Work Session Meeting on Monday, January 12, 2026, at CES at 7 00 p m

001Okay. Hello. Welcome. Thank you. I'm going to call our meeting to order. Our January 12th board of ed work session meeting. If you could join me in the pledge of allegiance. Thank you. Happy new year, everyone. Feels like we've been back in the new year for, at least to me, it feels like it's been three months already, but I don't know, time's going quickly. Um, so we're going to begin our meeting with public comment. Uh, recognition of visitors for any items on the agenda or for any other concerns. The board of education welcome comments from the public. Each person wishing to speak is asked to speak into the microphone, identify themselves, and respectively limit their comments to three minutes. We'll have two opportunities to speak, one now and one at the end, limited to 30

002minutes. Please remember there will be no cross dialogue between speakers and between board and members of the board, pardon me. I got it. You passed the test. Um, good evening. My name is Nancy Bryan. I'm a former member of the board of education and I wanted to speak to the point that's on your agenda this evening about the possibility of moving the location or different locations for the budget vote. Um I want to strongly encourage you to not go that route. Um I have several concerns. Um certainly I think you would see much less voters if you had one location at the high school. Um don't fix what's not broken. That's my feeling. And we have had successful votes at the middle school forever and I would encourage you to keep it there and not

003look any place else. I truly believe you would have much less voters show up if you had it at the high school. It is not a central location. Um, if you were to have more than one location, I'm sure there's going to be a tremendous cost involved. And I know for a fact that finding pole workers is a very difficult thing to do right now. And trying to have two locations where you have pole workers is probably going to be a a tricky thing to pull off. Parking at the high school has never been one of my favorite things. I know there's additional parking there, but I think that you would find that it is um not going to be conducive to having many people coming from 6:00 a.m. till 9:00 p.m. or whenever the

004hours are for voting. I think that's what it is. And I I think that that would also be a big deterrent for people coming to that location. My other biggest concern would be the security for the students. Should school be in session at the high school during this time, the configuration of the high school does not allow you to secure an area the way the middle school allows and security for our students and staff and buildings should be a very very big priority in making these decisions. Um, I'm very familiar with both buildings and the middle school you are able to close off areas to shut down the flow of voters when the kids are moving through the hallways and it works. So, I would strongly urge you to not consider the high school as

005an alternate location. Thank you. >> Thank you. Other comments? >> Moving on to our committee updates. Um Christian if it's okay I'll start with you. You have policy I have oxa and audit if there was anything additional. >> So audit has concluded um it's required work for this year. So we are just waiting. Um so there's nothing to report on audit. On policy we are doing some um after our last meeting. Well, obviously today we had the second reading of the policies from our last um policy committee meeting and we are doing some background research on uh two of the policies that came up and some were delayed. So I have some homework on that and that will be the announcement of the next meeting. I will also say that no criticism but facilities is

006taking a lot of the uh the days because we are scheduling more meetings. So I'm trying to find a day where people on the committee don't have other commitments. And Oxa, there was the first January OXA meeting on January 6, I believe. Um it was a meeting. So the December meeting we met with um various different elected officials in the area and they kind of briefed us on their views on what the state budget would be and both us sharing our priorities as well as kind of the realism. um that meeting had occurred before the initial let's say budget report had come out for the state. Um the basic news is that it is not as um the this the shortfall is not as large as many people feared and so they think that this

007will not be this year and the general message was they expect pretty much a 2% increase which means it might not be as generous increase in foundation aid as it been past years but it will also not be as bad as people feared. Um but um so the meeting in January um was from various different represent uh representatives from NISBA so their legislative liaison and talking about what they anticipated the policies. Obviously there's been an announcement in the governor's budget about providing funding for universal child care throughout New York State. It's a proposal at the moment, but um it would uh my understanding is that it would increase the number of slots that were funded, but also increase the the allocation per slot. So, I believe right now it is in the single thousands, and

008I think the governor proposed, I think, $10,000 per slot, which would certainly um would help us with our UBK program, but I think that at least in design, it's more ambitious, but that's a proposal. there was some discussion of that and um they basically as I said they expected a that right now about 50% of the districts in New York state are in hold um um basically hold harmless which means that they will not have a decrease in funding but as they go to 2% it will be 75 district 75% of the districts in New York state which would be I think probably might even include us although we generally have been on formula since we are not shrinking as much as some other districts are which is really what's driving down their foundation aid.

009So the point about it they thought this year would be static but they thought the budgets ahead were probably going to become more um more and more stringent was the basic discussion. They also talked about their NISBA is has several different student recognitions and they want to open it up more to the public and that they shared I think probably with an email of a link some information that if you want to nominate students um and they talked about the criteria for those uh for those NISBA policy awards. So that was the the base of the OSA meeting and it was an online meeting and they had about 30 attendees. >> Thank you. um visitation Carl. >> Um yes, we are going to meet up this month sometime and try to set up another date

010to go to the schools. First thing I got to do is get a hold of Megan and sit down with her so we can discuss plans. But um outside of that uh we are moving on for the second round. >> Great. I just want to say I think the first round went really well, organized well. I think we all had good visits and um the the reception was good. So, it was a new way. I think I said this before, so forgive me, but you approached it a new way and it was um really wellreceived. So, thank you for pushing us outside of our box a little. >> Yeah, I agree. It was We had a good time. >> Righty. Uh communications, Brendan. >> Yes, we are having a capital project community forum on Wednesday,

011January 28th, 7 p.m. in this room. Uh we are also going to have a questionnaire that is uh will be shared with the public tomorrow that will uh gather some feedback and input regarding the capital project. And we're going to have some questions, but also some open-ended opportunity in that questionnaire to offer input that uh you know, if you have a question about for the the board or the administration, you can ask it and uh time allowing we will answer it at the community forum. So uh that the announcement will go out uh with the questionnaire tomorrow through school messenger all the various social channels and everything and we'll make sure that the Cornwall local is aware. So uh we get the word out uh in plenty of time but again that's uh two weeks

012from this Wednesday so January 28th >> and it'll probably be available on our newly redesigned website. >> I would imagine it would. >> Yeah, it looks great. if you guys haven't had a chance to take to take a look at it. So, great. Um, and facilities, I know Jim is not here. Um, did he deputize anybody to Thanks. >> I know we have a big conversation. >> Yeah, I'll just share quickly. We have as a discussion item. So, we'll share with the board really the the whole update about the the capital project. So, I'm prepared to walk the board through um with Christian and Brendan's help, Richard's help, and you were there at the last meeting. So, uh, I think we deputized the committee to help on >> Thank you. Any other committee updates that

013I missed? >> Okay. >> Um, just one I guess this is not my committee, but um, the New York State um, lobby day is, I believe, February 11th, which is where school board members go up to Albany and they can lobby with the other members of the Orange County School Districts. It is not limited just to liazison. I think Jim is our liaison and for this year, but if other people would like to go up and talk to um our state senators, not just our Ekus and Scufus, but you can talk meet the other senators. And basically, it's just a way to communicate shared priorities or any legislation that is a concern to you um to those of them. And so it basically it's a day dedicated and I believe it's a day we share

014with the New York State Library System as well. So, what you'll see is all the librarians there and all the school boards there and um it's I think you know it's probably you know it's worth doing once at least. >> Great. Thank you. >> Okay. Um next item is our consent agenda. Um may I have a motion? This is where I always get tripped up and I'm just going to admit it. Like do I read the whole thing first and then get the motion or get the motion and then read the whole thing? I think I've done it different every meeting just to like cover my bases, but um may I have a motion for um the consent agenda? The uh use of the consent agenda permits the board of education to make effective use

015of its time by adopting a single motion to cover those relatively routine matters which are included. Any member of the board who wishes to discuss individually a particular piece of business of the consent agenda may so indicate. So we have items 2 through 7. So, upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board of education does hereby accept the following. Oh, sorry, I skipped ahead. Um, as board of education approves the following consent agenda as submitted by the superintendent of schools. May I have um would anyone like to pull anything from the consent agenda? Back in my flow. Okay. May I have a motion? Um, thank you, Brendan. May I have a second, Carl? Thank you. Um, all in favor of pro of approving consent agenda items two through seven. >> I >> opposed

016obstain. Okay. Thank you. The motion passes. >> I I So I know I got in a flow finally and you gave me too much of a break. All righty. Um, on to old business. Our first item is the board will continue their discussion on the budget and the polling locations. Um, we started this discussion before break in the context of talking about our budget calendar and we committed to um adding the discussion to the agenda about polling locations. Um, and I know this is um something that Christian asked specifically to add to the agenda. He did send uh some content and data to the members of the board to review prior to the meeting, but I will turn it over to you Christian at this time. >> So, I have a presentation better way to

017share the data. So, I'm just going to put a presentation up on the screen. That was Okay. So, I want to just start with kind of what are the major points, you know, give you some uh coming attractions just so that it's easier to process at least the information that I I'm going to present. The first one, and this is something that I've said before, is that the polling location systematically distorts the turnout and I will show you data to that point. The second is that better choices do exist and we should seriously consider those other choices. And lastly, I would urge people to make the choice that is fairest to all the members of the community. So there's a lot of literature in political science that basically makes the argument that how you do

018votes does have an impact on not just who wins elections, but what policies are chosen and even let's say cor correlating to the actual outcomes which means measures of general welfare, things of that sort. So I'm sure I'm not going to go into detail because I think these are well known obviously when seats are gerrymandered and we all experienced this just this year with various different gimeandering attempts the electoral college which we've gone through those last several presidential elections but there's also literature for example and I'll just go through making votes count this would be important work which basically shows how different voting systems lead to different outcomes in different countries there is Pipa Norris's work on electoral engineering ing which looks at internationally in the United States. She's also headed for the last 20

019years the electoral election integrity project which looks at elections and ways they are distorted throughout the world and also in the United States and she's published about five or six books on this topic. There's also let's say the work that just won the Nobel Prize in economics in 2024 by Assang Mloo and um uh James Robinson and the what they were awarded for was particularly looking at how you systematically change how the vote is how you select leaders and how this has huge impacts on how nations do. They were followed this up with two kind of popular books. one ti titled why nations fail which basically ties a lot of the things that choices between country or why countries successful to how votes are counted and the distortions that are created by how people vote

020in democracies and how that leads to different outcomes. There's my former classmate Alan Jacobs which looks at long-term versus short term and whether uh governments and public entities are able to look in the long term and it basically tied to how how voting occurs. Ronald Orowski that looks at trade. So for example, different type of voting systems make it more and more likely whether consumers or producers do better in terms of economic transactions. and probably most relevant to us tonight that was published in August 2025 by Vladimir Kogan who's a professor full professor at Ohio State University which looks at 16 states all the school board elections for the last 30 years and shows a lot of ways about how things how votes occur and ties that to outcomes in various different school districts and

021the most recent data actually looks at New York state as well and I provided that link to at least one of the ungated versions of the paper um but there's also a full book that was recently published lished. So specifically to the question of whether does distance affect turnout and I sent you copies of these articles at least the members of the school board and I'm just going to read kind of the summary. This is from one gold edal in 2024 and this is their introduction. The potential abuse of power posed by determining voting locations is underscored by the wellestablished effect of distanced polling locations on voter turnout. We find the likelihood of voting differed as much as 2% for people located one minute closer to a polling location by car. And in a relatively

022rigorous study by Kanton in 2020, opposite size boundaries between voting precincts are ob observation identical except for their assigned polling locations. A one standard deviation quarter mile difference in distance reduces ballots cast by 2 to 5% across four elections. So, I'm sure that all of you read these articles carefully, but just things that I would pull out from these articles. One of the things that rolling gold points out is that it doesn't measure how you measure distance. That basically no matter how you measure that, whether it's straight line distance or travel time or you actually follow the roads or something that's more precise, you more or less came out with the same relationship. So, it doesn't really matter how you do that. So if you want to do the simplest which is just straight line

023distance more or less you're going to come to the same conclusion and Canton basically does a design that shows that it's not spurious which means a lot of people talk about well it's just a correlation the design actually is causal because it kind of simulates an experimental design we can show that actually distance is and only the re the only reason that can explain the difference. So what would this imply if we took this research uh seriously? It would imply that distance to the voting place that and I just use and I'm using these because I think these areas are recognizable without going to every single neighborhood in Cornwall and New Windsor. But since Cormal and Hudson is the closest to our current pearl location and compare it to the ones that are farthest away.

