001again to talk about universal pre kindergarten your topic and I just want to say that as we all know that prioritizing our children is always something we want to continue to do as a board as a school district we know that literacy rates have kind of went down recently I've actually watched my order succeeds tremendously in second grade with reading due to her teacher and of course other things with Cormal District, but I attribute a lot of that to UPK. I've noticed that being in a kindergarten classroom and sobbing in a kindergarten classroom, which was awesome. Um, you notice a difference right away in the kids who have versus have not. I want to remind everybody about our mothers who cannot go back to work right now because they have to stay home with their
002kids. And I was there. I had to stay home for a little bit. I was able to go back to work. Now I can work in the school district, which I love. But it's just a a a factor and I think that we can all say that our moms need to get back to work, our dads need to get back to work, and our kids need to be reading sooner so that they can pro kind of like get ahead of the curve, right? Services are part of it. Like we see our kids needing more services because they don't start sooner. So I want to see our youngest learners getting into that classroom sooner. And I'm sure you all do as well. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Cynthia. >> Uh Greg Roby, Middle Springs.
003Um I'm reviewing the proposed uh capital fund propositions and I am noting I've learned since I first presented on this that there was an earlier capital fund that was cashed in. I note that the two that are identified on Proposition 2, the 2022 and the 2025 are to be cashed in if that's successful. That suggests that once they're cashed in, they don't exist. And if that's correct, then the board now will not have a capital fund that the community can contribute to. So, I would like to remind the board of the petition before you to consider placing such a thing as soon as possible uh in motion so that people have an opportunity to leverage their donations and support the capital projects at the school. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> I'm sorry I I
004couldn't hear you. Sure, I'll break the rule. I apologize. I usually remember to say this, so I'm so sorry. So, I just wanted to ask if the board can please consider adding the extra 17 seats to the budget to get all our weight list of kids on. I would love to see us vote truly universal finally. Thank you. Now, I'm done. >> Thanks. No problem. Other public comments for you? Um Victoria Halfy. Um I live in Windsor and I have two high school students. So I'm here today because I noticed um there's athletic improvement for um facilities and proposition number three. And my daughter plays vars plays on the girls tennis team and I don't know if any of you have any ever gone and watched them play tennis. You should if you haven't. Currently
005there are no lights on those courts. The girls literally play and very close by they are watching um other teams with bright lights shining on that field and they are playing in the dark. Um it's dangerous. It's entirely unfair. And my hope is that with some of the cap the improvements that you're putting at the athletic fields um in between the concessions and some other things that you can please add lights um to that because again these girls they shouldn't have to cut their their um matches short and they should not be playing in dangerous situations. Thank you. >> Thank you. Other public comments. Okay, thank you. Um, we now will hear um from our students, student representatives. Okay, so this one might take me a while, but okay. We're going to start with Willow
006Avenue. Good news from Willow Avenue. Willow kicked off March with the Read Across America in Dr. Seuss week. Students dressed in theme based on the Dr. Seuss books of the day, including The Cat in the Hat, If I Ran the Zoo, My Many Colored Days, Green Eggs and Ham, and the Dr. Seuss Sleep Book. We are continuing to foster our love of reading with our March Madness of Books. Each day, students will listen to a picture book being read by a staff member, and at the end of each week, we will vote on their favorite book. The last week of March will vote on our top three books in the bracket to crown the winning book. Our fourth grade instrument students wowed us with their musical talents at the combined fourth grade instrumental recital. We
007are extremely proud of all of their hard work. In PE, we kicked off our annual Mission and Possible unit. Students are practicing teamwork, cooperation, patience, and perseverance. This week, our fourth graders will attend the Medal of Honor observance ceremony at town hall to honor and remember. Lastly, we welcome our newest Dragon families from kindergarten registration. We are excited to meet them all in September. Good news from CO um CO. On February 6, the PTO hosted its annual Ties and Tiaras event. Students and their guests arrived dressed to impress and enjoyed an evening of dancing in the beautifully decorated gymnasium. It was a memorable night and both children and adults had a fantastic time. Earlier that day, the first grade classes and student councils filled two cars to the brim with donations collected during the food
008and hygiene drive. They then walked to St. Maryanne Cope Parish to deliver the items in support of the children uh the church's outreach program. While there, staff members provided a tour of the facult facility and answered students thoughtful questions about how the program served and support the community. On February 18th, the first and second grade participated in Olympic games and challen challenges and CO8 celebrated random acts of kindness week from February 18th to 20th. Some themes included teamwork day, kindness day, and be kind to yourself and exercise day. This year, pick and read, pick and reading partner programs in entitled lasso, a good book will run from February 23rd through March 25th. Students are encouraged to read from at least five 15 minutes a day and to keep a log that will be turned into
009the library each week. Reading incentives and prizes will be given each week and there is always a buildingwide goal for total minutes read during the P AP event. The students and staff are looking forward to the challenge. Looking ahead, please come and support the co PTO drama production of Into the Woods being held on February on March sorry on Friday, March 13th at 6 p.m. and Saturday, March 14th at 2 p.m. The cast and crew have been really working hard and are looking forward to putting on a great show. Don't miss it. Okay. Uh at Cornwall Elementary School, March has been an exciting month. Uh on February 26th, Cornwall Elementary School proudly celebrated its 100th day of school. Classrooms marked the occasion in a variety of creative and engaging ways. Students made necklaces with 100
010beads, built structures using 100 blocks, and even dressed as if they were 100 years old. Many students also designed handmade t-shirts showcasing 100 reasons why they are proud to be Cornwall Dragons. It was a joyful day of celebration. We carried that excitement into the first week of March with our celebration of read across America. Our school community came together for a world for a schoolwide bookw walk where staff and faculty transformed hallway bulletin boards to highlight their favorite books. In addition, students participated in a themed spirit week including days such as read uh red, white, and blue to celebrate American literature. Books bring us together to honor our diverse cultural heritages and a bright and a bright future where students dress as their future selves to envision where reading can take them. This month we
011are also prepared to celebrate the retirement of kindergart kindergarten teacher Miss Lauren Krill. Throughout her career, Miss Krill has brought a unique style of sorry of teaching to her classroom, blending cherish traditional practices with okay her curriculum in a way that made every lesson distinctly her own. Beyond academic, she fostered kindness and a genuine love of school in each student. Miss Krill has been a cornerstone of our kindergarten team. And while she will be deeply missed, we're excited to celebrate her upcoming adventures in retirement. As we look ahead, we are excited for a hopefully warm spring break, gearing up for state testing and planning the fourth grade trip to CCMS. Good news from the middle school. The CCMS drama club presented Mary Poppins the musical performing to soldout shows. Mary Poppins is based on the
012similarly titled Mary Poppins children's book by PL Travers and the 1964 Disney film and is a fusion of various elements from the two including songs from the film. Thank you to Mrs. Molton, Mrs. Horn, Mr. Baxter, and Mrs. Firestone and Mrs. Reikov for all our amazing parent volunteers who helped our students to have truly magical performances. DCMS spring sports are underway. Transfer modified girls and boys lacrosse, softball, baseball, and spring track took place last week. We can't wait for blue skies and some sunshine. Level up safety presented to parents of students in grades K through 8 on March 11th at CCMS. The presentation behind the screen, what your kids are not telling you about social media, engaged parents in an eye opening, insightful, and thoughtful presentation. Many thanks to Miss Ana Watts from Level Up,
013Tony Weed from U Boseies, Joe Deold, and Amanda Zampini for all their work. Okay, and then finally, news from the high school. Happy March. We are hoping everyone is doing well. Good news from the high school. It has been officially announced that the valadictorian for the class of 2026 is Marissa Barnesby and saludiatoran is Slav Mitchkovski. Congratulations to them both for the time, hard work, and dedication that they have put in to achieve this. This month at CCHS, senior adviserss Miss Shila and Mr. Pon Soul arranged an ice cream social for all graduating seniors to celebrate 100 days until graduation on March 18th. The sophomore class held Mean Girls movie night on March 6th at CCH at CCMS or AS. The youth and government club held their Oxford debate in the auditorium regarding the use
014of nuclear energy. The turnout was amazing and we are looking forward to another debate debate sometime next month on cancel culture and whether it infringes upon first amendment rights. For all students who wish to attend these debates, please bring your Chromebook to record your initial stance. The last of the MedTalk meetings took place this Monday, March 23rd, in the auditorium presentation room on mental health on mental health therapy. Special thanks to Sadi Steiner for hosting them, helping students gain valuable insight into careers in the medical field. This Friday marks the beginning of spring break. We hope everyone enjoys the hopefully nice weather and takes advantage of this time to study. For those for those taking AP AP exams this year run from May 4th to May 15th, 3 weeks after we are looking forward to
015several events taking place in April, including the musical Mean Girls with performances taking place April 16th through 19th, which we invite all attend our and the pit orchestra have put in a tremendous amount of effort to ensure that the performances are successful. Please come and support them. Tickets are now on sale. In addition, the uh NHS NHS spring blood drive is underway. Take set to take place in April as well. Exciting news for upcoming juniors. The next safe driving form is set to take place at the end of April. So all sophomores who wish to start driving to school next year, you can attend. There will be more as the school year comes to an end, but ensure you ensure you attend one. You must attend one before receiving a parking spot. On March 11th,
016on April 11th, sorry. CCHS is extremely excited to host the drag the green dragon relays in which more than 20 schools participate. That's it. Thank you. Uh, Mrs. Ojio, the superintendent's report. >> Sure. Thank you. And thank you, girls. That was very lengthy, but it's always wonderful to hear all the amazing things that are happening, and I love the theme that we keep hearing about hoping for good weather as it was snowing earlier. >> I know. Um, so good evening. My superintendent's update tonight will focus on where we currently are in UPK planning for the 26 27 school year. So, this is a little lengthy, but it's really important. Um, I want to thank the board of ed for their continued support of the UPK program, as well as Christine Plural and other community members
017for partnering with me today and over this past weekend to share some really good feedback, some concerns, and some solutions as we continue to evolve in this process. I would always encourage our families to reach out to me when you have questions and we can find a time to connect when available. Uh the CCSD and board of ed have supported and made UK up UPK accessibility a priority over the past several years and continues to do so. We have built into our budget with community support the difference between UPK funds received from the state and what the balance of the impact is overall. So to be clear, the state does not currently fully fund UPK. They fund a portion of the program and the district funds the balance per seat. This allows us to partner
018with really great UPK community providers to support full day programming while also providing materials and training to our UPK teams. With the proposed funding that the governor is suggesting, we would be able to continue to prioritize UPK in our district. There is a formula that each district is given. So even when it does become truly funded, not partially funded as it is now, there would be a cap on how many students that would support, but we will learn more about that to come. The good news is that over the past few years we have received on average around 130 applications which would align to the current formula of the full fund. Last year we were able to support UPK without a weight list which was free. The wait list was fully exhausted not until the
019fall but it was eventually exhausted due to choice of provider added seats readiness for a full day program and movement. Our UPK lottery ran on March 11th. Uh it's important to note that the term lottery comes from the state and not from myself or our district. There were 135 students entered for 118 seats. Of the 118 seats, 87% of our students received their 17 students were immediately placed on the wait list. And this past question on things to consider in planning um that I've already answered directly to those who reached out to me, but I also to share with our community community so that everyone has access to the same information. So questions around location and transportation um parents on the western side of our district want a location that's closer to them. So they
020offer some possible solutions of partnering with Washingtonville central school district and also questions about transportation provided by the school district. I shared that the district currently utilizes five different community-based uh providers in various locations in and around the district. The partnership with Washington bill would require multiple levels of extensive planning. However, in an effort to consider this thought, I reached out to Washingtonville Superintendent Dr. Larry Washington today and he shared that beginning in 2627, all of the Washington bill UPK programs will be out of district. Like us, they are facing space constraints for the K12 program and need to rely on community partners. The RFP process for submission is complete for the 2627 school year and we could explore the possibility of using a provider on the western side of the district if the governor's
021budget allows for fully funding program and if the provider on that side of the district already submitted. Um, currently UPK transportation is not aidable under New York State which means the district would be wholly responsible for paying for this service. This can be explored, but with the district's budget becoming increasingly more difficult to balance, this would be um a significant challenge. Couple other questions that have come. Keeping siblings together, such as twins and triplets. Um there was a solution uh to suggest that each household have one entry into the lot into the lottery. That way, siblings can stay together or add a private provider guarantee, which means the private provider guarantee to provide a paid spot for the other twin and then keep them in the same class or at least in the same program.
