking for approval of the prop rental agreement that will not exceed $530 for the fort couch musical Freaky Friday. >> Mr. Kyle, >> I move that the board approve the prop rental agreement with GG's workshop for a cost not to exceed $530 for the Fort Couch musical subject to final terms and conditions acceptable to the superintendent and solicitor. >> Second. All in favor? >> I. >> Any nays? Motion

080passes. Okay. Moving on to professional service agreement. Mrs. Pelvic or Dr. Pelvic, excuse me. >> Oh, good. Good evening. Thank you. Uh the first would be to request an ratify an agreement with the bilingual roots education service. It is to provide for psychological assessment in uh the student's native language of Spanish. >> Dr. Wetzel. I move that the board approve ratifying the professional services agreement with Bilingual Roots Educational Service LLC to provide a school psychologist to complete assessment and consultation services through June 30th, 2026 at fees and expenses listed on the agreement subject to final terms and conditions acceptable to the superintendent and solicitor. >> I second. >> All in favor? >> I. >> Any nays? Motion carries. All right, moving on to E, approval of the following student support services agreements. Dr. Pvvic, you're

081still up. >> Thank you. Uh, these are renewals for agreements. So, the first one is with the Bradley Center to provide um special education services for students that are placed at the Bradley Center. The second is for the Pennsylvania Schoolbased Access Program that allows the district to seek reimbursement for medical services. And the third is for our LEA policies and procedures, the use of funds through IDA part B, which allows the pass through through the Alagany Intermediate Unit. >> Mrs. Schnore. >> Yes. I move that the board approve the above listed student support services agreements items I through I I subject to final terms and conditions acceptable to the superintendent and solicitor. >> Second. >> All in favor say I. >> I. >> Any naysay? Motion CA passes. Uh, moving on. Dr. Media. >> Good

082evening. Tonight, I am requesting approval of an amendment. Um, this is a correction to an amendment that was um voted on in December. There were just some additional fees listed that were not intended to be part of our amendment. So, this is a correction. >> Okay. >> Mrs. Peterson, if >> I could, I move that the board approve the second amendment to the agreement with Maxim, setting current contracted personnel service rates subject to final terms and conditions acceptable to the superintendent and solicitor. >> I second. >> Uh, all in favor, please say I. >> I. >> Any nays? Motion passes. Okay, moving on to Dr. Wagner. >> Thank you, Mr. MCO. Um, this, uh, request is to approve the renewal of the memorandum of understanding with Robert Morris University. RMU is one of our primary

083partners for the college and high school um, courses that we deliver. And so, this is the annual renewal process. Um, in addition, the uh, Department of Education requires um that we have with uh, all university and college partners when we offer courses like this. And so this also puts us in compliance with PD. >> Thank you, Mrs. Snder. >> I move that the board approve the renewal and ongoing MOU with RMU for the high school enrollment agreement subject to final terms and conditions acceptable to the superintendent and solicitor. >> I'm holding back. I really want to say I second him, but I second the book. I would like to be announcing the game. >> Yeah. >> Uh all in favor say I. >> I. >> Any nays? >> Motion has it. Dr. Wagner, you're on

084a roll. Let's go. >> All right. Uh this uh second and final for me uh is an approval uh request for an agreement with West Virginia University's Adventure Outdoor Education Center. Um, annually our summer leadership academy students uh participate in experiential learning opportunities off-campus as part of their week-long experience. Um, and so this year this outdoor program has been identified as one that we would like to enter into a one-day agreement with uh for leadership academy students summer of 2026. >> Mrs. Bis, please. I move that the board approve the agreement with West Virginia Adventure Outdoor Education Center for the high school student school leadership academy trip subject to final terms and conditions acceptable to the superintendent and solicitor. >> I second. >> All in favor say I. >> I. >> Any naysay? >> Motion

085passes. Mr. Snyder, you are up, sir. >> Okay, awesome. Thank you. Um, as you can see, I have a few items ahead of me. So, just to uh keep this train rolling, I'll touch on each item and uh if you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them. Of course, I provided a very detailed memo on each item. Um so, the first one up here is for a contract with Dilts Enterprise, which would uh help with the renovation of SGI 150, classroom 104A, to support the new robotics location. uh in this contract uh deals with uh installed the pass through doorway um a window looking out into 150 from the workshop, electrical data, and a much needed HVAC system. Um this used to be the rifle range room, so that is why there's a lack

086of cooling in that space. Uh all of this for cost not to exceed ex exceed is uh $138,380 and they are this is a co-star contract and that does include a 10% contingency. Okay. Should I keep on rolling here? Keep on going. All right. Next one is uh a purchase and installation of a glycol feed system. I know you guys all know all about that. Um if you want, I'll stay afterwards to explain to you what a glycol feed system is. Basically, it's antifreeze for our closed loop systems that provide cooling and heating to the buildings. Um, this is an important system to have, I promise you. Um, we don't have it. Uh, we're doing it u old school by just manually feeding in and hoping that we're putting the right amount into the system.