024So Cornwall and Hudson versus the reserve in New Windsor, it would say that you would expect a 16% lower turnout in New Windsor simply because of distance. Cornwall on Hudson versus Beaver Dam Lake, a 24% decrease just because of distance. And Cornwall and Hudson versus Woodbury, um, a 32% decrease in turnout. So, I'm sure all of you are familiar with Cornwall's geography, but this is just to kind of put the point about what is a straight line distance for the two that are considered. And on the right you can see uh uh concentric circles which indicate a radius of one mile, two miles and three miles from the polling location. And on the left centered on the high school, the same one mile, 2 mile and 3 miles from the high school. I would hope

025this is obvious v visibly that if you look at just this satellite map, you can say the one center in the high school includes almost every builtup area, which means the majority of the population in the district within let's say a three mile radius. Well, that is not the case for the middle school. The middle school includes uh Benerman's Castle, a good part of Garrison, but does not include, let's say, for example, where you live, Richard, on Jack, I'm sorry, I won't say street name, but the point is that several people would not even be included within three mile radius from the middle school. As you can see that I would also say that obviously Woodbury is not in the concentric circles either, but we do not have a building in that corner of the

026district. So the high school is not just the geographic center of the district. It's also the population center of the district largely because of the increase in population in the west side of our school district that if you split the district along 9W and Route 32 and just drew a line from north to south of the district, what you would find is according to the Orange County Board of Elections. There's about 6,06 active voters west of that line and about 5,947 voters east of the line. This is the same data I presented last year. This is for 2024. I'm sure there's new data for 2025 because they update this usually in February every year where they put it out, but I'm sure it hasn't changed significantly since then. So, this is something that I said

027I presented last year, so I'm just going to present it quickly, which is that what are some things we can look at the data that would suggest does distance actually change the outcome? Not necessarily because one candidate wins or loses, but who actually gets represented and who shows up on the polling location. So last year I said, look, let's look at all the different school board candidates over the last 20 years. We've averaged about four candidates per year. So roughly it's 80 candidates. I'm only going to look at the candidates are going for reelection. Why only re-election? Because these are candidates that are high quality enough to have won one time. So these aren't let's say maybe perhaps and I don't want to demean anyone but these are not fringe candidates or people that had

028no chance or anything of that sort. These are candidates that got the support of a large majority of people in the school district. And also these are candidates that at least have served a term and may have some recognition. So they at least have some profile. So 400 candidates a year 20 years roughly 60. And then looked at where in the district did they live and what was their chance of success when they ran for reelection. So if you lived in Coral and Hudson, your chances of re-election were greater than 95%. And that's despite the last year that we had a candidate from the rest of Cornwall who did get re-election and someone who lived in Coral Hudson who didn't. Even with that, you have a high percentage. If you live in the upper village,

029your chances of winning re-election are pretty high, a little bit lower, 90 to 95%. Everywhere else, it's around 50%. Now remember, these are all different candidates. Some are good, some are maybe not so good. Depends on your own opinion of what you want to vote for. But you shouldn't see a systematic difference based on where people live because that should be meaningless to how people choose. But it does seem to have an impact, which means there doesn't seem to be a random distribution, which is what you would expect if distance didn't matter. Turnout should also be proportional. And so what I did is I compared different election districts in Cornwall and how they voted in the general election and then how they voted in the same location in the schoolboard election. So fortunately I got

030a great natural experiment because in 2024 we have three districts in Cormal that almost identical turnout in terms of the number of voters and remember a lot of things are baked into this. socioeconomic status, income, political sophistication, caring about school districts, all those things are kind of baked into these numbers. So, Cormal, Cormal one is basically Coral and Hudson invol includes the neighborhood of Grand View and Mountain Road. Cormal 6, which I think some people are familiar with, is basically Beaver Dam Lake. And then Cormal third district and these are the old numbers for these districts for those who are political junkies is Mineral Springs in the south side of Angola. And as you can see in 549 voters voted in Cornwall number one 549 voted in Beaver Dam Lake and in uh Mineral Springs

031544. So these are basically the same number of people turn out in a general election. And just to show you that's not as spurious. This is not this like you know a unique opportunity. I also looked at 2020 and you can see what who voted in the general election in 2020 in these three districts and you can see also relatively similar 571 567 and 566. So this is a tail three quarters. This is what happened in the general election in 2024. And you can see where these different districts are. You have Beaverdam Lake over there on the left hand side with 549 votes in the general election. Uh Cornwall one in the village 549 votes. And then district 3, 544 votes. So what happened 7 months later in the schoolboard election from these three? And

032this is what happened. Now remember, they had almost the same vote seven months of four. And then when there's only one polling place, you get a dramatic decline. Only 8% of the voters in Beadam Lake voted in the schoolboard election while over almost 23 and a half% of the voters who voted in the general election, it's obviously not the same people, but the same number of total voters. And that's a pretty dramatic difference. And I would say that if I did this on the 2021 data, you would see a very similar pattern. So this is the general election as you can see this the numbers in the previous slide and these are the number of voters in 2025 sorry in May 2025. So, you might say, well, maybe I'm cherry-picking, right? I picked the three

033best districts to make the point that there is a difference by distance. But let me just point out that if Cormal 3 and six, Beaver Dam Lake and Mineral Springs voted like one, the Cormal and Hudson the village, there would be an additional 139 votes in an election that only had 1500 votes. So, that's almost 10% increase in votes. if you just assume like they behave the same or they voted just the same way that they voted seven months before in the general election. So here's another way because I don't want to cherrypick the data. I'm going to show you all the information. And so what I did is I ranked all the districts from the ones that had the most votes in the general election to the ones that had the least votes. And

034then I ranked the same for the schoolboard election from the most votes to the least votes. So, what should you expect to see? If you think the polling place doesn't matter, you should expect that there be no differences in the ranks because, hey, the one that got the most votes in the general election should also be the one that has the most votes. First, first one minus one equals zero. Or you might see a random pattern where there's no spatial organization where, hey, some people do better natural variability, but you wouldn't see a geographic pattern. So, what do you actually see? And this is once again is May 2025. And what those numbers suggest is how far they fall in the ranking. And remember there's only 14 districts. So you can see Beaver Dam Lake

035dropped by eight ranks within a range of 14. Okay. So what this shows you is the ones that are red are the ones that lost the most in the rankings. The one and the warm colors a little bit less, which means they only lost maybe one uh place in the rankings. The ones in the dark blue increased by three or four and the ones in the uh green only let's say maybe 1% increase. I think it's pretty clear that you see kind of a clear geographical pattern and who gains and who loses. Jamie, >> I'm not trying to pick holes and I think this is super compelling and really interesting, but couldn't this also be that people who live closer to town have more awareness of the election because that's where a lot of people

036are campaigning because I feel like the further away, you know, you don't see signs for votes. >> So that might be the problem. So if candidates in the school district don't advertise the election and so one thing that I pointed out last year where the school district put out their own lawn signs announcing just the date of the election, there was only one sign put out by the district west of 9W and there was about probably around 10 or 12 signs inside and that shows a differential and if you looked at candidate signs you might actually say the same thing and that maybe indicates that people the people running for office the people who run the school district have a blind spot. Um, so Canton talks about the fact that when you have distance to

037a polling site that it actually means you do less research because you're less disengaged from the election. But I don't see why that's something that you should be happy about. >> I'm just saying I think there might be a few different reasons for this, right? Like the further away from the center of of where like our meetings happen and where the schools are, like the further away we feel from the district. And like also I'm curious to know what the >> So I'm going back because you said the center and I just think this >> sorry when I say I feel like where we all put up signs when we were running right where I feel like I don't know how to say like the activity of our campaigning has been has tended to be

038closer to the middle school, right? like where we imagine people with children are living like and of course people with children live everywhere and that was my my second question was going to be is there any do you have any data on is it do we think it might be people who I don't I don't know who votes more in these elections to be honest if it's older people are people with children that feel like more invested but I'm curious to know if there's a difference there there in the different um maps as well >> so let me >> could I piggy back on the map question, Christian, just since you're looking at it all at the same time, if you go back to the map to and I think I'm piggybacking on um Jaime's

039question. >> This one? >> Yeah. Can you just cuz I'm not a map person. There's a word for that, but um >> math or map or map. I didn't >> map either actually, but map. Um can you point where nine do where 9W is on this map >> because I'd like to see the east and west comparison because I think where what Jamie makes me think of is >> this is 9W. So, does it split right through that red district minus three? >> 9W basically is between this yellow and green and then the blue and red and basically curls up here. >> Okay. But when we say east and west of it, what I guess I'm wondering is I know that there's an equal split of of voters on the east and the west of

0409W according to the data you shared. However, as we go further out, how does that number um you know change? Is it is there a um standard deviation that by the time you get to where it's negative8? And I understand you're comparing apples to apples that the numbers compared to what they did last time. But when when I'm thinking about the number of people impacted, I'm wondering, you know, is the impact in that negative8 spot? Is that 100 people? But the impact on you know the the negative one and plus one is 700 people like that's what I'm just trying to to also understand that the further you get away from 9W how how less densely populated is it? So let me answer Jaime's question then I'll come back to yours just because uh you

041know you you talked about the difference between what are the demographics of these different areas and I have looked at this but I'll tell you how I think you could go about it and I don't think you'll find any difference. The first one is you can look at from the census by zip code and you can look at what percentage of people are child age you know what percentage are children of school ages and there's no difference between that and I think if we think intuitively uh there's a lot of children in the reserve there's a lot on the growth of large houses and families is probably larger on the west side of the district so if you looked at for example Highland Mills zip code if you looked at Southbury Mill if you looked

042at some new Windsor you'd probably be able to drill down to that level and see that there's no systematic difference that would explain this much of a difference. Um the second thing that I would uh would say look at our enrollment numbers because basically the west side of the district it corresponds more or less to the catchment area for Lee Road Elementary School that we're in. While Cormmont Hudson is equivalent to the Cor pretty much the Cormandon Hudson village lines there's a little bit more in there but basically corresponds to that and we know exactly how many children are in the different elementary schools and the proportions there. So that would give you an indication that would also suggest that um it's not because of a lack of children on the west side of the