022Um, so having a one entry per household in order to keep twins together could be a consideration that we could make for 2728 if it is fully funded by the governor. This would allow us more providers and flexibility in planning. In the current plan, without full funding, we are working to keep twins and triplets together. Actually, we don't have any triplets this round, but we do have a couple twins. Uh due to a lottery system and equity for all families, uh stability for students receiving special education. The question was posed of keeping students who perhaps were at a provider receiving services and now they've entered the UPK lottery. If they get a spot, can they stay at that provider? Pretty much the same idea as keeping siblings together. We could consider that if it does
023truly become fully funded by the governor. It'll give us some more um leeway in planning. Um but just a note for the community to know no matter what what no matter what placement the child's placed and they will get their services. Um and then there were just a couple more questions about RFP process. So the RFP process is designed to solicit responses and to be able to compare respond responders against one another while balancing the needs of the district. and that's for people who want to um submit an RFP to become a provider for one of our programs. All RFPs are posted on the district's website and publicly announced in local papers. Um if the district were to choose another provider, a thorough examination of their RS RFP response will be undertaken as well as
024interviews, site visits, and reference checks as we've done with our other providers. And then just a note, we continue to visit the sites throughout the school year. We meet with our providers throughout the school year as well. Um the district did move, a question was brought up about a flat rate for all of our providers and payment. We we have moved to that um beginning this past school year. The district moved to a flat rate payment system for all providers. Uh previously the providers were paid at different rates according to their RFP responses, but that is no longer the case. Um there's a ton of information on our website for anybody who does have questions. There's um frequently asked questions. There's information about all of the providers on there. We spent a lot of time,
025thank you to Dr. EFGY as well for spending time on that to update that site in advance of the um UPK process so people do have that information to go to. Um and then just the last question was about in-house UPK. I told you this was going to be a long one. Sorry. Um we have had several preliminary internal discussions regarding bringing UPK inhouse. There are significant costs and space issues associated with this option. We would have to staff teachers, TAs, classrooms would need bathrooms. It's a very uh is also a key consideration. Um this would require extensive planning and we would also be taking away from our community partners who are doing a really nice job. They've been incredibly receptive to training, partnering, and aligning their programs. Our current spaces on the elementary level
026are very tight. We're looking to add classrooms in the upcoming capital project to support growth and the need on this level. Currently, in some of our classrooms that support AIS or special education services, you'll see three to four providers sharing one space. Although we're growing, those spaces are needed. Um, this doesn't mean that we would never consider this option with the district, but again, with the budget becoming increasingly difficult and a plan that is working very nicely right now, um, it could pose a problem. So, as we continue to move forward to support our youngest uh, learners, I do appreciate the advocacy. Again, if there are questions, please reach out to me directly. I'm happy to answer and meet with whomever and I would definitely encourage our community to continue to advocate on the state
027level. Thank you. >> Thank you, Megan. Um, that was really helpful. I know even as a board member, we get a lot of questions and um, it's good that we can all be on the same page as it relates to status. So, I appreciate that. Go ahead. Can you just repeat the numbers um in terms of applications received weight list and what the number that got their first uh or second choice? >> Sure. So we had um 135 students entered for 118 seats. So of those students 87% received their first or second choice and then as it progressed the remaining seats to the 118 received their third, fourth or fifth choice. Welcome. >> Just to uh clarify, so if our weight list had 17, six have been offered spots, two have accepted, the four will
028either accept or decline. So our weight list is now effectively down to 11. >> Megan, if I could just ask. >> Sure. >> My understanding is that some of the people declined but then asked to go back onto the weight list. >> Yes. So let me clarify that. So, um, let's say my my child was on the, um, was offered a spot and I wanted provider A, but I didn't get provider A and I didn't get provider B, my top choices, and I said, you know what, I really only want my child to go to provider A. Would you put me at the bottom of the weight list? We are allowing that, but they're at the very bottom. And that's with the caveat that only if that provider A is available and all those seats
029between their last spot and the current weight list people. So, they don't trump the people that are I understand that. So the point is though if six people declined >> and 17 to 11 would indicate they haven't gotten back on the wait list. >> Not everybody wanted that though. >> So my question is some did and so the question is it probably isn't just 11 because someone declined and then took a spot in the wait list and then someone from the wait list went >> Sure. I mean we >> that wouldn't decrease the length of the wait list. >> Right. Right. >> So, I guess my answer is how many people are on the wait list, including the people who got a slot in the lottery, but have now re-entered and been put at the
030bottom of the wait list. >> Yeah, it it is fluid right now. Linda's been working on this all day. And thank you, Linda. It is an incredible task. I have to give huge kudos to Linda Mangerson. Um, yeah, so it is a fluid in terms of that respect. Yes, Christian. And at the end we would have all those total numbers for you. But for the initial weight list of the initial lottery, that's the number that we have. >> Be fair to say the number is probably larger than 11 >> because there's at least one person. I I'm just trying to gauge the number. >> Okay. >> Other comments. Okay. Thank you. Um the president's report is brief. Um I just wanted to um make the public aware we were asked um or the district was
031asked actually to um give space to um rock for voices rock voices which is the community group that does the singing and actually is a pretty cool um program. I've actually thought about can I join but um I don't know if you really want me singing but um it does look really great. At any rate that's not the point. The point is that we were asked that that group asked to use our space and um the what we're going to what I'm asking the policy committee to do is to go back and look at one of our policies because currently we have a policy that um only nonfor-profit organizations are entitled to use our space once you know they go through the process etc. And this is actually a for-profit organization. The parent entity is
032a for-profit organization. So, as a result, it doesn't meet the criteria for our policy. We did have legal review our policy to make sure that um you know, we were interpreting it correctly and that there wasn't any way around that. And based on their guidance um you know, we were interpreting it correctly and we were we were not in a position to um break that policy. As a result though, um we're asking the policy committee. What they do is they on a a regular basis they review our policies at a cadence, but we're asking them to pull this one to look at it um as soon as they get back into their session, so to speak, and um review it, see what the options would be moving forward, if there's any flexibility around how we
033might be a able to allow community groups such as this to use space and then bring it back to the board for consideration. So, I just wanted um the public to know that that was something that was brought forward. Um and uh we're going to be uh looking into it more closely. So, you know, when you do bring things to us, we might not always be able to report back on it publicly, but we are addressing things or working on it behind the scenes, and I thought it was important to share that with everybody. Any questions? So, now we'll move into the budget presentation. Mr. Fink. Okay, thank you very much. Uh, Wednesday, sorry, Monday, March 23rd, not Wednesday. I'm already jumping the gun here. Believe the weather turns as well. So, thank you. Here's
034our mission. The Cornwall Central School District is committed to working together with the community to provide a secure and nurturing environment of diverse learning opportunities for all students. It is our goal to help students achieve their dreams and aspirations and to prepare them to confidently face challenges while promoting the strength of mind, body, and character. Congratulations. We're about halfway there. Uh as we said, March 23rd, we really have uh three meetings including today. So the 23rd, April 13th, and April 21st is the budget adoption. Uh and then our public hearing will be May 5th and uh May 19th is that budget vote day. So, bit of an agenda today. We're going to talk about some of our preliminary expenditures and revenues. And then we have a revised and recommended um expenditures and revenues recaps. We're
035going to talk about some of our budget goals. We'll talk about the tax impact of the recommended budget. Um what to do with New York State aid and UPK funding should it become available. Uh a little bit of contingent uh budget information. We have to share that um so that we prepare from all angles. and then our proposed capital improvement project. So, I've shared this before. Um, our current goals are maintain our current programs, continue to support uh and grow instructional and operational programs and stay within the property tax cap. Okay. Uh, we identified a rollover budget and then we had to go back to the drawing table, so to speak, and re-engage, re uh request, reevaluate, redistribute. You've seen this slide a few times already. Uh, preliminary expenditures. So, I won't spend a lot
036of time on doing the preliminary work again uh because that might be bored to tears, but we were looking at about a $97 million uh expenditure budget. 97603 490 about a $4.6 million difference year-to-year. This was our preliminary expenditure summary. Again, you saw this slide previously, so I won't share or read reread it, but you'll see salaries are the highest increase. Health insurance also another high increase. Um and then our debt service is a high increase but it was offset by some additional building aid payments that we anticipate. So our rolled over budget is that on the revenue side. So we took a look at what our maximum tax levy could be. That's that 5.36 would get us about $2.8 million. We assumed a 3% property tax increase which would give us $ 1.6 billion.
037We know we're going to get some state aid at about 409 $49,000 and increase in building aid for uh $1.3 million. Still have some outstanding items with state aid and UPK funding. So budgetto budget increase on the revenue side is about 3.5. Here's how we kind of put it all together on a balance sheet for us. expenditures at 97603490 our preliminary revenues 94067907 you're seeing that difference of about $3.5 million when 2.5 million is applied in fund balance we were left with that gap of about a million and then here's our recap of that preliminary budget all on one page we talk about that maximum allowable um tax levy increase what we assume our tax increase. Nope, we've gone back and we revised. We are now down to just over 97 million. Instead of 97.6
038million, we're at 97 over. Okay, difference of about $4 million. So, what happened? Okay, on the right hand side, you're going to see areas changed or reduced. So, we took a look at special education. We have a reduction there of about $216,000. And we took a look at our transfer to capital, a reduction of 300,000. >> Can I stop? >> Sure. >> Can you explain the reduction in special education? >> Sure. I'm going to do that right here. >> Yep. So, on our on our summary sheet, okay, on our expenditure side, again, everything's relatively the same. I highlighted the areas out of district tuition is what we took a look at. Um, and you'll see that there's a difference there. We were able to pull some of that money out. That $216,000 comes in the
039form of tuition payments. Our tuition payments were not as high as we anticipated, which was good. Um, and our services, our related services for those out of district students were not as high as we anticipated. So, we when we get those values in, we're able to rerun our budget. So, so John, what happens when a student moves into our district in the year and requires a tuition payment? Just because we didn't pay that last year, it was lower than we projected last year is not a guarantee that that there's not going to be an additional amount there this year. So, we're just changing what our projection is based upon like a real number in the same way you did that with like the volume of water used. you're making kind of an ad hoc it
040seems to me you're making an ad hoc adjustment to one item in the budget to basically lower the total number which is not actually money spent but money projected that we'll spend over the next budget cycle. So I'm wondering why special education is what we are in a sense revising when we could revise many other things. >> You're right. So you're seeing uh we're starting to see our special education contracts come across. We approved one uh tonight's meeting. We have our other special education contracts coming in. Those are for all of our out of district placements. So that's where we began looking and trying to get our numbers from those providers directly. Um so there was an opportune time in order to reduce that that area. Um and it is like you said if we
041do get a student in we have to pay for that student no matter what. If their needs change we have to pay for that no matter what. So and that additional obviously we don't know what this is. This is based on our best knowledge prediction of what the percentage will be in this area in the upcoming year. But let's say that does happen, right? We revise it down based upon whatever numbers we got from the past year. Not surprising me that your projection for the past budget was higher than what you probably did actually. Um that's going to come out a fund balance of fund balance. If that happens, what if that is significant? Let's say the let's say you know certain students can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and we know we don't
042have we have money in the fund balance but it's not you know $400,000 be a significant fight in that if we're not allocating wealth $200,000 we're taking out here what if let's say a similar student comes in and that $200,000 that's another fund balance that's going to affect our budget next year so really I'm I'm repeating myself but the point is we're just changing our projection We're not really the actual the entire budget projection, right? >> Yes. I mean, we're forecasting a year out from now on from on what we're looking at. So, special education, these are the students that we know or we are anticipating that we will either have in district or out of district. So, we make our best guess at any moment student could move into this district with very high