087Um, if this system if if we didn't have enough in there, the system would fail and the pipes would break and we would lose either heating or cooling to the buildings and it wouldn't be good. So that system uh it would be a purchase from uh Chemway and then Ruth Roth would be installing it with a 10% contingency at a cost not to exceed $80,725.70 and that too is a Co-Star contract. The next one is replacement of two rooftop units at Eisenhower Elementary. Basically these rooftop units are 26 years of age. It's beyond their life expectancy. Um the units they're breaking down. It's time to replace them. So we're hoping to do like for lake. Um in addition there are there's a separate system in these locations. And I should mention the areas that these

088rooftops um support is the administration area and the computer lab. In these areas um you have reheats which runs on its own system and then you have these rooftop units that run off of its own system. these two systems aren't communicating with each other. So, in the winter time when it's calling for a heat, both units are running. It's not very efficient. Um I could go into other reasons why we need to do this. Um but I'm trying to stay on track here. So, um, all of that said, um, if approved, um, it would be a contract with Ruth for Services LLC, Co-Star contract with a cost not to exceed $14,000,522, excuse me, $104,522 and that too also includes a 10% contingency. The next one is the playground replacement at Baker Elementary School. So, I

089am referencing I'm told it's referred to as a chip side, which is on the left of the uh building. Uh the playground was installed in 1995. It's original to the building. Um it's my understanding back in 2018, Mr. Mascaro and a group of residents fundraised to add on to this system. That system is still in great working order. Um we are not touching that system. It is the system that it was connected to that has failed. Um it is um it's basically all gone at this point. It's just bones that are in place over time. The accessories broke down um and they're no longer making the parts to replace these accessories anymore. So we just have a bunch of bars in place. Um, on top of that, our insurance company came through and did an

090assessment uh this past fall and asked that we would re replace this playground and upgrade it um because it wasn't safe to play on anymore for various reasons. I do want to note that it is safe now. We made sure it was safe after that assessment. We went through and we took everything else that was left on it off. So, I think there's a set of monkey bars on there and maybe a few steps, but it's time to go. Um, all that said, um, if approved, this contract would be awarded to Snider Recreation, um, at a cost not to exceed $112,535.12. That too also has a 10% contingency. Um, and that is a Co-Star contract. Still doing good here. >> Yes. >> All right. All right. So, the last one's a biggie. Um, save the

091best for last. This is for a new roof for Bakers. So, I know Dr. Angelo has kept this board up to speed on the health of all of our roofs in the district. Um, unfortunately, fortunately, all three elementaryaries were built at the same time, so all the roofs are start to fail. They're beyond their life expectancy. Um, so we looked at all three buildings and chose the worst one. Unfortunately, Baker is the worst of the three. Um since between 2018 25 um we've had just under I think 21 Yeah. just over $21,000 in repairs. This past year it it's been very rough. Uh we actually unfortunately and I'm embarrassed to say this, we actually had to put garbage cans in a few of the classrooms because of the strong rains and we couldn't get the

092leaks under control. Uh furthermore, this last bad windstorm that we had come through actually blew half the roof off. So we had to wait it down. So, I think it's time to re replace this roof as well. Um, we did receive three co-star uh bids for this. Uh, and the lowest bidder was TMR, who is now Co-Star approved vendor. Uh, we will be uh using Carlile again, who we use for the high school. Um, this roof does come with a 20-year warranty, and if we continue to do a yearly inspection, we can extend that to 25 years. Um, one thing that I'd like to point out that I was shocked to find out about whenever I was working on this is that the B Baker Elementary as well as all the other elementary schools never

093had lightning per protection installed on the building. So, Baker sits at one of the highest peaks in the district. And back when they did the school, they never installed lightning protection on the building. So, I'm making sure as we go through and we do these roofs, those are the only three buildings that do not have it. We're installing the lightning protection onto these buildings. Uh it's possible that it wasn't um necessary back then, but I think for the safety of our students, I mean, it's a elementary building, we need to have this on there. So, we're going to include that as well. Um this project uh the base project cost is $1,22,350. 10% contingency brings it at a total uh cost not to exceed $1,124,585. And once again, that is a co-star contract. Any questions?