043district um or lack of families with children that care about the schools. Um and given also I'd say the research that I presented earlier which is there's a lot of sophisticated research turnout is probably one of the most researched things in political science. I looked at a summary of summary of key things that everyone reads when they go in graduate school in political science and the topic that had the most papers on that was turnout and a lot more than any other topic you would think at presidency, congress, elections. So there were more key paper uh and it's because the data we do know how people turn out because that's public information and so there's a lot of research and understanding of that and I would happily walk through the Canton and Rowan Gold studies

044which kind of indicate distance does independently it's really relatively well established. So that's what I would kind of respond to that that this is not really about the demographics in different areas. Um, I also look at the Vladimir Kogan study because his key thing is that actually children get under reppresented in school district elections and that leads to poor outcomes is kind of his argument. To respond to um Jamie, let me just because you look like you're thinking. So Christine, your question was is it about straight line distance? So I it it would be possible to >> my question was about how does how is the population is it less dense as we go further from the distance. So, I understand your numbers are comparing year-over-year, so it's relative that way. But when we're trying

045to make a decision that's going to impact the community, what I'm also considering is, you know, in the negative8, if that's 100 people, but in the negative one plus one, it's 900 people, I'm thinking about that impact. So, I'm not it's not so much about distance because I know that that also has to do with access to vehicle, transportation, etc. >> So, how many votes? So, let's just say, as I said, I'm trying to compare. What if three and six voted like they were Coral and Hudson, which they do in the general election, >> but they can't if they don't have that many people. That's what I'm trying to understand. >> So, the districts are basically drawn to be roughly equivalent. They're not exactly equivalent because they use lines like roads to divide the districts

046and other types of landmarks. So, some are a little bit larger and smaller than others, but they're me that's they're meant to be roughly equivalent. Sometimes they can't do that because there's not a natural division between two different districts, but that was the intent of when they draw the electoral districts, not just here in Cornwall, but statewide. Um, so the point about it is these are about equal in terms of the number of population, but that's why you see larger areas. They are the same number of people. I did show you the shortfall in votes and I will kind of address that later by if we just look at New Windsor three and six in Cornwall that would be equivalent to about 560 votes if you assume that they voted the same way. Now remember

047the turnout in the election was a little over 1500 and all you have to do assume is that they're voting the same way as they voted in the general election which is a relatively relatively conservative assumption. So that certainly would be material I would think. And I would say that remember to drop eight ranks means that you are a really high pop high voter district that in a schoolboard election votes like the second lowest district despite being one of the larger actually in terms of turnout not just in one election but two general elections. >> I'm not I'm not I'm not trying to debunk this at all. I I just wanted to understand a little bit about what the number behind that but I understand I'm not this data is very helpful >> if you

048like to fund the research I could go with the county I could go down to parcel level data individual households and then you know I got a grant in GIS way back in the day it is possible >> I'm not trying to debate your data >> no what I'm saying is like could there could there be better data yes but if you really are not going to buy this data then I don't really think better data is going to convince anyone because you don't have to be moved by the information. You you have can make a choice any way you want. But this is providing the data that there does seem to be a bias. And then I guess my question personally would be why would you choose a less fair alternative when a better

049alternative exists? And then my question would be why would you want to just basically dilute the votes of some of the people in your community more than others? And that would be a question that I think everyone has to answer themselves. But what I would like the next one here though is this is actually the better data because if I went back to 2021, a high the second highest turnout election in Cornwall's history at least in the last 30 something uh going back to 1997 and that was also the capital project. So there was a lot of motivation to get people out to vote. The school board made a big effort to support the capital project. So you would think like maybe that increase in turnout would bring in all those people who didn't vote

050in a regular election like last year that they would come out and turn out in larger. But what you see is actually an even more stark pattern. So this is 2021. Now you can see Beaver Day even drops even one more rank. Okay, you can see that Mineral Springs gets even worse. And what you can see is even more of a concentration around a small area. >> I think that pattern is relatively clear. >> One correction. So 21 was not the capital project year. 22 was the capital project year. This was the year where uh all of it was mail-in voting which is why we had >> 20 2020 was mail and voting. >> 20 >> it was to 2020 was all mail and voting. But 2020, well, you said the um would have been

051a much higher turnout than 21 though, wouldn't it? >> Yeah, that So, I said second highest. So, 2020 was the highest. >> I thought you said highest. >> And I would have loved to have that data because that's an election without a polling site. >> No. Okay. >> And I would have loved that, but that polling book doesn't exist anymore because they only keep five years. >> Fair. So, only correction is it wasn't the capital project here for what it's worth. >> So, I apologize. I I'm sure you have a better memory of that. It still was a high turnout election and I think that was a key point. I should also point out there seems to like the little white area um in the middle of Cormal and Hudson. The reason why is there's

052no change because it was number one and it was also number one the second time. So the no change indicates that really what happened is it hit a ceiling and with uh due respect to Rob uh the late Robin there was no 11 on the dial. But if you looked at the nominal numbers, it certainly would have increased by the number of increase in votes. And the percentage increase um was significantly different. So even though it's white here, it probably would be green or blue if I, you know, if if I could actually go beyond let's say the ceiling that exists by there's no one ahead of first. So I think that's a relatively clear spatial pattern. And remember what you would think if you thought that distance doesn't matter at all. Because remember baked

053into the rank are all your other explanations of why some people turn out to vote. They have children, higher education, higher income, all the other things that are known to explain why some people vote at higher rates than others are baked in because we're comparing basically yourself with yourself seven months later. The only thing that's different is that there's a different set of polling places in one election than the other. And so when something changes by nine ranks, that is a huge change. That's more than two or three standard deviations. I didn't do the the variance number on this, but like if you go nine ranks, so that meant that in the general election, uh, Beaverdam Lake was the fifth largest turnout district. in 2021 it was the lowest turnout district. So I mean that

054seems to be a really big change from let's say these are more or less the same group of people. It's only seven months later. So and you I think as I said there's a clear spatial pattern and if you didn't think it mattered you would see one of two things. Everyone would be zero because they would keep their rank or you would see random variability. Some are high, some are low, but there would be no spatial pattern to it. And as I said, you can see all the increases occur in one area. All the decreases occur in another area. And that would indicate that there is a spatial factor there. >> I I just want to offer one thing as someone who lives in New Windsor. The irony is that the polling station for the

055general election is much further away than is the middle school. >> I was just gonna ask that. Where are these I >> It's in It's in New Windsor at the town hall. That's it's a little bit further >> and that that's what I think that is really important to unlocking the relevance of all this data is we all know where >> the school polling location is but I don't I don't know where the the polling location is for any of these. >> So I can point them out to you because this is actually the the elections here. Mountainville Fire Department, Bethlehem Presbyterian Church. Um, Munger Cottage, Coral Town Hall, Highland Engine. Um, in New Windsor, I know in the reserve that your New Winsor town hall is your polling place, despite the fact that there's

056a polling place adjacent on Mount Airy Road >> at the Church of Latter-day Saints. And so, the point about it is that, and I have more on New Windsor, but obviously I can't use this because New Windsor has kind of a general election. Plus, the reason why I'm doing Cornwall is because all the electoral districts are within the school district. Well, only fractional electoral districts because the electoralistic lines don't line up with the don't line up with the school district boundaries whether for Woodbury, New Windsor. So, I can estimate how many voters are in the school district in different areas, but I don't know where they came out to from vote. So, how many people voted let's say on Mount Air Road? Some of them are in the school district, some of them are not.

057So without going down to the file of the county and counting exactly which people turned out, I can't really separate that. So I have a different thing on New Windsor and that's what's next. So I will just say I think there's a pretty clear spatial pattern. If you see something different, I'd be interested in seeing what you're doing. Uh what your thoughts are on this or explanations. So this is the new Windsor. So turn out to be proportional to the actual number of registered or active voters which means active voters means voters who voted in the recent elections. So in Cormal and Hudson according to the uh uh the county uh county elections uh board there's 200 28 active voters in the village of Cormal and Hudson. In the new Windsor part of our school

058district there's 2445. And the reason why there's an asterk there is I had to estimate because we're doing with fractional. I gladly gladly share how I did that in the methods. I actually described that I think last year to several people and I might be off by about 10 or 30 but I'm not off by 100 because I use conservative assumptions about how to assign the voters to different districts and I use several different methods and see if they were consistent and trying to estimate how much of a fractional district was in the school district and how many were not. So once again, I did this because I picked them because they're roughly equivalent. If you assume that people vote in the same way, right? You would expect that there would be the same number

059of voters voting in a school district election from Cormal and Hudson as in the new Windsor parts of our school district. And this is what you have with the two elections that I looked at. So you can see in 2025 Cornwall and Hudson had 429 voters roughly about a third of the voters actually more like high 20s and in 2021 521 voters and you can see the number of voters from New Windsor as well and I think you can see that it is significantly lower than the turnout despite that there's the same number of active voters in both of these uh let's say geographical areas and so what is the ratio of that? So uh it's 2.17 2.23. So let me just put that in context. The distortion by created by the electoral college is

0602.5. If you compare the 10 largest populous states and the 10 least populous states, or the fact that Wyoming, a state that has about the same population of Orange and Duchess County combined, gets as many senators as, let's say, the state of California, which I think has roughly around 40 plus million individuals. So, think about that. The distortion between New Windsor and the village is about as great as the electoral college which has been an issue since the dawn of the republic. And I can expand on the electoral college or the state election of senators in this country and many people have commented on that not just political scientist but a lot of general readers have talked about it as well. But let me just share one. About 30 years ago, Gary Wills uh who

061won the National Humanities Medal and many other awards, Pulitzer Prize, etc., wrote a book called Negro President about Thomas Jefferson. And it was from a phrase by the senator from Massachusetts at the time, Thomas Pickering. And if you hear Thomas Jefferson and Negro President, you're probably thinking about what is well known, his affair with Sally Hemings. That's not what he was talking about. He was talking about how the three-fifths clause worked for the electoral college and that gave Thomas Jefferson the advantage that allowed him to win in um or sorry I'm going back in my mind I might be off by an election cycle but went against John Adams and think about this from George Washington until the civil war so under the operation of the three-fifths clause they gave a more representation to southern

062states and therefore a larger represent presentation in the electoral college and the choice of the president. Every single president was southern aligned either from the south or very closely aligned the south like Franklin and Buchanan. And the two that didn't, Lincoln and John Quincy Adams were because there were three candidates and they split the vote. From the Civil War until World War I, there was not one president elected from the South. despite the fact that the previous 80 years almost every president was from the south were basically affiliated with the southern states and that shows you how much of a distortion that can be when you have let's say a distortion of let's say over 2 to one in an electoral system. So I think most political scientists would say this is substantial and material.