043needs and we still have to pay and we could have no outage. >> Yeah. So, we're revising our protection in one area, but we're not revising our protections overall. And I'm sure there's other areas that can be revised because the actual protection historically has been higher than what has been spent in that area. And so, here's the thing like in in accounting, we make allowances for accountable. What you wouldn't be allowed to do is just provide you know, you know, This is the expenditure special education capital. projecting has now been an actual based on a contract. So you aren't adjusting a projection as much as you are adjusting what the projection was to what the actual is. >> We try and what our >> there could still be some cushion in there based on the
044other projections. >> That's correct. >> Okay. >> And whether students stay with us or move out of district >> just like a student could move in, student could move out. >> And every year it's that risk. >> Always that risk. >> Okay. So yes, uh special education out of district tuition and then the on the lower hand we'll see transfer to capital fund. In the 2526 budget, uh Christian, which you alluded to, we have a $300,000 aotment for transfer to capital. That was a project that we're going to do with our panic button lockdown system. So for the 26 27, we assumed a similar dollar value of $300,000. We did an analysis on our door hardware project districtwide. That was completed last year. We realized that we could use a little bit more money. about
045when we have to make some reductions in certain areas and we don't want to impact program and we don't want to impact staffing, this is probably a natural place to reduce. So, we pulled that $300,000 out of this budget. In doing so, there is an impact on the revenue side. So, when we pulled out that $300,000 transfer to capital, that revises our maximum tax levy. So instead of 5.36, it will now become 4.81. Okay. So we had a very high number to begin with. We're still relatively high with $2.5 million. We still kept our assumption the same at 3.0 for our tax levy increase. Our state aids the same. On the revenue side, we changed and increased where we're going to get some additional money from. And that's our reserves. We have an ERS reserve
046and a TRS reserve. Talked about them at the last meeting. So we would move $200,000 over from our ERS reserve and 318,000 from our TRS. So on this next slide is the same slide I showed to you last time. Our ERS and TRS reserves sit very comfortably. ERS is at 1.3 million and TRS is at 2.1 million. So these this reserve is to offset these pension costs that we have to pay. And in in a minute I'm going to show you the next slide about why we're doing this. So here we would pull $200,000 from that ERS reserve and we would pull 318,000 from the TRS reserve. That would reduce our balances to 1.1 and 1.8 respectively. And then I would recommend as of June 30th, 2026, at the end of this fiscal year for
047the district, we would prioritize refunding those reserves from fund balance from this year. Why? Why did I go this route? Why did we choose this route? Here are your contribution rates over the last five years for ERS and TRS. They sit very high. So five years contributions required to be made by the district and they're set by New York State. We really have no say in this whatsoever. They've been very high. You can take a look. The anomaly actually is TRS this year at 8.2. We're calling that low comparative to those other numbers. Our reserves are established specifically to mitigate these increases. District has consistently contributed to our reserves in preparation of these circumstances. the district reserves sit comfortably at levels to make this transfer and we should plan to prioritize refunding the end of
048the year. So on our balance sheet here we would have our revised budget expenditures at 97086599. On the revised revenues our total would be 94586599. And you see I highlighted that $2.1 million in miscellaneous because that's pulling over the ERS and TRS uh reserve money. We'd have a current short shortfall without a signed bal fund balance about $2.5 million. We appropriate that signed fund balance of $2.5 million our balance. Here's that recap. Similar to the preliminary budget recap that I shared with you earlier and previously in other meetings, we still have some outstanding items to keep our eye on, but we sit comfortably at a balanced budget right now. 2.5 in signed fund balance. I like to use this slide sometimes. A balanced budget. Revenues match expenditures. So on the left hand side you see
049our revenues at 97086599. that comes from your state aid, your u your tax levy, your miscellaneous and appropriated fund balance. And then on your expenditure side is all those other items that you saw on your sheet. Salaries and benefits, healthcare, instructional support, transportation, debt, service, utilities, tuition, contract support, OCE, supplies, and equipment. So here's our goals. We eliminated no staff and no programs in this budget. Our instructional and operational programs will continue to develop. We're at a 3% tax levy increase. We're not piercing the cap, so to speak, not going above. We've accomplished keeping our fund balance at a relatively minimum level. So, we don't really want to go above that $2.5 million. Trying to keep that down. What's our tax impact? So, several assumptions here up on the right hand side. So, I just
050want to call them out and make note. So, increase of tax levy of uh 3% $2.5 million in appropriated fund balance, your star exemptions included, no change in assessed town assessed value. We know those will change. So, uh just cautionary tale and no change in equalization rates. They're almost guaranteed to change here. Okay. Um, you see that, you know, for a fair market value of about $350,000, you're about $354 per year. So, we've talked about a several whatifs in the in the last couple meetings. So, what if we have UPK funding? What if we get more in state aid? So, uh, Jim, you asked at the last meeting appropriately on that Monday night and voila, the next day the the one budget proposal kind of came out and, um, it was leaning towards what we
051were thinking, right? Um, that budget proposal from the assembly and um, and the state said that UPK will likely be funded, which is great news, and that they would support a 2% increase instead of the governor's 1% increase. So, we want to plan for this as well. So scenario one, the district receives more state aid than currently projected. So we could reduce that 3% tax levy. Do that if we wanted to. We could reduce the amount of assigned fund balance, that $2.5 million. We can that down. We can do a combination of both. We can do nothing and allow that uh money uh the additional state aid will create and add to next year's surplus. Um we could expand recommended uh programs. So, programs, staff, and capital to match the additional revenue. Um, and we
052can reallocate funds for UPK to fund recommended expenditures. Scenario two, if we receive less, and again that seems less likely, but plan accordingly, uh, we could increase the tax levy beyond 3%, we could increase the amount of assigned fund balance, or we could do a combination. So, we discussed what if the UPK funds become available because that seems the most likely at this point where they're saying $10,000 per kid. We have an allocation in our budget as Megan clearly explained that it's not fully funded for Cornwall. So, we have a funding mechanism in place that is currently built into our budget. We would recommend adding in these additional items and there's several of them. You go back to your uh I believe it was first February meeting where we had our uh priorities. We pulled
053these right from that priorities list. Okay. A testing coordinator position stipen at the high school. A uh some furniture and desks at the middle school. Uh a K8 guidance department chairperson that would be for your elementary and middle school. cafeteria tables, equipment, um a 0.5 full-time equivalent reader at CES, equipment priority list in athletics, a PE elementary PE curriculum coordinator at for athletics, equipment for buildings and grounds, a full-time uh school business assistant, that would be a change in position title, uh not adding, we're not adding a person there, changing a title, and a 1.0 float nurse we discussed. So the total additions there would equate uh to 461,000 which equals our allocation for UPK match kind of one to one. If we were to receive that additional in foundation aid so that addition in
054foundation aid if it's 2% as the uh as they are proposing we would get about $200,000 more. So we would recommend adding a 1.0 0 full-time TA uh for PPS and that'd be assigned to uh the high school and a 1.0 bilingual psychologist. That's PPS and the matches that about approximate $200,000 in foundation. We are shying away from staffing, recommending staffing because staffing are salaries and benefits and those were two of our big drivers. So I flick back to our UPK uh this slide with the UPK funding. There's one staff member on here. The rest is a halftime staff member and the rest is kind of equipment and um other smaller ticket items. Okay. Staffing will increase all those um those costs for salary and contingency budget. U the bad news. Okay. If the proposed
055budget passes, we're good. July one, we start as as normal. If it is defeated, can do a couple things. We can resubmit the uh defeated budget, allowing enough time for legal notice, and we go through the the whole routine. We can submit a revised budget, allowing enough time for legal notices, or we can adopt a contingent budget. Contingent budget is 0% tax. If the resubmitted or revised budget is defeated, you must adopt a contingent budget. The statewide uniform date is the third Tuesday in June for the vote. There's structure associated with it. I won't read all that with you, but there are uh rules and regulations about what is and what can be uh considered ordinary contingent expenses. You see the bottom line. The board of education determines which appropriations con uh constitute ordinary contingent
056expenses. Just a little bit more about contingent budget. again stand here and read, but it's a 0% tax. On the ballot for May 19th is uh the board is going to be taking action this evening um on our secret declaration um for our capital improvement project as well as the bond resolutions that you will see on the ballot. So, we have three propositions up. Proposition one is $44.5 million and that's various improvements districtwide with a tax neutral status. So no additional tax responsibility. Proposition two is $21.1 million and that's classroom additions. Um uh proposition one must pass in order for proposition two to pass and there is a partial effective tax rate impact. And proposition 3 is 14.6. It's athletic fields at the high school. Proposition one and two must pass in order for three
057to pass. And there's a full effective tax full tax. The next couple slides I break down each of these. So I'll kind of breeze through. We've done this before. Um we had a community form. We've had two community forms. This is on the website. So go look up a lot more and we're adding more information's on our website. The budget's going to be up there. The capital project information is up there. Uh, so this will likely be up by tomorrow. Thank you for your time. There any questions? >> Don, thank you. Um, couple of quick questions. First, uh, I just want to clarify something perhaps with your help because, uh, when you mentioned the UPK slide, the money that would be coming in from UPK and there's a list of all, you know, uh, uh,
058ways to repurpose that that are not UPK. I I can see how some would interpret that as saying like we're taking UPK money and using it on things that are not UPK, but just to clarify, we're funding UPK anyway. It's just basically our how much are we getting paid back by the state. >> That's correct. So, great clarification. Thank you for that. And maybe I wasn't totally clear about that. Yes, we have an allocation to cover the difference between what we pay our providers and what we're reimbursed by the state. If the state fully reimbures us for a UPK program, then we have an allocation in our budget that is waiting there that we can redeploy, so to speak. >> Great. Um, couple questions. Uh, try to be quick. So, um, love the creative thinking
059on the ERS TRS uh, adjustments. What makes us think that we would be in a stronger position next year? because we almost have to be in a doubly strong position next year to not only uh to basically refill what we've taken out. I know that's always a um it's a challenge. So, what makes us think that what what what's driving our confidence that we'd be in a stronger position to do that? >> So, we we typically have fund balance at the end of every school year. Correct. So, last year we allocated about $2.5 million to that capital uh reserve. we could take that fund balance and apply it back to the ERS and TRS. Um, I think you're poking at a question that maybe I should have said when I presented that slide is that
060I would recommend that we pull from these reserves this year, but I it's not a long-term solution to our budget, right? Going out yeartoear, we should not be pulling from these reserves. We want to, we can, but I would recommend continually doing that against continually. >> Just ask a followup, John. So, um, refund, um, refilling it from the fund balance, is that fund balance money that's left over from this year's budget? We're not counting on money next year. It's it's what you anticipate being left over this year, so it's almost you're you're fairly sure we're going to be able to do it. >> Absolutely. >> Okay. >> I have a question because it's my first year doing this probably. Um, why can't we take the money from the fund balance and put it towards this
061year's budget? >> That's the appropriated fund balance. Okay, so we appropriated $2.5 million. We could, the answer is saying we could just do three uh $3 million in appropriated fund balance, be the same thing. Um, but that's continually to create hole. You're you're creating reliance on this when that money may not be there year after year. That's it's the same way of looking at it with the reserves. >> Yes. >> But is what you're asking why bother with the reserves? Why not just take it from the fund balance anyway? >> Sorry. >> Yeah. My question is why do we have to do the fund accounting instead of just taking it from the balance and putting it directly? >> I guess there's an over reliance on that appropriated fund balance concern me versus going to our
062reserve. >> Can I Can I ask maybe add some color to D because I think I might know where you are and where you are and in the middle. >> So it's got to you you want to fill it from somewhere. So you're asking Well, if it's if you're going to have to fill this bucket back with this, why not just take it out of this? As far as I understand it, it's because this the the reser the the fund balance is more for general purposes, right? Right? So if something comes up during the year, let's say your roof collapses, you can fund it out of the fund balance. So you want more in there for that variance. You can't take that out of the ERS and TRS during the middle of the year. So
063it gives you more options. Ultimately, it ends up being the same, but it's serving more of its purpose if more of that is available to you because it's your rainy day fund essentially. Yeah. So, it's like a timing thing. >> Timing thing. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Brendan, did you have more questions? Think we were >> I did on other thing. I'll ask one. I have others, but I'll ask one and then I'll stop asking questions. Um, so the uh I'll call it the uh the door project. You know, it was the 300,000 transfer to capital. I noticed that that wasn't on, you know, things that we would do if we got the the rest of funding. Uh, you know, the increase the 2% UPK. Um, so I would love to create some sort of