094I'd just like to comment that this is not part of the general fund budget. This will be paid out of construction funds. So this doesn't affect anything that we talked about earlier. But we will be pretty much out of construction money at the end of this summer. So, we'll have to be creative to deal with the other two elementaryaries and some of the other capital needs we have in the district, which we'll talk about that once we get the budget finished. >> Can you repeat that, Mr. Snider? >> I'm kidding. >> Just from the top. Just >> Just from the top or >> uh What year were the elementary schools done again? Could you repeat that? What year was that? >> O2. >> That was O2 already. Yeah. >> Oh gosh. Okay. Uh who's up?

095Uh Mrs. Hannah, >> I move that the board approved the above listed co-stars operations agreements items one through five subject to final terms and conditions acceptable to the superintendent and solicitor. >> And I second the motion. >> All in favor say I. I. I. >> Any nays? >> Mr. Schneider, your motion passes. Thank you, >> Mr. Burchil, you're back up. Okay. Uh, moving along, the financial summary for the period ending February 28th to 2026 is provided for your review. Uh, it includes a general fund, the food service fund, capital reserve, and construction funds. Uh, in the general fund, uh, just want to highlight that our investment income has obviously dropped considerably. We've had a 16% drop in the Fed funds rate over the last 12 months. So, uh there are some predicted decreases also in

096the next several months. So, it will continue to decline. Um so, we'll see how that goes, but we saw that in the budget where we decreased our budget revenue for next year. Uh food service department, pretty much everything's on par. We're a little ahead of last year. Um, but last year I think we had more days that we were out of school, uh, if I remember right. So, um, no news really with the food service. And then you can see with construction, we're anticipated to have enough funds for the projects through the summer. We may have a little bit left over, but the majority of the big chunks of money will be spent by the end of the summer. Budget transfers in the amount of $60,900 are presented for your review and approval. And the

097bill list is included in the supplemental financial report for your review and approval. >> Thank you. >> Any questions? >> Mr. Kyle, would you like to make a motion, please? >> Got it. I move that the board approve the treasurer's report, including approval of total bill list and check uh and check file listing as attached and as follows. Fund 10, general fund, 5,521,15824. Fund 39, construction fund, $148,4126. Fund 51, food service fund, $140,487.39. >> I second. >> Uh, all in favor say I. >> I. >> Any nays? Motion passes. Mr. Mr. Burchil. >> Okay. Uh, next motion is to uh approve a three-year contract contract extension with um Direct Energy uh commencing January 2027. Um I'm we're part of the Alagany Intermediate Unit Consortium uh for electric and gas. Um there is a uh executive

098committee which I'm actually on that makes recommendations. U so this would basically lock us in for the next three years, not a rate. Uh there's a fixed adder that's already included that would be fixed, but the consortium monitors uh you know current market and buys when they feel it's appropriate. But um all in all, it's it's a it's a way for the school district to tap into large commercial markets that we otherwise wouldn't be able to to decrease our costs. So, uh, there were some a lot of other reasons which I won't read in the memo, but I recommend that we, uh, approve the extension of the contract. Any questions? >> Dr. Wretzel, please. I move that the board approve a three-year contract extension beginning January 2027 with Direct Energy Business LLC and RG through

099Alagany Intermediate Unit, otherwise known as AIU Consortium for Electricity Supply subject to final terms and conditions acceptable to the superintendent and solicitor. >> I second. >> All those in favor say I. >> I. I. >> Any nays? Motion passes. Mr. Burchil, you can wrap it up. >> Finally, uh we have the engagement agreement with Stifle uh recommended for approval. Uh potentially we may be able to uh uh refund the 2019 Bonds, which would be in July. Uh what we can lock them in in July, but I'd like to get the engagement agreement approved. I really can't start talking to John about uh resolutions and numbers until we um you know they strictly they have we have to have this approved. So this is the first step and potentially refunding a bond issue um in 2627.