063So what does that mean in terms of like missing votes? votes that probably should happen if you assume people behave all the same or you make some assumptions about some people less civic don't care about the school district don't know when the election is so if we just three that the three that I looked at 139 votes is kind of the shortfall or the implied shortfall and the new Windsor that I just pointed would be another 430 votes so in 2025 that would be about 570 votes that would be 37% of the turnout last year. That would be as almost as much as some candidates got are those missing votes. And I haven't even looked at all the districts that had a kind of a shortfall. >> Sure. >> Have you taken into consideration, I'm

064just curious, how much the CO votes would drop, >> like what the shakeout would be. So if if we moved to the high school. So >> here's what my prediction and this is basically a hunch. I think that the turnout would probably drop >> but it's like a sample. So you have a in current system you have a biased sample. If you have a more representative sample that's more balanced okay then you would actually more be a representative community even though not everyone is voting. Um, I thought about including a slide about that I give to my students when I talk about surveys and sampling and why a random sample is different than like a selective sample and how that changes the actual form. Um, if you want I can share that with you, but

065I think the point about it is you'd probably get roughly about the same turnout, but the turnout would be more balanced and fair to the actual electorate is I think is what you would find. Now, do I think that's going to get changed in one election if you do it? No. because I think things adjust over time. But I think the sample if you think of the election as a sample of the public, it would be it would be an unbiased sample as opposed to a biased sample. And I can tell you that a lot of surveys that happen in Cornwall, not just in the school district, are significantly biased samples. >> So I mean going off what you said, the number doesn't really matter, right? If we're just trying to get a more fair

066picture of the school district, which I dis which I don't disagree with. Like I think that's a fair assessment, but then the number doesn't really matter. But do you think I mean my my initial reaction is if there is because I I have no idea how I you know like cost and what goes into it and like even I don't know if it can be done by this year but even if it can't be done this year it seems like there are steps to take to make the election more widespread and well known in these negative eight negative9 areas that might be an easier lift in the few months that we have until the election. I'm not saying it can't be done, you know, I'm just saying like even if it's not done, it seems

067like we need to do more to reach out to these areas. >> So that question has been heavily researched in political science. Let me just summarize what generally is the finding. So um actually had like uh Rosen Stone and Hansen which would be read in any American politics class and then um mobilization participation in American democracy which looked about what happens when you try to mobilize votes and actually attributes about the decline in turnout in the United States about 31% of the decline in turnout is because of lack of party mobilization or people in a sense knocking on your door and asking you to to vote now that's 31% of the decline The reason why it's not done, as I'm sure you you know because we have knocked on both knocked on doors, is that

068it's hard work and it's very costly. So to actually move the needle, you're talking about an incred a large a much larger investment of resources than what it would be to cost for a second polling site. >> I'm literally talking about signs. >> What? I'm literally talking about signs like advertisements on the street corner saying the vote is x y and z and it's at this time and it's here because with the numbers that we're talking about and the percentage points we're talking about it seems like it it a small thing like that could move the needle when we're not talking about you know >> so of thousands of people >> people have looked at that question I would say that having more balanced polling sites would have a much huger effect than whatever more

069signs out there because we there have people saying like what if you tell people right and this is basically putting the blame on the voters like oh they we just need to enlighten them about when the election is but the point about it is it's different when it's like five minutes to go to a polling place and when it takes 20 minutes and for you know this is why you know in many places in this country various political parties reduce the number of polling sites uh why we vote on Tuesdays as opposed to the rest of the world that votes on weekends because there's a lot of things where they're trying to dilute or depress the vote in certain parts of the country certain parts of the electorate and I I thought about putting a

070thing about you know Alexander Queser's book which was a finalist of the poll surprise where he talks about all the different chicainery that we know that American political parties or Pippa Norris who would say that the American electoral system overall is the most manipulable electoral system among the advanced industrial democracies. And I think this is a well-known fact and that's why you see parties do that. And just think what happened when the Supreme Court in Rucha overturned the Voting Rights Act. And what did parties and then candidates do? They went back to every single thing that was banned before the Voting Rights Act occurred in a variety of different ways. And that what they would say is that this idea that if you just in a sense allow people to vote that they're going to

071vote is not really realistic about what we know about how why people vote or what the research would tell you. So certainly put up more signs but I think that there's a simple and more straightforward way to address it is would be my my uh my take on that. So Christian, for the sake of this discussion, um can can we just get a a pulse check in terms of where we are in terms of your presentation because I do think we have some questions about budget, next steps, etc. >> Sure. Yeah. If you I have one slide, so let me just talk about this because these were things that were raised last year. The first one was, you know, the possibility of fraud. And this is something that I said last year because every single

072allegation of fraud in a schoolboard election goes to this commissioner of education. And we have you can go search all the commissioner's decisions back to 1991. So that's about a little around 25,000 schoolboard elections over that period of time. And you can look at how many allegations of irregularity, which by the way is not fraud. Some of the allegations of irregularity is you're supposed to print print the same number of ballots as eligible voters and have them available because if you don't do that then people might not have enough ballots to vote at the end of the night and that would extend the voting period and people be denied to vote. That was actually one of the three that was adjusted. So the allegations of irregularity in schoolboard elections are only one in a thousand

073elections and the findings that there's anything irregular is only one in 10,000. So it seems like you have a clear, let's say, pattern in one case that you can say it doesn't matter. People are up to themselves. They should go out to vote. They care about it. And a concern about fraud, which is usually exaggerated. And then there's the kind of the cost argument that also came up last year is that in January of last year, uh the vote was four to five. Many people cited the cost of the second polling site as uh as the issue. But in April 2025, all the school board members who voted against that are still on the board voted for the district meeting line in the budget that increased the district meeting almost to the same amount of

074money. So the question is we actually did make the taxpayers pay the amount. We just didn't get a second polling site. And so it seems like there's an inconsistent position on cost. So I would kind of encourage you know that framework to consider some of these questions and there they all end. >> I do think that there's always going to be debates in terms of where $10,000 goes and as a board that's what we have to decide is where we think that money is best spent. Um there's always cost associated. So um I just want to open it up for questions, discussion. Brendan. >> Yeah. Uh well, first Christian, thank you. That was uh really informative. Um I imagine there's first I I find it very compelling and I think that the distance I'm sure

075is a factor. Um I'm always skeptical of single explanations. You know, I think that there are probably multiple reasons. Um if I had to guess, and I think we're all circling the same drain. Um, I think the the fact that it is more rural in these areas, it's just harder to reach people in terms of signage. Um, the pulse of the district is is a little faster paced in those areas. You have more businesses that put signs up. Um, it's closer physic. I mean, our schools happen to be there and the place where people most interact with the signs alerting you about uh the elections are around the schools. So, I think those I'm sure have an impact. Um, I'm curious. I don't I'm not ready to draw this conclusion, but I would almost I

076wonder if there is a correlation between those that live in CO and and thereabouts who have just lived in their homes longer, like have been members of the comm this district longer than those that perhaps live in in other parts. Um, I say that as someone who has not lived here. I've lived here 10 years, so I'm not um I I but I think it's voting is a habit and if you get into the habit, you're more likely to continue that habit. So, there just might be more habitual voting in some of those areas. Um, all is that to say, I think there are likely other factors that that influence this. Um, I think that, you know, when we start thinking about next steps, and this is to to Jaime's point, you know, like should

077we just increase the amount of signage or uh awareness in those other areas that seem like they are um, you know, they're not turning out at the same clip. Regardless of whether we or if we move the the polling site, we would still have to accompany that with a pretty robust get out the new location uh campaign. So, one way or another, it's going to have to come with a very heavy uh communication lift and um not to look I I am in in theory I am on board with this. I think eventually having two polling sites makes a lot of sense for our district for all of the reasons that that Christian cited it. I don't I didn't hear a concrete ask at the end of the presentation. I it seems like it's more

078about moving the location as opposed to adding a second. I don't want to put words in the mouth. That's just the impression that I got. If those are the choices, I don't think that we should uh move a location in a year when we would be doing a capital project. It's just like a lot of asks. Oh, by the way, it's also going to be at a different location this year. Just seems like a lot of lot of balls to be up in the air at the same time. Um but maybe that's not the ask. Maybe it is just an ask for a second location. I'm not sure. But anyway, those are my thoughts in the moment. I I found the presentation to be very thorough, very compelling. Again, I imagine there's probably some other

079factors involved that we haven't quite put a finger on. Um, but I agree. I think distance intuitively if you know that something is further away, it's more of a a pain and maybe you can't do that right now and so you put it off. And as you know, we know this in both our lives and in data when things are harder to do, people don't do them in the same numbers. So I I totally agree with that correlation. Uh I'm just not sure what the next step is that is being recommended. >> Can I can I address several points? I think I've said this before, but I think this needs repeating. There's a lot of explanations and there's a lot of things that influence whether people vote or don't vote in general, and there's a

080lot of research on that. But here, think about this. That's already baked in because we're comparing. Remember, the habit of voting should be the same in the general election as it is in the schoolboard election. And that's why you compare 7 months before in the general election. And that's why the change the schoolboard election is striking because the habits of voting, higher education, having a car, all the different things that we know that influence people's votes are already baked into that number, but more or less they are controlled. And I would also point out that there's a lot of very sophisticated research and certainly deeper data dives and are commonly done for million-dollar expenses in this district. And I provide you with the articles and they're published in some of the top journals which means

081they're rigorously reviewed. So would indicate that some of those things are already in a sense built in and taken care of and controlled for and you know because they're what you would do when you're doing research is that you would control for those obvious alternative explanations and I think it merits pointing out that in 2019 because in 2018 there was during the voting um at the middle school as we know there was a storm and the roof caved in in the gym and so they moved the voting site to a secondary location in the middle school. In 2019, when I believe that was when you were elected, Brendan, the polling place was at Nemo. >> That's right. >> And the the turnout was higher, not lower, than the previous year. >> Um I And let

082me just Yes. One second, John. Um Jamie's next, but can we circle to you if you have any information about a second polling site, what that might look like as it relates to cost? And of course, I'm not asking you on the spot to have, you know, scientific data, but if just a general idea so that we can um round out the discussion, that would be helpful. But Jamie, go ahead. I I just teeing you up. >> Thanks. Um I have one maybe stupid question, but I feel like Christian just answered it. The polling place doesn't have to be the school then. It can be somewhere else. >> So, we don't we pay we don't pay rent on our own buildings, but we might have to pay rent if it's some if it's not in

083a school district, >> but you might not, right? I don't know. I just think that's an interesting thing to talk about just because, you know, if there were two locations, is there a better location than the high school? Like, is it the middle school that's in town and then somewhere I I don't know, somewhere I I've only been here five years, I don't know, but somewhere else. Um, and then interesting point about the Nina turnout because to me maybe that says that there was so much communication around changing the venue that more people knew about the vote which is interesting to think about. Um, yeah. But also, I mean, I'm sure it was like blasting people. I can just say firsthand that was it was a very central central part of the whole messaging that

084year, you know, and it was like I remember this created a lot of headache for me to reuse my signs later because I put at Nema on my sign as we all know as candidates particularly those who have run more than once like what do I do about this now? Um, so yes, it it was an essential part and that's kind of to my point. It's like there's like a hierarchy of things that you want to get across to people and there's a limit also to how many they can absorb and I just worry about and that was just a straight election year candidates budget new location. Um, yeah, you add more to that mental ballot and it I think it becomes trickier. I do also think it's an interesting thing to talk about voting

085habits verse schoolboard voting because I do think they're two very different things to me at least. I don't know like I feel like when I was 18 there's no way I voted in a schoolboard election but I voted for you know president voted for more regional elections I guess but I don't know it's just an interesting I would like to see like other again I'm no way against this I just find the the data really interesting and like I'd like to see other districts and see if that's similar because I I think I think voting for a school board is a very specific habit. I don't think it's necessarily lumped in with voting in general, but I don't know my own person that >> Yep. So, a couple things. Um, yes, about cost. There will