064contingency for that because I think it's such a a vital project and I would like to not uh, you know, I I would like to not create a hole in the budget of where that $300,000 capital reserve transfer typically has been because that has kind of led us on a sustainable path to continue to fund these types of projects. Um, so with that being said, I'm wondering, you know, different ways that we could potentially tackle that. Um, could we I know in the past through the facilities committee, we've talked about other projects that we could consider that should we come in under which might be too optimistic on the capital project, you know, itself, these other projects that we could uh we could tackle. My understanding is the only thing we really have to do
065is include those projects when we submit to SED so that they're at least vetted and approved. Um maybe I missed this. Maybe this is already on that list that we we plan to submit, but could we add it so that we could tackle it? Should we uh have more money towards the tail end of the capital project? >> Uh we could. The answer to your question is yes, we could. Okay. Because the capital project gives us the latitude to do necessary work in all of our buildings. So the way those bond propositions are are worded is that should there be money left over, we we had that alternate list that we created in facilities committee uh in order to accomplish that. The second thing is if uh in the proposed capital project, we do tackle
066a lot of doors uh a number of the doors here at CES specifically and that was part of our review to look at these doors. Some of these doors are the most expensive doors. We went back and re-evaluated that and said, "Okay, these come out of the door hardware project we had originally allocated funds for through the transfer to capital project and that goes into the capital project, then we're in a better position. So, we can still accomplish the same thing. Again, all that u that work is in the CES 44 and a half million project. So should that bond uh pass, we'd be in good shape with respect to the doors that we had u identified here. >> And that would that would capture pretty much the entirety of what that $300,000 project would
067have been or just a >> share of there's a lot of doors uh districtwide. >> It was a right. So just the CES portion. Okay. >> Yep. >> Other questions, Christian? So, um, there are many things about the way that you're addressing the budget gap that just strike me as irresponsible. And I think that I need to outline why I think that's the case. Um, we're now using our reserve funds like they're an extension of our allocated fund balance. The unallocated fund balance is set at 4% and the reason why the reserves don't count to that is because they're considered kind of dedicated funding towards certain uses. And that's why the point is that they're allocated to whatever the fund balance is whether it's taxert and you know this and I think the point about
068that is that's the purpose why they're not counted toward the 4%. And so we're now basically treating our reserves as just kind of let's say to help us with our budgetary issues and that seems to be a very perilous path to start especially we're using we're taking money from the TRS reserve like it's going up when in fact the contribution rate has gone down. And so the point is we're not experiencing a shock. So we take the money out of there and I agree with you there probably will be money next year and we can recharge it and we could probably do that with the the unallocated fund balance as well because that'll probably get recharged too if you're relatively sure the money is going to be there. So really it doesn't change anything if
069like basically we're just putting it in different silos. But what happens if, for example, you know, many of the public employees throughout New York State who want to fix tier six, thank you, John. Um, and you know, let's say that happens and about 40% of our teachers, I believe, are in tier six right now, not just in Cornwall, but statewide. And therefore, we're going to have to make an additional contribution that's going to be a significant increase up to handle the pension obligations that are going to happen if you move if you improve tier six in a significant way. And now we've taken money out of that fund or at least we put money, you know, the money in that fund at risk when we could take it from any place. And as I said
070previously, we had the money earlier this year, the 2.6 we put into the capital reserve, which we could have allocated toward the budget. Um, and that was made a point by our auditors and other people. I've made this point earlier. And you know, so the point about it is really what we're doing is not taking the money from the TRS and ERS reserve and putting it into the budget. We really took it from the TRS and ERS reserve and put it into the capital reserve because that's what that money could have been. And so that's kind of the p the value decision that's being made here. And I'm concerned because what we're also not doing is increasing the tax levy. And while no one wants to pay more in taxes, by not increasing the tax
071levy, we're going to find ourselves in the same situation next year, okay? Because we did increase the tax levy. So the contribution, the total amount we're going to ask from the community is not going to go up as much. And as the state has told us that this is actually the good budget, that the budgets in the next two or three years are going to be worse. So that our foundation aid is probably going to be less than it is this year. And we're going to do that without improving our tax levy or funding items that are going to get us sorry aid in other ways. And so the point about that over the last six years we have spent we've increased the tax levy and addressed fewer dollar number of actual addressed needs. And
072I need to make clear what I mean by that. Generally speaking if you increase the tax levy the assumption is you are addressing more needs. But over the last six years it's been the opposite. And it's because we haven't increased the tax levy and so we're increasing the tax levy simply to support the existing rollover budget and that's going to only get worse and that trend has gotten worse over time. So we are not addressing that. we will find ourselves back here again with probably less money from the state um not not having the opportunity to raise a tax now because we took it from the non-renewable resource of our reserves or our fund balance and that seems to be a poor way to address the budget hole because that hole was created by going
073under the tax levy for multiple years which was different than what Cornwall did in the past and I really if all the things we're you tuition for special education. Um I'm sure that will get addressed because if it's higher, it'll just come from fund balance. But the point about it seems with the things uh people who have come here talking about SEPTA and the need to special education this district which historically have not done well or by the measures that we report are not necessarily doing well and we're going to take more money from that as the first thing that we need to cut. It just seems like if anything needs to be cut, that wouldn't be the what I would choose as the first thing. And so it makes a parent wonder that, you
074know, they're going into an IEP meeting over the next few weeks and they're talking about different out of, let's say, district placements and they have to wonder, am I not getting the best placement for my child because we decided to lower the number for the special education budget? And isn't that in the back of people's minds? Now, I don't think that's what people are doing, but we've now raised that doubt by announcing that that's what we're going to cut to make, let's say, the budget hole fixed. And so, it seems and these seem to be not prudent choices. >> Christian, thank you. >> And one last point. So, I we've asked this before and you have it on this slide as well about the PRS contribution for last year and you know the final number
075was 9.59. We budgeted at 10. Okay. Okay, I looked through hundreds of other budget presentations and I can't find any other district that used any number other than 9.59 because that's what the TRS guidance was last year and when it was also the final number that they settled on. So when we budgeted 10, basically we budgeted over $200,000 more into last year's budget that did not go to the TRS payment contribution rate and then fell into the unfunded fund balance. And that really raises questions about how we're using our reserves. And I think we need to be more circumspect about that. >> Just a point of clarification. We're not reducing or cutting anything in special ed. So I just want to make sure that's clear because that was used. We did not cut anything. We're
076able to get refined out of district numbers. That's all. So I I don't want any misconception that somebody would have to worry if they're going into an IEP meeting and they have an out of district placement ahead of them. There's no cut there. It was accuracy in our numbers. >> Thank you. >> Other comments or questions? >> I have lots of questions because you introduced lots of moving parts and I'm trying to tie them all together. Um, so let me just I guess make sure that um I have the list of the moving parts that have been introduced today changes on past presentations. So that number on the out of district placements reflecting more accurate uh projections of numbers have come in um transfer to capital on that door project of $300,000 and then the
077ERS and TRS reserved funding proposal. Um I think those were the three large ones. Is that accurate? Did I miss something? Nope, that's correct. Okay. current funding. Um, so what you used and I'm gonna just want to a lot of these are just for clarification just make sure we're all on the same page. You used 1% increase in foundation aid out of the governor's budget. >> That's correct. >> Which is why you had the one slide towards the end of uh both the the assembly and the senate have propo have have a 2% foundation. And so you said, "Hey, if it goes from 1% to 2%, here's what the administration recommends." >> An additional 1% is about $200,000 for us. >> Okay. Um for UPK, you're basing it on funding based on the current formula
078and not the the initial numbers. And that's why you then you have the slide of if the state comes and says, "We're not going to give you I'm using round numbers here, not exact numbers. If instead of giving you $6,000 a seat, we're going to give you $10,000 a seat, that's going to clear up 450 some,000. And that was that slide of >> Okay. Um, so now questions for my understanding. Can we can we talk about the door project? So you're just essentially saying initially we had budgeted this this door project is something that we've done pieces of already, right? We said we were going to try and tackle this as opposed to um within a larger capital project do a smaller transfer to capital line item over a successive year's budgets to make classroom
079doors and other doors uh more hardened for security measures. So, our initial budget said 300,000 and this is saying let's remove that expenditure and either push it to a later year or as Brendan suggested uh adding as an alternate if there's money left over if the capital project passed. Is that >> That's correct. We have about a million dollars already set aside for door hardware project. Our initial comb through our numbers are higher than 300,000. Okay. Um, so it's not let's not do this project. We already have a lot of money allocated to it. It's let's just perhaps put a pause on a piece of this project, but still committed to do it at a later date. >> Correct. >> Okay. Um, the ERS TRS reserve. I have the same question as Jamie and I
080heard your answer and I'm still not sure that I understand it. So, can we wh why why take money out of those reserves with the plan to immediately replenish it and not just use the appropriated fund balance in the same dollar amount over reliance on the appropriated fund balance. Again, I think Brendan helped out there with the reserves are set aside to help mitigate the costs that we're seeing seeing that those high increases for five years if not more. Um, so we have that availability. You have the funding source available now. So why not use it at this point? Um, you could, as I said, I answered Jamie's question. You could, we could go to $3 million in appropriated fund balance, but again, we're potentially causing some more issues with us as we go into
081next year if we have some other issues that come up. Um, special education students, roof flow off. I think it's also in the way that John explained it as well is I think it comes down to you know exactly what you're pulling out to the exact dollar and you can have that because that's what's going to be woven in versus the unknown anticipation of tornado hits right and now we don't have that to at the end whereas we hope that we have that to put back in but we may not if there's an unforeseen situation >> so I have a slightly different understanding and let me just state it and please correct me if I'm wrong I mean I think the reason why it's easier to take out. >> Sorry, Jim. I'm sorry. I I
082thought you were finished. >> I mean, I've got more, but please I let's I I I would love to nail down this point. >> My understanding is why it's easier to do it now is because the money we take out of the TRS and the RS reserve would go toward our ERS and TRS contribution in the budget, thus reducing them, thus in a sense lowering their number. And does that and so the point is this is a time because they're going toward what they were supposed to. Um while as they as people have said is like what happens if something happens in the year if we use it from unfunded balance then we have less flexibility there to those unanticipated costs like what happened in I believe 2018 when like the middle school roof uh
083gym's roof sprung a leak during the the budget vote and it had to get replaced. But you can release money from reserves I think during the year. It just requires a board resolution saying this is the reason why we're releasing it. And I'm sure if it was a true emergency, you have to give a rationale when you release money from reserve and allocate it towards something else. I don't think there's a limit during the year. It just requires a more explanation because by putting it in the reserve, we said it's being spent for this purpose and now if we take it out for another purpose, we more or less have to give a justification for that. But that still is a board resolution. It can be done. It's just in a sense harder because it's
084not going to be spent directly toward its designated purpose. So if we do this like take the money out, which I presume is what's happening here. We're taking money out of the TRS and the RS reserve and using it to fund this year's contribution in the budget, lowering that cost, therefore in a sense treating as an additional revenue that's paying toward those items which they are designated for. If it's got taken out for something else, then the board has to explain why we took the money from ERS and spent it on something else. >> Sorry, great explanation. It's a one to one if you think about it. ERS contribution going towards ERS in the budget, TRS going to TRS contribution. >> So, this just gives more flexibility for an emergency without having to come back