100>> Mr. Schnor. >> Yes. Yes. I move that the that the board approve the engagement agreement with Stifle for services relating to a potential municipal securities transaction for general obligation bonds or notes as attached subject to final terms and conditions acceptable to the superintendent and solicitor. >> Second. >> All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Any nays? >> Motion passes. Thank you up. That's enough for our voting uh agenda this evening. I'd like to move on to committee reports. I'd like to start with Dr. Dr. Wetszel and go around the horn counterclockwise if you would to see who would like to talk about their committee reports. >> I actually don't have any updates. >> Okay, M. Pearson, anything? >> Um, graduation of Parkways May 13th. >> Thank you very much. >> I have

101some updates for uh PTSO and PTC. April 28th is uh bus appreciation day. So if anybody would like to go to that, it's at 1:15 at our bus garage in Canonsburg. So everybody is welcome to thank our bus drivers that day. And again, we were all emailed this. So this is in your email, I think as of today or yesterday, what Dr. Rozo touched on with the AI event in partnership with PTC and the administration. So just talk it up to friends, family, neighbors, etc. Um, the PTSOs, they're still looking for volunteers. The high school needs a vice president, a treasurer. Boyce needs a vice president, a treasurer. Fort Couch needs a vice president. So, volunteerism is at a um, you know, a premium here. So, we need to really encourage people, our friends to

102to volunteer if they can. One thing I thought was really cool, they talked about creating at with this. I'm going to for couch now creating a sit with me at lunchtime platform using the Chromebooks. I just thought that was kind of exciting and I'm looking forward to hearing more about that. It's um helping kids figure out who and where they can sit with finding buddies and uh all the elementary schools are they're doing their readathons staff appreciations with food trucks and preparing for field day which is super exciting. and the um the high school PTO for the first time was able to donate $250 to four different clubs. So, they did not tell us what clubs they were, so I'm not sure what four they are, but uh I know it will be money well

103spent. >> Mrs. Bullis, >> yes. Um, KSBA is has a new policy and paperless agenda management tool and they're having a webinar portal on Monday, April 20th at 2 p.m. and April 23rd at 12:00 p.m. so people can log in and learn more about it. The April episode of the Keystone Education Report is going to be available on PCN at April April 27 22nd at 7 PM and via Psba YouTube channel and Dr. Razo did include a copy of the report and his report. Um the school leadership conference is going to be taking place this fall. They're looking for applications for student presentations for them to perform and that deadline to apply is May 8th and they are also looking excuse me that's for um student presentation performance that deadline to apply is June June

1041st and then for presentations on programs benefiting a school districts the deadline for applying to present is May 8th. The American Exchange Project, which was recently um highlighted on television, is a national nonprofit domestic intercultural exchange program. It's no cost to students, but it helps students to discover America. And I can tell you, I started out, as you know, a very rural farm girl growing up in farm country. Um my second job was in another rural farming community, but then I was teaching inner city and learning and what I learned was so fascinating about the kids and the parents and how it didn't matter where anybody came from, they all love their kids and the kids wanted to learn and if they didn't, the parents were there to make sure that they had assistance in

105remembering to learn. So, thank you, >> Mrs. Hannah. Final one. >> Yes, I attended along with Dr. Wagner, the South Hills Association of School Districts breakfast, and we recognize two students that I could have talked to all day. They were just enchanting. Um, Halt Eberhart is going to be uh a cyber security specialist and he's going to Mercyhurst. He could not stop raving about the AI class that he took at um Upper Stair. Uh talked about it incessantly and said that he would like to come back and be a specialist um sometime in the future. and talk to our students as he proceeds through his career. So I told him to give us a call and come back anytime. And then um Lauren procrastine biology. I have never met anybody more passionate about fish. And

106I was riveted by everything she had to talk about. Um I learned a lot about sharks and um u all kinds of different starfish and uh it was just fascinating. So, she will be attending a university uh in Florida close to St. Petersburg and uh both families were just could not stop raving about Upper St. Clair. So, um smiles all around and it was just a wonderful wonderful morning of uh celebration of these two students. >> Thank you everybody. Uh Dr. Ros, any matters of information? >> None for this agenda. >> Thank you, sir. Uh, I would like to let everyone know executive session was held today, April 13, 2026 at 5:45 for personnel, student matters, safety and security, and legal matters. Anyone like to make a motion to adjurnn? >> So move. So moved.

107>> Ajourn.