086be associated costs, right? I think we understand that is that um we do pay a number of pole workers per year. That's probably one of our largest costs. Um, I think we have 13 or 14 pole workers that come in and work for us. I had shared with the board u a memo that I shared with the board last year about this time about using iPads to help uh mitigate that. Um, I actually did budget for that. That was part of the increase for this year because I was unsure were we going to have a second vote for the budget um or for a capital project referendum. Um, but I also thought it would be appropriate to move to iPads as well, so we'd be able to study this data that Christian came in over

087the summer and looked at the poll books. Oh, he was down in the basement grinding away and talking to me about his findings. It was fascinating for me. Um, so with a second location, again, if we own it, we have to think about the safety and security of the students. Um, we did add additional security this past year because we were people were voicing concerns. you you have um community members walking through the building um at any time. Uh we did add you recall some people or most people we had to make them wear a badge. It wasn't who who you are. You didn't have to check in, but we wanted to know by a red string or something that we put around them that they were just going in to vote and we were

088counting who was in and who was out. Again, additional security measure. If we were to go offsite, do we have to rent? What would FEMA cost? What would something else cost? um uh additional uh printed not printing for the ballots, but we would need additional machines. They're quite costly. They are um what are called kind of the one-offs. They are singletons, so you can only get them from a certain provider and that's it. Um so we would need to see if we could secure those. I have not looked into that. Um but that would be an additional cost as well. And then if you were to add the second site, we'd have to add potentially more iPads to sign people in and decrease in order to decrease the number of uh staffing that we have

089on site. So, uh was it Nancy Brian? She did mention um you know it is difficult to find uh our our pole workers. Um they did cancel on us last minute. Um you the board did approve some last minute cancellations because we we have to approve the personnel who are working with us. Um and I believe countywide there there is a shortage. Now it is true to be fair most school districts have moved to an iPad signing system. Most people are comfortable with that um because it is what takes place during the the regular elections. So um there are incidental costs here. >> Is it safe to jump to the conclusion that if we had a second site, let's say we started with 10 people in our main site, if we open a second site,

090we have less people coming through. we could theoretically go down to eight people here. Like does that sort of happen in the thinking at least? >> Correct. That's how I would at least, you know, logistically start to play this out of my mind. Right. >> Um, you know, how do how do we handle that? you have to have your inspectors there, your pole workers, >> and then and then we were able to with the iPad, you can live track how many people are coming in, what times, and and I do have, truth be told, Harvey's old sheets of how many people came per hour. I, you know, Harvey Harvey was something else with stats, that's for sure. Um, he had them. I would look at that. Um, but this would allow us to track that

091and disagregate where they're from. >> Sounds like we have a lot of people who geek out on the data here. We could have like a data >> bar. Christian just blew me away with a lot of >> I know. I love it. That's why I I like ask the questions because I want to dig dig dig. You know, it's fascinating. Uh, anyone over here have a comment or a question? >> Loftton or Richard? So, as you as you would expect, I have many thoughts and responses to some of the points raised, but I'm going to forbear because if you're interested, I would gladly you don't need to do that in the context of the meeting, but I think I could give answers and I'll just say one thing. I guess my ask and it's not

092really like I haven't asked personally is that there be one voting site because I didn't as you know from last year I have some questions about some of the calculations about the cost the two different estimates of the cost and I didn't want to make that the center of this so I didn't want to get in this idea of what it takes for two sites um but I have looked at the other districts that have multiple polling locations Newberg aers um Pine Bush and I've looked at let's say their own costing because that document is in their four docs like it might be in ours and so I kind of know what the cost is to run it and so it's more than just doubling the cost and what you actually take to run a

093site and what's legally required but I think the point here is not so much about two sites I mean I think last year the reason for two sites is that no one was doing this to deprive anyone of a local polling location we wanted to be fair to those who were having at a disadvantage but the point is that that if there's an insistence for economy reasons on one site it should be the best site that we have available and I think the logistics someone who works in a high school and is a works in a high school that's a polling site I think these are relatively solable issues so I'll just leave it there and um I presented the information and uh people can make their decisions >> just one really quick question um

094I'm not familiar enough with the high school building but is Is there an area that can be separated for something like this to be held safely in the high school? >> Yeah. I mean, we would really have to look into it. So, we have I mean, it's a large high school. We have a big student body. I mean, we could we break out part of the gym. Yeah. But then the kids wouldn't have access to the gym for the day, you know? So, then there'd have to be those pieces of how do we plan that model? hope that the weather is good for outside perhaps, you know, so they could all go outside. Um, you could not negate the cafeteria. Community lunch is a huge factor. So, we have everybody stopping at the same time

095for almost an hour and kids are everywhere. Staff is everywhere in the building. So, there will be some challenges to work on. You know, I mean, could we make it happen? Sure. But it would have to be similar to how the middle school is where it's all happening at the same time. you know, there's not a separation of a part of the building really that we could do that safely. Okay. So, um yeah, this was on the the agenda for discussion, not to make a decision this evening, although I know, you know, a decision would have to be made in in short term as a result of just planning, preparation, and um a vote that's coming up. Um, so let me ask this and if this is not the appropriate way to do it, I

096know someone will correct me. Um, I curiously I'm I am personally I'm more interested in a second polling location versus changing entirely to one um for a variety of reasons I don't need to get into, but so I guess what I'm wondering so Christian's asking for us to consider having one one centralized polling station and I we're not doing a vote. Um, but I'm curious like is the board leaning in that direction and then we want to do some research, be able to report back next time, like what would that entail at the high school? What would that look like, etc. So that we can take a formal vote or do we want to can I get a pulse check? Who would consider doing two instead of just one brand new one and then we

097can go do the research and do whatever is necessary to get a pulse check. So I just I I took something different from the presentation in the sense of adding a spot. I understand that's not what you're asking for. So I don't know. I'm trying to determine the best path forward to get to a decision as a board. >> Christine, let me just say I as like last year I'm okay with two locations which which means I think that's worth it. But if it is one location, I think that one location there's a clear and this was said last year as well that if because of economy reasons or other reasons, one location is what people think we're willing to spend. I I my opinion is pretty >> point is I would support two I

098would support two voting locations if that is what you what is would get the majority of the votes. >> Um well I guess let I would be curious what folks thoughts are on a single location moving that to let's say the high school. Um where where do people fall on that? Just give me like a thumbs up, thumbs down. Am I allowed to do that? >> Can I ask a question? >> Yeah. Yeah, please. >> Because I would like a little bit more information. So, I I would like to know I know it's like an annoying, but I would like to know how much it would cost to have two locations and what that would look like and then what it would look like to move to the high school if that would be possible

099because, you know, if if we can't really make the high school work, then the second location is would have to be somewhere else anyway. Um, so yeah, I think I would just like want to learn a little bit more about moving to high school and then also learn about the cost of adding a location just so we can kind of more because I'm fine with all of those. Um, but I just would like and I think the reality is if if we said it's got to be at the high school, the administration would make it happen, right? It's just what is what's the trade-off for that, you know, in the bigger picture. So, um, that's what we really have to understand, I guess, right? What does that trade-off but but what is the trade-off also

100to the voters not just to the students and and the people in the building? >> So so the thing that gets me is the way I understood the way he g uh he presented that was that basically the people on the side where the where the high school is are more likely to come out and vote there because we're losing them now here in Cornwall in the town of Cornwall. So what happens if my question is what happens if we send it to the high school? Are we going to lose all the people from Cornwall? So are we back in the same place? So in my opinion, it would be a good thing to have two two locations and now we're getting the people from that side and and the people in Cornwall are still

101going out to vote there. You know, I just think what we're doing is if you know, by saying we're going to have one vote and it's going to be in the high school, well, we'll probably lose most of the people in Cornwall that they're not going to go out of their way. You know, that's my opinion. >> I I don't mean to speak for Christian, but if I correct me if I'm wrong, I'm just going to paraphrase what I think he said earlier was the the assumption is we would lose voters, but we would gain voters here, so you would have a more true representation of our entire district versus it being weighted to whomever's closer to the polling place. Exactly. By having them in both, now we're getting more people involved in the school

102district. You know, that's I think the the way that I would say it is that you would have an unbiased sample of the public as opposed to the current which is I would describe as a biased sample. And so yes, when you go to an unbiased sample, you are going to sample the oversampled population less and the unders sampled population more. Now, as I said, I last year I supported and I think everyone who supported this last year supported two polling locations because we're not trying to deprive people or we're not like I get no joy out of people making it more difficult for people to vote no matter where they are. But I don't think you should keep a system that is biased just because people are used to it. That would be kind

103of my So I I would think the point is you want a truer measure of the public sentiment, you do an unbiased sample. >> Okay. So I don't want to ask administration to go and and do any work for us if if we're not um leaning in that direction as a board in terms of Go ahead, Brendan. I was just going to suggest maybe from a process standpoint we just go quick around instead of like yes or no on one thing. Maybe if people just describe what their solution looks like it will it'll just emerge because anytime you ask like do you want one location? I'm always like well but you know like I want to explain my like order of preferences. No, I No, I'm not nominating. I think I don't want to put

104Loftton on top, but I think just like a quick just a quick round table, you know, >> that's fair. Yeah. Okay. Loftton. >> Okay. So, as someone from New Windsor, um I can say that uh it definitely is different on that side. And you know, I wasn't my house wasn't even on the maps of the records, you know, because I vote in New Windsor for general elections. Um, you know, my um I have no idea how much up or down my specific area went, but um I did put signs actually uh this year um all over my area, but they were the only signs. Well, I did, but also Christian helped. Um and Richard, I think too. Um yeah, so we did put signs um you know, around my area of New Windsor, but they

105were the only signs. Um, but you know, hopefully they did alert some people from that area um that the elections were happening and I did talk to some local business owners and tried to get the word out, but there was a lack of awareness there. Um, but for my point of of what I would prefer is if we do do one election site, I do agree that it should be more balanced. if we if we only get one, I think putting it in a more balanced location to serve all of our um taxpayers. If we can do that and we have a location that we already pay rent on, if we can make it happen safely for the children, of course, top priority is that, but um then why not? Because it is very unbalanced

106right now because it's, you know, the weight of the voter turnout is in this you know, general area in um Cornwall and it always has, you know, even though the number of students we serve is fairly equal, it always, to me at least, and I've only lived here 5 years, so take this how you will, but it has always felt to me that the New Windsor kids are kind of like I don't know a way to put this other than the redheaded stepchild. I know that's probably but do you know what I mean like that we are the um the I don't know that somehow lesser um and I yeah I I would like to see even just the gesture of like hey we care about you too over there in New Windsor um you

107know uh as as a as big of part of of our community, you know, because it does bother me that it is so imbalanced our voter turnout. So, I would be for two polling locations if it is not um too much um for the budget and but you know, if we have to do one, I'd be for seeing if we can figure it out safely for the children, of course. So, there's where I stand is like any of those things would work for me. um if if whatever is most doable for us, but I'd like to see us try to reach more of Newsor. >> So, right off the bat, I'm going to go with with two two locations, but there's other things I you know, reasons for it. One of one of the reasons

108that, you know, that I seen when I came to vote is pulling into the parking lot here and trying to find a place to vote. Most people just turned around and left. They didn't even come in the school of they didn't even come in here to vote. So that's something else too that we should be looking into. What can we do so that people can just come in here and vote and be, you know, with no issues. Maybe that's something down the road where the they be the days the schools closed, you know, when we have to go and vote. But that being said, I think that we're trying to draw people from both sides and and make us one unit here and and having it in two locations um is is the way I