085to the board for a vote. We're essentially at this point >> I would argue it provides also transparency in what we're doing here. >> Okay. And Christian said we would have to go with a resolution to to the board. It would be public but potentially raise additional questions. Why are you going for ERS and TRS money for other things in the budget? >> Right. So that was sort of the >> or any other reserve. >> What's that? >> Or any other reserve we would take the money from. Yes. >> So you're saying Christian if there were an emergency if the roof came off you could take money from TRS or the taxert reserve if you justified it. The justification was the roof fell in. >> Yeah, >> we need the money. This is one of
086these unplanned um circumstances and I think they would accept that it more or less it's self-justifying >> if we just use it for the budget. So I guess my point is we do have to give a reason. >> Sure. >> And obviously a major disaster or something that's unforeseen would be fairly good reason. Um then the question is why did you take it from a particular reserve account and then as I said it would be more complicated and I think John is suggesting doing it now than during the year. Although >> if we are confident that it's going to get recharged effectively I'm not sure there's a difference from taking it from the unallocated fund balance or taking it from the ERS and TRS reserve. So you know obviously these are predictions about the future
087which you know are just predictions and we don't know. May I if if it's not something as catastrophic as a roof blowing off, it was something equally important like a student needing out of district placement that we didn't budget for or something like that. Having it the way you're suggesting gives that that flexibility. No one has to then decide or the I don't want to use the wrong words but um no one has to approve it for that use per se that we're going to use it because that's what we we provide students and that's what is needed whereas if of course if it was a catastrophic event people would vote but there's a chance that if it wasn't catastrophic someone could vote and say no don't use that money. So this way at least
088that money's in an account um that is used for those kinds of other urgent things that come up. Yeah, >> I'm oversimplifying it, but it's >> the fund balance gives you the latitude. >> Okay. >> And and >> reserves. Sorry, I guess it's just a timing thing of saying listen, we have had high rates. It's opportunity that those funds that we've put aside as saved wise. And I'm not seeing here um and perhaps I'm just looking at the wrong page um the budgeted numbers to contribute to ERS and TRS, but you are recommending pulling a very specific amount from each of those two reserves. So, I'm going to say that those match up one for one with you've got that's a percentage increase or percentage, you know, contri contribution rate is on this slide, but
089I'm assuming the dollar amounts that you have match up with the dollar amounts. >> Well, the dollar amounts are much larger than dollar amounts that we're pulling in from the we're we're we're partially impacting those contribution payments. >> Okay. So, it's not a full It's just offsetting >> part of it. >> Yep. >> Okay. >> Other uh >> Well, I've got more. >> Oh, go Jim. Sorry. I wasn't >> uh So, I'm going to I'm going to I don't know. I'm going to I'm going to continue to think about that. It's a new approach. Uh it's a different approach than what we have seen, which doesn't necessarily mean that it's good or bad. It's just different. So, I'm gonna I'm going to continue to mle over that. Um, last year, the budget did not come
090in on April 1st. It did not come in on May 1st. Uh, it came in after we by New York State statute were voted to were were required to send approve our budget to put in front of the voters. Uh the number came out to the good. Um you probably know that dollar figure in my it was >> uh over 200,000 >> $250,000. >> Um where is that money reflected in you're you're recommending uh because I think the understanding that we all had in that point was we're going to apply that as a head start on this year's budget. Um, so to my mind that would mean that we would use an appropriated fund balance of not 2 and a half but 2750 if um if that 250 is the right number. And maybe you
091want to say okay we spent 30 or 40,000 out of strategic planning so knock that down appropriately. But how does that number factor into the proposed budget? >> That is all in your fund balance right now. So you're correct about $250,000 strategic planning 3040,000. So it comes down roughly $200,000, right? 110 220 whatever that might be. Um so that is still sitting in your fund balance. So that would be applied using that 2.5 million assigned fund balance and then the leftover or anything remaining would go into your uh unappropriated 4% fund balance. Okay. Um, and I'll just ask for I'll make two two more comments. um as we start to put the picture together, which obviously we've we've come a lot closer this time and we're still as always waiting on um waiting on more
092information from Albany. Uh I was quoted in the Cornwall local last week saying I was frustrated. I think I said last meeting is the most frustrating meeting because we know here's a rollover budget. Here's where we have with the knowledge that we're going to put it together. So, we are a lot closer to putting it together today. Um, I still I'm I'm hopeful we'll get some news out of Albany in a more timely fashion that we can really start to put it together more completely in our next meeting. Um, so I'm less frustrated than I was last time. >> Can I quote you on that? >> If Mary Jane is listening. No, I mean, so look, we we've made we've made a lot of progress here. um which is good and just I think one
093piece of information that would be helpful to see um is that appropriated fund balance over time and I did you have a slide in that in here I know we've had that in last year um I don't know if you had it today um >> there's there it's in there there's the last four years on one of the slides >> okay so the what we've appropriated over the last four budgets there is somewhere right there. Slide 19. That what you're talking about the appropriated >> That is what I'm talking about. Yes. >> And then last week you'll see or sorry last meeting a whole slide on it going back roughly eight years >> in the last meeting. Okay. I'll go back and review that. Um it's just helpful to know that history. Um I know
094that you have said hey we don't want to over rely on the appropriated fund balance. Um I agree with that sentiment. However, you know a somewhat of a counterargument is obviously the the topline number has increased every year on the budget. So what is that appropriated fund balance as a percentage of the budget? it would make sense that that you know that that number should increase two or 3% every year. um we shouldn't necessarily say hey we want to target a fixed 2 and a.5 million next year it might want to be 255 two you know that may want to keep pace with that top line it may not I you know there's arguments on both sides of that but um just a thought there as I start to think about what are the levers
095that we as a board can pull which you've laid out the appropriated fund balance increasing the tax levy um you know if Albany comes back and says hey we decided we're going to give you more money, you know, decreasing the tax levy. Um, you know, there's all those are the few levers that we can pull. So, just trying to think forward to our next meeting of how we're going to start to tie this all together. >> Thank you, John. >> And Jim, just for my clarification, if if to your point, if the budget is getting larger, but we're staying pretty steady with this fund balance, we actually are relying on it at the less percent because it's not increasing with, right? Okay. I just make like to double check these um John, thank you. I
096I have a question. If we don't um transfer from the ERS and TRS reserve, there's $500,000 we still have to find. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Correct. Sorry. Shaking my head. >> No, no. Yeah, I speak I got you. That's okay. Um Okay. Okay. Other questions, Brendon? Uh just one maybe one request uh and then a question. So um request first of all I I just want to maybe uh recontextualize this whole conversation. This there is a lot of good news. Um so I think that we have constructive paths to most of if not all of the the goals that we laid out. So this is this is good. Um, you've very helpfully listed the recommended budget actions that we could take should we get the rosiest version of the unknowns with regards to 2% funding
097and then the the full uh UPK funding. I would be uh interested in seeing in the next version of this what the the remnants of the door project would look like. You you mentioned that some of that would be absorbed in the the work that's being done that would be done through the capital project here at CES. So whatever portion is remaining of that initial 30 300,000 um I just I I don't like um you know saying well we'll we'll pick this up at a future date that future date sometimes it doesn't arrive um and I think this is a very worthy project so at least when because I think that the next couple of meetings which we only have two um will be about how do we want to what what decisions what what
098priorities want to elevate. So I would love to see that included regarding the uh that the ultimate question about whether we would u fund any of these additional items that it depends on the rosiest version of uh the variable so 2% and the UPK but also the timing. So, um, your your predecessor would often frustrate me. Um, I say that with Jess with his unwillingness to to spend any money that we didn't was wasn't firmly uh in our hand. And even if >> he's a smart man. He still is. was and is. Um, so even if we know or we have every indication that this money is going to be there, none of this matters if the state has not finalized, if the governor has not put her signature on a final budget. Correct. >>
099Correct. >> And that's by April 21st. >> April 1st is their is their date. >> April 21st being our date. >> Oh, our date. Correct. So, um I believe we were right after uh our April 25th date last year when they adopted the budget. It was too late. We adopted. We can't change. It's probably a day or two. >> Can you in that vein? Sorry Christian to jump in front of you. Just it follows >> I've cut I've cut in front of you. So, I think it's just fair. >> It follows along with Brendan's. Could you John just at the next meeting not right now? Um I I don't know if it was last year or two years ago at some point we've had a special meeting. We just said we think the budget's going
100to come in and we had a special meeting not on the schedule. What you know we have the budget um the annual budget hearing on May 5th. Does that mean we have until May 4th to take a vote on the budget or I I think it's before that. I think it's a week or two before that or >> couple weeks before. Yeah, it's uh April 24th or something like that. we have to submit our uh budget to New York State. >> So, >> kind of like that's your drop dead. >> Yeah. >> If we can just check on that because we're scheduled for April 21st. >> Um but I'm just saying if we know what that drop dead date is, if the you know, we're we're projecting timing from New York State a month out.
101Who knows? >> So, two two issues with that. The drop dead date is is basically whatever that Thursday is. Is that the 23rd? 23rd. >> The 23rd. Okay. >> So, that would be our drop dead date. Also impacting this is our military ballots. So we have to get our budget adopted in order to get our ballots printed and sent out to military. So that's uh the other issue that we grapple with. Um and that's why the April 21st date became key because Boseies was able to change their board date >> to that date so everybody could adopt and get our military ballots out on time. to the 21st is really and unless it's super imminent and the news is reporting, hey, they're going to vote on everything on the 22nd or what, you know, but
102yeah, I got you. Thank you. >> Be in violation of not getting your ballots out to >> Yeah, >> Christian. Sorry. >> So, um, just how we are in pairing the budget going forward just by addressing it in this way. So these are all projections and it's not necessarily going to affect someone's actual thing because they're projections are not actually spent money. So over the last five or six budgets, we've pretty consistently thrown off we've been able to recharge the allocated um the unallocated fund balance that we allocated, which means 2.5 million. and then also been able to find two to5 million of pocket change, okay, to put into the capital reserve, which means roughly we've been kicking off $4.55 million above what actually is spent. And but this is how what we're doing is
103going to impair that. So, first of all, by lowering the number for special education, that fudge factor of that $200,000 is not going to be there in the next let's say that fudge factor that's going to show up in next year's budget. So, that's going to be decreased all things equal by $200,000. Same thing with the $300,000 for the transfer to capital reserve, I believe, although I haven't thought that out fully. And then the second thing is is that we're going to have an additional reserve that we're going to have to recharge. if we're going to recharge at the same rate. So either we are recharging the ERS and TRS by about $500,000, which means that's $500,000 that won't be recharging the unallocated fund balance for next year. And that also will be $500,000 that
104won't be able to be put into capital reserve. And that's the trend line that we're adopting by doing this by using the reserves as kind of an annex to our our fund balance. And I just think that is that's a dangerous thing to do. The second thing about this is that it kind of breaks the the taboo on using the reserves towards the budget which we've more or less held for a long time. And so everyone wants something in the budget. Some people want more UPK seats. Some people want this or that program. And they're often told that the money isn't there and you can't touch the reserves because the reserves are allocated for a certain purpose. And then we break the glass for this but not for that. And I just wonder what future
105boards are going to be able to say to people who say, "Well, of course you can find the money. There's still money in the reserves. Why don't we take out a few hundred,000 from here and a few hundred thousand there? It goes to the budget and funds whatever the priority is in that year." And by breaking the glass and breaking that taboo now, we're putting ourselves in kind of a bad situation and eventually we might in a sense whittle down the reserves that were built over 20 25 years. And then you find yourself in a position like Rondout Valley is where they are cutting not only 10 teacher positions through attrition but 16 additional positions because they're a district that did not have the reserves that we have at this moment and therefore facing the
106same environment. They're going to be in a worse position. And I just think that needs to be taken into account when we decide to do it this way versus increasing the tax levy. And there's asymmetric risks because let's say we go to contingency budget. There is a question about whose ox gets scored. I think it's better to take the risk for funding all these different programs that serve our students and our community and our families and risking the fact that the budget might go down since we get two chances on that. Um because what we're doing is we're saying we're willing to risk those things not happening. And then there are the things that get risked if you go to a contingency budget. And I don't think anyone wants to go to a contingency budget.
