001Hey everybody, Brendan Cardi here from the Cornwall Board of Education. It is that time of year again, school budget season, and I just want to quickly walk you through this year's proposed school budget so you know exactly what's on the ballot on Tuesday, May 20th. We'll start with the big picture. This year's budget preserves all of our current programs at all five schools and makes several meaningful investments in student safety and support. We'll start with student safety. This year's proposed budget would fund a new lockdown system that would allow administrators to secure all doors and activate emergency strobe lights in each of our five schools in the event of an incident, all with the push of a button. Pretty powerful layer of security. It would also add an additional safety monitor at Willow Avenue Elementary.
002On the support side, the budget would add an early intervention teacher who would be shared between Cornwall on Hudson and Willow Avenue along with 20 additional seats to our UPK program. All of this with a proposed tax levy increase of 2.75%. That 2.75% is below the state mandated tax cap for this year, which is 3.08%. And while it is a bit higher than recent increases here in Cornwall, it's well in line with the increases we're seeing in our neighboring districts and it's still lower than the current core inflation number. So even as the district is absorbing the same inflationary pressures that we're all facing, it's still working hard to keep the tax levy reasonable. So, quick review. This budget improves safety across the district, protects and enhances our programs, and stays well within the tax
003cap. That's it for now. We'll go deeper into the details in our next videos, so stay tuned for those. But for now, please remember to vote on Tuesday, May 20th at Cornwall Central Middle School. Thanks for watching.