109go. So my my first preference would be to have two polling sites because I'm not looking to take something from someone to to benefit another part of the community. Um, I think that would be the most fair and I think that would bring more turnout personally and I have a personal example of this. My parents who live in New Windsor, I live with them. The amount of times I had to remind them, did you vote yet? Did you vote for your son? And they're like, no, not yet. It's a true story, by the way. and that it's just the likelihood of going to vote somewhere that's 5 minutes away compared to having to travel, which sometimes could take 15 to 20 minutes. They're going to be more likely to vote somewhere in their community. So,

110my first preference would be two polling locations. Um, you know, money aside, not considering that right now. And if it came down to one location, I would pick either the high school or, you know, uh like another location if we couldn't make that work with students in the building. >> Uh yeah, I think the uh what John brought up about the uh already putting aside some money in the projections for this year is an interesting uh wrinkle in this. Uh, so I I would be interested in seeing the numbers on two. Um, assuming that that bought us a bit of savings. Maybe it's a little bit more feasible than it seemed last year. Um, I don't think that this is the year to change locations. I just I I think that would be a serious

111mistake on our part um for a number of reasons like that we've already rehashed. So I I don't have to go into it. I I agree with all of the goals that have been set forth or or that have been established. I I would look would love if we got more just in the reserve. We could increase the turnout in the reserve by 10 20%. Sign me up. How do we do that? Do I have to go in a sandwich board? I'll do it. You know, if it's a second location easier. Um so I'm totally for it, but let's get the uh updated numbers and then see where see where that lands. But again, I will say not that I'm even opposed eventually to moving to a single, but that's a that's a big hall

112this year and is a huge variable at a time that there's no urgency to do it. And I I just think it's a big risk at a time that we don't really need to bring that upon ourselves. I >> think I already did this, but yeah, I I agree with what Brendan said too. Think that's an interesting point is even if we do go to one location again, it might be interesting to do two for a year or two and see how it goes and then consolidate at the high school just so it's not a huge drop off or like this huge lift for the communications when we're trying to talk about the capital project. Um because it doesn't feel like something we have to tear the band-aid off with right now. But again, I

113guess that's all budget. But like in essence, you know, would love to see it in a more centralized. >> So, I think I've said this before, but just let me reiterate. I think that I I advocated last year for two voting locations for the reasons that I think Richard said. Um, and just go back and look at the tape what I said last year. But if there is one location, I think there's a clear that it should be the high school. And I think that logistical issues are soluble but I am not I mean I can envision how to do that but I am also not the expert and I would defer to the building uh leadership implement that but I do think it's a relatively I don't have as many concerns as some people

114have about the the friction of change that some people have expressed. >> Um I'll just add that I am I am in favor of two locations. Um, and thank you for putting all that data together in a way that was easy to understand. Um, I am curious, we compared Cornwall and Hudson to New Windsor, and I'm curious how the Cornwall, if we add that in there, how does that change that number as it relates to the impact um, one location might have on the number? I'm back to like the number of people. Not to say that I'm in New as well, so I feel the outskirt feeling that you refer to often, but I I kind of knew that when I moved there, too, right? like well I didn't really but if I did I

115might have considered you know um but I I just my point is that when comparing Cornwall and Huntington to New Windsor we can see that the significant difference in terms of how they're you know they're equal in numbers but the turnout is quite less but if we add that Cornwall number I'm concerned about the impact to those folks if we make a change. So I I am not in favor of moving to one location this year. That's not to say in the future with communication etc. I really like Jimmy's idea of two locations maybe for a year or so and then like using it as a transition. Um I also am not opposed to change, but a lot of people in the community are. It's not it's not something that people, you know, can easily

116adjust to or or um Richard had to remind his own parents to vote. So like to think people are going to rem my family too, but like we have to remind people it's changed. It just it there's a it's a lot of work change management. So, um I guess that's all to say that I would be curious in knowing what it would entail to have a second site. I would even be curious to know what it would be to have it at like Bethlehem Church or one of those locations that is not the school. Um I imagine that might you know less security involved um less disruption to the day. Um you know as an option. So it looks like as I was talking and then I want to I want to kind of wrap

117this part up because I I I think we have another big discussion to have but I think Brendan had his hand on the mic and Jamie so >> it might have been the same point. I just want to underscore I I really like Jaime's suggestion. Um change always has unintended consequences. Some of them are big, some of them are small, but it always happens and we just don't know what they are going to be. So I I love that as a vehicle for like figuring out did this shake out as we planned? Are there some unknowns that we now know and then make a decision on a permanent solution from there and maybe the permanent solution is too you know. >> So is it fair to ask um I guess the next meeting John Megan

118to come back with as much data as we can even you know roughly right to get a sense of what that might entail to have a second site. Um, I think moving it to one site, the data would still be included in that in the sense of what it would look like to have it at the high school in general. Um, >> any questions for us? >> I just want to say like um I know John, you sent this back I think in December the the cost estimates that you did last year and if people haven't read those that probably I know that December is like a year away. So like you know maybe people that was an email and you did that very promptly after our last meeting but if you leave overlooked that

119I mean I read it last year I think some of the other people were here last year but like that would probably be you know instead of do duplicating that work we should you know take a look at that >> I trust John to give us whatever is relevant >> and I would also say that I'm happy to answer any specific questions uh via email and just give you at least what because there was more information than what I presented and if that would if you have curious or something or questions in terms of the voting data be happy to add but not let's say I'm not going to write a book but I will answer any question in detail >> John you know me I'm not I am never interested in making more work

120than is necessary I email John and I say if it's at a click of a button otherwise do not answer this question so um you know roughly right whatever you can get us would be great okay great that was a a very fruitful discussion thank you Christian for leading us on that um now we are moving on to new business. The first topic being um having a discussion regarding the proposed May 2026 capital project capital project bond referendum. I think I'm going to turn it over to John to lead us through that discussion. >> Okay. Thanks Christine and and Christian and uh uh Richard and Brendan. Please keep your microphones on to help me out. Christine, you were there for the last meeting. So, uh, in front of you is a is a green packet

121with a whole bunch of information. So, forgive me if I either go too fast or too slow. So, please, um, you know, uh, caution me, tell me, um, too fast or too slow. So, I'm going to start with this bigger packet right here. It says the agenda for the last facilities committee meeting. And I'm just going to walk through a couple things. Again, I don't need to read to you, but this was our agenda that we worked off of. Um and the facilities committee has been working for at least 18 months uh planning the next capital project. Um I I can say that wholeheartedly because when I came on it it's been over a year at this point and that work started easily long before I I came on. Um so in this packet the

122first thing you're going to see are some timelines because we're really um need to be cognizant of our timelines. And so that's why I'm starting here with this. you'll see some very nice graph uh graphic representations of kind of work that's taken place such as the building condition survey uh pre-referendum work and then as it comes up to the budget vote and then design and sED submission. Okay, so that's the first one. The second one is you'll see a anticipated preref timeline. Um, again breaking this down a little bit, you'll see facilities committee has been meeting, the admin team has been meeting with our group. We call our group the OACM or uh owner, architect, construction manager. Okay. And those meetings happen on a regular basis. I have another one Thursday. You know, just almost

123continually contacting with members of that group. We've included our financial adviser. Um our financial adviser is fiscal adviserss. We've included our general counsel because we have a seeker uh declaration to make. Um and that's the most kind of important time frame. And so I'm going to draw your attention really to kind of chart here in the timeline that looks like this. Just holding that up. And again, forgive me if I'm going fast or slow. And that really outlines some important dates on there. you'll see the January through March um time frame which has the secret determination. Um but this February 9th, so really 3 weeks from now is an important deadline for for the board to know about some decisions that need to take place regarding you know what are we doing for a capital

124project? Are we doing a capital project and what is that scope? And so the fac uh facilities committee made some um very important decisions on on Thursday to make recommendations to the board here today. Hence why we'll walk through some some proposed scope. And again, I'm going to kind of hit it more on a higher level and leave you to read a lot of this information um because I I know it's it's overwhelming. So with that said, I'm going to turn to the spreadsheets. You have some very big spreadsheets in front of you. um because my eyes are fading as as my age is fading. Um and this work again started months ago. Um and if you read the Cornwall local um Mary Jane Pit reached out to us and we started with a list

125or a spreadsheet that was roughly $80 million. Um and we've been weeding through that spreadsheet. So the facilities committee had turned to the administration and asked can you please have an administrative recommendation which we did. We met with all of our building level administrators and we condensed down that list and actually created other sublists as a result of that kind of $80 million of of work that needed to take place. Um from that large master list we have in front of you the top of it says the 2026 capital project proposed bond referendum and this has been vetted by our uh construction manager and our um architects and engineers and the facilities committee is I would say correct me if I'm wrong you know modest moderately comfortable with this proposed bond referendum as it stands

126with the scope in this first large page. So, I'll just walk you through a couple sheets on this first um spreadsheet. You'll see the high school listed. You'll see areas of site work, the description, and then some estimated costs and some design construction uh contingencies, cost escalations, and a total cost. First project on there is construct a building adjacent to the tennis courts for bathrooms and a concession stand. And I'm going to highlight that that's actually a must. Uh with New York State, we are on the radar, so to speak, that when we built the stadium, we made a promise to New York State that we had to build bathrooms that were in close proximity to the stadium. So, we cannot proceed with any other capital project until this one is approved by our voters

127and submitted to SED. Okay. And then there's another other a bunch of other um projects at the high school. You see some repave the front entrance. We're looking at some replace fire alarm systems and our PA system. That will be a theme throughout each of these sheets on this project is some safety and security upgrades. We need to redo our fire systems and we need to do our PA systems. We've had failures on our PA systems in all of our buildings and our fire system is out of date. If I turn the page again, middle school, there's a lot of big work at the middle school proposed in this bond referendum. We are proposing in this scope at this time and again that could change based on the board purview um is the first line

128is site work is there's a new parent drop off pickup um and providing an an entrance at the rear of the school. So if you are familiar with Main Street and the middle school and we have a lot of traffic out there for parent pickup and drop off. So the team has worked together to create a new entrance which would come off of Mailor Avenue onto the road for CES and then wrap all the way around the back of the building that takes all the congestion off of uh Main Street. I was using the analogy of the 80s uh the 80s uh video game Frogger where kids are kind of running all over the place and we're we have a a safety concern for us. So we are bringing that onto our property and off

129that road to try and make it safer for our kids and creating a parent pickup drop off and we're calling it affectionately the kiss and go. Mom and dad, parent, guardian kiss, goodbye or come on, let's go. Um you'll see some pavement um to the bus through um sanitary line issues and with the um kiss and go we coupled a cafeteria edition cafeteria and kitchen edition. So we have identified through our building condition survey that our current kitchen at the middle school is in need of repair, desperate repair we'll call it. um and we have some temporary measures to make sure that it is safe. And as we progressed through the process over the past year, year and a half, it was determined the best interest would be to do an addition to the middle

130school, have that operation operational and functional, and then come back and renovate the current cafeteria and kitchen. because the logistics surrounding renovating that kitchen and cafeteria is we'd have to take pretty much all of it offline and still serve the kids in the building and our kids at Willow. And so operationally that would could be a very costly endeavor for the district. Uh probably cost more than the addition itself. So the recommendation is uh an additional cafeteria kitchen and renovate the old one into classroom space. Again, you'll see fire alarm and PA. And I think I'm slowing myself down, but again, just want to kind of point out some of the highlights here. You'll see CES, um, water service, um, convert the steam lab into a functional classroom. There's some there's some issues there that