107But what's risked is well all the PTO drama productions because they would be charged full cost for using district facilities and the Cornwall youth sports that use our fields that will are not being charged the full cost for those facilities either or the freezing of administrative salaries. um that's what we're not risking by not in a sense going higher on the tax levy and we're basically protecting those interests at the cost of some other interest. >> Thank you. >> And there is a value choice in that. >> Thank you. >> Other questions, comments? I just would like to clarify that um if I understood the explanation earlier about the special education funding that it's not a fudge factor you're you're changing the dollar amounts on. their actual costs that you estimated prior to this week
108perhaps when you got the contracts in. You are now replacing the estimates with the actuals and I just if that's is that accurate? >> Yes, that's accurate. >> Okay. Because special education is a very important topic and I know it's important to the community. So I just I want to be clear that um that might be misrepresenting how that was um estimated or brought up often. I just have a quick question about how um in the past has there been a um a sort of a fudge factor in how you've budgeted or is this generally the way that you have budgeted is when you get the you know actual numbers you have a more solid number you know is it unusual to not have a fudge factor >> so I'm gonna let someone else answer
109it but I just want to I'm going to ask us not to use the word fudge factor because I think we're estimating and I think we have to give more credit to Mr. Frink and the work that him and his department do that that's not fair. Thank you. >> But someone else can answer that question. >> Yeah, I'll just expand on that a little bit and I do want to thank John and his team because this has been an incredible amount of work and if we talk about like sharpening the pencil, there's no more pencil. like he has put in an incredible amount of time and energy to make sure that he has been thoughtful, responsible, and has presented a budget that is also creative and trying to meet the needs of our community and
110our and our district. The reality is we are not cutting positions. We're able to keep programming. And I just want to be really clear too with special education, there's no decisions being made at a cse table based on this. Every year for as long as I have been part of the district, conversations have happened around estimations versus actuals. And this is the time of year where CSE meetings start to happen. And so you have those actuals coming which which allow John to be able to come forward with some more specific numbers. So, I just I had to put that out there because I think it's um to say things are being done irresponsibly or kind of in a halfhazard manner is um is not right. Thank you. >> So, thank you everyone. Thank you John
111for the thoughtful discussion and for bringing forward some creative ideas, right? And I think there are a lot for us to contemplate and for the board to then come back. Um, Jim, thank you for asking for some additional, you know, ideas and insights for next time. If there's other things that the board thinks about after we leave here, I encourage you to follow up in an email and certainly we can ask um, John to bring back some additional context or ideas um, next time. But thank you very much for all that you've done to bring it this far. >> Thank you. Thanks for the questions. Okay. So, we now move on to new business. The consent agenda. Items 2 through 12 are presented for approval. Does any board member wish to remove an item for
112separate consideration? >> Question. >> Number eight and number 11. Any other items? They'll be eight and 11 will be removed for separate consideration. Any other items to be removed? Okay. Um, may I please have a motion to approve the consent agenda excluding items 8 and 11? >> May I have a second? >> Second. >> Thank you. All in favor of the motion to approve the consent agenda excluding items 8 and 11? I >> I >> opposed >> abstensions. The motion carries. Thank you. We will now consider item number eight. Um give me one second, please. Resolution to approve advocacy for health insurance reserve. Um is there any discussion? Christian? Um, so we've discussed reserves quite a bit in the context of the budget and this is an advocacy or supporting a resolution to allow the
113I believe the association of school business officials to advocate with the support of our district to create a new u power to create a health insurance reserve. And the I think the intuition behind this is that health insurance is this volatile cost and therefore to smooth the cost over time like our other reserves do we set we create a reserve where money is set aside to cover the the volatility in those costs. Um however I um I'm going to be opposed to this and I just would like to lay out some of the reasons and why I think that this is not actually something that we should get behind. Um the first one is that the health insurance reserve is different than what the rationale bei behind the other reserves that school districts are empowered
114to make which kind of generally fall into two different things. There are costs set by entities that are outside of ourselves that we're legally obligated to meet immediately. So one of them would be a taxert reserve. If there's a legal judgment that we've overt taxed or overassessed someone's property, we need to return that money. And in some cases that could be a lot of money. Um, just to give one example, the assessment on Dan Scammer for Marbo School District, when they reassessed that, that was not just a few hundred dollars, that was millions of dollars and that created a huge hole in their district's budget and that's why you have money there. or the TRS or the ERS reserves which means they set the contribution rate and if that contribution goes up we are legally
115obligated to pay it and that could then you know it could be a shock and therefore affect other things in the budget or that reserves are like the capital reserve which are basically a savings for a particular purpose. Um the key thing here is that these are things that are outside of our control and that's why we have reserves because we can't budget for what we don't know and we don't control. But health insurance is something that we do control. Obviously there's a market and they set a premium but we that's part built into the cost of hiring employees. So when we offer health insurance, as we often say, the budget item cost is not just the salary, their take-home salary, but also their benefits, which a large part assume is health insurance. And so
116in a sense, we're budgeting for that when we budget for different positions because health insurance and the contribution towards that. And if we're underbudgeting that, that is making, you know, basically seem like it's cheaper to employ someone than it actually is because that benefit is part of their compensation. And that goes into a lot of decisions about how we budget on ordinary expenses, our decision to hire people and undercutting the cost on that. And that's something that we actually have some control over, not just in sense of how we budget, but we also kind of do this through negotiations with our different bargaining units. And so we just came out of NE if we wanted to renegotiate or we thought that the contribution that we're not able to keep up with our health insurance cost
117that probably should been in the discussion. I'm sure it was but perhaps a larger part in the discussion in in budget negotiations or sorry contract negotiations. So that's you know the first thing is that this is something that we have control over and really the the argument there is you have some control over what this cost is and to do it better. >> Thank you. May May I respond? >> Sure, you may respond, but I have other points. >> I understand and I'll let you finish by all means, but I just think if you could give us a chance for, you know, each at a time so that I have a harder time tracking. Um, I would just offer as somebody who um is responsible for benefits where I work, you can budget um and
118we do every year and then the agencies come back and say there's a 20% increase and you really don't have control over that. Um that is something you have to pass on to your um associates or you have to pay on your own as an organization. So there's no negotiating with the health company, health insurance companies. Um whether you're fully funded or you're in a consortium, those entities set those rates and those standards. So it you are at the mercy of what they come back with and they come back with that in at least in my experience, they come back with that in October for a December renewal. So you really don't even have time to make adjustments or plan for the year ahead. It's in that moment you have to make those things. So,
119I would just offer that as a another perspective as somebody who um works in that space as it relates to being able to control those costs. But, of course, um your other your other points. >> Well, and I may just have one additional uh point on that and maybe it's a question. How do we have more control over our health care costs than we do over our pensions? By the same logic, should we not have an ERS and TRS fund? So the pensions I mean the pension is a state managed pension right and we it's basically invested by the state on behalf of all of us and most of the payouts from the TRS I don't know so much about the ERS specifically about 95% of that is from investment gains not from contributions either
120by employees or by employers so I mean it was set up a long time ago to be fiscally sound and it's probably one of the strongest pension systems in the United States so our additional contributions to it are relatively minor compared to uh how that pension fund actually pays its obligations. Um >> but wouldn't that comparison need >> I'm sorry, >> but your underlying point is that we have more control over our health care costs and I I could say that another way that there's less variance in our health care costs. the the whole point of having the reserves as you explained was because you have a lot of variance in the expense from from year to year. So that would seem to be arguing that there's less variance in healthcare costs from year to
121year where I I I don't see how that wouldn't apply to pensions. It certainly would apply. >> There seems to be a lot more variance. Look, I I I just I >> part of the argument is if we don't need this then but we we need the iris or I think we need both, but I just don't see the consistency in the argument. >> So two things. The first one when I was talking about volatility, I was talking about this is the argument for and I was in a sense trying to fairly represent the argument for creating a health insurance reserve which basically is upon the volatility of the cost and I think Christine laid that out as well. Um and but that's not the reason why you have reserves. It's not just because there's
122a volatility and cost. There are costs that go up and down. Um if we operated our own uh school bus system, we would be dealing with the cost of gasoline and diesel which have gone up 40% and over the last year sorry last year last month. And so the point is there's a that's a huge volatility and cost just over one single month. So the volatility is not what justifies in a sense creating certain types of reserves is at least my position. So to answer to Christine's point, you know, in the private sector, you don't have tenured employees. You have at will employment generally speaking. And so if your costs go up, what you do is you probably rightsize your workforce to depending on what you can afford to support them at different costs. And
123I mean different different companies do different things. You know, a major argument for why, for example, that the, you know, the the real wage has basically gone stagnant since 1980 is that basically you're getting paid, but you're getting paid in health insurance. As the cost has gone up, while productivity has risen, the real wage has stayed stagnant. And the wedge there is basically the increase in the benefit that comes from health insurance. So I think we're talking about apples and oranges because the ability to rightsize your workforce in the public sector is not the same thing as as many places in the private sector. >> So you have realiz control >> what >> so you have less control. >> So I guess the point about it is you have things for example you can ask
124your employees to contribute more to health insurance. You could in a sense obviously there's different ways that different school districts source it. There's a my understanding there's a consortium through different school districts throughout New York State to pull their resources and their market power and business officials decide on the contribution rate towards that fund which then goes I believe to the insurers. Um I don't know I might be speaking to broad terms there but that's my understanding. So that's to respond. But then the other thing is that the reserves affect my second point was that reserves affect other items because when you put money into reserve it's a spending decision. We're basically saying we're going to spend this money on health insurance and not on something else. So when you create a reserve fund it
125actually has to eventually get funded and that money is coming from somewhere. And if that money is the excess after any annual budget, you're basically making compete with other things by putting it into reserve fund as we discussed is that now that you've made the decision to put it there, it impairs your ability to spend it on anything else. And I think that this is very often I'll just and this is just use an example not saying we are similar to this and I hopefully I just made that clear. when the arch dasis of Milwaukee had many different um child pedophile suits against it, the arch das the archbishop at the time alleged move the money out of the arch dasis budget and put into the cemetery fund that was protected you know millions of
126dollars and then put other money into the parishes so that it wouldn't be touched and therefore shielded from the lawsuits that were being alleged against the arch dasis of Milwaukee. So the point is when you be put into some of these funds, you're not allowing it to be spent on other things. And there's legitimate claims on, let's say, those funds for supporting our programs, supporting our teachers, children, what have you. And therefore, you're kind of freezing that. And if the concern is that we need to set aside the money now because we might have higher expenses later is a little bit like the argument in social security, which is we need to cut the social security benefit now because otherwise we would have to raise it late. we would have to basically um uh cut
127it later. The point is if you're going to cut it later, just wait for then and there's more of a benefit. We can wait for that point when it actually goes up. We don't actually have to set the money aside for it. >> Okay, >> next point. >> Christian, can I give anyone else a chance to chime in, please? Thank you. >> Um John, is there anything you'd like to um share as it relates to the resolution? This is just uh advocacy um and and um allowing us to take action. It's not a commitment to establishing a reserve at this point. Um certain school districts that have selfoperated or self-funded plans um are allowed to have special permission um if they're sponsored by their local senator to create this reserve account for themselves to smooth
128out these higher increases. Um so a number of school districts um in Putham and northern Westchester counties um as well as Orange I've taken on the initiative of trying to get all the Orange Olter uh communities involved in this advocacy as well. So Washingtonville Gan um and a couple others have taken action on this from their board perspective. So I offered it up as a potential solution um for us. There's no guarantee that they will um allow allow this, but I think if enough people or enough districts get on board, um this could be a great opportunity for the district. Um as we've discussed, I recommended using our ERS and TRS reserves this evening. I would recommend to use a uh healthcare reserve in the future potentially if we had if we had difficulties with
129our budget. Just to be clear, this resolution is to um allow you to send out the document as per this as per the agenda advocating for our right to do this. There is no commitment to a dollar amount or to whether or not we actually will do it. This is just advocating to ask for the permission to do it to make it legal. >> We can't do it without without their permission. So they they would have to give us permission to do it first and then we would have to uh have a resolution to to establish and then we would have to um have a resolution to fund. >> So we're asking for permission to to consider it. Yep. >> And then you would have to you would have to frame it back to the
130board for approval and a resolution and then approval for funding it. >> Okay. >> Other um questions or comments? Christian, I'm just going to ask you to keep it brief, but go ahead. >> So then there's the moral hazard argument, which means you have reserves which kind of in a sense accountability because having the reserve as we seen just tonight by using the ERS or TRS reserve as kind of an annex, that's my word to the unaccounted fund balance which is just basically it's a money it's a fund that we can just take out at any time. not because this situation creates it because the TRS contribution rate went down um is that it allows you basically to take public money and say look we're taxing you for this but then instead of restoring it
131back to you to reduce let's say your tax burden we're going to put it into these reserve accounts which we don't have to count against the 4% and that means you're just taking that money and holding it there rather than having let's say we overbudgeted and returning the money to you and my final point is just how We C H C H C H C H C H C H C H C H C H C H Cornwall have used our reserves and I've mentioned this about how we used the capital reserve and I won't repeat the arguments but I think it just shows like how reserves get used and just how the TRS reserve last year where we use a TRS contribution rate that was above what was advised and what was the final
132rate and now we're now using that to basically help us out with the budget and that shows you what is the danger of let's say creating more reserves when we could have Just to go back on this because uh Mr. Frinkin mentioned like he disagreed with like the low contribution rate for last year's budget and he thought it was a poor decision and that eventually we would have to pay for it with a higher contribution rate which is what maybe perhaps we're experiencing this year. If I sincerely believe that, and let's say that's the sincere argument here, why were we advised to take the money from the capital reserve knowing that we're probably going to have a higher insurance contribution rate and then roll that into a capital reserve to have a larger capital project.
133The point is we did actually have a bespoke health insurance reserve that we could have used if we believed what this is was going to what happened was going to happen back then and we didn't. And so that kind of kind of points the point about how reserves can be abused and perhaps advocating for a creation of a new type of reserve is not necessarily something we should get behind. >> Other discussion? >> Oh, sorry. Go ahead, Jim. >> Sure. Um, I don't want to blavorver any points that were already made, but I just want to point out, um, for the board and the public that one of the the wherehouses, I love the resolutions with all the warehouses, um, is that, um, towns and villages are allowed by statute to uh, establish insurance reserve
134funds, but school districts are not. >> Other discussion? Just to respond to that point, >> the people making decisions in towns, municipalities, or elected officials, school districts make budgets different ways where they're more or less developed by unelected officials and then they're put in front of the public to be ratified in the budget vote. And that's one reason why, let's say, towns and villages are similar but also distinct from let's say school districts. >> Anyone? Okay. Seeing as there's no further discussion, we'll proceed on a vote. Uh oh. On this resolution um to approve the advocacy for health insurance reserve. Um all those in favor >> I I >> I opposed abstaining. Uh the motion passes 7 to one. Okay. Uh thank you. We'll now consider um resolution number 11, resolution to approve the May
13519, 2026 capital improvement bond propositions. May I have a motion? >> Thank you, Brendan. A second. Thank you, Carl. Before we begin discussion, I just want to make sure everyone has an opportunity to contribute. So, I'm going to continue to be mindful of time and participation. Is there any discussion? Um I mean just to to make a point um you know I think the uh just to kind of rehash where we've been I think everybody is aware at this point this went through months the facilities committee um there were a lot of robust discussions about not only the uh the merits of each proposition the merits of offering different propositions and then of course what's what's in those propositions and I think to uh and Jim or Christian who were there for um all of
136those discussions and John and Megan can can chime in, add or disagree, but I think the uh the general conclusion of the committee was that uh number one we proposition number one is doing uh the essential infrastructure up upgrades and then it becomes a choice that we're putting forward to the community um with the Proposition 2 classroom rooms uh and then the Proposition 3 athletic facilities. um in uh capital projects in the past even before the successful previous project in 22. One of the arguments um you know of many that happened was that the public should have more of a say on what gets included and what they uh given a choice of what they can support. And I think this uh these three propositions are a direct descendant of that spirit. Uh ultimately uh
137the the public the community gets to choose what they value uh and that will be directly reflected uh in the outcome. >> Other comments >> Christian. So, um, I will disagree with Brendan's characterization of the discussion of the facilities committee, but I will not elaborate on that. But I do think that it's important to say, you know, the spirit of putting in front of the community and letting them decide because that could be said at just about anything that we put in front in the vote. I know that at least seven or eight people from our community have asked us to put UPK on the budget and maybe perhaps the community should be able to decide to do that as well, but we are making decisions all the time. So what is the community going
138to be? If this is a typical school school budget vote over the last 25 years, we're going to get a turnout rate somewhere around 20%. So that means 10% of the community is going to basically require the rest of the community to pay the equivalent of $14 million which is not in a sense tax neutral in any sense of the of this of the thing. And so my object my amendment to here and reason why I pulled it is I don't think that proposition three given when that was decided we did not know what the state of the war budget was and we hadn't made any decisions about that that this looks like a very very big ask for the community and as I said at the uh capital project forum last week if we
139pass all three propositions plus we pass the budget we're basically ask you where the actual increase in taxes to a household has been a little below 1% each year, you're going to see a 5.5 roughly percent increase in the taxes you're going to pay per household for paying for all these. And a large chunk of that is the Proposition Three. And so I would say that this is a very big ask from our community for our community. And I don't think that asking for a $14 million field when perhaps a more frugal way to approach the same problem and what has been done by other school districts is that you don't turf the entire field. You first of all first of all you could go for a cheaper surface which is grass. But second that
140is you turf it. You only turf the infield which is a significant lower cost. And that is the choice that's not being in front of the community. And there wasn't a long discussion about this particular it came in at the last moment because we just got three different athletics field you know propositions that were basically turf all these different areas full high cost and there really wasn't any let's say gradations in terms of other different alternatives that would address the same problem or the same need and I will just say that um I talked to a lot of uh baseball players from the Royce Cy Ketchum team which has been the final the winner the state champion or the simp runner up the last three years. And what they said about turf fields is that
141they would rather play on a grass field than a turf field. And they said that actually there's a competitive disadvantage when you practice on a turf field because they said that you get used to the true bounce off turf. And what you don't get is that you actually when you go to the grass fields where it doesn't have the true bounce, it's actually a worse transition. So it's easier to go from grass to turf than it is from turf to grass. So this question of whether this is actually an improvement, I mean I think we should take care of our baseball fields. I think that you know obviously there's been concerns of him this uh this spring. Um, but I don't think that this is, let's say, as I said at the capital project forum,
142I think only five or six school districts in the Hudson Valley have turf, baseball, or softball fields, which is saying this is kind of an extravagance when some other things are not being addressed. And so what my position would be is we should basically nyx Proposition three and only put forward to the community propositions one and two. >> Thank you. Other discussion, >> I'm struggling with how to respond to that, Christian, and I guess I will just say in brief that may have been a nice discussion to have during the multiple facilities committee meetings where we discussed it uh as well as the multiple board meetings where the committee made presentations to the board and we haven't addressed anything in the past, let's say month or so, it's been put on the agenda. There's been
143no questions, no comments. So, I'm just unsure as to why it's coming up now when this could have been something that you addressed a month ago, two months ago, three months ago when we were having these discussions as a committee and as a full board. Um and I will just say that the far and away consensus of the facilities committee which is composed of board members, administration members, um our construction managers and our architecture firm was in favor of these three um and other community members, excuse me, community members, um district uh building administrators. Um the consensus was to do these three propositions and to do them this way. Um and when we discussed this as a board, the board was on board with all of these recommendations. So um I think the time to
144bring this up would have been months ago. So I would recommend um that the remaining members of the board vote yes to approve these. Thank you. So Jim, if I may respond, um I did bring this up in the facilities committee meeting. Maybe not the exact words, but the same objection. And the response was that I was cut off because quote unquote it was filibustering by one of the members of facilities committee when we're taking the vote. And as you know, I voted against this in the facilities committee. So it was I mean there was a vote. Not all the members of facilities committee were there. Um so we had only had three of the four members. It was a 2 to1 vote by the members of the board. I did vote against it then.
145So the point is it was brought up. Now when this has been on the agenda here when we have brought up the capital project I had generally voiced my descent from this and so I would pull this even at this point because my vote based on the construction here would be still something I would vote against. I explained my reasons again and I will probably when we vote on this proposition I will be voting against it and as I said the rest of the board can vote for or against it as they decide. >> Other comments >> just to correct the record I used the filibuster comment when you were talking about the polling sites. So that's uh >> and then facilities committee. >> No the word only came out of my mouth once. Uh
146they're recorded. >> It's unfortunate that we did not record the facilities committee meeting as some people suggested. >> Okay. I'm going to ask that we not have this debate right now and we just stick to the topic at hand related to the um resolution. >> Uh sure. So uh everything you said Christian uh regarding the three propositions um I think the the community will be able to evaluate. I think the u the overriding conclusion I I know I've mentioned this at the capital project forum the other night. Um, one of our members uh said it well and it it's a thought that has stuck with me since that the community deserves a right to choose. So that's what this that's what these three propositions offer them. And for that reason and look I I think
147everything that you the criticisms that you you laid out for Proposition 3 um there's going to be a lot of people that share them um but they get to vote that way. Uh you mentioned you compared it to UPK. Our annual budget does not allow us the opportunity to put up individual items for the for an up or down vote uh independent of the rest of the budget. Having a capital project which we can break up into propositions does allow us that opportunity. So I don't really think that's an applesto apples comparison. But at this point I think all the points have been made. As Jim has said, we've been discussing this for months. So, I'm ready to vote. >> So, um I think we're ready to proceed um to vote on the resolution unless
148anyone else wants to weigh in. Okay. Um so, um I'd like to take a vote on the resolution to approve the May 19th, 2026 capital improvement bond propositions as outlined in the agenda. All those in favor? I >> opposed abstain. The motion carries 7 to one. Thank you. >> So, I know in my household it's the week before spring break and there are a lot of exams to be studying. Um, so girls, it's up to you. Whenever you want to leave, please do. Thank you for everything and enjoy your break. >> You could have self- selected out a long time ago. All righty. So, we're moving on to old business. We'll now um discuss the discussion on additional polling sites. Um I'll just open the discussion by saying um last meeting I committed to reaching
149out to our legal council to um just explore further some of the concerns or the options that were raised in our meeting as it relates to being a correct me if I'm wrong a um a union free or a uh I want to say chap charter and I knew that wasn't right so my brain wasn't helping me um central district versus union district if that changed the rules as it related to our requirements related to polling site and districtricting us etc. And um our legal council was very clear to me I talked to him today on the phone. I know he also spoke to Megan um and said that it does not make a difference. Um specifically said that central follows a union free unless there is a specific law to the contrary and there
150is not in this case. Um, so he still stands by his recommendation or his guidance that if we were to move to a second polling place, we would have to assign people to specific districts. Um, so with that, I just open it up for conversation. I just want to re recap. My understanding when we left the last conversation was that we were going I was going to investigate that as an option or commit to doing that in the effort um, you know, to keep moving this forward. And um we had said that we would consider taking a vote and not necessarily at this meeting, maybe the next agenda, we would consider taking a vote to commit to um two sites next year. Um and that was where we had left the discussion um at the
151last meeting. So I just wanted to bring us all up to speed. If somebody remembers it differently, please, you know, chime in. But I just wanted to level set where we were at so we could have a fruitful discussion and um decide on next steps. And I think what you described is accurate and uh I think that's the logical next step. Um, so then, um, I'll ask that we put it on the agenda for next week that we vote on, um, we can work on the wording, but that we vote on having, um, two polling locations next year to, um, you know, grant easier access or or closer access. Um, I think we said the high school is and I I think if I'm recalling administration, that's possible, especially with time to plan, etc. Would
152it be worth if we decide on that next meeting, sorry, my brain, um advertising it at the voting site this year, like just to get it into the community, like start talking about it? >> Yeah, >> the earlier the better. >> Yeah, >> sure. >> Could we preemptively um figure out where we would do the two districts so that we could tell people when they vote this year like, "Hey, heads up. you're going to vote at this polling site next year, just so you know, because I think tend to be the same people who come out for this vote. I mean, you know, >> right, we might get more people, but >> if we could do it by then, I think it's a great idea. >> I think the risk is uh giving people the
153wrong information, >> you know, like because you would have you would be telling them you're here, you're here. So, I that would be my concern going into that. Like, how certain are we that we're telling people that they're going to the right one? We might have a placard that has the options that these will be or and alerting them that they'll be getting some sort of uh district communication in September or something. >> Yeah. I think like it's like a look for more information on this thing we're working on. >> Right. >> So to >> but but if somebody Yeah. If somebody gets a card, you know, they move or you know, whatever or we're just wrong then. >> I was going to say if we if we are I don't want to say rushing
154it, but if we don't give it its due diligence and then we >> I don't know. >> Great. I mean, great idea. I'm just saying like we might have to layer that >> communication, >> but back to school night or other things where parents are all showing up, right? At least um that'll get that part of the community. >> Yeah. And we've done that for other things, too. That's a good point. So, like once we have a big push for something like we really start like hammering out the message, I think the next steps in some of it is going to be what does that look like? So, is it um parts of the district? Is is it your street? Right? So, those are conversations that are going to have to happen. And I think
155it's smart once as soon as we get that done, we really should start hammering that out. But Jamie, I do like your idea too, like you know, almost an advertisement like starting next year. Yeah. >> Other comments, question. >> Few other comments. So obviously turnout in nonpartisan local elections has been a hot topic in Cornell recently. Um and I think that uh we should compare let's say our approach to this as a school board um versus like another approach. So by my account we have been discussing this for about a year and a half. It has been on a public agenda six times. It has been reported in the cornal local and there's been public comment made about it. And I think that's the right way to do something because it's out in front of
156the public for that long of a time and allows people to think through it, consider it, etc. Um because we could have done it through a referendum. There is a way to put this onto a referendum onto a school budget vote much in the same way uh for for school budget votes as it would be for a village or town election. And it could have been done that way. And I'm I would say congratulations to all of us because we've committed to a process that's a lot more open than I think what occurred. And I think that's important because regardless of the outcome of it, I think the process is equally important. Um the second thought on this is though I mean I'll leave I think that the point about all legal opinions are conjecture.