131we want to address. Um, some stairwell doors. You'll see a red mark that says unsat, unsatisfactory. That was rated by our BCS. That's something we really need to do and have addressed. So that's address the chimney uh deterioration. Willow Avenue. Um we're looking to create some additional parking. So we want to widen the one-way road and kind of shift that softball field. Um we want to pave the bus loop. We're looking at doing some roof work. We want to replace the gym floor. I think the gym floor has been a long time coming for for the community. Again, you have another unsatisfactory in there. uh underneath the kitchen uh water service including backflow pre. Okay, a backflow pre here is we are trying to bring up our water service to code. Um we've committed that

132to uh the village of Cornwall that we would do that. So this would be an important measure uh and a cost savings measure for the district. Cornwall on H on Hudson. Um front step repair. You're looking at some backflow preventers as well. PA system. We'd like to do some facelift on the bathrooms um that exist. So we did the uh downstairs the first floor bathrooms. We have the 3 and 1/2T uh the 3 and 1/2 floor bathrooms. I don't know what you want to call them. Um buildings and grounds. Um we want to have a shed for our vehicles and our maintenance vehicles. so we can work on them. We house them, get longer life out of our vehicles at B&G and our district office. Um, if you've ever spent some time with us, we're

133called there constantly because the windows are pretty pretty clear. Um, so we are looking at some window replacement, some aging bathrooms, fire alarm system, doing some upgrades there, making it handicap accessible. So I'm going to kind of pause on that. Brendan, Christian, Richard, any any additional information as I just pause on that? >> I would just um add one bit of context just kind of maybe some high level context and then uh touch on the kiss and go. So, um, you recall the last capital project we did was really about getting things that probably should have failed already, things that who were 5 to 10 if not more years beyond their usable life and just saying we need to fix these immediately because if this thing fails, you know, we might have to close schools

134for, you know, a period. So, that was very much about going back in and fixing stuff uh that should have been fixed before. This if we could put a theme on it to me is about students and safety. It's really primarily about safety but in so addressing some of the safety stuff we we benefit the students. For instance, the converting the um the middle school cafeteria because of the the timeline of the way that it would have to work. We add a new one. If we're not renovating the other one into a better cafeteria, we're turning that into classroom space which addresses another need. This school right here is getting, you know, more and more crowded each year. Those kids are going to go to the middle school, you know, so it's not like the

135problems are going to stay here. So, um, students, you know, and safety, the kiss and go, uh, the thing to understand about that, currently the buses drop off in the same flow as parents dropping their kids off. This, for a variety of reasons, is, you know, not an ideal situation. Um, so this the kiss and go would separate this. The buses would come in the front and then you'd have the uh kids being dropped off in the back entering basically where you go where you enter to Lee Road. You know that service road that goes now it's currently a dirt road. Just imagine that being paved and going out onto the the back of the building. So now you have a separate flows. Um, and that's primarily a a safety issue because, you know, having

136all of that traffic that is very difficult to regulate on a loop that wasn't designed for that amount of traffic anyway. Um, you know, is just not a good formula and hardly sustainable. So, I mean, that's just kind of like the narratives that, you know, I think safety is like last time we had to we had a lot of catch-up to do. this time we would be making significant uh improvements to the student experience that they can really feel and that will I think set us up for some of the growth and and change in the district that we already see coming. >> Um so I think uh just to add to a few things I think um I just will reiterate the critical need for the middle school uh kitchen and cafeteria. Um I

137don't think it's going to fall down tomorrow, but we do know that there are serious concerns about structural integrity of the floor that's underneath it. And I don't think people really because when people go into the school building, they don't go into the cafeteria or into the kitchen. It's kind of one of those invisible things in the school building. And there is equipment to my understanding that is the original 1950s equipment unusable and we can't take it out and the weight on the floor and many different issues. So it's something that that people might not understand but I do think something that is critical to address not just for middle school but for the other schools that depend upon the middle school kitchen for lunch. Um, and I think, you know, that's something that maybe

138is um, and I would just point out some other things that generally are actually important, but they're also not visible unless you work inside a school, and that's the building and grounds in the administration building because once again, that's not where kids go, right? It's not necessarily what a parent would see, but they're kind of critical to actually running the entire district. And so, some of these things look like, why do we need a new garage? I park out on a driveway. Can't they do that with their trucks? But it does actually raise the cost because, as you said, the damage to vehicles and also the many functions that occur in the offices in the uh clerical areas of our district. And I think anyone who's been into our administration building knows that there are,

139you know, it generally has been like um it gets shorted because it always seems like that's never going to be the critical thing because it doesn't directly touch on a child, but it does affect the ability to do things for children. in a lot of let's say hidden and maybe non-obvious ways. So I just want to I think point those things out um because I think they can get lost. Um I've expressed my view on the kiss and go. Um, I'm sure I'll say it again, but I'll just say that I disagree with some of the claims made about it and I wonder about whether the priority of it given that it's $5 million of the project and there are things that are on the additional that I would put higher priority personally, but let

140that be a discussion for another time. Um the last thing I think is just to that the core part of this capital project is effectively tax neutral but not in a way that the last capital project was tax neutral. And this just I think I'm sure this point will be made to the community but because of the debt that is falling off from the construction of the high school 25 years ago as that debt falls off new debt will replace it. So there will not be seen a tax impact on the wallet. So this even though it's a relatively large project, larger than the previous project, it probably will have the the same tax impact on let's say households in our community. I mean there's always other what? >> Yeah. No, I mean so like

141uh I just think that's an important uh point because of the size of the project. Um and um the second point and I think this the other thing is that while we could let that debt fall off and that would lower taxes, it would also affect our tax cap and therefore we would have an incredibly low tax cap which would mean our program which means teachers, supplies and all the other things that school district does. which means we have such a low tax cap that we would almost necessitate a future budget where we would have to override a tax cap that is closer to zero, not 2%. So the point is because how capital projects factor into the calculation of our tax cap, it would make voting on our program in the future tougher for

142future boards and future members of this community. And so there's an advantageous that it's set up to encourage us to continually invest in our physical plant. And I think that's important independently of, you know, the total cost. >> Thanks. I think um there's a lot to get to before we get to like how we split the costs, right? >> Yeah. So, so that's a great actually it's a great segue. So, thank you, Christian, because again, the sum total of that first sheet spreadsheet that you're looking at is $42 million. It's a lot. It's a lot of money. Um, so I'm going to bring your attention back to the packet. And in the packet, you're going to see a a debt service schedule. That's what this is called here. This is from our financial advisor and

143Christian just hit hit uh hit the nail on the head with this. We have a $42 million project in that scope. All of what I kind of discussed and then some. So, we asked our financial adviser to run that and Christian said the timing of this by the time it goes to bonds will make it a tax neutral project. meaning we're replacing when we built the high school 20 years ago. So that's how um you will see no additional tax for that. So I I think we just want to make sure we're talking about that as we continually go through this. >> So I only know how to explain this to myself and I assume that other people have know just about as little as I do. So everything you just said is right. I'm

144just going to try to put on like the simple lens for people to understand. So we have $7.25 million in the capital reserve fund. Every dollar we put into that roughly gets multiplied by four, right? Because it's like that's one quarter of against three quarters we get from the state. So the purchasing power on that 7.25 is about $29 million. So of the 429 is paid for without increasing taxes. the remaining 13 million roughly is coming off the books in 2030 by the time we'd actually be act funding these projects and so that's what gets us to tax neutral y so we have so I think that's a a great point that the community has voted and established capital reserve funds so we have two and I call them capital reserve two and capital reserve

145three the community established capital reserve one and that was util utilized to pay for the current project that we're wrapping up now. So in capital reserve 2, we have a little over $5 million and in capital reserve 3, we have a little over $2.5 million. So combined is that $7.5 million that Brendan talked about, which gets us a lot of leverage and buying power and then with um New York State aid on our project, we get additional money on that. So it's a perfect explanation. So again, on the debt service schedule, there's three there's three blocks you I'm going to call them. There's block the first block on the left, that's our current debt service. That's what we're paying now and what we can anticipate to to pay. The second block is okay, if we

146do this project, if we're going to move forward with a bond referendum for $42 million, what does that look like? And you'll see really the last column there in that block is the tax impact. And you're seeing numbers in parenthesis. Well, that's that's how much you're paying uh per $100,000. So again, it's illustrating to you to us that this is tax neutral for us. And then I'm going to get to the third block. So I'm actually going to pause on that just for a minute because I'll kind of circle back to the to that. So now that we went through the first sheet, this the the next two sheets can be a little bit quicker because you're seeing some big red writing on them. So, I'm going to go to the next one that says

147um possible EPC work at the top, and you're seeing the big red stamp of unverified. So, when we had the original master list that had $80 million on it, we took the time to sort out and separate out some items. And an EPC is what is an energy performance contract. Okay? It allows the district through an alternative funding stream to um complete projects without going out to for a bond referendum to the public. That makes sense. Similar uh different from the one that I just presented to you. So, we took the items off of the BCS or the building condition survey and we created this this spreadsheet and it's I think it's four pages long and it's broken down exactly the same way as the other one by building by by area by cost by

148cost escalations and total costs. So what we've presented to the uh facilities committee is is there uh is there interest in going with an uh an energy performance contract and there's a whole different layer that is involved there. So what I did share for the board and again I won't go through it is a small PowerPoint in the back of your packet that talks a little bit about energy performance contracts. Um I have not shared that with the the facilities committee before. So everybody's kind of on the same page here in terms of learning a little bit about that and I won't I won't spend a lot of time on it because again our numbers aren't verified and we want to know if that's work that we want to continue to do because there's there's

149a significant undertaking on that as well just like the 42 million took us quite some time to arrive at at that scope for a project. The EPC would also take us a long time. The bottom line on the EPC um spreadsheet is 25 million I think off 25 million $25 million worth of work. Now some of that work can be um broken out into a priority one area, a priority 2 area, priority three area. So what we've discussed at the facilities committee is do we want to tackle EPC and how much of an EPC? And I I came out with kind of a recommendation of the5 to10 million dollars of of EPC work that we could do. And and what does that mean? Well, we would take these lights above us, which are fluorescent, and

150we would turn them into LED, and that would turn into savings for us. Um, we would look at some of our boilers that are old and not energy efficient, and we would replace some of those boilers. And that's kind of some of the simple sense of the EPC. We've not entertained on an EPC, which a lot of districts will do, is solar. Sometimes they will put solar on the roofs. Sometimes they will do solar carports. Sometimes they will do solar fields. We haven't gone down that road. Um because I think we need to dip our our finger in the water or our toe in the water to see what it would look like if we were to do some of these initial easier steps what they're called. So I'm going to pause on EPC right

151now to see committee members if you want to chime in. You want do you want people in the facilities committee to share on that? >> Yeah, please. So I think in in concept I think everyone seem to be in support of any an energy performance contract, but we're concerned that this would be too many things on a on a budget uh on a budget vote. you now have the core capital project, the potential additions to it plus the energy performance contract. So there wasn't an opposition to the energy performance contract in concept was a question of like this is a lot of things for one year. And I think that at least in the vote I was the one that was I think it's fair to say I was most in favor of and thinking