157The commissioner's council office does not give advisory opinions. So if we ask them the final arbiters of this what they thought they will not issue opinion until there's actually a fact in dispute which means you actually would have to carry out the election and they also and but however given that we know that there might be a variance between electoral districts that might be as many as 500 votes and there are likely to be many things in this vote that are within that margin. You allow someone then to actually bring it to the count the commissioner to saying you've carried out an election and there's two different standards that have been repeatedly invoked by the commissioner and decisions on this which is one is that you can actually prove that the would those votes or
158disparity or the margin would have gone to a different outcome and you have to show deliberately that that actually would have occur or have an election with so many innocence irregularities that would call the whole election into question. And so there's going to be a lot of people who are not going to be happy with the outcome of this election and some of them will be on the west side of the district and they could then challenge this and then that would put a lot of the things that we're going to vote on potentially in jeopardy or at least in delay and I think that should be a consideration as well. Now obviously we're not going to vote on this since we're not voting on it tonight. It won't affect this this current election. Um,
159but those facts have been out there and it won't be our decisions or our judgment. And the last point is about legal arguments being conjecture and how those legal arguments are are made. Um, so our law firm representing a different district made an argument about FAPE 22 interpreting what the phrase 3 to 21 inclusive means. I think it was on behalf of Kona Lewisboro and I think Bedford, but I might be wrong about the second one. And the point was there was a legal decision back in court and what they did is they turned like what does 21 inclusive mean in other New York statutes and other new New York things. And so you can't if you can't find it in the statute and the word polling place doesn't appear in education law. Um you
160look to other things that might give you more guidance like for example New York state election law and that's more or less the argument they made. And then of course that argument was in a sense rejected both in substance and in terms of form uh by the the appeals court. And so this is just a reminder that a lot of these arguments are open arguments. They're conjecture. Eventually they're going to get settled and no lawyer. And as I pointed out last meeting, we had a legal opinion that if we had an electronic system that that would allow to have one single district with multiple polling sites. And that was in a sense a legal opinion from last year. now, not the current one, but it does call into question whether there's a single obvious outcome
161from a legal perspective on this. And so, as we decide in our next meeting to vote on this, um maybe those are some things we need to consider, comments, discussion. Thank you. Um we move on to our um second round of public comment. Anybody? Uh same rules apply please follow the same guidelines three minutes. Um and um yeah Roby Mineral Springs props. No I have borrowed from Apple $4,000. um to uh check out what's coming in terms of file types or visual experiences. I use AI a lot. Um you all have emails, the BOA email address. the thing that I produced for you a week ago Sunday. The guy who did that uh presentation liked my comment so much he made his own school and presented a um how to do that this weekend. Uh
162this is how fast artificial intelligence is going to change the paradigm. And if Boseies thinks they can control it, they're crazy because it took 24 minutes for me to create a virtual district using artificial intelligence. What that means, I don't know, but a lot of people are walking around with their eyes covered with their cell phone. And the future needs kids who are prepared for this and they're going to lead us because our teachers don't know how to do it. And I will say when I was on the when I was on the technology committee in the 90s, Red Hook was beginning to train their staff. They didn't train anybody who was in 10 years of retirement because it was a waste of waste of taxpayer money. we're in some kind of comparable paradigm. Things
163are going to happen very fast. And the really cool part is that it gives us a whole different way of being families educating our children and as a community supporting families educating the community to standards to the curriculum map because when I back in the 25 years ago for the district first time got the curriculum map and that's been kept up to date. I was able to tap into that with artificial intelligence. It found it and it started filling things in. So, I taught this pedagogy at Storm King. I think it's fantastic because it engages the kids. It engages their families, um, their siblings, uh, neighbors. We can be a different type of self-educating community. And artificial intelligence does not have to be our dictator. It can be our friend, but we got to be
164out in front of it. Thank you. Thank you. >> You have to turn it on. You have to turn the mic on. I think Mr. Roby turned it off. >> Hi. Sorry. Oh, okay. It's on. Um, so I am uh Dr. Kate Essar. I live in Cornwall. Um, I just wanted to say thank you so much uh, Miss Arjenio for your careful consideration of the parent and advocate concerns and possible solutions. Um, UPK for Cornwall greatly appreciated your statement that you made earlier today um, earlier in this meeting and if it's okay with you, my plan is to not only post the link the exact time um, when you say it. Um, thank you so much members of the board for all of your careful consideration of UPK. Um, we are greatly looking forward to
165expanding UPK to make it truly universal here in Cornwall. Um, as a literacy expert, I just wanted to say that I'm particularly excited to see the impact that this has um both on our literacy and math scores and wells the proficiency later on because we know that that is a direct correlation uh between um the early mathematics and uh phonetic skills and phonetic awareness. um directly on um their literacy proficiency. So, thank you so much. >> Thank you. Any other public comments? All right. With that, um may I please have a motion to adjourn a meeting? >> Oh my gosh, I have it highlighted, too. I got excited again. >> Closing comments from the board of ed. I have I have so moved. It's on my script even to say we we'll now have mo
166closing comments from board members. Um so yeah, sorry. Would anyone like to start? >> Christine, let me >> Yes. Go ahead, Carl. >> I just want to touch base with uh something with the uh visitation committee. Um last week I was speaking to Walter over at the uh maintenance department and he was looking to get Megan's okay. Um the visitation department is going to go Thursday. um this week to you know meet with the maintenance department people. Um I kind of he called me about eight o'clock this morning. He was excited about it and uh he said hey can you come Thursday and I wasn't even thinking about letting everybody know and I said sure Thursday's Thursday works. So I just wanted anybody that wants to go you know um and they're very happy with
167with the visitation. Yeah, I think um I think it's great, Carl. I just I had said to Carl like Jamie and I are on the committee. Neither of us we can't make it. We have other commitments. I just want them to know that it's just a matter of we had other commitments and not a lot not a lot of time to plan around it, but it's not um an indicator of whether or not it's important to us. So, you know, I'm excited. I think Richard, you're able to go, too. Yeah, I'm excited you're both going to be able to be there. So, um thank you for that. I'm gonna take that as your closing comment, Carl. All right, Richard. I'm just going to wish everybody a good spring break. Enjoy it and we'll see you
168in a couple weeks. Thank you. >> Yeah, same. Happy spring break everyone and uh we'll get back at this after. >> Uh so three things. the first um and it's a while back now, but in late February, I got to go to the Cornell Historical Society's presentation on the two Harriets, which are about uh two distinguished um African-American women from Cornwall, Harriet Jacobs and Harriet Terry. And there was a presentation about their lives. Uh one wrote um one of the original escape slave narratives and written here in Cornwall. Um, and during the presentation I just had like a moment of like how small the world is because she had created a boarding house at 10 trout bridge in Cambridge where it's where I used to park my car. I noticed it in the thing and
169I think but the point here is that at the end of it and the discussion two separate people asked is this taught in our schools. um Harriet Jacobs who was an escaped slave um who then lived in Cornwall when she wrote her narrative and Harry Terry who formed one of the first black sororities at Howard University and two people asked is it taught in our schools and I would hope I know that uh Susan came the president of the historical society has asked and I would hope that it is taught in the schools because it's an important story it is a formal story and it's an important story just in terms of our uh national history uh the second and I'll just uh withhold the name um I wouldn't say a colleague but a a
170guidance counselor for 29 years um the wife of one of my very first principles just recently succumbed to can uh brain cancer and I just uh a small world but you know the people who give a full career helping children uh working with them and uh you know mostly I know because her husband was a principal that in a sense changed my life and it's just to remember that and all the educators and what they do for their students. And then lastly, um been thinking a lot about Shakespeare recently and particularly about, you know, King Leier. And as you know, if you read Shakespeare and King Lear, there's a Duke of Cornwall who is the one of the arch villains in it. He's the bad son-in-law to King Lear and the good son-in-law, strangely not
171given our budget discussions, is the Duke of Albany. Um, but there's a kind of a famous scene in Kinglier that often wasn't performed because it was considered too gruesome and it's when the Duke of Cormal gouges out the eyes of Glouester and it's kind of an interesting story because it kind of maybe Shakespeare was on to something and you know Glouester tries to help clean Leair and he's basically taken in by Duke of Cornwall and Gloucester says you know eventually my eyes will see kind of the the vindication because and then C formal decide Duke of C formal gouges out one of his one of his eyes and then a nameless person only known in the play as first servant says to Duke of Cornwall says look I've been your good servant since you were
172born but the best service I can ask you is ask you to stop and what Cornwall the Duke of Cornwall does is strikes him down it's kind of an interesting story because first servant doesn't even have a He just in a sense says this is the wrong thing to do and this is we should stop. And the thing is is that it seems like this feudal gesture because he basically says stop and then get struck down immediately and they never hear from this person again. But the kind of part of the story is that what it does it changes to everyone else. All the other servants that Cornwall had asked to hold down Clouester all of a sudden see this and they start to help Glouester and that leads let's say the outcome of the
173play where the fall of the Duke of Cornwall and then let's say some vindication for Lear although if you know King Lear nothing gets vindicated. It's just been a story I've been turning over and over in my head and I'll just leave it there. I just want to thank John for uh all the work that went into the presentation and then the the presentation itself. I know that's uh many hours go into it and also for uh to John and to Megan and very special thank you to Walter Moran for uh the preparation and uh in Walter's case performance at the last capital uh project forum um I after when we were done I I said to Walter you're you're just the cheat code. anytime I a tough question or just a question you want
174to hear the best answer to you just turn to Walter and say you want to take that one. So very very grateful um and uh I know that uh all all hands on deck from from here to the the finish line. So um yeah and as Richard started uh everyone have a a great spring break and we'll see you when you get back. Yeah, I'll be brief. I just wanted to comment on um it came in the student update said that there was a um parent night at the middle school uh with uh help from uh the director of security at Boseies whose former uh deputy under sheriff, if I'm getting his title right, with the Orange County Sheriff's Department. Um as well as as well as others. Uh Joe Debald was there, Cape Colbo,
175and it was uh so I attended it as a parent. Um and it was just a very good helpful information for parents. Um it was targeted toward middle school parents, but I, you know, good for late elementary school through to high school. Um, hats off also to, you know, selected high school students that attended to get kind of the the real information out there of of how students see these things and interactions with parents. Um, and it just sort of dubtales in with, you know, received some parent I don't even want to call it complaints, just parent concerns of, hey, here's we're doing and and thank you, uh, Dr. Fignay, you've been, you know, communicating with them and we, you know, putting some new things in place for this year, next year. So um just
176as the the overall technology piece and how students interact with it um you know kind of what what Mr. Roby said earlier AI is coming down the track these things are in our world um our students need to know how to use technology responsibly and it's just an ongoing um it's an ongoing uh thing that we're just going to have to deal with. There's never going to be a solution here of like, okay, we technology has stopped advancing and stopped moving and we've taught kids exactly what they need to know and we've protected them from every bad thing on the internet. Like that's not realistic. So, um it's ever evolving and it's just going to maintain. It's it's going to need constant work um from uh the district and parents working hand inand um and
177I think we're just we're seeing good partnership on both levels there. So, just wanted to point out those efforts of saying, you know, this is good and it's just it's going to need to be ongoing and continuing and have um you know, everybody have a happy uh spring break. Hope everybody gets to rest, relax, uh spend time with friends and loved ones if you're traveling. Uh travel safe. Um those you know uh observing Passover or Easter, uh you know, please enjoy your religious uh celebrations and we'll see everybody back in a few weeks. Thank you. Um I'll just piggyback on the comments around technology. What I'll say is a parent of college age students. Um it it was eye openening how AI is utilized at that level. Um both with permission and without permission I'll
178say. Um but really you know in terms of um and I imagine because of the speed things run you know we look at college students using it a certain way of course high school students you know it's just a matter of time until younger and younger right. So Jim, your point is uh well taken in the sense of how do we get our arms around it, you know, for good versus trying to like run away from it and um pretend it doesn't exist. The reality is it's um it's a reality. Uh it's also funny when you don't have kids in in the school anymore, spring break kind of gets a little lost on you. So I'm like, oh, but I never stop with like the fresh start of the year, September. So, you know, that
179happens. So really, you know, enjoy the spring break. It's it's, you know, much deserved. Hopefully, we get some nice warm weather. Um, and, you know, I I'm looking forward to the next couple meetings. I know as a board we have a lot of um really thoughtful decisions we need to make and recommendations we need to make to the community. I would just say, you know, like let's let's keep our ears open. Let's listen to what people are are saying so that we can be thoughtful when we are, you know, coming back together to make decisions. Um but I'm confident that the eight people sitting around this table um are are thoughtful about that. And so um I'm looking forward to what we can do um in that space as well as I will say it
180again the strategic planning um that will be critical in terms of moving forward when we think about these conversations a year or two from now how strategic planning will inform those conversations right in terms of holding us um honest or accountable to what the community has said is a priority. So, I just will encourage folks again to go online um take the survey and then the community forum is Thursday. Um don't mean to put you on the spot. Um but it's coming up and it's it Thursday. Okay. Thank you. It's it's Thursday at 7. So, um you know, it's on the website if you want to check that out. So, you know, really we would love to hear from as many people as possible. So, with that said, now may I have a motion to
181adjourn the meeting? >> Carl. >> May I have a second? >> Second. Thank you, Brendan. All in favor? >> I >> opposed. All right. Thank you. The M meeting's adjourned.