152that we could do this >> and and for a number higher than you stated. So, I think my range was $ 15 to $20 million. Um, and so I'll just point out two things. The first one is like last year Hudson School City School District did an EPC and a capital project and I believe they both passed last year. So, I think that I'm a little bit more sanguin about the prospects of her success. Um I also um think that the and I think it's important that the cost savings from let's say more efficient use of energy are guaranteed by I believe the utility company or >> ESCO the the company so if we undertake with a what's called an ESCO and there's more information about the packet they guarantee the savings over 10 15

15318 years >> so I think I know what the acronym stands for but energy service what the acronym esco stands for so it's not it's not central Hudson but it a third party. >> Yeah, third party. So basically they guarantee the savings. So whether they actually materialize or not is not the question. They say we think you'll have these savings if you do these installations and then those savings. So this is a different stream is that those savings are what creates the financing, >> right? >> And so let's say until the break even point. So more or less so we don't get the windfall of these savings but we use those windfalls to actually pay for uh basically the payback period for these enhancements and obviously most of these enhancements have an additional impact positive

154impact which means they're better for the environment a lot of these better lighting which would mean frankly better environments for students um more efficient heating and things of those that sort I I think my I guess my point is to say is just to explain like it's a different funding mechanism and um as I said I think most people thought it was good in concept and the question is whether this is the year and what is the scope of what we want to do because there's obviously more things we could do than perhaps even I was comfortable with uh in terms of a dollar amount for this year and I and I will that's that just was my perspective and I think uh Brendan I think you're the one who said in concept you're comfortable

155with it but you also work concerned about how this looks as a budget uh uh proposition. >> That's right. Um, and one other thing to add and John actually I don't think we put it in these terms during the the meeting but these were not projects certainly not all of them and and I don't know even how many of them appeared on the building condition survey to begin with or or they they all did but but it wasn't a um they weren't as they weren't as urgent and particularly not in in terms of safety. So there was less uh there was less urgency there. And to add to Christian's point, um we could do this at any point really. It doesn't have to be it on a spring ballot. It could be in December for

156instance. Um so that the primary hesitation was if I'm it was mine and I think it was largely shared was that there's only so many things we can cram on this ballot. You know, there's going to be a regular budget. We assume this proposition of 42 million tax neutral. There might be another proposition which we'll get to in a second. Um and then this because the urgency of this felt the lowest. We thought well maybe this is something that we we run back in front of the community later in the year next year etc. But that that was just how the committee felt. That wasn't like you know board couldn't decide what it was. >> I have a question about the funding. I I maybe I misunderstood, but if the savings pay back is guaranteed

157to pay back the borrow, so it's is it cost neutral? >> Yes. >> Turn my mic off. Sorry. Yes. So the they're going to guarantee the savings. So we we have to take out a lease and you heard that from physical adviserss or so there um we're going to lease that payment in order to um reach the guaranteed savings by the the esco and it's energy service company >> so we're correct the cost for us is upfront and then correct okay thank you I just I must have >> thanks okay >> so so yeah good questions great commentary so again I'm just checking myself here >> I think the other point and because I don't think we mentioned this about the aid advantage so we can do an energy performance contract simply by a board

158vote, which means we do not need to put this in front of the community. But if we put it in front of the community and the referendum is successful, we get an aid advantage in terms of like I believe our aid parameter is increased, which means more let's say outside money to help support if we do get a positive vote from the community. So there is like a I guess a fiscal advantage by putting this out to a vote. it doesn't limit our ability to do the work if we think it's desirable. I think and I'm sure that's because it's costneutral. Um is that's why the the board the board by itself could take a vote to engage in an energy energy performance contract. But the advantage of putting the referendum is basically saying if

159we have public support uh I believe the state raises the percentage and I don't want to misspoke speak about what that is. So, so essentially if our aid ratio is 70%. The board has the purview to make the decision on an EPC independently without community vote. If the board were to choose to do that, our aid ratio would be 60%. Instead of 70, if the community were to vote, we would get the full 70% on that aid ratio. Obviously, much higher. You heard from um our financial adviser and the committee heard from the uh financial adviser on Thursday that the actual increase would be about 15%. Um when when it's actually applied here. So there is actually a larger advantage to this by putting it to public vote. But again the board has some options

160there. >> Are you okay to move on? >> I just have one question. Um what just from my lack of knowledge about EPCs um what uh how sure are we the length that this kind of option uh the length of time that it will be available to us? I mean, is it in any way um because I do a lot of environmental work um uh in my uh other board position and I uh have experienced a lot of uh EPA funding and things like that disappearing for us. And so um how sure are we that this would be available to us if we put a pin in it and you know said maybe next year. >> So fantastic question. Um I have engaged with a couple escos right because this that's how this starts out.

161It's like what how would this work? What would this look like? You make no commitment. They make no commitment to us but there is funding available and it would be limited. Um Brendan talked about voting later on. That's a possibility but I don't know what the funding would be. So I think they would have discussions with us about what they could actually do for us for an EPC and what would be guaranteed and what their comfort level would be on guaranteeing whatever work it would be. As I said on that list there's definitely priority areas one two and three and funding is available for certain areas versus others and certain funding is is drying up for for for certain improvements. So, um, again, I haven't gone deep down that, um, rabbit hole with them because

162I think we're still entertaining, do we want to, where do we want to land this? So, it's a great question. Okay, the last sheet, um, again, you'll see a big red stamp of unverified on it. The top of it says enhancements or additional prop additional propositions. So when we had our master list and we broke out other lists, we met with our administrators and we said, "What would be something that you think the district could um that could enhance the district? Um what do you see as a need or an area for growth?" And that's what came about on this list. All right. You'll see a number of different things, fields, you'll see um CES, more classroom space to relieve current classroom space. Willow Avenue, um, HVAC. Okay, there are a number of different items

163in this and I won't read that to you again because I think you'll you'll take some time to digest because it might be a lot what I'm saying now. I don't know. The numbers associated with these are almost mythical. Okay, we came up with trying to, you know, put money down to see what would this be. And that's why you see this unverified because we didn't give this to our construction manager or our architect and engineer to verify because we don't know where we're going. We focus on that 42 million. That was our focus. Um so the facilities committee um reviewed this document as well and there was a quite a lengthy discussion about you know if we were to do an additional proposition what would that be and what would be included in that

164and and I think Cornwall um may want some more fields and we want more classroom space and we may want this that or the other thing. So we have some decisions to make with this as well. Um so the takeaway from the facilities committee was we would like to have several items looked at. What does fields look like at the high school if we were to do the baseball and the softball field? What do fields look like at the middle school if we were to do that the track area and the football field and make that a a more multi-purpose field? Um, what would it look like with classroom space at the middle school as well if we were to add about eight classrooms or so? And I think the other one, correct me if

165I'm wrong, would be the middle school if we were connecting the B and the C wings and if there was classroom space there as well. So, I think that's my >> small correction. You said the eight classrooms at the middle school. That would be CES this building. >> Sorry. Yes, >> I know that's what you meant. >> Yes, that's correct. >> You were I was barely recovered from your almost mythical comment. I wrote it down. Um which by the way is the level of precision we're looking for from our business official. >> Listen, I'm gonna keep going. So, so again, this this comes out to be x amount of dollars. We don't know. But we turned to our financial adviser, and I'm going to bring you back to this spreadsheet here. And we said, what

166if what if there was an additional proposition in the range of $15 million? We can somewhat arbitrary. Thank you, Brendan. Um, but what if it was $15 million? And that is that last blue bucket you see there. And we talk about the tax impact that that would be on our community. Really the last line you're talking about a range. There would be a tax impact for our community. It would range anywhere from $66 to 80 $84 per $100,000. So, we think we're going to have a range where a person with a $350,000 assessed value could be looking at $250 a year in order to pay for $15 million worth of improvements. And again, I won't speak for the the committee, but just reporting out is that the committee wanted to explore that option. What is

167$15 million look like up to possibly $20 million, right? we weren't pigeon holing ourselves because the numbers were so fantastic at the time. You know, kudos to the business official. But um where does that put us? So the committee was comfortable about bringing this forward. The board needs to know and that is kind of where we are right now. And uh just to put maybe some form on the choices that might be in front of us. I think on once we get that those numbers back, I think basically what we're looking at is like, okay, I think in concept, we were all in the facilities committee on board with a $42 million project. Maybe there would be some discussion about swapping out some projects, fine. But $42 million project that would be tax neutral. And

168then it's a question of all right, well, do we want to add a a proposition two where there would be a tax increase that similar to what John just mentioned, like let's say it's in the $15 million range, then you're talking about $250 a year for home of 350, which is 20 bucks a month. Um, but what could you fit in that? Would it be a classrooms only package? Would it be a fieldlyonly package? Would it be a classrooms and field package? Crazy idea we didn't talk about. Is it not just proposition two? Is it proposition two and three? Fields only, classrooms only. And you let the community decide. You know that the but these are the kinds of options that I think we we um will probably want to consider and then come to

169some agreement on. And we didn't talk about this though. um how by the February 9th date and this is the other date that we have to keep in mind. So we have today, we have a meeting in two weeks and then the meeting after that is February 9th. Um what how specific do we have to be about this proposition and what's included? Because do we have to only be specific about the dollar figure or the projects themselves? um a little bit of both to to split that right down the middle. So for February 9th, we're going to declare seeker. So if we're looking to do an addition at CES right out the back here, >> that wasn't where we were spending time. We were spending some time at the middle school because we knew we

170were thinking about a kiss and go. So we started doing surveys and things like that over there. Um the board approved contracts to get out in front of some of this stuff. Um so we have some work to do over there. Um and we would declare what the impact would be you know seeker is that this is the work we're doing there versus fields at the middle school. So if that makes sense. Totally. So it's going to be dollar and location of of work being completed. >> And I think we should as a board have that uh have figured out those priorities anyway. I just I wanted to see exactly what I don't think it'll be a problem. Um, and just to to finally tie it to the communication element that we talked about before,

171a big focus is in that forum and the survey is going to be finding out just exactly this, like taking the the community's temperature on these questions because some of the other stuff in the safety stuff, I mean, I think that we as a as a board, you know, have to make that call and and the things that need to be done. And then there's like when it comes down to the choices, we we do want to understand where the the community um is willing to go. And so that's going to be a focus of the the forum and I'm sure on once people start understanding the choices then you know we'll all we'll all be uh hearing from from different opinions. So I don't I don't know if we want to recreate the in

172the discussion in the facilities committee between the options here. that we talked about a classroom centric, field centric and whether we want to talk about why people had different visions about I think there was an agreement about the the dollar figure. I think I remember all the board members supported you know a range of 15 to 20 overall but was in the 15 and 20 that's where their disagreement was and I don't know if it would be helpful to kind of play out that now or obviously we'll continue this discussion or we can I also know we would thought about scheduling an additional meeting so let me >> so if we have if we're going to do a survey and we have a community forum for forum excuse me you know this this should really

173be a very robust discussion amongst ourselves after we get that input to Christian's point to decide what is on this list, right? Because there are there are competing priorities um um but we want to hear from the community. So what we had kicked around in that meeting was having a um just a working session for the board of ed, no public comment. The only agenda item would be to discuss the capital project so that we could take the input from the forum, from the surveys, just from our time to digest all of this, come back together and just have